The Roadburn Cafe

A great night, you'd have to be there.

Fri, 24 May 2013 01:55:00 GMT

People who love me show things not for public viewing. What has been sweeping across, past and over our sense of discrimination? Some desire to stamp our own "Kilroy was here"? Right there with outsized monolithic tombstones ~ "we were here" and here lies the YouTube ~ celebrity. It’s the new "I’m here’, I’m here, do you see me? please see me!" vicarious celebrity ~ so you’ve put a poorly recorded something or other on YouTube because you can. What a sad commentary. At gatherings someone will hold up their very Smartphone and say look at this, it’s viral! And the person who made it is now a celebrity, most likely famous for being famous. Exhibitionism has crossed over the line to celebrity ~ I’m not just kvetching I’m imploring you to wake up! Awaken, arise, oh and do not put my concerts on you tube ~ just in case you don’t know…. I do not want this. Most are not qualified and here’s the crux of the matter: you were there ~ be there, enjoy, cry, laugh, listen, look ~ look at others listening, laughing, crying, applauding ~ I’m singing for YOU, that moment, it’s not intended for the ones who did not come ~ it’s for you in the moment ~ so you want a souvenir? Buy my CD "Ever Since You Never Heard of Me", that is what I like you to play over and over. Not some hideously recorded, filtered by distance, time, distorted by not being in the moment ~ for that person removed and standing at some gathering with a phone in their face, watching a shallow misrepresentational image because the technology is there and the hopes of viruses dancing in the heads of the YouTuber. It’s just time to awaken and that’s all. "Nuff said" said Melanie. I would like my due, in the words of M who worries that I’ve been elbowed out, this YouTube garbage doesn’t help and for those who look at hits and numbers, what does that have to do with me, art, the essence ~ make it real you’re alive, wasn’t it a great night, it doesn’t come through on YouTube my dear ones! A great night, you’d have to be there. Love, Melanie

I Let it Slide

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:49:19 GMT

How can we have world peace, my dear ones, when we each have such imagination, glorious imagination, creating offenses that others may have unwittingly stepped into?
The stage gets set ~ you're walking along and your next natural step has landed you in a pitfall. You try to explain, you say, “Oh, I was just walking along and my foot went into a pitfall.” You should have thought, said, realized, known, but of course, you didn't, so an upset is there, with all its negative energy.

Now instead both of you being on the same side, there are two opposing sides ~

Sometimes it's in your head
that words don't come out right
a hundred ways to write it down
to avoid a fight we articulate,
it escalates
somebody's right
somebody's wrong
~ it is as it's supposed to be
so why not sing along

So I wrote it down
and I tore it up
and I let it slide
Lord I let it slide

in the head
in the heart
as we seek truth,
righteous
answers
that give way to paths
ascending
without the strain of walking
uphill

A Good Soldier

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 06:43:39 GMT

I´ve sold over 80 million records and I manage myself. It´s sort of like being a self medicator. I believe you should not fool around with pharmaceuticals nor self managing. There is a strange grouping of performances ahead of me ~ and I did it myself! Well with a bit of “oh come on, you can do it” for which I am a sucker. I'm a trooper, right? A good soldier, overachiever ~ yeah. So I take a deep breath and say: well, alright, I can do it ~ can't I? The motivation, well maybe it's you, my dear ones. Or maybe something I don't pinpoint at this time. It could be, that I drink coffee … You see perhaps some unnameable parasite, unbeknownst to myself, though I've been raving and enabling it since birth. What if I'm listening to its now nurtured voice?! Ahhh scream No, No … It's you, my dear ones, not some inner parasitic voice ~ of course I can do it ~ off to the West, Oregon, California ~ Goldrush, tribal drums to which I sing 'Eyes of Man' ~ Christina Duane, the creator of Romancing the West, said “If you' re gonna be a bear, be a grizzly” ~ cowboy wisdom. I inflict all this and cowboy wisdom on Beau Jarred ~ unquestioningly, unwittingly yet knowingly, he comes along. Friend, partner, son, Beau. I say I have to go alone and he says “yes I know you do, and I am going with you” and he does even though I am a self manager ~ couldn't someone put me on Ellen DeGeneres or Jay Leno or Lifetime TV for God's sake? Then I could just make choices guided by pure inner voice. I wouldn't have to create my own choices ~ it would be all that must be here. I'm telling you more than you should know ~ well it's the era of reality shows, welcome to the Melanie reality show ~ I've been blessed with angels, at least I am not alone, my dear ones, not alone. Love, Melanie

