The short story is done. It went off to the publisher in Paris a few hours ago. We'll see what they think. It's one of those stories where there is more story than outright erotica because it had to be a story about fellatio and, to be honest, 10 solid pages of fellatio is a pretty tall order, gang.  To prove the point to yourself, pick up a pen and a pad of paper and give it a go... almost immediately you will see that there aren't too many interesting places you can go with that theme, so I had to rely heavily on things like story, emotional engagement, the tension between characters -- stuff like that. Then, of course, consider that it will all need to be translated into French before the publisher will even understand what I've written about... Long process from conception to contract.

What I am very eager for you to see, though, is my next (last?) short story in English that I wrote for Lawrence Schimel in Spain earlier this year. I think the anthology is coming out in England around Christmas. My story is called The Epicures and is about the eroticism of childbirth and food and threeways. After that, though, all the erotica will only be in French.

And just to forewarn you... next on the agenda (in English, that is)  is my memoir, Manhattan, Mon Amour. So things like my pictures from camp here and stuff like that will most likely start popping up all over this blog, as my past puts in its remarkable appearance in my present and I try to figure out what works and what doesn't.

Well, okay! A little bit of freedom here tonight. Bought a bottle of red wine -- a Cotes du Rhone. I'm going to do a little yoga first, some meditation, then it'll be all about Libeled Lady, popcorn, red wine and bliss-ville. I'll be thinking of you, gang! So have a great evening, wherever you are!

If your hometown newspaper is anything like my hometown newspaper, they are probably slamming this movie, but my cousin and I really liked it. And not just because Johnny Depp is great in it but because everyone in it was really good. I liked everybody -- Billy Crudup was great. And Lili Taylor is in it -- I love her. And the main female lead, Marion Cotillard, was wonderful and I especially loved that her teeth aren't perfect.

It is stressful to watch, though-- if you aren't into violence and relentless machine gun fire. More than once during the movie, I wished I had  some of that 101 proof Wild Turkey (see post below somewhere), or perhaps Old Grandad would have been better. But oh well. I survived without it -- however, I came out of the theater feeling like I was going to get shot by someone from out of nowhere. My nerves were really a little rattled. Because it isn't just gunfire, it's really loud gunfire.

The one thing that really, really upset me, though, is that the song that opens my Valentino novel -- Bye, Bye, Blackbird -- features prominently in this film. I think my exact comments to my cousin about it were: "Fuck!" (But I'm guessing we are not targetting the same market here.) I loved the music, though. An old C&W favorite of mine, The Last Round-Up, also features in it. I have had that record forever and I still play it a lot. It was weird to hear it in a Johnny Depp movie, that was for sure.

Another thing that absolutely broke my heart and made me long for any kind of top shelf bourbon... guess who else features prominently in the ending of this film??? William fucking Powell! It was really devastating to me. Especially in the way the footage was used -- it's set up to be very heartbreaking. But I love him so much. Do you ever feel like you love someone so much that when you suddenly see them in a place where you're not expecting to see them, your whole heart just gets sucked right in and it makes you feel isolated and cut-off and crazy? That's how I felt. Even though William Powell is an Old Hollywood icon -- he belongs to the ages, now -- I still feel like he's mine, you know? That he belongs to me. And it was very jarring to become once more acquainted with the fact that I am really wrong about that. I spend too much time alone watching old movies, I guess. Oh well.

Okay, speaking of the Valentino novel, word from the agent is that it will be on nine editors' desks before the 4th of July holiday weekend. And they are all editors at major houses so let's start doing some of that creative visualization, gang! Yippee-ki-yi-yay.

And on another happy note... I am so in love with my new publishers in France. They are so incredibly considerate of me and nice and excited to be working with me. Jesus. It's like, I don't know what, really, but it feels so incredibly good. Erotica writers everywhere will agree with me when I say that this is not usually how we are treated; we are usually treated like hacks who just bang shit out and get paid a flat fee for a set number of dirty words...

Okay!!! A Summer Place arrived in today's mail so all's right with the world!  Hope you guys have a great holiday weekend, if you're living state-side, that is. If not, have a great weekend anyway. I'm off to have a little wine. Thanks for visiting, gang. You're the greatest! See ya!

