I wandered, keeping track of landmarks and time, returning to the meeting point right before the driver of our Benz van was ready to go. Atlanta lady is the only solo traveler I’ve encountered. I know they must be out there but paths aren’t crossing. Occasionally I’ll see an older man on his own at breakfast, but most of the time it’s not long until a well-dressed and much younger woman will float in and join him. Così è la vita.

Traveling or not, I’ve gotten used to my own company. Much of my life for the past few years has been that way. Once Audrey went off to Syracuse for college, followed by moving to New York to live, and after my mom died, I was dealt a hand of solitaire. Minus the pets, and after Tux was killed by a coyote, it left a total of me, Gingerman and Rocky to start writing a new chapter.

I think the best way I could transition shift from being a mother, wife, girlfriend—that whole actively and daily connected to another being deal—was to frame it as freedom. Freedom to live wherever and do whatever I like, without worry of neglecting someone important to me. Without having to convince or cajole anyone into coming along.

Maybe being an only child was a good training ground for being my own bff. I remember being a kid and having to draw on the same resources I rely upon as a lone traveler; that sense of isolation, not being like everyone else. Having to project a comfort and ease with myself that doesn’t really match how I’m feeling—until it does. I remember how it felt to integrate independence and self reliance into the way I moved through new situations, and how both are inextricably wound with loneliness. There’s a price for everything.

Traveling alone, I’m not lonely when I can take my time at museums, exhibits, ancient sites, revered cultural landmarks, becoming lost in wonder and imagination. Whatever sparks anyone’s interest and curiosity is highly individual, so for me, the amount of getting lost is going to be compromised trying to accommodate a companion’s preferences. I do miss conversations. Sometimes I like “talking” to social media followers, using my phone to record my thoughts and impressions, and boiling them down to soundbite reels. A win-win, I get to share what I’m experiencing, and use creative skills to turn that into content. That’s the way I see it anyway.

I’m not lonely at breakfast, when I just want some coffee and fruit and to check my emails before heading out, but eating dinner alone while traveling isn’t my favorite. Sometimes I avoid it altogether with room service, or by skipping dinner for a late lunch at a bustling place with outdoor tables, where I can watch that particular city’s world go by, again lost in my thoughts and observations, which are excellent company.

Here are pics from some favorite moments. There’s some stories behind the moments.

Pic 1, on the road from Amalfi to Positano. I can’t say how many times I’ve looked longingly at photos of the Amalfi Coast, the horizon of blues between the Mediterranean and the sky. I couldn’t believe I was finally there, taking my own photo.

Pic 2, one of the more famous casts of a Pompeii victim. It doesn’t pack the wallop of standing in front of it. I cried, for the person who crouched, covering their face from the horror or smoke or ash or whatever it was engulfing their lungs—after enduring hours of what must have been the most hideous and unexplainable nightmare. I gave myself some love in that moment, grateful I had the capacity for compassion. And that a person’s life could reach across nearly 2000 years and touch mine.

Pic 3, 4 & 5 are all from Herculaneum, the upscale neighbor community to the more working class Pompeii. They thought they’d escaped the worst of Versuvius’ rage, but instead got the dreaded pyroclastic flow which is like the crystal meth version of volcanic spewage, including instantly turning victim’s brains into glass. One of the many fascinating info nuggets I learned was how many of the wealthy citizens stayed behind because they didn’t want to escape and leave their wealth to be looted.

Pic 6 is hanging at the Napoli Archaeological Museum—it’s a spectacular collection and museum, one of the best in the world. I just thought this framed art was beautiful, but learned it’s from a fresco on a lararium wall in a Pompeii house and a very unique work. The God Bacchus, covered in grapes, represents protection for the family, likely because of the vineyards that grew all over Vesuvius. This art is also the only known visual representation of Vesuvius in antiquity, and of course predates the eruption, making for a tragic irony: to have the volcano that destroys your town on your good luck lararium wall. And finally, the foreground snake—snakes were considered very lucky in the ancient world.

Pic 7, from my first day in Florence. I took a big walk and ended up getting caught in a rainstorm right outside the Basilica Santa Maria Novella. I haggled with an umbrella vendor and got 2/3 knocked off the price, all while admiring the way the gray sky both accented and flattened the beauty of this renowned and stunning Renaissance church into a two dimensional illusion.

Pic 8 —I’m an obsessed nephophile and loved this cloud in a box by the Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich. It was on display in a setting of seamless blending of old and modern at Villa San Michele in Fiesole, above Firenze.

Right after this last selfie, Pic 9, was taken after a fantastic trattoria dinner with my friend Suzanne and her friend—we parted ways. Suzanne and I happened on a beautiful church, welcoming people into it’s open doors. The altar was illuminated and colorful, the vaulted arches; muted and grand, candles lit everywhere, and a single woman’s voice echoing through the church, singing—not church hymns, but meandering and haunting melodies. We sat on pew benches and it was all so peaceful and unexpected. The darkness was perfect; within seconds of sitting down, tears were streaming from my eyes. I knew, like the knowledge was suddenly implanted in me, that I was holding on to pain and that it was time to let it go. And I knew in an instant how much “me” I had constructed over an immense sadness that sometimes feels like it’s my entire core. Another part of me, a quiet and still part observed and watched the me that was realizing there was a constructed me. It was fucking weird and felt very profound. But I had no idea what to do with this experience or where to take it. More will be revealed, or maybe not.

Still not a convert, but I take the insights where I find them! Self (or selfs) discovery is also a solo journey. Hey, thanks for reading. I’m grateful you took the time.

I think she has a point, that the whole approach is a bit off and weird, and hasn’t progressed much in hundreds of years.

Ruby is also an artist who single-handedly designed an immersive death-awareness dinner that featured a simulated flight to “the end,” your final destination, with flight attendants, chef-made meal on trays—different ones for coach and first class—boarding passes, the whole works. The event ended with a group conversation; all the guests discussing their thoughts, feelings, fears and experiences with death. My friend went, and said it was extraordinary and inspiring. When she invited to have lunch with the person who dreamed up such a thing, as well as launching a deathstyle brand, I was all in.

Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz came up with the original Cafe Mortels, and though I’ve not done a thorough deep dive, at some point Death Cafes began to appear, meet-ups where people go to talk about death over tea and cake. These are happening around the world, and I’ve learned in the UK there are regular and on-going Death Cafes. It’s part of the death positivity movement, which also traces roots to an American undertaker, Caitlin Doughty, and to cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker. The latter has a book, The Denial of Death, which makes a case for an idea I have long believed: that people rely upon a myriad of neuroses, addictions, and behaviors to cope with the fear of death.

It’s all immensely interesting to me. I wouldn’t describe myself as morbid, but I have jags of preoccupation with death, going back to my childhood. Often, when someone dies unexpectedly, I can be ghoulishly obsessive for hours, reading and searching about what happened, how it happened, what and when their last social media was. I don’t know if I’m the only person who does this, I hope not.

I’ve had a peripheral proximity to murder only a handful of times. This is the absolute worst way to die I believe, at the hand of an evil person, whether by random wrong place/wrong timeliness or by orchestrated targeting. Recently a beloved and well known man in our neighborhood lost his 21-old-son to murder in Primrose Hill, a beautiful spot in one of the best locales in London. Another friend of mine lost her sister to an assailant who she not only knew, but lived with. There have been some other few-degrees of separation from me and a murder victim in my life, just enough to jolt me out of the complacency that such things don’t happen in “my” world. They do. As do freak accidents, car crashed, illnesses.

It’s all so disturbing and upsetting, it’s no wonder we are all a bit nuts. When I see animals doing a much better job at being animals than humans manage to do at being humans, I usually think, yeah, well they don’t wake up every day knowing it might be their last day. That’s not the first thought I have by any means, but it’s an undercurrent.

The awareness of mortality is a curse that our culture has done very little to assuage. With what’s probably an expected level of existential dread taking up more space in my head, I’ve been inclined lately to dig in and face it. Shining some light on those dark thoughts and fears in the hopes that a calm and peaceful acceptance can become the default. Maybe a Death Cafe meetup is in my future, but I’m also relying a lot on Zen Buddhist concepts of impermanence and transience.

As an aside, my last song I wrote this week for Psycher is called “Living Thing” —in case you had decided from all this that I operate in an entirely macabre sphere. I don’t.

Even though things keep lining up to keep me busy, and there’s always music to write and record, essays and outlines to get on the page, the endless loose ends always flapping about—I had to admit the other night (admit to a page, per some erratic journal writing) that I feel a bit purposeless in life. Moving to England, the great geographical shake-up, hasn’t eradicated this sense of uncertain searching. I can trace the onset to a series of biggies over the last five years…deaths, loss, pandemic, romantic break-up, empty nest, lack of paying work. In between all of that there were other big beautiful biggies that pushed those to the margins: graduations, awards, honors, festivals. But like everything, the biggies come and go, leaving maybe an even more flattened life landscape to traverse.

Maybe, I wonder, there’s something about adjacency to another person you love or are bonded that gives purpose. There’s an identifier that comes with the adjacency: Hello world, see me? I’m a mother/wife/partner/girlfriend. I’m a bandmate/co-worker/boss. Etc and so forth. Without the adjacency of a person or people I can still say and think I’m lots of things, but identifiers feel more nebulous and empty without other people. Why is that?

Other people anchor us to a purposeful existence, and even if it’s not an immediate loved one, through service or community, an individual can find purpose. Writing is a strange one; the distance from the reader doesn’t prevent that human adjacency, but in terms of strong and clear purpose, it’s not ideal, and it happens after the fact really.

These are all streams of thoughts I have as I write this. I enjoy reading yours too:

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Sorry, going back there. My fellow grievers will get it. I’ve had dreams featuring my deads, even my dad (2018, gone) came to me in one. It wasn’t particularly warm and fuzzy, in the dream, he was telling me he was dying and I was sad but stoic, which pretty much sums up my core inner child. And I’ve been thinking about my mom, a lot. These thoughts are loaded with excess guilt, which is a nonsensical useless waste of regret and remorse because anyone who knew me and my mom will say I did nothing to warrant guilt. But there you have it. And as things go, I was looking for a me photo to use for an event I have in November, and came across this one of my young mom. She’s the blonde on the right. I love it.

I've never heard of West Runton. The map says it’s on the coast in Norfolk. A three hour train ride. I wish I could ask my mom about this, who was her friend, what was happening that day, why they went to the beach, how long did they stay. We didn’t talk enough about things I would have liked to talk about, and when I tried, she seemed to get confused. She wasn’t demented or senile, so I immediately think maybe she was confused because instead of judging her or being frustrated with her, I was interested in her. Then I feel guilty and bad again.

I’m really hard on myself. I’m going to go meditate and be nice to me today. Please do the same, let’s be adjacent and let loving kindness soften our fears and doubts. It’s the only way. xK

Reminds me of little Tux, when he hurt his back and could barely walk and the vet gave him steroids and he suddenly turned into SuperDog, which was a relief but also worrisome.

The other takeaway of the dental extravaganza was the fuzzy feelgood of having established myself enough here in London that people actually cared and checked on me. That was one of my little fears moving to the UK—who is going to show up if I’m in need? In Austin I had a cohort. If I’d moved to LA, there’s people who would help me. I have family in the UK, but…after 2.5 years, I’ve come to think that it would be a super burden to ask any of my family to help me. They have extraordinary busy lives with all sorts of kids and jobs and their on-going needs and responsibilities. So this little procedural trial balloon has left me thinking, I’m ok here. I have friends that I’d show up for and who will do the same. Whew!

Some big news: Clem Burke’s book is now available for pre-orders. The Other Side of the Dream, My Life In and Out of Blondie has been one of my main labors of love for well over a year. He had been working on the book for a decade, on and off—his mad touring and recording schedule kept it slow-going, as well as the bouts of insecurity that a musician who isn’t the center and front of their famous band goes through when writing a memoir. I understood that all too well.

When I first went to him to give care and support in July of 2024 for his cancer, it was forefront in my mind. We had to get this book out—where was the manuscript? He had a finished one he’d done with some editorial input from writer Peter Stoneman—I was very relieved. There’s a lot that can be done with a manuscript, much easier than having big ol’ nothing. After reading it, I had suggestions for additional chapters and antidotes, and once we got his chemo to a tolerable place, for about three months, this book gave him something to think about other than being sick. I wanted to make sure he had something to focus on and that it would hopefully, open the portal to reflection and gratitude for his life—the life he loved which had changed so radically after his diagnosis. Each day I gave him assignments and helped organize the existing manuscript with the new stories and writing. By the time we sent his publishers a first draft, he got an email saying it was one of the cleanest best first drafts the editor had ever seen. It was a really good day, and really good days were rare.

They sent a copy-edited version back quickly, marked up with questions and verifications of this and confirmations of that, which needed author review. Clem and I did this together and he managed to pick dozens of photos and come up with a discography with his manager Tommy—but that was as far as we got before cancer took even this job away from him. By time he passed away, it was left to me and Tommy to push the book into it’s final stages. That means chasing photographer credits, a rigorous legal review, more proof-reads, cover design, a foreword from Fred Armisen—and I was asked to write an afterword, because the book did not address his illness and death. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever written. I needed a tone and balance that honored his wish for privacy, and yet also gave readers a sense of the devastation and courage in the face of losing his identity and purpose in life while facing terminal cancer. It makes me cry every time I read it.

I know he’d be really proud that it made it to publication. It felt to me like it was the most important thing I could do for him, and I’m grateful he trusted me to push him.

Now just to figure out how to promote a book with no author to do book tour, signings, and events. I’m thinking up creative ideas, some of them great, but just don’t know if I have the ability to guide them into happening. And starting my own next book is lurking at the back of my mind always. This is what they do, books one must write. No matter what else in life is going on, they cast a shadow over it until you get going. I’ve gotten going in some small measures, but not enough to get out from under that book shade.

I didn’t expect to be so mind-boggled in my 60’s. It’s the times we live in, this I know. My mind is sharp, not boggled, but so much in our world has taken on hyperobject proportions. This term and concept, from professor and writer Timothy Morton was introduced to me during an environmental writing course I took in college. His book, which I have not read, employed the term to address issues like climate change, petroleum, nuclear radiation…even styrofoam.