Arizona

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 22:40:00 GMT

Beau produced a track on Jeordie’s new recording, PixieBeast.
It’s called “Arizona”.
Arizona evoking images of badlands, cactus, yippee-aye-oh-ki-yay, cowboys ~ turquoise and precious waters and Frank Lloyd Wright aliens, where Beau and I went when we lost Peter.
And Jodi Floyd offered sanctuary in her casita ~
the sun shone every day,
sanctuary.

Jeordie had moved there some years previous and Peter, Beau and I had never seen where she lived; and then only Beau and I made that pilgrimage.

Arizona was the year I saw a world come to an end,
Arizona was the name of the new one.
Arizona, dreamtime in the sun, a small village of Mexican workers came once a month ~ the garden, the pool, the desert trees, the house, casitas made clean, trimmed, and blessed with laughter, singing, and sideways glancing at the quiet lady surrounded by bluish wisp and mist. The village people they smile at the guitar, Guitar. Ahh. You? So nice! I don’t speak Spanish, other brave people came into my haze, cooled themselves left thirsty ~’you were my Arizona’ ~
when I heard the song Jeordie wrote I knew,
even though she may not, it was for us ~
Peter’s final resting place is Arizona.

We’ve been everywhere since then leaving small pools of tears, there’s a river of them in Arizona ~ around the corkscrew turns down and down unto the sea we leave for a little while ~ Jeordie stayed. We had seen where she lives, the pixie beast so much like her father ~ she stays in Arizona.

If you get a chance you gotta hear her new recording and this song, it makes me cry, for all that has come and gone, beautiful sadness, my dear ones, beautiful sadness.

Love,
Melanie

P.S. To order a pre-release signed copy of Jeordie’s PixieBeast recording via PayPal, click here: http://bit.ly/ZcbTlr

Photo by Beau Jarred Schekeryk

As I Listen

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:57:34 GMT

A beautiful poem sent my way ~ As I Listen by Ian Walker. You may have seen this posted elsewhere, but I just wanted to share it here with you, my dear ones.
Love,
Melanie

As I listen
I fall
through the mirror
of her loving
where heartborn words
pierce deep
to weave
their voice's
roughspun silken way
between the lines
and threads
of who I am
and soothe
the aching feet
of my mind.

With a kiss from the ♥ from
Ian

How old would you be?

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:24:04 GMT

In 1968 or '69, the heart of the '60s, if someone said to me "You have a large young following, kids 14 to 19 are loving your music", that statistic would have ranked right up there with insult. Now when someone says that, I’m to be ever so grateful! Did I miss something? Young then equated to immaturity, not so worldly-wise, socially-undeveloped, given-to-whims-and-fads, fickle, feckless, easily-swayed-by-peer-pressure, the ones who watch themselves and finally looking for love in all the wrong places ~ oh wait! Come back oh young ones! Of course I kiss your ring and am eternally grateful. And in figuring out why … I’ve come to at least one realization. Old people die ~ some of my fans are going over to the other side, my biggest fan, being one. So I suppose it’s good to keep replenishing your stock ~ now old ones I am not saying you are easily replaced by ‘young’ but I don’t believe that is the real ‘why’ the arts and entertainment world views young as the prerequisite for success. I wish it were a simple matter of life and death and numbers, but it’s not. If our role models and opinion leaders are 16 with my aforementioned attributes or lack of, control is more easily achieved. ‘Nuff said, my dear ones, how old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?* ~ I’m all for cross generation admiration and that needs to go both ways. Love, Melanie * Satchel Paige