Yes, I was back to work on the short story when all of the sudden I was possessed by the need to own the recent Rat Books re-issue of Lawrence Grobel's Conversations with Marlon Brando. I honestly have no idea why these thoughts jump up and suddenly possess me, but they do. I suddenly had to have it -- used, of course; as dirt-cheaply as I could possibly get it, even though I know what that means in terms of writers and their much-needed royalties.

So off I went to Amazon.com and I bought it used. And you know how if you scroll down the page, they show you that string of photos that says "customers who bought this item also bought" and I was just sort of looking at that, mindlessly; just looking at the other items there. Many years ago, I read Brando's memoir, Songs My Mother Taught Me, and I really liked that but I couldn't remember if I'd also read Brando, although I know I used to own it, I just can't remember if I'd actually read it... And then I see -- wait a minute-- someone who just bought this specific Rat Books edition of the Brando Conversations also recently bought Bob Dylan's new album, Together Through Life. And it occurred to me: Wow, I could probably date that person and we would get along really well. Look at that.

And that's when I got this great idea for an online dating site based on people's Amazon.com purchasing habits. "This person is a good match for you because he/she [luckily I'm ambidexterous] recently purchased the very same books and records that you did."

Wouldn't that be cool? At least you would know for sure that you'd like the same books,music, and (in this case) actors... which means there's a good liklihood that your politics are similar, as well, right?

You can see that I seriously need a date with somebody that I can actually get along with. But on we go...

With the new short story, that is. Gosh, gone are the days when I'd have my stuff turned into editors months before their deadlines. I seem to just go right up to the final hour anymore. And honestly, sometimes I go past that final hour. I never used to do that. As an editor, I know how annoying that is. But oh well. On we go. I'm just grateful that publishers are still buying my stuff.

Hey, for those rare few among you who don't spend your every waking hour poring over the contents of marilynjayelewis.com... that photo at the top there is a picture of me at Girl Scout camp in, like, 1970. Maybe 1969. I'm not 100% sure. But I don't think I went to camp the summer that the astronauts walked on the moon, so I'm thinking it was 1970.

My mom and my uncle and I were having dinner on Friday and talking about going away to camp, for some reason. So here you go. I was miserable there,  by the way. I hated camp. I am so not into communal living and/or having days that are crammed full of mindless stuff to do. I cried and cried and cried at camp. I had my Raggedy Ann doll with me and I cried all over her. (This is her, by the way. She is about 42 years old now. She's looking "a little bleary-eyed; a little worse for wear & tear; she's the girl, with the faraway eyes..." ha ha ha.) (No, honestly, all things considered, she looks okay, doesn't she? After all, she lived in NYC for 25 years, and for a lot of those years, she was flat broke!)



Anyway... okay. I'll get back at it around here. Try to finish this story today, do a final polish tomorrow (Public Enemies opens tomorrow, gang; I, for one, cannot wait), then I'll send the story off to France. Then I'll have plenty of free time to drive my agent completely nuts re: progress on shopping the Valentino novel! Won't she be happy. (To be honest, I am trying not to drive her crazy, but I am not 100% successful there.)

Okay, gang! Thanks for visiting! If I don't get a chance to see you before you leave, have a great time at camp!

I don't know how many other writers are like this, but in order for me to create something, I need to have 2 things: a song that I listen to over and over and over, as the pictures unfold in my head and the story gets told to me so that I can then write it down; and a person to tell the story to. The muse, in other words. Where will the muse pop up, you know? In whose face this time? Who am I going to fall in love with? Once those questions get answered, the story unfolds. Usually like water gushing through a dam.

It's all a process; the creative process.

The song for my current short story, "August on the Lake", is Sting's Fields of Gold. I listen to it over & over & over and the pictures come (this is a very strange YouTube video of the song along with the lyrics of the song). It's a very romantic/bittersweet story I'm writing, obviously, and erotic. And short. And the man I am falling in love with while I write this story is a very well-behaved muse. You know, sometimes you just hit paydirt and a person's face, just like -- k-ching! -- a world of pictures just bursts open and the whole story is laid out for you. It couldn't be simpler. He is one of those people.

Of course he doesn't know I am falling in love with him and I am not likely to ever tell him since I am willing to bet all the money I have in the world (don't get excited, gang, it doesn't amount to much), anyway, I'm willing to bet he's married. He doesn't live around here so the only way I could ever find out is to just ask him and, well, since I really don't want to know... On we go, right? I'm just grateful for the Muse and whatever guise he chooses to arrive in. I don't need to make it permanent.