From the way I understand it, the characteristics of a hyperobject are the absolute massive problematic scale of something, to the point that an individual feels powerless to act—we cant see the end, we can’t fathom a way out, or around, or through. This is dizzying and numbing; our brains are wired to problem solve. An inability to generate a productive outcome can lead to anxiety, psychological overwhelm, mental fatigue, avoidance and blameshifting. We evolved by solving immediate problems and threats—but hyperobjects exist without boundaries, across vast timescales—our brains can’t compute and grapple with accepting the reality of the situation.

It was the styrofoam example that got me to grasp the idea of a hyperobject.

Here is why petroleum is a hyperobject.

Even trying to grasp what defines a hyperobject has it’s own shades of hyperobject-ness! These qualities explain the concept further: Non-Locality— A key trait of hyperobjects is that they are not located in one specific place. We are never just interacting with filling the car with gasoline, but with the entire global, intertwined system of extraction, transportation, and consumption. Hyperobjects are Time-Stretched—for instance, petroleum comes from ancient organic matter that lived millions of years ago, but the effects of carbon emissions and plastic will last for thousands of years. This massive temporal scale makes it difficult to grasp. Another key trait is Interobjectivity—Hyperobjects are formed by relations between many different objects. Oil is not just a substance; drilling technology, geopolitical systems, consumer demand, and the Earth's geology are all part of the product.

All this is context, because I increasingly feel like the modern world—all of it—the dissolution of truth, power plays, the wars, AI, the massive divide between haves and have-nots, the erosion of standards and democracy, big data, big pharma, big money, the health care system—the scale of it all takes the form of a hyperobject, in the same way insurmountable environmental problems do. Human beings are now hostage victims of non-human crises that humans created.

The world and the way I’ve always perceived it doesn’t exist anymore and i don’t know what that means other than it makes me mind-boggled and I don’t know any other way to cope other than to ignore it and cling to the things that still are the way I understand them. Music, books, writing, connection, love, laughter, compassion, community, family. Will those things save humanity? Probably not, but they will save some of us in what’s left of our lifetime.

I used to play this song in one of my bands, a fast punky version.

Speaking of songs, and maybe a bit related to what I was saying in the hyperobject mini-essay of how brains can’t cope with the magnitude, and the fake feel good of steroids in my first para—here’s a snippet of a very rough home demo of a new Psycher song called “Soma Coma.” It’s inspired by Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World— the drug Soma given to people by the government so they can escape and find happiness.

I have loads of fun making demos, playing all the instruments, getting Brix over to write and sing together. It’s pure joy. After the next batch we get written, will probably head over to NYC this summer to record them there. There is a plan here, a Psycher plan and foundation is being laid with each track. We want twenty songs, and Some Coma is the ninth. A ways to go but what a trip!

As always, I can’t thank you enough for participating in my deal here on Substack. Please subscribe and recommend and share if you think it’s of value. I think that’s the only way to grow it.

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Besides helping with the line-up and scheduling, I’d said yes to any requests, so was on and off stage five times; playing acoustic with Jesse on “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory.” Singing “Hangin’ On the Telephone” with the guys who were Clem’s bandmates in Blondie for the past number of years. Playing and singing with Clembake, the re-named band we concocted when our Psycher debut couldn’t happen (due to new UK/Us resident passport issues for Brix.) Playing bass with Steve Wynn on “Lust For Life” and “Rock and Roll.” And for the finale, playing guitar with Glen Matlock on “Blank Generation,” “Rainy Day Women,” and “All or Nothing.”

It was all fabulous. And spending time with Audrey was a booster vaccine, giving me some much needed immunity for this un-tethered freefall of my mid-to-late-sixties. It’s easy to get un-grounded when you’re a partner-less, parent-less, only child. I put my considerable energy and focus into music and writing but I need and long for family, to belong. Always have, always will. Hence, me and bands.

I had lunch with the one and only Debbie Harry—(and pal Glen Matlock) This is what we ate: We started with oysters. I’m not crazy about oysters, eating them is more of an excursion into the out-of-the-ordinary than from liking them. I’m very picky, they have to be aesthetically pleasing, well formed and not too big, and no weird bits on the edges. Debbie got a shrimp cocktail and Cobb salad. I ordered chicken pot pie. I was raised on frozen chicken pot pies. The smell and taste is indelibly ingrained into my DNA, but I wouldn’t categorize potpie as a comfort food. More like a familiar food. Glen got something called Shakshuma, a middle eastern egg dish. I had fake champagne with no alcohol and we shared a desert, chocolate cheesecake, that went unfinished, even with three forks whittling away on it.

We talked about a lot of things; what’s next or coming up for each of us. Travel, touring and not touring. The culling and deleting of accumulated stuff. Debbie is stunning; with a face that I still want to gaze upon, like art that I enjoy looking at. I don’t do that though, because I can’t imagine anyone wants to be gazed at. She’s easy to talk to. Glen is a handsome devil and always entertaining. When we parted ways, she gave me a lift back to my hotel and I did reflect for a moment on teenage me, obsessing over Debbie and the guys, playing my two Blondie albums (debut and Plastic Letters) on repeat—the ultimate unknowable of future paths intertwining and crossing.

In the ten days I was away, spring snuck in the back door. My “garden” - ie, walled in box of paving stones and planter beds—(don’t even ask Gingerman and Rocky what they think of this pathetic outdoors after the wild kingdom they used to rule in the rural West Lake Hills of Austin)—has budded and bloomed. It’s my first spring in this London home. I see that wisteria vines make flowers before leaves, and that my magnolia plant refuses to have both at the same time. The hydrangea went from a cut back collection of sticks to a lush and bright bushy plant. In ten days! Earth nature is doing it’s thing, stubbornly sticking to the schedule, even if the sky wants to stay gray and cloudy and the air wants to cling to low temperatures.

I like when someone says to me “You would’ve loved it” or “you would’ve hated it,” Because to be known and understood to the extent that another person ‘gets’ me; that I’ve revealed enough and shared enough time and experience to have my tastes be so definitively discernible. This is closeness.

As the afore-mentioned single, partner-less person, my world still manages to be filled with emotional closeness. In the UK, where I’m building this newish life, I have to be fearless, and willing to reveal myself sooner than later. I don’t have time to develop a history of friendship, I have to take shortcuts to closeness. This works better with women than men, as that that whole “British reserve” you hear so much about seems to be more applicable to the men. At 67, emotional closeness is the most important kind. I like to debrief thoughts, feelings, and the mundanities (great new word, you’re welcome) of my day to someone I know well, and hear about theirs. True closeness is reciprocal.

Sometimes when I’m doing something I think of my loved ones who have died, and imagine being there with them. Not long ago, I was at a jazz concert, Theo Croker, a renowned trumpet player doing a Miles Davis tribute. I could picture Clem being there, it was weird how clearly I could see it. I knew exactly how he’d be sitting, how his head would be held, back a bit, chin tucked in, small smile, nodding here and there. He would have loved it. In the dark, in my seat, I smiled and felt the softest smallest glow of happiness that I knew him so well as to know this. It melted into melancholy, but it was sweet, and the moment matched the passage of music the quartet was playing.

That moment was interrupted when I realized my toe was hurting, kind of bad. My little toe, the pinky. The most pathetic of all toes, at least on my feet. It felt like it was crunched up in my boot, and suddenly I felt a whoosh of horror as I remembered something that I had buried since, way back, in the BC before Covid times. I recalled—this was in Austin—that something was bothering me in my foot, and I went to see a podiatrist. That’s probably a good kind of doctor to be, I remember thinking. The tragedy is bound to be a bit more minimal in podiatry. Anyway, I was appalled when he told me I had a hammertoe. It really really bothered me. I mean, come on. “Hammertoe” is in the “scurvy” and “ringworm” and “shingles” category of stupid, ickly-named conditions to afflict humans.

The doctor said nothing could be done. My denial was fast and furious; I refused to believe him. He gave me an odd little silicon cover to put on the pinky toe which I promptly lost. I thought maybe I could make the toe be more normal, as it really didn’t look that bad, nothing like what one would think a hammertoe would appear. I don’t know what they look like, I don’t want to know. It just hurt a little bit, and surely that wasn’t the end all be all fate of this little toe.

And lo, soon after, it stopped hurting and I forgot about it. Until the night at the concert. It was dark in the hall, and everyone was very seriously engaged in the music, as jazz people often are. So I slipped my boot off, and spent the next two hours quietly training the toe to uncrunch. The music got a bit freeform out there—I like my jazz to swing or be so beautiful it makes me cry—so the distraction was a good multitask way to spend a couple hours.

There’s a lot about getting older that is odd and interesting, sometimes disappointing. One of the pleasant parts is still being to exert some control over the state of decline. My half-assed but consistent (the absolute key to anything I now finally realize) new morning routine is already changing my body for the better, and pretty sure the pinky toe will fall into line with consistent effort.

I still conjure up that night, not because of the toe, but because of a sensory experience as I left Royal Festival Hall. The wind gave me a cold gentle smack in the face, putting me instantly on high alert. This is a state I became aware of when we had Tux, our scrappy little terrier mutt. Tux did high alert like no one’s business. My version was a heightened awareness of how it felt to exist right then. Like a shroud of loving kindness and compassion had wrapped me in an exquisite now-ness, so much so that even as I write about it today, when the now-ness was a then-ness, it’s just as real and vivid as it was. Generally, I reside on the happy/content border of emotional states, so it gets my full attention when I’ve spilled over into full on bliss mode. I want to remember, to bask. To appreciate.

Here is the good part. It’s rare and special. I radiated love. I was connected to all of them, it was a one-ness with all the strangers and humans, I looked at faces and saw everything we all feel and know, in every single one. Coming towards me, I saw a young woman who would normally conjure a few shades of judgy to pass through my mind—way too short shorts on a cold night, white cowboy boots, bustier drawn tight, butt hanging out, just a terrible outfit, half-naked or not, whatever body type. Aha, I thought. A test. But whoa, no critique, just benevolence, kindness. Love.

Observing the totality, the purity and euphoria of how it can feel to be a human, I wanted to write about it, to document and remember. Maybe it will conjure more of that. Even Waterloo Station can be a church.

you know, I think God would’ve loved it.

Thank you for opening this, reading and being here.

India and Bhutan happened a month ago, hard to believe. It was so immersive, like a psychedelic drug—there’s a reason they called it ‘tripping’. Reality, as in real life, is left behind, while at the same time, the mind and the world and the senses are expanded in ways that I previously haven’t experienced. Minus the drug hangover. The effect brought much joy, a tempered joy, because as I’m fond of saying: to not acknowledge the immense privilege of such an experience in the first place would be a hubris of the worst kind. Not recognizing one’s luck and privilege in general is pure hubris, but certain activities—like exotic travel, takes it up a notch.

I’m fully steeped in my return to normal London life, a bit changed, a bit more mindful. I brought some things back I learned about each country and culture, especially some spiritual aspects, which are serving me well. With the consistency of five weeks under my belt, the small devotion I pay each day to a very minimal series of yoga movements and meditation are having an effect. It’s like saving pocket change—so little effort, but the smallest bits of discipline can become substantial. Others arrive at this foregone conclusion far sooner than I did, but in all fairness to myself, I’ve excelled in other areas. Regardless of the timing, I’m happy, and frankly, there’s been no better time to learn the art of accepting the continual flux of all things and aligning the direction of thought patterns to the present.

The Tube

When I came to the UK as a kid and adolescent my mom and I would split our stay between my aunt’s—her sister—in West Hampstead, and my grandmother’s house in Stanmore. That’s my earliest memory of the tube. Back then, the route was still part of the Bakerloo Line. When I visited as a young teenager, the tube gave me my first sense of real independence—I could actually go places, safely, alone.

In 1976, when I came here hoping to get in a band, I answered an ad in the Melody Maker for a band looking for a guitarist. They were called Painted Lady, but would soon change their name to Girlschool. The band was based in South London; for our first meeting, I took the tube to Waterloo station where Kim and Enid would be waiting for me.

“You can’t miss me, I’ll be the girl holding a Stratocaster in a trash bag,” I said.

My flight case, the only case I’d brought, was made of metal and weighed about 100lbs. Dragging my guitar in that case from Texas to London at age 17 is eternally burned into my most miserable but laughable experiences memory bank. Hence, the trash bag guitar holder.

All this to say, the tube is a London institution, embedded and practically synonymous with London culture. To me, it is the most easily navigated of all the underground rails I’ve used. It’s the world’s oldest underground system, dating from 1863. Even the map is an iconic design.

As you’ve learned, my own tube history goes back decades. To this day, I still tend to think of London in terms of tube station stops, laid out in a row, with a specific order. I’m continually surprised, as I become more overground familiar, that there is overlap and adjacency between places I thought were miles, or several stops and line changes apart. For instance, Paddington, very close to where I live, is easily walk-able to Hyde Park, but looking on the tube map it seems nowhere near.

Since moving to the UK, and in the past year, London, I no longer have a car. The tube is a huge part of my life. I take the bus too—both tube and bus are free for me with my Freedom Pass—ubers and taxis on occasion, and I walk miles, but I’d say the tube is my mainstay. And even though I’m more than used to this common, everyday thing, it’s still a strange part of big city human experience.

There’s a slight bit of “elevator” syndrome—the awkwardness that ensues when you put a given number of strangers in a small box of a space. Like in an elevator, most people on the tube are withdrawn and collected into their bodies, avoiding even the most minor of interactions. An approximate majority stare at their phones. This always mystifies me a bit, because I rarely get any service, and I’m on a popular cell phone provider, not some budget off brand. How do they have service? It is unthinkable to ask people on the tube who their cell phone provider is.

A few will have their eyes closed, fewer still will have a book. I sometimes wish I was one of those, a tube book reader, but I know I wouldn’t be able to absorb anything and would just be carrying a book in my purse and looking at the page as if it were blank. There are ads lining the top of the car, and an occasional poem, but mostly what I do is surreptitiously observe my fellow species.

Today I took fast, long strides just in time for a final neat jump through the doors of an Elizabeth Line train departing from Liverpool Street. This always feels like a sparkle of good luck omen, when I make a perfect connection, and I’ll take it as a sign I’ve been here too long if it ever stops giving me a tiny thrill zap. I sat, tucking the bulky edge of my puffer coat under my legs and scrunching my large bag into my lap so as not to encroach past my square of seat.