Webmistress' Son

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:37:14 GMT

Long ago and far away Sally Potts, you may or may not know came to stay with Peter and me at the Rag House. She can fill you in better than myself on this ~ but it had to do with getting high school credits for working in the field of choice, and hers was somehow connected with me. The deciding factor was the letter she wrote explaining her project. We resonated immediately ~ Sally joined and would have stayed with the flying Schekeryk’s circus had it not been for real life ~ Sally went on to become the first woman to graduate the music engineering program at the University of Miami, sound engineer at A&R Recording Studios in New York City and on and on. Sally Dorgan became Sally Potts ( I think I might have told her, “You can’t marry someone with the last name Potts!?”) She didn’t listen, became Sally Potts, had two children, boy Brian and girl Kellsey, I didn’t mean to tell you the story of her life but you need to have a fill in ~ we really hardly if ever communicated in the human sense, but with some a constant dialogue is not part and parcel of friendship ~ when Peter left his body Sally drove from Texas to my house in Nashville to just BE THERE. She arrived to find only Dorothy the nanny (who never left the circus) as we were on the road, and stayed there when it happened. Until now I don’t know how she found out but she’s put herself to a degree into this mystifying little complexity of my life ~ I don’t know how I deserve such a person as Sally Potts as friend, webmistress, and mother of Brian Potts, the most excellent percussionist (no he doesn’t want to join the circus, he teaches in the real world and is perfect poised happy and ‘no thank you’) but maybe as a project having to do with getting a degree in such and such ~ and or experiencing some more of what he is sending some of his students out there to become, learning more firsthand about the pitfalls ~we‘re a great group to observe when studying pitfalls. He’ll come for a summer that would lead into autumn, winter and spring, as his mom did all those years ago in the Rag House, unbeknownst to its inhabitants, the greatest School of ‘ Don’t do this’. Love, Melanie By the way, my dear ones, Sally Potts has in my mind taken on the characteristics of a being in a fairy tale.

Stepping Stones

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 06:08:35 GMT

I pick up a stone from wherever I go.
Maybe more than one.
I arrange them like flowers.
Plucked from sometimes remembered places ~ others not.
Peter told me to mark them. I did write on the one I found where I scattered the ashes of my father in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, a pretty big one ~ I only have small ones from Sedona, where Peter landed in a vortex at sunset, under a cloud of eternity. Literally, there was a cloud, shaped like a horizontal numeral eight ~ it’s nice when magic happens, reinforcing the power of the Creator, and the sense that we are part of that force. Stones from Bournemouth ~ chalk and flint ~ firestones ~ Dover, Cornwall, end of day glass. I guess glass doesn’t count as rock, but sea glass is different ~ creations of man reinforcing the endless possibilities. I arrange the stones ~ so many possibilities. Stumbling blocks
and stepping stones,
rock of ages
rock on,
my dear ones, rock on.

Mellow Jellow

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 05:50:56 GMT

Jewel colors
Transparent
Melts in your mouth
Or you can chew
If it slips down your throat
It won’t choke you
Somehow 50’s vintage, Americana, can be shaped and molded, what is old is new again
‘Melanie?’ no #Jello
My new favorite food,
They need to get inspiration from me, or #jellybellies ~ cotton candy or vanilla or rose petal jam Jello in the most delicate rose quartz pink or black currant in a tanzanite blue purple
Oh Jello ~
For a while it lost its luster associated with old lady luncheon, hospitals, or school hot lunch, ~ pretty food you can eat, certain flowers and Jello
I like saying the word Jello, makes me smile, call me Mellow Jellow
Ironically I’m not fond of yellow Jello right now my favorite existing flavor is apricot ~ nice color
Mixed with pear juice
ummm!
Let’s make Jello a trending topic