For me, ever since 1986 or so, the 4th of July holiday is all about watching this:


The holiday used to be all about drinking 101 proof Wild Turkey and watching this, but we eliminated the Wild Turkey part many years ago and now it's just about watching this. Even though I love fireworks, at the same time I am not into crowds so I don't usually enjoy that kind of thing on the 4th. I much prefer hanging out at home and watching a movie. And since I like to watch movies that pretty much no one else on planet Earth wants to see... well, you get the picture, I'm sure. My cats and I get closer & closer as the years fly by.

But I so fucking love this movie. I think it is the tawdriest, most salacious, jaw-droppingly "dirty" movie in the known history of jaw-droppingly "dirty" movie-making. It by far surpasses Peyton Place (another of my all-time faves -- and if you want to read something really dirty, then read the book  Peyton Place if you never have; it is way, way dirtier than the movie, which isn't really dirty at all, in my opinion. Grace Metalious is my idol, btw! Anyway.). A Summer Place is so puritanical and mid-century American, you can readily see why 101 proof Wild Turkey helps this movie enormously, but still... I love it! Right down to the Frank Lloyd Wright house that Sandra Dee's father and stepmother live in. I would kill for that house. (Here's hoping the present-day owners of that house aren't suddenly found dead, now that I've admitted this in print and all.)

Well I finally bought the DVD of A Summer Place. It was on super-sale at Amazon and is now on it's breathless way to me, even as I type this. Which means that, yes, since about 1986 or so, I've been watching it on VHS. Not only VHS, but I had taped it from television -- from when it aired in NYC over 20 years ago. Complete with commercials and everything. And even while I abhor commercials (see post below), I do love everything that is indescribably old so really old TV commercials from when I lived in the East Village hold a certain morbid appeal. "My god," I say out loud to nobody at all. "I remember this ad. Was it really over 20 years ago?" (Yes, my world is a fascinating place. Again, you can see why 101 proof bourbon has been essential throughout most of  it.)

Meanwhile... on the short story deadline front, on we toil. It is taking me forever, as usual. It makes me want to start drinking coffee again, but then I think of my little kidneys and about how nice it would be to have both of them throughout my remaining years and so I resist the urge. But it does mean I gotta scoot, gang. Gotta get back to the torrid lovemaking for those fine folks in France. Have a great Sunday, wherever you are! See ya, folks, & thanks for visiting.

Wow. How startling, right? But maybe for the best in some higher spiritual realm. Who knows. But the guy was seriously whacky; living full-time in out-to-lunch-ville.

My favorite record of his was, of course, Thriller. I still love that album and it has so many incredibly good memories for me of life in the East Village in NYC in the 80s. Nothing spectacular, just life-memories; the day to day stuff when I was sometimes happy, sometimes despairing, but at all times completely out of my fucking mind! Yay.

Hanging out in the laundromat on the corner of Avenue A and E. 13th Street in the god-awful New York heat, watching the dryer going around and around and listening to Billie Jean on the radio -- one of my all-time favorite songs still. In the days when people like Allen Ginsberg or Matt Dillon would just be walking down the street and you could sit in the laundromat and see it all. Then go home to your little hell-hole-tenement walk-up on E. 12th Street and listen to Billie Jean again on your boombox.

Last night, I was driving home fom mom's, trying to beat a thunderstorm. The skies were really, really bad and we live in tornado country out here. So I turned on the radio to see if there were any emergency weather bulletins or anything, and out comes Michael Jackson's rendition of  Rockin' Robin from when I was 11 years old. I loved that song; I would listen to the 45 single of it over & over on my little portable record player; my bedroom completely dark, the volume on the record turned way down because I was supposed to be in bed going to sleep. I hadn't heard the song in ages. I sang along to it last night and still new every single word, down to all the tweetly-dees. But when the song was over, I turned off the radio because I abhor commercials. I absolutely cannot stand them -- on the radio or the TV. Well, I don't even have TV anymore since all I do is watch movies. But anyway...

I was remembering being a little girl and how much I used to love Michael Jackson. I had his early solo albums, too (i.e., Ben and the other one that I can't remember the name of), and I played them relentlessly, etc., etc. And as I was pulling into my driveway, I was wondering what the fuck really happened to that guy? I think we all know. I mean, intense fame & wealth, no childhood, overbearing crazy dad, and all that. But still, what the fuck happened?