It’s important to maintain a very blank face, if possible, make it look so blank that if someone does catch my eye, they can’t even tell if they have registered into my awareness. According to Audrey, my face reveals exactly what I am thinking pretty much 24/7, so this takes a lot of effort on my part.

There’s always foot tapping and knee jiggling; up and down rapid bounces. There’s cup spinning and nail biting. If someone were people-watching me, they’d probably see me picking stray cat hairs off my clothing. Watching the incessant slight movements of people always makes me ponder the idea that we all seem very uncomfortable being humans. We’re not near as good at being humans as chickens are at being chickens, or monkeys are at being monkeys, or…you get the idea.

Man Hands

But on this day, something else got my attention. The gentleman sitting next to me was reading his newspaper. His hands were beautiful— the most perfect man hands. I scoped out the other man hands in the train car just to make sure that they were special. For a moment, I became very interested in different man hand appearances. Across the aisle from me, I could see the reflection of the man next to me in the glass of the window. To my horror, he looked up from his newspaper, across the aisle, and our eyes met in the reflection. I was busted watching him, or his reflection anyway. My face wasn’t blank, it was…observant, interested.

I’ve had very little inclination in romance or meeting a partner or having a lover. But this man, with his perfect man hands, made me think, just a tiny bit, that it might be nice to have those hands on me. The reflection eye meet was a split second, but I was fairly sure that between that, and the tiny thought I’d had about his hands, that there was an energy emanating from me, I mean I was sitting right next to him. At Paddington, where most people get off, he gathered his paper and departed. I was pretty sure he’d not only felt my energy and, having no idea that it was just his stupid man hands that started it, probably thought I was a weirdo. Which is kind of the last thing you want to be, a weirdo on the tube.

Tube Begging

Another British phenomena of the tube is the rare experience of the tube beggar. It’s like they’ve all gone to a special training class, they all do it in a strikingly similar way, which is to say, extremely properly and politely. Whether man or woman, no matter how distressed and ramshackle, no matter how destitute—they are unfailingly well mannered and articulate. There are effusive regrets at imposing upon the travelers, explanations about how the money will be used, more apologies at how their dire circumstance may be unsettling to the rest of us.

Most travelers don’t even look up. But these train beggars are the only people on the tube who I will make eye contact with and not worry about having a blank face. I smile and say I’m sorry, I have no cash—(it’s true, who carries money these days?)—and I wish them good luck. It’s not the British accents, or their politeness, it’s a habit I acquired a long time ago, one I’ve used over the years with their American counterparts.

Like most of my good habits, it wasn’t innate, I got it from someone else, in this case a talk given by Baba Ram Dass that I attended many many years ago in Los Angeles. He said something like: when you look away or ignore another person’s suffering, you are closing your heart to compassion and therefore not being an instrument of love. My takeaway was that when I see a homeless or down and out street person, while I can’t relieve their misfortune, I can recognize their dignity as a human being with eye contact. Acknowledge the humanity with words, a nod, a smile. I think that’s better than money.

In those instances I don’t mind being the weirdo on the tube.

Thank you for being here, reading, opening, sharing, subscribing—however you can contribute to keeping me into doing this it’s a win and I’m grateful.

In case you’ve ever wondered, maybe are a more recent reader, these are the sort of thoughts that made me think in terms of the direction of motion, and why I named this substack as such.

All of which gives me cause to wonder what the ratio would be—in my life—of external causes; things out of my control, versus self-propelled, self-willed choices. For instance, my recent travels to India and Bhutan would fall under a self-motivated experience, even though the opportunity to visit Bhutan came out of nowhere—(thank you Suzanne!)—I chose to say yes, and I chose to add on a week in India to the offer. Whereas, something like, oh, someone dying, or a chance meeting with a person who becomes your spouse, or even getting fired from your job or band is not a chosen, self-determined event, but certainly steers life in a definitive direction.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the ratio distribution of outcomes and trajectories were balanced, a yin and yang of divine order and random chance? I think about ratio data only because of the influence of my most memorable college professor, Dr. Kolpas. He was—of all things—teaching a statistics course (which I only took to avoid other, more intimidating sounding college level required courses.) Dr. Kolpas got my full attention when he announced to our class that mathematics was the language of God. He backed this assertion with wild and enthralling statements, things like: specific genetic biological information can be formulated into math principles or equations that, when graphed, visually emulate, for instance, the stripes of a zebra or spots of a leopard.

As an aside here, in a wonderfully synchronistic loop-de-loop of coincidence and magic, Dr. Kolpas was referencing the morphogenesis work of the genius scientist, mathematician, philosopher and biologist Alan Turing, commonly known for basically inventing computer science. Turing just happened to be born in a Maida Vale house, now the Colonnade Hotel. The Colonnade Hotel is where Clem and I often stayed when visiting London while he was working with the Eurythmics, and just happens to be down the street from where I now live. How connect-the-random-dots is that?!

Maybe one of my most cherished gifts is seeing and paying attention to these shimmery moments life offers up.

so. In returning to my initial musings, just as there’s an underlying mathematical basis in nature, it follows to be curious if there might be some stochastic process or principle that’s applicable to the analysis of a system of unpredictable events, ie, the path trajectory of a life.

Do not, for one minute, make the assumption that I have anything other than a rudimentary grasp of anything mathematical. My best efforts in this department of thinking are a willingness to be open and interested even when I don’t understand or possess any knowledge of scientific rules or theories. I’m not sure my brain has the capacity to think in those terms, which is fine with me.

Speaking of math, in Jaipur, I visited the Jantar Mantar observatory, built in 1734. This collection of 19 stone monument instruments was mind blowing. Each is constructed for specific use such as predicting eclipses, or measuring and tracking stars and planets as the Earth orbits the sun. The third photo below was one of two hollowed out “holes” that perfectly map the sky—in reverse. It also has the world’s largest sundial that accurately tells the time—centuries later. I repeat, built in 1734.

When I asked my guide how astrology and Hindu worship of deities were interconnected—which took precedence—he was overjoyed to have won the tourist lottery with me. We found a spot in the shade and I got an hour long course in Hinduism. To sum up the answer to my question: astrology was for decisions and timing while the devotion to deities is more about karma and spiritual guidance.

One doesn’t need travel to provoke wonder and thought, to learn and explore. An armchair and a book, a computer and wifi, or talking with a friend or neighbor give us daily opportunities. But oh boy, to get your mind electrified, energized and animated with the sensurround of a whole new altitude, landscape and culture is sublime.

Going from the chaos of India into the orderly peace of Bhutan felt like a much needed respite, but also having some company after a week of solo dining. When traveling solo, meals are the only time I miss company; ingesting food without any social aspects or even the self-care of cooking is such a barren endeavor. I mean, people watching is not something one can do with much subtlety in a restaurant, and who wants to spend dinner scrolling your phone? I try books, but they’re in the way and there’s too much distraction around to enjoy reading.

There’s so much to write about Bhutan, but I can easily slip into college essay writing mode and I’m not here for that. As I process the visit more, any untold-for-now reflections are sure to slip into future Substacks. As it happened, I returned from this major travel experience and a day later was in rehearsals and recording sessions with Psycher, along with the bassist Gail Greenwood (Gang of Four, Belly) flying in from Boston and moving into my place. This abrupt shift in my day-to-day shoved the travel experiences off to the side and I’m just now beginning to literally unpack the trip.

Some of the stuff I’m taking out of my bags offer a glimpse into a few standout highlights though:

• Prayer flags - in Bhutan they are everywhere. Evocative and strangely peaceful. The prayers aren’t for yourself, they are for the world and they are placed mindfully and thoughtfully, where the wind will reach the prayer inked into each colored flag and blow the intention into the air, for the benefit of all. How beautiful is that? I can’t wait until springtime when I can find a place in my garden to hang mine—which we were able to make ourselves, in a farmhouse, with a skilled and trained artisan.

• Teas, tinctures, herbs. Bhutan is known as the land of medicinal herbs. Because of Suzanne’s affiliation with the Bhutan Foundation, we were given an incredible tour of a traditional medicine hospital, along with a doctor consult. The hospital had wards for gold needle cauterization, acupuncture, thermal oil therapy, cupping, bloodletting, steam/sauna, and herbal effusion massage. It wasn’t modern in any sense but I swear the hospital was humming with healing energy.

• Amulet, prayer wheel and an embroidered silk wall hanging of Buddha. The Hindus aren’t the only ones who utilize astrology. Some Bhutanese Buddhists consult astrologer monks—after monastery training, they spend another nine years studying astrology—as guides for life, avoiding misfortune and the like. We had the incredible experience of having a basic astrology reading from a monk. Among the many things I learned, is that although I came from a priest class in my last life, I’d be returning as a domestic animal unless my karma gets a bit more righteous. My chant, for the amulet and to the beautiful Buddha I brought home, is: tayatha om muni muni maha muni shakya muni ye soha.

I’m not too concerned with coming back as a kitty cat or whatever, but taking a few moments out of the day to do some sun salutations and meditating (inspired after being in India) followed by intention setting to do better (inspired by Bhutan) can’t hurt, right?

There’s more, but I’ll leave that for another time. My travels to India and Bhutan were life-changing, but as of now, I haven’t figured out in what way. I’ll look back, with the blessing of a future perspective, and see where it all fits, where it leads. Once place it could lead is back to Bhutan—another absolutely wonderful and unexpected thing was getting to actually jam with one of Bhutan’s most revered folk artists, Jigme Drupka. Music is incredible in it’s capacity to connect people. After a few hours together, he asked if I would return and do a tour of schools across the country with him…to inspire young Bhutanese girls and women to play an instrument. That sounds right up my alley.

As I do nearly all the time, this has been open for all to read. But at the end of this substack there will be a paywall for my paying subscribers—something I think is the right thing to do on occasion—to watch a short video of me attempting to follow and jam with Jigme. When he asked me to play him something I’d written, I of course chose Vacation and Can’t Stop the World, and told him and the assembled guests the story behind both songs. Unfortunately the whole thing wasn’t captured, but some is compiled below.

I laugh out loud imagining me at 19 years old writing those songs, clueless that 47 years later I’d be playing them to a Bhutanese folk musician in the Himalayas—something that falls squarely into the random, unpredictable side of any equation.

Before the paywall, one more thing: I enjoyed reading two books “Beyond the Sky and the Earth” by Jamie Zeppa and “City of Djinns” by WIlliam Dalrymple. Both are excellent and I highly recommend if you are considering travel to either place.

and finally, thank you so very much for reading and allowing me the immense joy of not writing into the void—your attention and interest is everything! xkv

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I don’t recall ever having a birthday party as a child, or having my mom make a big deal out of that day. But as an adult, I began to celebrate, and in the Go-Go’s I started a tradition where we had birthday dinners, which soon became exercises in trying to outdo each other in extravagance. This was made easier because it would all be paid on the band Amex card. These dinners are some of my favorite memories from our heyday, because not only would the whole band and inner circle attend, but a selection of friends would join. It was rare, really the only time, that we could socially integrate the outer life with the circus of an insulated band life.

Turns out I liked celebrating my birthday, and after we split up, I kept doing so, in far less high fashion, but enjoying bringing different branches of friendships together in one place. I’ve rarely let one go by without a bang.

After a pretty sad birthday last year in LA, with the Palisades and Alta Dena fires raging out of control, and Clem in his last living months, I wanted to try and reclaim the joy this year, in London. A couple weeks ago, I hosted my birthday celebration in the context of my new life, acquaintances and friends at the local pub.

Age-wise, to be closer to 70 than to 60 is weird, but I’ll take it, and I’ll also take the new-toy-times-exponential sensation of having managed to put together, day by day, text by text, call by call, effort by effort—the structure of a new life. It might not be the solid foundation, walls and roof that I had before, but it feels like shelter. I’m pretty damn pleased with myself. I’ve now collected enough people I’d like to share my birthday with to make it a social success. Every one had a blast and I’m happy I did it.

2026 has already given me another chance to be pleased with myself. I started writing this on the plane from London and want to real-time travelogue write again, something I did in the 90’s through Egypt and Turkey—this time about a couple of weeks of exploration in two countries. I won’t be alone the whole time, and I don’t think I’ll be doing any bribing of guards or other rogue tourist activities like that long ago Egypt trip, but it feels really good to be on an India adventure. (and beyond, which I’m holding out on til I get there.)

I’ve been in a car for a lot of driving, the Golden Triangle route that makes up Agra/Taj Mahal, Jaipur, and Delhi. I’m only in India for a week, it was a tag-on to another trip that launches out of Delhi. I figured if I was coming all the way to Delhi to meet a friend and fly elsewhere, I needed to find a reasonable itinerary and get where I could, at least get a taste and learn some interesting history. The Golden Triangle is absolutely do-able in a week, perhaps even less.

I don’t know how this country will stay with me. As a mature grown-ass woman, it’s the slow, steady, stay-lit candle that signals love more than the blowup of instant infatuation. So it doesn’t portend badly for India that the latter was not a part of my entry into it’s atmosphere. There’s inescapable chaos everywhere I’ve been, but there’s also discoverable quiet and meaningful connection, if one makes a point of looking beyond the surface.

Enough has been written about India to make it a challenge to wrap any original thoughts and words around the experience—but any self respecting writer’s gotta try.

The first thing I noticed about Delhi was the air quality, swathed in a haze of smog that made me feel dirty the moment I walked out of the airport. It’s a crisis for the city, and a concern for me, as I’ve had issues with my respiratory system in the past (mold induced) and I guard my lung health diligently. I went straight to a nearby hotel, checking in at 3am, and was glad to leave the next morning for a luxe hotel 600 meters from the Taj Mahal in Agra. For the next several days I reconsidered the plans for when I’d be returning to Delhi, deciding when I did, I’d skip some sightseeing and stay indoors as much as possible, and also get a mask for when I did venture out.