Into the New Year

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 05:11:40 GMT

Peter and I were married on New Year’s Eve. We went to ‘Cousin Brucie’s’ New Year’s Eve party at his loft in New York City. Cousin Brucie announced it and everyone cheered and toasted. Now it is coming on to forty five years later, forty five years, a ripe old age in other times but I grew up in never never forever and ever land and I am still not comprehending with my whole self that Peter isn’t here to celebrate forty five years of marriage ~ Peter was there for a minute in ‘Melanie and the Record Man’ – now the void is seemingly getting bigger, cavernous and unfathomable, how are we expected to get up from this depth. I grasp at anything that looks like a lifeline, I don’t even know why, except I made a deal and I don’t like to go back on a promise ~ tonight I make a promise that I will sing forever ~ we’ll shine our little light … and nobody wants to go to bed. This year I want to sing “Make it work for me” to Aretha and “Extraordinary” to Nathalie Cole, those formula people need to get out of the arts and let artist go direct. Peter says I’m right. Here somewhere into the new year. So my dear ones, we go on, into the new year. Love, Melanie

Introduction - Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 07:02:00 GMT

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 06:55:00 GMT

Scarlet Ribbons

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 22:28:10 GMT

My father left me a lot of ribbon. I take out the boxes mostly at Christmas ~ this year, I noticed, it’s dwindling down now ~ my daddy had this idea (he was an idea man) years ago to manufacture pre-decorated, with bows and ribbon, color-themed Christmas trees ~ This idea came to him after several heart attacks and bypasses. He hadn’t yet lost my mother or his second wife, Pat. He drew it for me on a napkin. I thought, “Brilliant. Not exactly what I would have. Only as a second tree, in an entrance, but I bet many would love this idea. Sell ‘em at Wal-mart, K-mart, you know, clean up.”

He bought a warehouse to produce these Christmas trees and bought tons of ribbon ~ he lost his second wife, and then my mother, his lifetime friend. (They were the odd couple, for sure.) The idea went out to the universe, and when Daddy passed (yes, I called him Daddy) there was ribbon ~ lovely ~ scarlet ribbons. I can make a mean bow, not a corporate one, but homey and worthy of a gift package, if not better than its contents. Ribbons and bows passed ~ well, in some of the nicer catalogs that I receive currently, I see my dad’s idea. At this time of year, and for those manufacturers, I just want to say Fred Safka ~ somebody took it and ran ~ the way of the world.

Sometimes the originators of an idea don’t get to take it and run, or clean up. But this is dedicated to the unsung heroes: the one who really wrote The Night Before Christmas. And perhaps some of the ones who really created some Shakespearean works. Dylan songs, here’s to them. Find peace. Take it and run. Some know, and for others, it’s really not that important. Unfair, unjust, but there’s a bigger picture. And that’s where we fit in my dear ones. Have fun and laugh at it. Laugh a lot. I do. But, if I am on a list, I’d just like to know, in the spirit of curiosity satisfied, that’s all, mystery solved. Happy Christmas to you. Enjoy this life in the new year. And laugh a lot my dear ones.

Love,
Melanie

Maiden Voyage

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:45:00 GMT

My Dear Ones, Old & New --

We didn’t know ~ I didn’t know anyway as I ventured into a new world. As we were about to go on, we lost our internet connection so we went wireless. As soon as I began, I knew you were there and it wasn’t any different than when we’re all physically in the same room ~ except I sent myself out not only to the last seat in the house, but seemingly to the farthest star. Thank you all for coming to this maiden voyage and taking me so far.