I came inside as the thunderstorms really hit -- lightning all over the sky; cracking and booming and torrential downpours. And there on my computer, as I was hurrying to shut it down because of the electrical storm, was the unusual answer to my question: he fucking died, that's what fucking happened. I couldn't believe it.

And of course I went to bed thinking how incredibly strange it was that Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett should die on the very same day. I wondered if they'd made some sort of secret spiritual 70s-icon pact to meet in the afterlife or something. You never really know when it comes to the spirit world, do you? (It was sort of like losing Hunter S. Thompson and Sandra Dee on the same day a few years ago; for me, it was just too devastating. I loved both of them for obviously very different reasons. But still. How strangely, strangely bizarre. It really killed me when I learned that Hunter had killed himself. I was grieving, you know? But then later in the morning that weird news that Sandra Dee was dead, too. And it sort of blows your grief right out of the water; they couldn't have been more opposite from each other if they'd tried and it made each of their deaths seem sort of ridiculous. Yet... You can't help but wonder if they had some kind of weird spritiual destiny to leave this realm together.)

It makes me think of one of my favorite Tom Waits' songs from Rain Dogs, "they all went to heaven in a little row boat; clap hands..."

Well, anyway, good-bye, Michael. Thanks for Thriller, at any rate.

broke down and went for the new Bob Dylan stuff (see post below somewhere). It's really lovely. Wonderful. I really thought Flaco Jiminez was playing on a lot of these tracks but I was wrong; it's someone who sounds exactly like him, but it's still beautiful. Dylan manages to rhyme cars, ours, and stars in the best and most unexpected imagery in Beyond Here Lies Nothing. My favorite song so far is This Dream of You. It's, like, my entire life. the only problem is, I haven't figured out yet who the "you" is that I'm dreaming of, but I'm spending an awful lot of time doing it! (Okay. back to the new shot story for those wonderful folks in France.) Adios, amigos!

This is from SF-based photographer, Michael Rosen:

Friends,

At the last minute, I had a chance to show photographs in conjunction 
with the International Mister Leather/International Ms Leather benefit 
as part of Folsom Friday at Mr. S Leather! The benefit is from 8:30 to 
10:30 this Friday, June 26, and I will be there. (There's a $20 door 
fee for the benefit.) More information at www.folsomfriday.com.

The event is curated by FPEDGE, www.fpedge.com. There will be ten 
photographs from my Sexual Portraits and Sexual Art bodies of work, 
which are represented by books of the same name, from 1987 through 
1994. Since they'll be hanging at Mr. S, the photographs are of men, 
both solo and in radical sexual situations with men. These are 
vintage, old fashioned gelatin silver prints; most are large, 16 x 20, 
and are magnificent, if I say so myself.

My photographs will be up through Up Your Alley day, Sunday, July 26 
and perhaps longer. I will keep you posted.

Mr. S Leather is at 385 8th Street, between Folsom and Harrison, in 
San Francisco, and is open 7 Days a Week 11am - 7pm. Madame S is next 
door. There's plenty of street parking and several MUNI lines pass 
nearby.

I hope to see you there!

There is nothing left to be replied to in my INBOX! This is a first in about 6 months, gang. How freakin' refreshing is that? Yay!

The only thing in there now is a link to a new video by David Wolfe about longevity, nutrition, law of attraction, discipline. If you are into David Wolfe, the new video is here. I think it runs about 20 minutes.

Also, on a similar note, if you're into yoga & are as ancient as me, the cool yoga guys in New Zealand have another video you can download for free, Yoga & The Art of Aging. It's here. (Or you can watch it on YouTube, but I don't think the whole thing is posted there yet.)

Yes, life here is all about the new deadline now. And this is the fun part: I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what I want to write about. Meanwhile, the clock's ticking... I just love that. I sit and stare at the laptop & tap my fingers on the tabletop; I really excel at that. Then I wander over to Amazon.com and think about downloading the new Bob Dylan stuff or some old Joe Satriani stuff. Then I look at the calendar and see my cousin's name written there and underlined 3 times with the word "movie" under that and I realize that Public Enemies opens a week from Wednesday and I wonder where the summer is flying off to; then I go look in the refrigerator... Then I try to knock it off and go back to staring at the laptop... But one day soon the story will come, and then probably like a tidal wave; it always does, gang.