My driver, Mukesh, would be with me for the next four days. After sussing out my nature, something prompted him to inform me that he’d be calling me “mom” “Mother” or “maa.” It took questioning one of my guides to learn that this is meant to convey deep respect and protection—essentially letting me know he’d be looking after me and ensuring my safety—as much as he would for his own mother. I wanted to really play along and call him “son” but decided to let it be a one-sided thing—I didn’t want to cross any lines or alter the cultural context that afforded me mom stature. He stuck with it down the line; when I showed him a picture of Audrey, he said she was his sister. And after a few days, when I was invited to join Mukesh at his village home for a lunch with his family, he was quick to point out that his children were my grandchildren.

When Mukesh told me he was from the warrior caste, I was curious, isn’t that the one that’s up there, right below Brahmin? I did some research and learned that even though it is traditionally a highly ranked caste, many complex historical factors have led to Rajput warrior castes in rural and agricultural regions to be economically deprived. Since leaving Delhi, we’d driven through tons of villages down roads lined with countless ramshackle concrete abodes that looked unfinished or abandoned. I wondered if he lived somewhere like that.

I’d been asking about his family and his life. Any talk was done in very limited English, but somehow we’d manage. After telling me about his son and daughter, I was invited to stop at his home on the way from Jaipur to Delhi, 20 km out of the way. Of course. There was no way I’d turn down an invite to join Mukesh and his family and see what life is like for an average working and struggling Indian. He freelances as a driver for visitors, tourists and upscale travel companies, probably making a pittance of what they charge clients. And when tourist season is over, the work is over. He said he worries because he supports his whole family. His son was an engineering and electronic student and his daughter is a couple of years away from college too.

Being a driver in India is not like being a driver anywhere else. What could’ve been harrowing and stressful was neither in Mukesh’ car. He had snacks, drinks and pillows for me, and was excellent at inserting our vehicle into and out of the free-for-all riot that is traffic in India. Rickety buses crammed with bodies, hundreds of motorbikes, often with a guy driving, a sidesaddled sari’d woman on back and a kid or two in front, tuk tuks, and trucks painted in fading bright colors, festooned in garlands, glittery poms and tassles; cars and taxis, pedestrians, bicycles, cows, dogs. All of it is going somewhere, not in the same direction necessarily, and often without lanes, signs, signals, traffic cops, or any rules or laws that I could discern. Everything you’ve heard about the horns blaring is true. It’s not rudeness, it’s how to let someone know you’re there and you’re coming. Lots of trucks instruct approaching drivers to “blow horn.”

Everywhere, there is poverty, I expected this. Everywhere, there is humanity—I also expected this—India is the world’s most populated country, surpassing China in 2023, with something like 1.5 billion people. I think I’ve seen millions of them, doing nearly everything a person does in public; talking, gathering, leaning, standing. Napping on charpais outside in the shade, sat behind carts piled high with cashews or cauliflowers, green beans and apples. Farming, eating, squatting a full couple feet closer to the ground than I’ve ever gotten. Looking at phones, reading newspapers, herding goats, walking, urinating. (So far I’ve been spared the public poopers)

Row upon row of run down open faced markets, workplaces, shops, stores and services, enough stuff for 1.5 billion people to find what they need I guess. These are all funky as hell, but I actually think preferable to our hideous strip malls. Hardly anything looks finished. It’s like no one can be bothered to fix things up for the people, lets just make sure the tourists have enough normalcy to keep them coming back. Everything, and I mean everything else, looks to be in a state of derelict disrepair. There’s low walls, out of stone or concrete, painted in primary colored Hindu lettering, that just end in a pile of rubble, partial fences, tin gates, haphazard tire piles and smoldering fires. Over and over I see what looks like a pile of rocks, excavated for a structure foundation maybe, that’s just been left there after the digging, with nothing ever built.

But it’s all populated. Red or brown plastic chairs arranged outside all of these places, with men talking and smoking. I’m trying to imagine what they talk about. Women walk alone or in small groups, wrapped in colorful, sparkly fabrics, or sit in front of these bunker-like concrete boxes, strewn with debris and piles of junk like it’s any yard or patio of any house. Chickens, dogs, and of course, cows, goats wander everywhere.

Everything but cats. I haven’t seen one cat. I asked Mukesh and his son about that when I’m at their house, they look very uncomfortable, shaking their head, no, no. I do a short research jag on India’s catphobia dislike and decide right there and then it’s a big strike in the cons column.

It turns out Mukesh and his family do live in one of the concrete boxes. He apologized for it being “unfinished.” As we pull up, he said, “I am not rich. My house is small.” Before, he’d warned me, but reassured me that even though his house was small, his heart was big. Like mine.

There was block-printed Indian fabric hanging outside, bringing some color to the entry. The front door entered into a room with a made bed, and a brown plastic chair. His son, smiling his blinding white teeth at me, ran to get two more chairs and a small square table. I was instructed to sit, and had little bouts of talk with the son punctuated by silences and smiles. A couple of small pictures hung, too high, on the concrete walls. No rug on the concrete floor. I could hear his wife cooking in the next room. After the food was brought out, all on a metal platter, I was instructed to eat.

“How?” I asked him. I didn’t see a plate, just the platter, and some bowls of dahl, spinach aloo, and biryani.

He began spooning on to the platter which apparently was actually a plate. I was given a spoon and ate while he watched me carefully.

“Better than the Oberoi” I told him. That seemed to please him. The son brought another platter/plate, and Mukesh began to eat too.

His wife was the last to join us. She’d gotten dressed up for the occasion, in a beautiful red and gold sari. We all smiled a lot and Mukesh looked worried whether I was enjoying myself. I was. We showed each other photos, and I decided to see what would happen if I showed them a photo of me onstage playing. They all didn’t know what to make of it. I was told the daughter, still at school, liked music. “Everyone likes music” I said. A neighbor came to look at/meet me.

I asked how many rooms, and was given a tour. There was a large kitchen area and two other bedrooms. One had the Hindu shrine, with all the gods and goddesses. Hindus can pick which ones they want to focus their worship on, I guess Mukesh couldn’t decide, or wants to cover all the bets. I asked him and his son to show me what to do in front of the shrine, so we all sat cross-legged, put our hands together, and meditated and thought and asked the Gods whatever each of us was wanting bestowed. I told them a bit later that I thought Sarasvati had been good to me, which went over really well. Sarasvati is the Hindu goddess of arts, music, intelligence and wisdom.

It was altogether an awkwardly wonderful time. I don’t think any other person Mukesh has driven has been invited to his village for lunch with his family. I have a feeling the village will be talking about it for years. I am well pleased with myself for going.

If you enjoy my writing please subscribe, it really helps! Thank you so much, more to come. xxK

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What is the point of this exercise exactly? I forget. Who am I trying to convince, and convince of what? I keep circling around this idea of story-telling and wanting to go deeper, beyond what I want to tell, or show. There’s a sense of elusiveness, like a dream I want to remember that’s not coming back which is unsettling and confusing because it was recent, vivid and real. I try and imagine what a snake might feel like when it’s shedding it’s skin, but that doesn’t work well because snakes freak me out so hard. (You know me well enough to know that I definitely researched snake shed immediately, which is as close as I’ll ever get to knowing much about that topic, because I don’t even want to watch a video of it, not even a cartoon video.)

But I wonder if I’m trying to let go and lose a part of self-ness. Self shed. It’s unfamiliar and I don’t recall feeling this way. It is acute. I wonder if anyone else knows what I’m talking about. I wonder and ponder and eventually turn to writing, because the only way I’ve ever found to get through is to write through.

The stories I wrote for myself were supposed to be self-determination tales. I don’t mean the literal, writing memoir/book stories, more like the ones I tell myself: Why I am how I am, why I chose what I chose, why things went this or that way with this or that person or situation. Those narratives don’t really have an end. There’s always a postscript, an entire epilogue of questions about what could have been. What could still be.

This much I know: What I want to happen is more. Is that even okay, to want more? Even worse, all the death and loss of 2025 has made me insatiably greedy. The more people who die the more I want to not die.

I’m working on this, it seems a bit unseemly. But maybe it’s also why I’m a bit loathe to year-end wrap up 2025. This year, it feels like gloating. It’s like all the selfies on my phone rolled into one fuckyou immersive all encompassing hall of mirrors selfie and it feels like the opposite of what I need in order to shed.

It was a lot, wasn’t it? 2025? Even with all the good, the bad was just so, so bad. The last time I was this depleted by a year was 2020, covid. And maybe, just maybe, this is what I want to shed, not a part of me, but the residue; the stubborn stains of cruelty and the filmy coating that heartache leaves on every surface of life.

Anyway. Thank you for reading what I needed to write. Thank you for being here and opening this and any interest or time or subscription you can spare.

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More: I saw a Waymo in Notting Hill the other day. Just last month, with absolutely no authority or knowledge, I’d proclaimed in Austin—a city overrun with Waymos—that this would never happen in London. How could it, with the number of two-way roads only wide enough for one car, constant gridlock, magic roundabouts, multitudes of pedestrian traffic and e-bikes? Not to mention the street layouts are based on a historical web of Roman villages, trade routes, and footpaths.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Robo-taxi rollout trials in a couple dozen London boroughs are expected to integrate fairly easily with existing traffic monitoring systems and data collected from “the Knowledge,” a rigorous test that black-cab drivers must pass to become certified.

Things are changing so fast, moving so fast. Everywhere, all lanes.

Most of us remember when tech innovations took decades: my first cordless home phone in the 80’s; my 90’s Nokia flips, the early 2000’s Blackberry (Brickbreaker!?) and eventually smart phones. The whole analog to digital transformation can be tracked, one thing led to another, it was linear and most of us kept up okay.

But what a wild ride it is now. I’m sure there’s plenty written about this by people with tons more knowledge, but judging by the state of things, humans seem to be incapable of socially evolving at the pace of what’s happened in the latter half of the information age—much less at the pace of what’s coming.

It still blows my mind that we/they managed to make this incredible world-wide-web-connecting-info-sharing phenomenon called the internet into a beast of burden for surveillance capitalism. Let’s just saddle up the 21st century with 20th century model systems of advertising because what’s better than finding new ways to make people buy shit?

Anyway. That’s all sad stupid stuff. And despite the beginning of this dispatch, how it might have come across, I’m happy about so much in this life. I had wonderful family time over Christmas, (also a way to make people buy shit) but, also a time crammed with friends, culture and food, nature and history, lowbrow humor and deep conversations. I can’t imagine a better way to end one year and begin the next.

I promised less, more last time. So will end this here and be back in 2026 with my incredible insights on turning 67—which I understand is a meme of a birthday thanks to more indecipherable weird 6/7 viral dumbness that makes schoolkids crack up.

Until the next beginning, enjoy this floofy end of a sheep I met on Christmas day.

Our discussions are stimulating and valuable. We’re all curious and interested to learn what each other thinks, are willing to concede and counter, able to sway and bend. The main ingredient is love and respect. It doesn’t enrage any of us if we don’t agree, and I’m not talking “agree to disagree.” I’m talking about making, defending, and sustaining your points and arguments, after listening and comprehending thoroughly what else is being put forth. There are nearly always some areas of a topic that we all can land on in agreement, and go yeah, no, that’s wrong/right.

I won’t go into the specifics of this particular discussion, this is more about how I was thinking how lucky I am to have my small family, and how much we truly love being together. I hope that as the holidays come upon us, whatever or however you celebrate, that there are people—family, framily, friends—whose company you enjoy.

Part of the learning curve of adulthood is figuring out and finding the people who listen, who care, who pay attention and are tuned in to our existence. We gravitate to each other, searching out reciprocal beings and relegating the others to the periphery of our timelines. It can take awhile to get there, but like any skill, practicing who I keep close and who gets less of me inevitably pays off. Sometimes I meet a new person and I know instantly—this is one. This is one to make time and effort for.

On Thanksgiving, a young college student at our table took his turn when we went around, each guest saying what we were grateful for. “I’m grateful I have the privilege to get by somehow, in these really hard times, and that I have the compassion to care that others do not,” he said. It was perfect, the awareness I hope everyone who inhabits that same space realizes.

The world is changing fast; careening into a looming future that often appears to be beyond anything I’m equipped to envision. Maybe it’s exciting to those who won’t be left behind and challenging to those who are determined to keep up and survive, but for many it will be frightening and overwhelming. I think finding and holding on for dear life to any sense of community and connection is crucial.

Coming back to Texas for a short family break wasn’t my ideal scenario after back to back overseas trips in Sept and Oct, but it was important to Audrey, and I’ll always and forever be her mom and doing my best to make her happy. As it turns out, this visit was just what I needed. Not only for the closeness of those who I love and love me right back, but getting a break from London’s winter at a latitude that affords a few hours more of daylight and sun. Seeing a handful of cherished friends—knowing there were handfuls more if I had the time—was a rare extravagance in these days of my expat living.

And to cap it all off, a packed house at the Continental Club for the Bluebonnets, our first gig in quite some time. It’s still as much fun as it ever was, to be onstage with a great batch of tunes and a perfect mix of crispysludge guitar tone, hearing and feeling our playing, each musician’s part locking with the others and an appreciative audience beaming it’s approval at you. While playing music, there’s nothing else going on in the country, in the world, in my head. Nothing going on except making music, a big sound with a big beat and feeling, for a little while, in complete control even while not trying to be. And yet, simultaneously, not needing or wanting control over anything—just present and lost in each moment as it happens.

I hope I described this whole business artfully enough to convey why I love it, why so many of us do this, with or without accolades, renown, streams and sales.

In the sentiment of the young guest at Thanksgiving, I hope fortune bestows all of us a degree of privilege allowing the luxury for finding and pursuing the things that are their own reward.

Cursor life, blinking here, there, starting in a new place, moving and placing myself right where I think I should be, further back, further ahead. 24 hours after having my last chips n queso in Texas, I’m having tea and scones at the neighborhood cafe with two English lady friends that I didn’t have a year ago. We are laughing, a lot. The proper, posh one says “I do like a bit of cock” and it’s so British sounding and elegant and ridiculous and I just adore her. The other tells a story about a hamster she had when she was 20, we are both asking who on Earth has a hamster at 20 years old. It was a rescue and somehow managed to get a corner of her duvet and pull it into it’s cage and destroy it with it’s little hamster claws and teeth, but also repurposed the stuffing into a big puffy bed to cuddle in and we are laughing so much and I’m really happy in that moment. I tell them both as we are parting, how much I love our meet ups and how important they are to me.