Love,
Melanie & Beau Jarred

Comfort Zones

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 23:05:00 GMT

I am beginning to notice who I am without Peter. Much of me is masked over with doubt, insecurity/anxiety and yes, my dear ones, I’m afraid, fear. “Melanie, if you are afraid of fear does that make you extra fearful or is ‘afraid’ in this context more an expression...i.e. I’m afraid so?” ~ There, I did it again. Irony. Crazy. Is this what happens when you don’t go to a therapist? You just continually bore others with your self-therapizing? (I like the word, leave me alone.) There, I did it again. Leave me alone. It’s so aquarian ~ I vant to be alone. Was that Greta Garbo or Marianne Faithfull? I can’t remember. They morph. At least Greta died first. So many didn’t wait until I died. They just grabbed essence and as if’d it, as if were theirs. It’s okay. Some know. I know. And anyway, I started out snatching essences of Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Joan Baez and Brenda Lee. But it was more in the spirit of influence rather than imitation. Interview question: “How did you develop your style?” Answer: “I went out to imitate Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Brenda Lee and Joan Baez, and got it wrong.” I will be interviewed today by a Polish man doing a book on Woodstock. Do we need another book on Woodstock? The last people to ask for any sort of real truth or historical accuracy are the performers. The ones you need to ask are the 500,000 who were at Woodstock. But you would’ve needed to ask them the day before, the day of and/or the day after. If you missed that small window, it’s just intellectualizing or mythicizing ~ I tell and retell my little Woodstock universe story. Yes, I performed a set at Woodstock and recall feelings about events. Joan Baez brought me tea. So, should I tell you what I’ve noticed? One glaring realization ~ people who had an affinity for Peter don’t really like me. I mean me, not “Melanie”. And that in itself is a long, long story for another time ~ not now, my dear ones ~ I was Peter’s Melanie. I am still faithfully your Melanie, but now emerging...that little voice is beginning to roar, coming to a theatre pretty far away, yet closer than your comfort zone. Speaking of comfort zones, did I tell you I’m doing a live stream, audio-visual performance on December 20th, 5 o’clock, eastern standard time? People are confused about the time zones. It is confusing ~ why can’t it be one time, all over the world? (One language would have been a good call too.) So, it would just be lighter or darker at 5 p.m. for some. Yes, 5, eastern standard time. I’m not going to confuse you further by telling it on my time zone. Just know it’s 5, eastern standard time, that’s all you need to know. It will automatically translate that time into yours. In L.A., it will be 2 p.m. In Europe, it will be 11 p.m. (darker). I would prefer it to be darker where I am but it’s 5 p.m., eastern standard time. Your stageit.com delivery system will bring it to you and announce it in your time zone. When you buy your ticket, you will be told in your time zone, automatically ~ like your phone. If you fly to another place, your phone knows! It switches all by itself ~ for me, my dear ones, a profound mystery, no matter how it’s explained. And the same sort as where does weight go when you lose it? Don’t bother answering and why don’t we speak the same language? Again, don’t bother. I know there are linguistics and people who will explain but I mean why? Really. It’s hard enough to get along with the same language. Throw hundreds into the mix. I sense the answer somewhere in that Tower of Babel story. The part that gets left out. My dear ones, it’s right there in the part that gets left out. Come and see me on December 20th, 5 p.m., eastern standard time, stageit.com. Love, Melanie

Las Vegas

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:25:00 GMT

I was deathly ill, dizzy, nausea, hot, cold, chills,
burning ~ uncontrollable sobbing,
coughing, and in between worrying,
worrying about ~ the list is too long
and then I went on stage
~ life suspended
~ I remember walking through endless casino bizarre: scantily dressed women, dancing on tables, degradation, lust, greed, and me, sort of, wending through the smoking desperate, “whooo-hoo we are having fun, aren’t we?” people.
Then I am on stage.
How?
There was no voice!
I was out of breath walking.
~ on stage
Life suspended
In Las Vegas.
“How did I do?”
asks the voice in my head.
“You’re a trooper, Melanie, you’re a trooper.”
Thanks, Peter.

Love,
Melanie

Grief Moved In

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 19:10:00 GMT

It’s the morning ~ the mourning
I look over and there’s the empty place
And
Peter is outside, he’s gone to get coffee and he is doing this and that, hither and thither and every which way and mostly that’s how it goes.
People think, as I did, that Grief gets less and less and goes away, after time.
I am now understanding comprehending feeling ‘there really isn’t a perfect word for it in English’ it is not gone or even leaving at all.
Grief moved in.
Like a roommate, wanted or not.
Grief is in the bathroom when I think it is my turn or in the kitchen ~ using the car, taking up space.
At first he/she/it transgendered hetero horrible sat all over me, rolled on top of me, hardly allowing me to breathe ~ always in front of my eyes blurring clouding everything, only internal light on, everything else darkened obscured a tender mercy in some ways, few sharp edges, distance between, then boom down under engulfed again over and over.
Now Grief and I have an arrangement, we live together ~ it´s lost weight which is what I have to do.
Yes, yes, I know ~ some waste away.
I puff up. ~ it is a holding on thing I also know this.
As I’ve told you
I am just days away from knowing everything
but
The ghosts tap on my window
‘I have no regrets’ (Edith Piaf)
My mother looks at me with that roll of the eyes, that’s because you are seventeen- look when I’d parrot and paraphrase Edith.
when I was a puppy
Now I can’t help the thoughts
thoughts be still

I think too much,
eat too much
cry too much
love too much
I am in a race now ~ Grief is right behind me, I race to win goddammit
Take your effing med ~ I don’t medicate.
I think it is an option I keep open ~ gives me the feeling of a safetynet down there
But I will not medicate ~ I have a distrust and disgust of pharmaceuticals.
Nutraceuticals? Sometimes ~ panic attacks?
I hold on to my hematite stone
Grief waits for me
I am coming to the realization
That it won’t ever leave
And if it does, will probably
Take me along anyway
Grief will take me along.
It has been an hour since I looked
As I recognized its presence
Confronted square on
Breathe deeply ~ still my thought
Drink coffee, my dear ones
And live, because as my friend Jim Kaufman has told me
Life is for the living
My new mantra
As I tell Grief to get out of the effing bathroom
I have to get dressed, I´m on the road
I am in a motel
It´s check out time
What the bleep am I doing sobbing and wallowing all over this paper.
Go Go Go
Each go is accompanied by a clap of the hand!
Up and at ´em, my dear ones
Keep calm and carry on, it is written on my coffee cup with a British crown in red and white.
I think I´ll go with
Keep calm until things get completely out of hand - (Ashleigh Brilliant)
Calm is overrated
Calm is pharmaceutical propaganda.
I think some and all too many live with a false sense of calm.
That´s the problem
Maybe a little hysteria is in order
Rage rally and buy or buy into something
to confound the king
oh if I hadn´t told you
there´s still a king.

Love,
Melanie

Be Your Authentic Self

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 03:35:00 GMT

The polarization of people, ok, right there, is the crux of it, divide(divide).
I'm very happy that they come, the ones who saw me in 1972 or '85, but why not, "Oh, I first saw you in 2011."
For that matter, why aren't their more Hispanics or Blacks in my audience ~ it's ludicrous and how were are being controlled.
"Oh you wear your hair like that, you're 16, or black, or goth?" Labeling and marketing.
Jimi Hendrix was considered by the powers that be, very dangerous. Black with a white following!
You see we don't have to rage and rail and/or protest, scream, and demonstrate (although I'm all in on "Occupy". I sense a brilliance and sanity there)
We need only to cross over the lines, cross over to the absurdly opposite of what you are being programmed to be and jolt yourself too.
Confuse the shit out of the controllers, "Hey! What's a sixty four year old doing buying the brand we are marketing to twenty year olds?"
"How is it that, that eighteen year old is buying a Melanie CD?" The least we can do is keep them bewildered.
Oh, and do waste your vote. Go with the one that speaks to your sense of knowing
Mostly ~ be your authentic self.
Rise against the tide of conformity.
That doesn't mean you need to put a quarter sized hole in your ear or be interesting for the sake of being interesting ~
you can wear anything you please...suit ,tie, basic black and pearls, there's room for all of it.
There's room for beige, taupe, or purple and orange.
And there is enough ~ shortages are created to suppress and control ie. gas prices.
So remember, keep them guessing and confused.
Send messages that bewilder. And everyone ages 18-35, buy a Melanie "Ever Since You Never Heard of Me" CD.
I just get a kick out of some stassi sort monitoring my site and seeing that unlikely demographic.
Come on kids, rally, rise, and occupy!
And thank you Miley, cross generation admiration.
Because I talk crazy doesn't mean I am ~ it's just that I know a lot.
I'm just days away from knowing everything, my dear ones.
Love,
Melanie