This much I have come to know: the “coming of aging” that I write of and explore, it is delicate, tender and exposed. It is sighs and wisps, seconds of light reflections in the dark. It’s fleeting, a gesture, seeing something you know in the eyes of someone you don’t know. I cry more, easily, with less pain, because my losses have become part of everyone else’s losses. In this coming of aging, humanity expands; I give more and want less, and empathy is as compelling and strong as desire was when I was young.

Tell the people, the new ones, the old ones, the ones that matter, why they matter. Why they make your day, your experience, your life fuller. I do it more than ever before and it is changing me.

A few good newsy things: We now have an umbrella non-profit partner that enables the Clem Burke Drumming Project to start taking donations. Many people have expressed a desire to do something in his name and I’m proud to have gotten involved and begin work on furthering the work of the CBDP.

Working with the University of Chichester in the UK on a decade long research project that measured the physical and physiological effects of drumming on health was one of Clem’s favorite accomplishments. I’ve always been convinced that playing drums was his primary therapy, how he coped with his life’s difficulties and trauma. We talked at length during his illness and treatment about the enormous possibilities that lay ahead, how drumming could help people.

Here is the mission statement:

The Clem Burke Drumming Project aims to expand our knowledge by applying scientific methods to drumming as an art form. Supported by grants, partnerships, and donations, we focus on projects that use drumming lessons and performances to overcome developmental and behavioral difficulties, improve coping skills, and encourage emotional and physical expression for people of all ages. Our goal is to bring drums beyond the stage and into the lives of those who can benefit from them most.

Here is a link to the page to learn more or donate: Clem Burke Drumming Project.

Also Clem related, his book is entering the final stages before being ready for publication and I’m beyond proud and thrilled to have helped keep this book on track and going to the finish line. It’s the last thing he worked on, in the last phase of his life. His story, his voice, his take, forever recorded.

Here I am, this evening, at the UK publishing house for his book, the title and release date are still under wraps, but it won’t be too far off.

I can confirm that I’ll be appearing in NYC in March for Jesse Malin’s rockandroll Clem tribute event, but haven’t decided in what configuration I’ll show up in, solo, with band, what songs, etc. It’s sold out, but likely another night will be added.

More music newsy: I blurted out plans for a solo record on social media, but seem to recall saying that last year too, so maybe I should blurt less and do more. Solid and certain is that Psycher, the new band I’m super excited about, is reconvening in Feb to record, along with our favorite pastime; plotting and scheming our way into fame and fortune.

Also, a plug here for my pal Lauren Hough’s new book which you can pre-order and I know it’s going to be great, plus her dog Woody who is the best dog ever, besides Tux, and yours of course, is on the cover.

And finally, the new direction of the Direction of Motion will be to write less, more often. Not a lot less, not too often, but less more. I think it will be better. xK

The idea, I believe, was to inform the actor subject about how they are viewed. Obviously, a big part of the job for an actor is being viewed—so it would follow that it might be helpful to learn from different strangers with no knowledge of who they are observing—what they see. Maybe there’s something that would be helpful to the actor, something to “lean into” that makes them stand out from the other hopefuls. Maybe something they need to work on getting rid of. Not all twitches are created equal. And resting bitch face, or resting any face other than what the scene calls for could be an issue.

Apart from the sheer horror of having to approach strangers, and then ask them to do something so potentially awkwardly uncomfortable—although I’m sure there are many, many humans that would love to kill a few moments at the airport in this way—the idea of the exercise was so intriguing and interesting to me that I never forgot about it.

As I inhabit further this coming of aging space; more and more I see it as a fascinating time, in that the way I feel inside doesn’t necessarily match my exterior. At what other point in life is there such a discrepancy? Toddlers, children, teens, young adults, middle aged—we pretty much feel like each of those when we’re there. But as soon as you enter seniorland, nah. Maybe you cross over in your 80’s and start feeling like an old, but nearly all the elders I’ve read or heard comment on aging—even some quite up there—tend to say they feel as they did when they were younger, despite how they might appear.

There’s no way I’ll be asking a friend to do the exercise with me at an airport or anywhere else, but I do wonder: what would a stranger notice about me, what do they see?

I’ve cultivated some things I want the world to see. Adapting preferences can absolutely be done at any age. I have resting small-smile face, I make eye contact and smile at people. I’m mindful of posture, and have awareness of how I walk and wish to enter a room. But there are things, I am sure, that go beyond what we consciously do. Vibe, impression, mannerisms. Some people, you can tell, are tightly wound, some are chill. Some have an abundance of nervous energy, can’t stop moving. Some pick, bite, fiddle and fidget, some are very still. Would you be interested to know what a stranger sees when they observe you?

Speaking of airports and observing people, one of my favorite dispatches involves doing that very thing. This is Decomposure and Crotches, my 20th, published in April 2023.

I might just have to compile a “best of” the Direction of Motion.

Speaking of this substack, I welcome and thank you new subscribers—you’ve helped me reach a new milestone on the platform. I started writing “The Direction of Motion” in Nov, 2022, so I’m approaching three years of consistent and regular writing for a readership that has grown very slowly. I’m not making a living off it like many Substackers have managed to do, but it has helped my situation considerably to get Substack subscriber financial support. I welcome gratefully your participation.

In the beginning, that November, I’d lost Tux my dog (dispatch #2,) a few months after losing my mom, and was here in the UK on a sort of test run. In my aunt’s guest room one evening, I wrote my first substack post. I didn’t want it to be a public journal chronicling my comings and goings and doings. Sometimes the life stuff overtakes my literary aspirations or my creative ideas, but it’s not a default. A few readers signed on in the early months and joined me in the process of creating a song, (which remains unfinished!) and went down my rabbit holes about everything from my love of word origins via the Etymological Garden, to history; Chopin, George Sand, (Etudes In Writing)… the Romantics—writers and poets, not the band—Boudicca, to wolf pee and travel and shows and can I just say I’ve enjoyed every single bit of doing this and am so so damn grateful and also really proud.

It starts getting dark about 4pm now. I think it should have zero effect on me but I’m probably wrong and it probably does. London has also entered the “days can go by without ever seeing the sun” time, and this I know has an effect. A friend said maybe I have SAD which apparently is “seasonal affected disorder” but when I looked up what it is, that didn’t sound like me. I do feel tired a lot. Like a lot. And inclined to homebody more than go out, but the SAD depression and anxiety seem like stronger descriptors than what I have.

It’ll pass, like everything does. Ephemeral, transient. Also, ephemeron. Who knew there was a noun version? Ephemeron as a noun is my latest favorite word. (Greek, from epi; meaning “on” or “for” and hemera; “day”)

Speaking of things that don’t last…by chance I landed on the text chat of me and my last ex-bf. I was searching for someone or something else and found instead a Whats App thread from 2016. A little mind blowing that it was nearly ten years ago. I fell into reading the entire chat and was laughing out loud at us. We were very funny together.

It was a five-year long-distance relationship and was my first post-divorce person. Seven years after splitting up until I met someone new. When I finally did, I thought it was special. And it was special, until it wasn’t. But in the years since that break up—a bit of a covid casualty, but ultimately for the best—I had forgotten the long distance texty repartee that took place, I had forgotten the longing of being separated, the newness of being in love again.

It wasn’t exactly sad, but it was that awful bittersweet nostalgia of a very happy time. Not only the romance, but to relive a 2016 summer trip with Audrey to St Albans, London, and Marbella, Spain, via text bubbles describing beaches and dinners, walks, shows, strange encounters. Text chats are an amazing chronicle of the past in their random specificity.

A month after Clem died I read as far back as I could go, all our texts. It’s like a conversation that can happen again and again. How can something be so present and so over at the same time? Ephemeron.

In Defense of Stuff

Not long ago I hit a ramp and floored it in a clearing out mania that was partly, mainly practical; I was moving to another country. But also sort of, maybe cultural? We get older and are supposed to downsize, reduce. Marie Kondo-ize our lives, Swedish death clean sweeps. Yes that’s a real thing. I got rid of lots. I gave, I sold, I repurposed, I guiltily land-filled. Just two months ago, I did another round in Austin. The result of all that energy and time is that I now have a houseful of new stuff in London. And a storage room of the kept old stuff still in Austin. And a completely furnished house, with dishes, pots, pans, linens, plants and books that I rent out. Not a flex, btw.

The past couple of weekends I was trawling through these fantastic London flea markets. Yeah, I bought some stuff. Nothing I needed, but good deals that made my home more pleasing. I tried to feel ridiculous and shallow and berate myself over it, but I just couldn’t. I was happy with what I bought, and I’m happy with what I have, in all the places I have it. What a realization. Guess what Marie, it ALL brings me joy.

You know what’s cool about stuff? It’s not ephemeral. The humans come and go, the (good) stuff goes to vintage stores and flea markets. My stuff is a reflection, an expression of me and my life. My stuff, along with my work—my songs, my words, my writing, will be here after I’m gone. Maybe accumulating things—with balance and occasional culling, is okay, at any age, if that’s the kind of person I am. Apparently so.

This is a poem from my favorite poet, the wonderfully astute Nobel Prize winning Wislawa Symborska. I think it sums up stuff beautifully.

MUSEUM by Wislawa Szymborska

Here are plates with no appetite.
And wedding rings, but the requited love
has been gone now for some three hundred years.

Here’s a fan–where is the maiden’s blush?
Here are swords–where is the ire?
Nor will the lute sound at the twilight hour.

Since eternity was out of stock,
ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead.
The moss-grown guard in golden slumber
props his mustache on Exhibit Number…

Eight. Metals, clay and feathers celebrate
their silent triumphs over dates.
Only some Egyptian flapper’s silly hairpin giggles.

The crown has outlasted the head.
The hand has lost out to the glove.
The right shoe has defeated the foot.

As for me, I am still alive, you see.
The battle with my dress still rages on.
It struggles, foolish thing, so stubbornly!
Determined to keep living when I’m gone!

I’ll leave you with a couple of bits of songs I’ve been writing with my Psycher bandmate Brix Smith. These are rough demos I did in ProTools that help get all the ideas for parts down. I’m playing pretty much all the parts, including bass and ripping solos. Both Brix and I are doing vocals. It saves money in the studio if we already know what works. Plus it’s fun, I can do this for hours on end once I get started.

Hoping to make full band recordings in January. So these are ephemerons, here today, replaced soon. We already have four done and will write a few more before then, and it will be eight! Inching our way to public consumption.

“Sting Ray” and “Smile” snippets.

I want to convince myself that it’s enough just to tidy up my house, get fresh ingredients to make a meal at home, take walks, read a book, watch a movie. This is harder than it sounds because of age, the sense of urgency that one might not have the time left to chase dreams, much less land them.

In actual landings, my plane hit ground and I logged on to see what had happened while flying across the ocean, and found that Diane Keaton had died, at 79. A shock, wasn’t she going to always be here, like she always was, an antithesis to the glamorous movie starlet, the one who made the rest of us women feel like we could and should be exactly who we are?

If losing the people I love is a simultaneous gut and straight cross punch, losing those from afar—who are a stone’s throw from my age—are the jabs and hooks. As the hits keep coming, I vacillate the other direction and wonder if stepping away from constant doing is the best thing to do. Then I question what is the motivation for “doing”—is it identity, ego, purpose, a meaningful life? Is it a way to combat loneliness? TBD.

Want to share entertainment stories? Between being in New York and flying and generally having more space for ingestion, I’ve had a fair share. Here’s the lowdown on what has come through my eye and ear holes: Plays—Oh Mary! and Art, both definitely worth seeing. I had been going on about Art since seeing it in London—I kept telling Audrey I saw it when I was a teenager and it always stuck with me, and we had to go now that it was back. The weird part is that I didn’t see it when I was a teenager—we checked, and it was written and came out in the mid 90’s. I actually did see it then, in London, but I was in my 30s.

So there you have it kids, you can get old enough that your 30s are so far away they seem like your teenage years. That was sort of a mindtwister, still trying to get my head around the time warp of memory.

Also highly recommend my friend Jesse Malin’s show, which features music and stories about his life and the enormous changes he’s had to take on since having a spinal stroke over two years ago. Silver Manhattan—it was fantastic. I went with my friends Colette and Charlotte from the Go-Go’s and we all agreed it was one of the best things we’d seen.

I’m doing something I don’t normally do, which is reading two books at once. Edward Rutherford’s epic historical novel London—too heavy and thick to travel with, but all of his books are fantastic for learning how a city or place came to be. And… an author I met a couple times in Austin (from my writer friend Lauren Hough,) Lucas Schaefer, has been winning accolades and fiction prizes for his debut novel The Slip so I had to wander into a west village bookshop and buy it for my plane ride home. Hooked.

With jet lag allowing me to take a stab at the do nothingness of being on my return, I trolled through the streaming choices and landed on the Lilith Fair doc. This late 90’s festival was a monumental achievement for Sarah McLachlan. I’d forgotten the talk show joke fodder it elicited, and the lily-white backlash. The whiteness was quickly addressed for 98/99. Seeing clips of Erykah Badu, Missy Elliot and Queen Latifah appearing with folkies, country stars, singer-songwriter waifs and rockers gave me a whole new perspective and respect for Lilith. As a side note, The Go-Go’s were scheduled to be a headliner on the resurrected 2010 Lilith Tour, which unfortunately fell apart. This was touched on in the film, but I didn’t get a real sense of what went wrong. I also don’t remember the discussions around why we had to pull out, but I know we were following the lead of a half dozen other acts.

Are you ready for the time warp? That’s what happens when October rolls in. Whizz, bam, bang, it’s 2026. Speaking of time warps, I didn’t realize 2025 brought the 50th anniversary of the Rocky Horror Picture Show until I saw an interview with Tim Curry, the original Dr. Frank-n-Furter. He is wonderfully articulate and good humored, though he’s been left somewhat disabled due to a stroke in 2012. I also didn’t know there’s a doc out on this madcap midnight cultural phenom. I’ll be looking for that.

Time marches and warps on. Is there time for do nothingness? Strokes n shit happens, maybe while there’s still a choice to be had, choose doing. See how I work this out with you? Writing, talking, contemplating and deliberating at the crossroads of how to be. How to find and create a place in the world, how to be in the world when so much is changing, so fast.

I noticed a lot of differences in how it felt to be in Manhattan and Brooklyn. After 50 years of visits to Manhattan, for work and friends, and for two different boyfriends who lived there, I finally started using the subways and figured out the C and the L, the G and the R, the Q and the A.

When I walk out of the tube in London, there’s a few likely scenes; a bustling high road, rows of terrace houses, the iconic cityscapes of squares—Leicester, Picadilly, Trafalgar, or the busy-ness business of Oxford, Piccadilly Circus/es. But in New York, I have no idea where those steps are leading. Eventually, I would adapt, but it didn’t feel as safe. Is everyone on high alert all the time? I was.

You have to admit one of these looks a lot friendlier than the other!

Since the beginning of July, 2024 until April of this year, I lived with the ever-present dread of losing Clem. His illness, care and treatment, the worry, anticipatory grief, stress, compassion and advocacy became a part of me. Since April, the sense of immense loss, ptsd ripples of reflection and mourning are part of my every day. And since June I’ve been organizing and planning—practically producing—his celebration of life. This was a joint effort with one of my greatest gifts from Clem, which is my newfound friendship with his and Blondie’s manager. Tommy is like a hummingbird of a guy, intrepid and smart, fiery and soulful, able to go any direction, pivot on a dime. I loved working with him and our almost daily long talks, shooting the shit, strategizing, and making it happen.

We had plenty of help. It seemed no ask was too big; everyone wanted to contribute, for Clem. I saw it in the outpouring of shock and sadness when he passed, I saw it again with this. There was so much to consider: the venue, the food, the remembrances, the films, the host, the speakers, the mementos, the music, the friends, family, co-workers and band mates. Most of us hadn’t gotten a chance to come together and celebrate his life and commiserate losing him. It felt important and necessary. As I said in my talk, we all represented aspects and prisms of his life and we gave it a shape. We were the container that held his life that evening, and then we divided it up into a bunch of hearts that will hold him forever.

It was spectacular. He would have been so proud, and so happy. And it was done with so much love from everyone.

Isn’t so much of life about one’s capacity for effort? When I think of anyone whose life or work I admire, so much of my respect has to do with the effort they were able to conjure up, consistently and persistently, to achieve what they did. I’m arriving at the conclusion that the effort is as important, maybe more so, than the end result. Effort is not the same as trying, and it’s certainly not the same as the dreaded “TTH”—trying too hard. Effort is overcoming inertia, and inertia is stagnation and stagnation is not growth and growth is life. When I consider the slight pull to embark on some do-nothingness, to experiment with being rather than doing, it feels anathema to effort, but is it? Figuring out the new balances of life is where I am now. I think where a lot of us are. Subtract the bravado, replace with a bit of acquired wisdom. The boundless energy of youth is a well that can still be mined, but it’s not as easy to extract. Walking around New York, I kept thinking everyone was so young, when did it get like this, a city of babies—then it hit me, no, it’s not that, it’s me, seeing from a new vantage. It’s all a bit weird honestly, this aging business, but it’s curious and interesting, that’s the only way to take it.

I have paying subscribers but make all my writing content available to any reader. Sometimes I feel it’s the right thing to do to offer those who are in a position to support my writing with a paid subscription a little extra something. I don’t do this often enough and I don’t do it to try and make other people pay. Just seems fair. So for those who have been paying me for the time and effort I put into this substack, I want to share the end montage of a film I made for Clem’s Celebration of Life. I wanted to capture all the things I want to remember; his expressions, smiles, laughter, mannerisms, head tilts and attentiveness, the look in his eye as he listened.

Read more

This side of the absurdity has been compounded with impediments. The elevator at the storage place has been out of service the entire time and I’m on the third floor. That’s a lot of up and down, one box, one guitar, one amp, one armful of clothes at a time. And my lovely renters in my house who were supposed to be moved out hit a situation whereby they needed to stay, making it near impossible to get to and move through the stuff I left in the house.

I surprised myself with how calmly I submitted to these obstacles, a zen master couldn’t have done better. Every single friend offered to help; when I could accept, I did so. Also, non-gym workouts are the best kind. I’ll go home stronger and tougher, and we sexagenarians will take that bonus where we can get it.

How did I get this far into my sixties and never use the word sexagenarian? What a great word. I have a little over three years left to be one sexy sexagenarian and I’m into it.

In between all the huffing and puffing, driving back and forth and disbursing of things, I got some Austin socializing in. I spent an evening with some people I’ve known since I was 14 years old, teachers from Greenbriar—the alternative, “free” school I attended from 14-16. Greenbriar was in the country outside Austin. Besides being a commune for different varieties of hippies and standard issue society rebels, it was a school where kids could learn whatever they wanted to. I learned how to go on long canoe and camping trips down the Guadalupe River, bake bread, grow an organic garden, swim in the cow pond, and yes, academics. Everything was optional. Most importantly, this is where I learned how to play the guitar, started my first band, and played my first show.

Greenbriar’s track record for turning out well adjusted, productive and functional humans was leagues better than the public school system I’d been enrolled in prior to dropping out of high school my freshman year. That’s all another story. (And a great documentary one day, let’s do it, you indie financiers who happen to be reading)

One of my favorite Greenbriar affiliated people is 93 years old now. She still attends a tradition of weekly dinners with a group of other Greenbriar associates, they’ve done so for 35 years. I called Dave—my very first guitar teacher—and was invited to join them. It was a relaxed, lovely evening, despite the pervasive reminders of how time passes. It’s like a pop-up notification that you can’t turn off: hello, I’m aware, got it, recognize all the elements at play here.

On the good side, Dave, who must’ve been 31-32 when he showed me my first “D” and “A” chords out in the Greenbriar woods, is now an admirably fit 82. He is the same man I’ve known all these years; kind, content, knowledgable, with an intact, hearty good humor. Other attendees that were older than myself who I’ve known also played a part in an effect that I appreciated: “Hey,” I thought, “I’ll be fine if I’m like these folks in 20 years.”

(It’s a funny thing that happens—all those things one used to yearn for: other people’s jobs, cars, houses, spouses, luck, wealth—is out the window and replaced by an admiration and appreciation of their health and aging process.)

My 93-yr-old friend is now brought to the weekly gatherings by her son, who also looks after her. When I moved, top of 2024, she was unimpaired. Now she is unsure who I am, and here I’ll employ an over-used but unimprovable phrase; she’s a shadow of her former self. A shadow maybe, but a very pleasant shadow, who smiled and conversed with enough clarity to reveal the elegance that she’d always possessed. Without doubt, her son sees more decline than I will know, but I left the evening knowing I will very likely never see her again.

It’s an interesting paradox when a faceless corporation in a bland suburban shopping center infuses years of your life with humanity, personality, caring. And soul. This is what Audrey and I were discussing the other day, about the neighborhood Starbucks that we frequented with habitual devotion. Over the years we became friendly with a number of employee baristas, and none more so than Ned Coleman.

Ned watched Audrey grow from a pink Frappe swigging kindergartner to an oat milk cappucino sipping collegiate. He knew me as I entered my 50’s and 60’s, and noted each birthday of ours with free drinks and cake pops. Ned knew what I was up to from following me on social media and asked about my projects, travels, writing and gigs. Several years ago, Ned started his own Substack, A Careful Disorderliness where he revealed himself to be a poet of the rhyming variety who could write verse about anything.

I failed to notice that I hadn’t gotten his daily poem in some time. Maybe I’d paused the subscription button for awhile—as all of you Substack subscribers know, it can get overwhelming, the amount of missives that come in. I knew he had retired from Starbucks, but I stopped in anyway in hopes he’d be there visiting. He was that sort of guy. Across the room, I saw a couple of pages on the bulletin board, with a man’s face on one.

I knew instantly: Ned was gone.

That rush of shock and sadness can turn into a loop of regret and remorse pretty quickly—why didn’t I check in more often? did I let him know I appreciated him? why didn’t I express more interest in his life?

Because I’m older and wiser, I can nearly as quickly remove the ego and recalibrate to realize I was likely a small, but pleasant element in a very fully lived life. I made a rare stop to Facebook to confirm this fact, to learn more about his life posthumously, to reach out to his family and express my condolences and share how Audrey and I enjoyed knowing him. It’s all one can do really.

It was on his FB page that I learned another Starbucks barista we’d come to know over the years had also died. Damn. This one was hard too. Tommy was the kind of Texan you don’t hear about as much: devoutly religious while being a gay progressive liberal. I often said Tommy might be one of the bravest and kindest people I’d ever come across. Afflicted with neurofibromatosis, a condition that causes fibroid tumors to form on any nerve ending, Tommy could have chosen a workplace where he didn’t encounter the public all day long. It wouldn’t have been easy seeing the reactions to his appearance; his entire face and neck was covered in clusters of varying sized lumps and bumps—but he greeted people with big smiles and sweet spirit. After he moved to a new location he also kept in touch with me for a good ten years or so via social media, and I always donated to his NF charity bike ride. Which he rode in his underwear.

I know several people who are anti-Starbucks and refuse to step foot in one. But my life was enhanced by the people who worked at our local and who I came to know. It’s a reminder to remember that a shared humanity might be the only thing holding these broken, fragile times together.

I’ve had cause to think about something lately and wonder what your thoughts are? Writing recently, I reflected on living under the threat of uncertainty of our own demise. And I’ve often posited on a theory that awareness of our human mortality is likely the fountainhead of many—if not most—neuroses, addictions, fervors, zealotry and general bonkers behavior. Would our pups be dancing around, tails wagging and excited to meet each day with dog enthusiasm if they had the consciousness and awareness that a human does: this could be the day that a car hits me, that I get an uncurable, terminal affliction, that a coyote jumps mom’s six-foot fence and kills me. (RIP Tux)

What happens when you know what is going to be the end of you? Does it change anything? I wonder if it helps or hurts the cause—of finding joy, of seeking peace and contentment in the precious, but unknown allotment of life we are granted. I’m interested in your comments.

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东升西降

I thought I’d be depleted by now, but it seems I have an infinite supply of outrage, disbelief and disappointment. Just when I think nothing could surprise me, I’m dumbfounded by the crimes and audacity, the stupidity and danger, the staggering cruelty and recklessness of this administration. It’s like watching the fall of the west in some sort of weird, jerky stop-motion animation: entire systems and institutions erode. Powerful and influential corporations, companies, universitites, law firms, judiciaries, and media conglomerates bend, bow and scrape to protect or enrich themselves. We are waiting for what exactly? A leader to step up, the tide to change, the pendulum to swing? I’m mystified. Here’s a little tidbit I’ll leave you with:

The Chinese characters at the top of this section translate to: “The East is rising and the West is declining,” a quote from Xi Jinping in 2020. Political rhetoric aside, as a words lover and amateur etymologist, (some of you early subscribers will recall my etymological garden series on this substack) it’s interesting that the word “occident” which is used to describe the west, in particular, America and Europe, is from the Latin word “occidere” —which means to fall down, or to go down. Now, that’s really referring to the sun setting, as in the sun sets in the west. But it’s also poetically fascinating to imagine what self-fulfilling prophecy we’ve been accorded just from language alone—never mind the megalomania and greed of the rich and powerful.

Kind of like nominative determinism, the questionable idea that people can be pushed to outcomes or careers associated with their names.

Yes, I’m mystified. I’m also practical. Time to start learning Chinese? The wealthiest people I know had their young kids learning Chinese back in 2010, I remember wondering then “do they know something the rest of us don’t know?”

Here’s the good part. Really it’s everything that isn’t terrible. I don’t know how you meet the day, but I’m acutely aware, kind of always, that tragedy befalls human beings every minute, non-stop. Something bad is happening to someone, somewhere. Knowing that, it just seems weird to not be grateful that for this period of time, right now, I’m safe. That is; my own little private illusion of safety has managed to go another round without being pierced or shredded. If that’s not the good part, I don’t know what is. Go see Downton Abbey and escape for a couple of hours.

Thank you for wading through my musings and thoughts here. Your time, attention, subscription, sharing—any and all ways of support and interest are the best reward.xxKV

(If I did have a past life in Paris, I think it was as a woman in the 1930s. And I wore heels and tweed skirts, sat at cafes drinking wine and smoking Gauloise cigarettes and juggled multiple lovers.)

I noticed and picked up on the calmness right away. Mainly because lately, I’ve been tuned into a different composure, noticing a sort of churning low grade anxiety beneath how I usually think of myself: competent, together, busy and active. I’m attempting (again) to integrate a consistent meditation practice into my days, hoping it will bring more serenity to my being. Until it takes, I pay attention, trying to breathe away stresses and release pent up frenetic energy that feels very fight or flight-ish. It’s very interesting the things one notices at different times of life—things that have probably been present for a very long time but ignored or unseen.

Paris is a magical city. I first came here with the Go-Go’s in January 1982, a few days after my 23rd birthday. We returned at the end of the year for a second show. It wasn’t until 1986, when Clem and I were together and he was recording “Revenge” with Eurythmics, that I visited Paris without working. He spent long days in the studio, I spent entire days walking, using a folded analog map to find my way through the streets. This was when I began to love the city, and over the next 15-odd trips spanning 1987 to now—roaming and discovering, without much thought or planning—is still my favorite way to be here.

There was one unfortunate time, on my honeymoon. After dreaming of being in Paris, in love, I finally got to go as a bride. A pregnant bride, in the midst of the worst nausea sickness of the pregnancy. My new husband and I tried doing what we both loved—walking for miles, showing each other favorite streets, shops, and hidden parts of the city—but all I noticed was the smoke, the exhaust fumes, the BO…it was too much. We gave up and checked into the Ritz Hotel. I spent the rest of the time holed up, feeling very small and sickly, watching CNN in the high ceilinged, gilded and velvet opulence of our room .

We returned when Audrey was 2 yrs old, bouncing her little tram over cobblestone streets and across expansive sidewalks along massive boulevards. After a few more full family visits, I continued with mom/daughter visits, taking every chance to share my love of Paris with her. This time—she’s just a few months away from being 23—has been the best. We knocked out the tourist stuff when she was a teenager, so there’s no need to do anything but wander and see where we end up and what we find.