No point, no point

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:38:32 GMT

“No point, no point,” Hans in the Netherlands always says when he means “That’s okay.” I translate in my head “No problem, Melanie, it’s okay.” ~ On totally other occasions, I mirror “No point, no point,” in my head meaning everything from “Why bother?”, “Fuck it, what difference does it make?” or “Oh, you fool.” No point, no point. The voice in my head has an accent so the f-word doesn’t sound so bad. That’s probably because “fuck” isn’t a swear word from infancy on in the Netherlands, like it is for the English-speaking world. I speak English, but it flies about in and out of my mouth, comes from hanging around musicians all my life. Now that I think of it, neither Peter nor Beau used swear words. It’s me with the filthy mouth, but I have an accent. No point, no point. Let’s get down to efing business. There, that doesn’t look so bad. The musical Melanie and the Record Man had its final performance on October 28th, two days after the life of Peter ended two years ago. It was quite a memorial and I know he would’ve loved it. Nick Faruch who played Peter gave him the nobility of which the circumstances of Peter’s life might have been lacking. But, no point, no point. Peter was noble. Truth eked from his pores. Not honesty, but truth. “Melanie” he would say, “Melanie, anyone can live in a house. You know how many people would give up their house for all this?” And the thing that he meant was the whirlwind, the storm, the elation, the shock and surprise, the lack and the abundance, and the big game. The life on the edge. You lead me to the edge and you ask me why I fall ~ Peter was the one who jumped, I just rode along on his back. Addictive stuff. He would also say if he had to go into battle, he wouldn’t want anyone but me with him. God knows why ~ but for the thrill of going into the thick of things, we were comrades in arms. Melanie and the Record Man will continue. I just need the ones who will jump out of a plane, feeling confident that they have me! They have me my dear ones, battle scars and all. Love, Melanie

Autumn has two names

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 17:35:22 GMT

So, my dear ones, I wake at first light, went to bed at three AM. Oh well why battle it ~ I'm up. Today is the last performance of Melanie and the Record Man at Blackfriars theatre ~ Mo, Nick, Dave, the technical crew, Ben the "there for me" guy, Kat ~ Jack who envisioned this after reading the last tale from the Roadburn Cafe.
The actors, Nick, Mandy, Janine, Robyn, Carl, Danny, we won't be playing in the same playground much longer, we can project this onto other times and stages but we have had our run here and it will never be repeated after today. I've seen Peter walking, heard him talking to me now and then, seen myself taking the stage at Carnegie Hall, a voyeur in my own life ~ time sequences jumping back and forth ~ what difference does it make if it is now or 20, 40 years ago? It's real ~ The line from Kalil Gibran goes over and over in my head ' who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret' I read that when I was 17, now I am 65 ~ it's still true ~ that's why I love the real and the true.

Autumn, the only season with two names:
Fall the descriptive and Autumn the word passing for a rhyme with solemn
A visual lesson from the creator of the universe that death is beautiful.
I don't believe there is a more vibrant red than in a dying leaf

We are shining today vibrant red
But the lights will go out and we'll cry, I know this ~
we cry for our life that will be gone tomorrow
all the pain, the joy of it, passing into memory
~ it's what the actor deals with I suppose, going from one playground to another
new kids, new monkey bars, a different sandbox, unfamiliar areas to embrace
or avoid

We rehearse once again for a new life, a new death.

Actors are lucky 'cause they can do it when they're dead.
That will be our new bumper sticker.
Available soon in the Melanie store.

To be continued, my dear ones,
Love,
Melanie