I have one tradition: dinner at La Coupole—every visit includes this Parisien classic, former haunt of Cocteau, Josephine Baker, Picasso and Chagall, Gainsbourg and Birkin, de Beauvoir and Sartre, Piaf, Henry Miller…it’s an endless vibe of legend mingling with Deco decor and golden light. We had an early dinner, walked over to the Jardin Luxembourg, decided to jump in a taxi and catch a 9pm sunset from the Roux de Paris ferris wheel. We stopped on the bridge to the Left Bank for a long hug. Neither of us was surprised to see shiny grateful tears in each other’s eyes. It had been a perfect day; shopping, eating, drinking, writing, exploring Le Marais and Republique. The other days were just as freestyle and satisfying.

For an amateur but avid history buff like me, Paris has stacks and layers of action and stories. Besides being a stunning architectural marvel, nearly every church and landmark has hidden and macabre background intel: medieval atrocities, massacres, martyrs and saints, wacky religious insanity, revolutionaries, royals and controversy. A jumble of human nature splayed out in all it’s unsavory glory—that somehow still gives rise to a city of elegance and beauty of the highest order.

I’ve had a romantic notion for a long time that I will come live in Paris for a year, in this lifetime. For a practical woman, I have a lot of romantic notions and hope to keep generating them for as long as I’m able. I don’t need to fully realize any, but they are made of the same stuff as hope and possibility, incandescent and sheer—I can just see far enough to make out the glowing shape of what could happen.

Before Paris, I was deep in trenches-land, getting Clem’s book ready for publication with copy-edit review and an afterword. I still have miles of grief and loss bottled up inside, it spills out at times both expected and inopportune. Today I saw a man with white hair and black horn-rimmed glasses and started crying because Clem was supposed to be an old man with white hair and black glasses. It wasn’t a good time to cry and pushing the tears back into their tear ducts felt like a betrayal of justified and fair sadness.

When I say bottled up inside, that’s not exactly right. I don’t try and keep my loss and grief bottled up like I can’t deal with it. It has been more like a timing situation, with Clem’s death followed straight away by shows and travel and moving and settling in. The overwhelming stress and sadness had to be set aside out of necessity. I suspect that the body knows, and doesn’t care that the outer world is calling upon us to keep on keeping on. Bodies don’t want to store our emotions, they are busy enough as it is, running all kinds of systems and functions.

So, out of respect to this human house I live in and need to take care of, I’m focused on cultivating serenity and trying to leave enough space that the emotional stuff can poke it’s head out and say ok, it’s safe to come out. I’m encouraging it and letting people know when a wave is heading for me: don’t worry, I won’t stay here falling apart, but I might need a moment. And I’m getting some bereavement and general counseling and therapy, which is always on the table and should be. That’s how I make space for grief.

I started this substack when I was reeling from loss, in Nov 2022. I had lost my mom that summer, and my beloved Tux, our family dog. A lot has happened in the few years since then, but here I am again. Not wanting to publicly journal my way out of it, but I know there are readers here who know exactly what I’m talking about. Hello.

Since returning from tour dates and moving back in May, I’d looked forward to having Audrey here in the UK for six weeks of summertime —I got half of that, the other three she spent in Oxford at a university creative writing program. The anticipation gave way to a fullness that shouldn’t be predicated on another person filling space—a risky luxury, and one I can’t afford to get used to. But maybe it’s okay when the space is in your heart and time is just racing you apart and away from a past that was complete togetherness. She is growing up, a young woman who has figured out in one short summer that now is the time to live, dream, and experience the world. Work will put money in the bank and pay for adulting, but doesn’t need to be the rat-race, the continual climb for more and better. I couldn’t be more proud of her, more grateful for the overflow of love, and she’s officially my favorite travel companion.

The proximity and placement of things I like to remember about this summer has become so vague. Did we do this three weeks ago or three months ago? How does the beginning of July feel like it was back in January? It’s disorienting but also strangely okay, like being tossed about in a tumble dryer of good, warm fuzzy things. I don’t recall losing track this much, in this way, ever before. It doesn’t seem like forgetfulness or aging, it feels like letting go; relaxing into life and experience.

But just in case, I asked Audrey to write it all down, all the things she remembered about the summer. Hers went from NYC to Austin to Maine to London to Oxford to London to Paris to London. I will do the same, although my travels were mostly inward treks, through feelings and thoughts and memories. When we exchange our summer musings, expressed in our own ways and words, I wouldn’t be surprised it summer feels finished, like writing a book.

Since starting this dispatch, we came back to London and enjoyed the last days of August, of togetherness. She is off to New York, I will be in Texas soon, dealing with the life stuff I left there, in storage, in my house, in my car. We celebrate Clem’s life in October, there is a probable-potential-likely—too early to be certain, but maybe—little KV solo (songs and stories) tour in November…in Canada. Yes. I’m as surprised as you may be. I like it. More on that next time. And this week, here in London, I help Belinda raise money for her wonderful charity Animal People Alliance. Info and tickets here.

I appreciate your support and encouragement, whether it is by opening and reading, sharing, subscribing, buying me a coffee, reading my book, listening to my music—however you show interest or give me a bit of your own valuable time means so much.

THANK YOU! xkv

Flowers

If I don’t have a few vases of flowers in the house, I’m probably heading out of town the next day, but even in that case, I usually leave some for the house/pet sitter. It’s an indulgence I enjoy immensely. I figure the money I don’t spend on booze, cigarettes or other unhealthy substances is well spent on beauty and color. Flowers do something for me that nothing else does. They bring me into the moment, into a nice space of appreciation. Of course, being cut and sold as a commodity is sort of a bummer, but like many things, I figure this enjoyment has to come with a sacrifice or price. Flowers in my home are like little sample handouts from the righteous, ravishing world of nature. Reminders of impermanence and the transience of beauty, how it changes with age, but even in a state of decay, there is still beauty.

I bought some peonies from the shop up the street, they were red explosions of vibrancy and they went on and on like this for weeks. And then they began to fade, lose their color, curl up a bit. Still gorgeous and I still have them, a month later.

What a commonplace and apt metaphor for life as an aging human. My occasional explosions of vibrancy might not pack the punch they used to, and I’m nowhere close to fading or curling up at the edges—but when it happens, I hope I can embrace it with the gracefulness of a peony.

Bouquet

Life has had more beauty and color than usual with the arrival of Audrey and a spectacularly random collection (or ‘bouquet’ if you’re partial to an ongoing analogy) of events keeping us entertained and making great use of London’s unparalleled public transport. In a little over a week we saw Austin heavy sludge riffcore gals Die Spitz, Neil Young and Cat Stevens in Hyde Park, comedienne Taylor Tomlinson, a workshop presentation of Thelma and Louise as a musical, and a play called Life, Death, and Wilko, about former Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson. All of these were cushy, great invites and made me happy I know so many unusually talented people willing to let me tag along and be in their world for a spell.

Die Spitz are the same age as Audrey, it was interesting backstage to see the dual relating—to her as a young woman also poised to take off into full on adulting life, and to me as musician who has pretty much seen and done it all. They are fearless and doing it right, ie, having the time of their lives. If you’re 22, touring in a band with a new record about to drop, and not having the time of your life—get out now I say, something’s wrong.

Thanks to the kindness of my friend Jeff who handles Neil’s guitars, we were tucked into a little private area in front of the sound mixing board at the Hyde Park BST concert, where 65,000 people were rocking out to a string of back to back Neil Young classics. I’ve seen him a number of times over the years, but there’s something especially moving seeing him at 79, looking all of his years but also having the time of his life. Every single song he’d turn away from the mic and take a few steps over to jam alongside his band mates, like we all do with our own bands. The fact that he has sustained in the music business so successfully, for so long—with a non-mainstream song catalog, a singular voice that’s not for everyone, and guitar playing that defies stylistically what most would consider “great” makes Neil Young one of the most inspiring artists in my book.

Being next to Audrey, singing along with thousands to Cat Stevens/Yusuf and Neil made for an unforgettable day. Being aware, in real time, as it’s happening, that I was in the midst of an experience that I’d likely cherish for the rest of my years made it all the sweeter.

Taylor Tomlinson is a 30-ish woman American comedienne who I wasn’t hip to—apparently I’m in the minority, she sold out 2 nights at the nearly 4000 seater Eventim Apollo Hammersmith. We laughed. A lot. She is really really funny, with a heavy loaded set of jokes poking fun at her rejected fundamentalist Christian upbringing.

My friend Neko Case has been working on the music to “Thelma and Louise” for years. What a great privilege it was to witness a workshop production—alongside Neko and original screenplay writer —now musical book writer—Callie Kourie. It was incredibly powerful and nuanced in ways that the excellent film couldn’t include and we loved it.

If you don’t know about Dr Feelgood, it’s worth a rabbit hole visit to find out. In short, the English band was the precursor bridge between rock n roll and punk rock, and guitarist Wilko (not to be confused with the band Wilco) influenced English new wavers and punks from Elvis Costello to the Stranglers to Gang of Four. Julien Temple made an acclaimed documentary called Oil City Confidential that I highly recommend. Here’s a clip of me sitting in with the cast band of the Wilko play—the first woman guest they’ve had!

Sitting in the gorgeous Leicester Square Theater, I was thunderbolted with an overwhelming desire to write a play and see it performed on that very stage. So. Maybe. Why not?

Seeds

My friend Jennie Vee, an in-demand and always working bass player, posted a series of things she’s learned over her career, or wished she’d been told at the beginning when she was starting out. It inspired me to do a similar thing, but instead of posting on Instagram as she did, I thought it might be better here, where readers can ask questions or comment. Thanks for the idea Jennie!

In no particular order of appearance as to importance, this is what comes to mind

• If you want to just be a player, play. Play all the time or as much as you possibly can. Practice to records, learn songs from You Tube, play with other people. If your dream is to be a musician in a band, the better you are, the more unique you are, the more versatile you are, the better band you will land in, and/or you will be doing your part to make the band better.

• Connect with your audience by being connected to your music. When you’re onstage, you are performing and unless you’re a virtuoso that people just want to watch execute Olympian feats of dexterity and knowledge, people want to see how the music and songs are affecting you. If you’re not connected to your music, if it doesn’t make you move, or smile or inspire you to relate something about it to the audience—maybe in an anecdote or story, they are not going to care.

• If you play guitar or bass, train yourself not to stare at your hand on the neck. It’s possible to just glance at your hand occasionally to make sure you’re moving to the right fret. I saw a band recently that had so much energy but it was all diluted—practically negated— because each of the players had their eyes and head turned towards their hand on the neck. It looks amateurish.

• If you want to be an artist, in addition to your instrument, write songs. Write lots of songs. It’s a numbers game. Eventually you might be good, and once you’re good you can hit great now and then.

• If you’re a singer/songwriter, the lyrics matter. A lot. Work at avoiding clichés, work at crafting, learn the rules and conventions of songwriting structure and then don’t be bound by them. Don’t ever let structure interfere with creativity and originality, but always be mindful of craft. Craft is what keeps it from being random and chaotic. But that can work too if it’s musical. Actually anything can work if an audience likes it or you’re just in it to entertain yourself.

• This follows, picks up at the previous, and is key: it is your judgment and choices, what you leave in , what you take out that defines your particular and unique style. This applies to playing a solo or writing a song. Or any art really. Everyone has the same notes, the same words to work with. Only you will make the choices you make.

• Back to lyrics: in rocknroll, It’s also ok, more than ok, to write dumb nonsensical words too. Bang A Gong. I Want to Fly Away. Any Led Zeppelin song. Champagne Supernova. I have to work hard sometimes at “dumbing down” lyrics because I tend to want everything to have literary flair, and sometimes, for some songs, it just needs to be simple and catchy. Brix and I just wrote a song together and we had to reign in our cleverness over and over again.

• Tone. I’ve gone on about that here before, it can’t be stressed enough. If you play guitar or bass, the tone really, really matters. If you don’t know what you want, what you like, how you want your instrument to sound, it might not be the right thing to be doing. Personally, for guitar, I go for what I like to call loud crunchy velvet. I’ve only found the sort of perfect tone that I prefer in vintage amps, but I hear lots of players getting great tone from non-vintage gear. With bass I like punchy round, like a hammer with foam around it.

• Don’t make a big deal out of it when you’ve made a mistake. It’s ok to laugh a little to yourself, glance at a bandmate and shrug or smile, but mostly, don’t acknowledge it. Don’t get rattled, don’t let it drag you down. Having said that, it can really suck to be in a band with another person who makes tons of mistakes. I don’t have much advice for that—if you mention it, they get more nervous and make more. If you don’t mention it they might think you don’t notice. See, after all this time, some situations are still confounding to me!

• Always keep your antenna out for inspiration, and write down your ideas. Don’t assume you’ll remember anything later on. It’s easiest to write or compose if you start with an inspiration. I’ve gotten inspiration from conversations; things people say. From reading; anything—books, articles, ads, billboards, cereal boxes. From TV show or movie dialogue. From hearing music on the radio or elsewhere and getting the lyric wrong, realizing it’s wrong but good and then using it! I’ve gotten inspired by melodies that pop in my head, by beats or rhythms — record on your phone.

  Well. that’s enough for now.

  

If you’d like to take a look at Audrey’s new substack, it’s here: Dream Logic will feature her poems, essays and stories. She has a beautiful way with words; so much so that sometimes when I’m writing I will think “how would Audrey describe or write this.” High praise and absolutely true.

Thank you for your patience, time, willingness to read, subscription support. I’m grateful for all of it.

Rocky and Gingerman are also taken aback by the UK heat, stuck in their fur coats and rendered sprawling and lazy. Rocky slept in front of the one fan I have last night.

Sweltering here isn’t comfortable, but other than that, I love it. I’m officially a Londoner and life has improved dramatically. Not that there was anything really wrong before, but now that I’ve moved it’s more apparent what was missing. The strands of community starting to weave through this new KV/UK v.2 life have made the prior year + months a stark contrast of alone-ness and isolation. I did cope, but things like spontaneous three hour dinners filled with conversation and laughter with newfound friends were not part of the deal.

There’s one other thing I can complain good naturedly about ( I think complaining good-naturedly is a very ok thing to do. Humorless whining and moaning is not)

In my new house, on the ground floor, there is a room with bi-folding doors which can be pushed open to a walled box of a garden area. The garden needs a lot of work, which I accomplish in fits and starts. This room is technically the dining room as it’s adjacent to the kitchen. It has wood floors and nice light, and I decided on the day I moved in that I would put my desk in here, get a desktop computer, and write a book in this very room.

When I wrote my first book, I designated a writing space by the kitchen, trading the breakfast table for a desk. In 2018, we moved and I did the same at the next house, putting a desk in the breakfast nook where I completed the third and final draft. Here in England, it seems I have created a pattern, or maybe have just fallen into the happy coincidence of a great writing room next to the kitchen. Cats are part of the deal.

The unexpected complainable thing is a baby expressing itself continually through the open windows and doors of the mystery home on the other side of my tall garden walls. These sounds are without consonants; long owhwwwws and oaahhhs punctuated by occasional shreiks. Most of the time it doesn’t sound either happy or unhappy—it just sounds. Loudly. As bad as this is, it’s worse when the baby is crying. It can cry a very long time. This is the sort of intrusive thing one doesn’t even consider until after you move in and find it. Like a rotten Easter egg.

This baby—complaining loudly with zero humor or good nature—is going to dictate when I write.

When I use perspective however, one of the best tools we humans have, right up there with opposable thumbs, I’m aware that being uncomfortably hot and subjected to a neighbor’s screaming baby are micro-dilemmas. Remember—good-natured complaining is allowed.

I talk about the next book too much. I say I have it mapped out in my brain, that I know the themes, the through-lines, that it is relatable. I say I need an outline and a proposal because it will be much easier to write if I know it will be published and why not, as that’s how I got to write my other book. I make a very good case for how great having a book is: one can count on press, book store appearances, hybrid music/book events, speaking opportunities, the possibility of television or film versions.

Talking about the book you’re gonna write and not writing it isn’t a good approach. It’s what separates the wannabes from the “be’s” or the “are’s.” 1

With music, there’s not anything one can count on, no certain paths from the product to activity. You can spend a lot of time and energy making something out of nothing, which is very rewarding as a process, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to anything. I make music knowing that it’s possible only a handful of people will hear my song or record, no matter how good it is. This has been the story of my music career outside of the Go-Go’s, which is fine—I’m a songwriter and musician regardless of the results of that creativity. I would do it no matter what. Many years ago I read Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet” and understood immediately the nature of what and why I do when it comes to music.

Pretty sure everyone in the arts is familiar with this text, but if not, here’s the key part:

You ask whether your verses are good. You ask me. You have asked others before. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are disturbed when certain editors reject your efforts. Now (since you have allowed me to advise you) I beg you to give up all that. You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now.

This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer…

And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple, "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it.

If you are not sure, you are not called. That may seem harsh, but the reality of the arts requires that we follow our calling no matter what others think, or even what we believe ourselves. When art is simply what we must do to stay true to ourselves, it is a calling.

And if out of this turning inward, out of this absorption into your own world, verses come, then it will not occur to you to ask anyone whether they are good verses. Nor will you try to interest magazines in your poems: for you will see in them your fond natural possession, a fragment and a voice of your life.

It’s a daunting, and challenging take that Rilke is suggesting here, and arguable as well. There’s been plenty of one hit wonders across the board; people who didn’t “have to” do it, ie, have the calling—yet still produced a work of meritorious genius.

Most people think the takeaway sentiment is the “if you must do it, you are an artist” line, but the part that gets to me is ”for you will see in them…a fragment and voice of your life.”

Words, music, art, performances—they stay long after our bodies have retired into dust and our spirit/soul/essence/energy moves on to whatever form it takes next.

This summer is going to be about balance: putting in the time to conjure my life’s fragments and voice. Making the time to develop friends and relationships. Taking the time to tend to myself physically, see the doc, see the dentist, eat well, exercise. All this is slotted in between deliveries and furniture building and handyman help and buying all the things one needs in a house, and all of it is harder without order and feeling settled.

All of it is harder while still grieving. The other big focus this summer is Clem’s ongoing needs. This isn’t a chore, and keeps him present for me and it matters for reasons I can’t even articulate. All I can easily convey is that he deserves it, whether he’s alive or gone. We are trying to plan and work on everything from his internment to events honoring him. I have a lot of work to do on reviewing the final draft of his book we were able to complete last fall.

Until there is a collective commiseration of his passing, it’s been like having a big box of grief sitting on a shelf waiting to be unpacked and put away but there’s no place to put it all. A weird emotional parallel to the physical stuff I’ve got sitting around waiting to be dealt with. I know grief isn’t ever really put away, but this lack of closure, due to a myriad of malfunctioning moving parts, has been an obstacle.

The other day I visited St Albans and sat in the park with some of my family. My little 2nd cousin Billy had collected some nice broken tree sticks and I was showing him some basic drum beats with them. Anne, my Aunt, checked her phone and it pushed up a photo like they do sometimes—we were stunned that it was a very old shot of Billy’s mom—my cousin, when she was a little girl—along with her baby sister, my aunt Anne, my grandmother, me...and Clem.

I’d taken him to St Albans to hang out with my family in the summer of 1988 and sent her a scan of the photo several years ago.

If that’s not strange enough, this photo was taken in the same park, near where we were now enjoying a beautiful afternoon. We are sitting in the grass, doing drum beats on the ground with broken sticks and a photo with Clem in the same park 37 years earlier is the one that her phone pushes up.

He’s in my thoughts and these little things might happen, things that I try and attach some special meaning to. But the actuality that is so hard to accept is that all I have with him is the past. No more present, no future.

Platitudes don’t help one bit.

IF you’ve read All I Ever Wanted you will know that I became a musician —not a bassist at first, but a musician, a guitar player, a teenaged girl in 1973 who wanted nothing else but to be in a band—after seeing Suzi Quatro on Top of the Pops when I was visiting that same Grandma in the photo above.

Suzi Quatro was as rock star as it gets. She started playing rock n’ roll when she was 14 years old, asking her dad for a bass and starting the Pleasure Seekers with her sisters. In 1964. She was renowned through the UK, Europe and Australia with lots of hit songs, millions of records sold, and non-stop touring—but became known in US primarily as a character on “Happy Days” Leather Tuscadero. This is kind of a drag, in that it’s the role that most Americans associate with Suzi Quatro, when it was really more of a footnote to a massive career.

I’ve met Suzi once, in Austin, at a music convention, and I appeared in “Suzi Q” a 2019 documentary. But last week, after several postpones, I went to her home in the country, an early 16th century manor house, and spent a long afternoon really connecting with the woman who had such an impact on the direction my life took.

At 75 years old, Suzi is still touring most of the time—she was set to leave two days later. We’ve seen blues guys get old and we’re used to country singers and jazz singers of retirement age. But to see rock and roll people getting old? It’s hard for all of us who love and play this music that’s so strongly associated with our youth. I’m grateful to see her working. People like Suzi are not stopping just because they’re older. Shes one of a handful who can normalize rocking and aging for women in their 70’s, which is where I hope to be in the 2030’s. So weird to think about.

We hit it off; it was a solid and wild bookend to my own life in music which began—in my dreams anyway—in England over 50 years ago. Funny old life and world innit?

Next time I will tell you about my interactions with Carol Kaye, an incredible pioneering bassist and guitarist who played on thousands of records—the soundtrack to my youth really, all through the 60’s; TV shows, songs, soundtracks with iconic, genius memorable bass parts.

Yesterday I did a filmed interview for Carol’s upcoming 2025 Rock Hall induction, they will show it as part of the ceremony—and I absolutely respect and admire her talent. In fact I advocated for her inclusion since I got in the Rock Hall in 2021. We’ve not met in person but have had email discussions dating back to 2015. The last and final one was last night.

Let me just leave it at this for now: Carol has not mastered the art of good-natured complaining.

If you got this far…thank you for opening, reading, subscribing, sharing, word of mouthing, commenting, re-stacking, gifting—however you participate in this writer/reader contract we share I am grateful for both your interest, support, and time.

Around 2020, the time of Covid, there were six people who knew me thoroughly, got me, understood me, appreciated me. Who thought the world of me. Six who loved me as much as anyone could hope to be loved.

Now there are two. I don’t mean for this to sound as though I’m dismissive or bereft with my two people. To have had six for several years was like trillionaire level of rich, rich in love. I’m not poor with having lost two-thirds of my six: being loved at all is the best life has to offer. Still, it’s noticeable.

One was a boyfriend I split up with, he didn’t die—but he loved me, and he understood me. We were in love for five years, it counted. And yet now there’s no love where there once was. That loss, at the time, was minimal in the scope of love loss. Besides, I had five more people who loved me deeply and completely.

Now three of them, encompassing major decades of love, are gone, via death.

It’s said that the “love remains.” It’s eternal, forever, transcending death. Maybe. But abstractions are intellectual pursuits, and love as an abstraction is a poor replacement for a physical presence in this earthly plane. We get our photos, videos, memories and mementos. No eyes, no ears, no voice, no body.

Johnny Thunders says it best.

Isn’t it something else, to be really known by another person? To be understood? And to really know and understand them back. To know they will respond in the way that is so necessary when we reach out with a confidence or a problem. To accept their quirks and neuroses. To find the same things interesting or funny.

I think about Clem. It’s been seven weeks. My thoughts through out the days and nights are held in a reticulation of the things I want to forget and the things I never want to forget. It all weaves together in patterns that are an aesthetic affront. One day I hope the things I wish to remember about him—expressions and mannerisms, the way he walked, spoke, played, ran, drove, smiled, laughed, the kindnesses and checking in, the everything of him—in time, I hope remembering all this will overgrow all that I wish to forget. The sickness and process of dying. The reduction.

It will happen, it happened with my mom (2022 gone) it happened with Denny (2021 gone.)

Isn’t it something else, these people-shaped holes that we carry around like phantom backpacks?

Surely there will be new people who come to know me and get me and love me. And if you are here, reading this, I think we get each other. Writing reveals the writer and when a reader connects with a writer, this is something. It tells us that we are capable of being understood, of being “gotten.” …Right?… 'She has articulated exactly what I feel, what I think.’

Reading and writing are powerful tools of connection, and connection is the foundation that love needs to flourish. If we are able to connect, we are able to love.

AI overview says: To love someone means to experience a profound feeling of attachment, care, and affection for another individual. AI goes on to describe the different ways of expressing love, whether platonic, romantic, or familial. The components of love are listed as commitment, respect, intimacy.

I define love in a very pure way. Love for me means wanting, above all, the happiness and well being of my loved one. Even if it means I am not a part of their happiness and well being. Even if I don’t agree with their choices, how they live life. This is also the definition of unconditional love, which is not the kind of love I’d have in a romantic relationship. I want all those other things—commitment, respect, intimacy with that kind of love. I have conditions I want and expect to be met.

This has become easy enough for me, because if I don’t get those things, I won’t be “in love.” I used to think you couldn’t choose who you love; you either do or you don’t. I even put that line in a song (Getting By) about my dad. Who I didn’t think loved me. Spoiler: I found out he did, in a beautiful, sad way as he was dying (2018, gone.)

These days, I believe that love is reciprocal, it flows between two individuals. If one person claims to be in love with someone who doesn’t love them back, I would assert that it’s not love that the “in love” person is feeling. Obsession, fixation, attraction, desire, admiration maybe. A display of deficiency that becomes a character aberration whereby one doesn’t believe at a core level they are lovable, and so they stay in a hopeless state of faux love for a person who does not love them.

If it were a true and pure love, one would want the target of those feelings to have a fulfilled, reciprocal, nurtured love, and would feel contentment and happiness if the object of their love found it elsewhere.

The worst scenario of love isn’t being in love with a person who doesn’t love you back. The worst scenario of love is loving someone who is unhappy. When love is pure and unconditional and we desire nothing but the well being of our loved one, and when that love is reciprocal in any platonic, romantic or familial form, it becomes a purgatorial pain to witness the unhappiness or suffering of your loved one.

Most of us have experienced this most unfortunate pathway love can take. We’ve loved people who are incapable of being happy, who cannot take the actions to change their circumstances that cause their unhappiness. We’ve loved people who are addicts, who are self-destructive, who have mental illnesses. We have loved people who are fundamentally unwell. And yet, we cannot choose to not love them because of their failings or their illness. Perhaps I was right in the first place, you can’t choose to love or not love. Or maybe it’s both, depending on how you choose to react.

Love in it’s most expansive, unconditional form would have to be my love for Audrey, who graduated in three ceremonies over Mother’s Day weekend. There was the honors recognition, the college within, Newhouse School, and the entire Syracuse class of 2025. There’s nothing like your little baby/toddler/child/pre-teen/teenager becoming a young woman college graduate to make you wonder where and how decades of time go. In this same blip of decades, I will be—if I’m extraordinarily lucky—in my late 80’s. I can tell you it’s possible to be on fire with love and pride and yet still have a whole other fire lit under your ass saying: you better get with it.

When I first started “the Direction of Motion” I was writing a song called “Hurry” about this exact topic. It’s an absurdity that I haven’t finished it. Maybe I don’t love it enough to prioritize. See how love can direct energy and focus? I’d say it’s the boss, but earning a living is probably the boss of us all.

Now I want to pull the song off the hard drive where it’s stored and see if I can make it lovable.

I love how I was able to earn a living the past few weeks, playing with the Go-Go’s. Our shows were incredible time capsules of joy. Ragged and rocking, filled with “we are not trying to win anyone over” energy. We are what and how we are and you either love us or you don’t. I also love how Belinda has evolved into this very proper and professional singer, beautiful and elegant (we call her fancy lady) and yet we are still this scruffy, raw band. She gives us a bit of polish, we give her some rough edges, and it makes a new version of our old band that’s just sort of perfect.

I love the Four Seasons in San Francisco where we stayed for three nights, where I slept like royals must sleep, in smooth, cool, wrinkle-less, hi-thread count luxury. In a bizarre and unexplainable coincidence, as I sat in the lobby with a Nor Cal friend of Clem, now my friend too, another friend of his from the east coast happened to walk in. The three of us were joined by Go-Go’s tour manager Cheryl, who I met from Clem and Blondie, and for nearly two hours we had the little wake that we were all missing. We laughed, told stories, remembered our beloved friend.

Much of this summer will be spent working on his legacy and celebration of life, which of course I’m honored to be involved in. I’m also serving as proxy Clem on the last read through of his book, overseeing the final copyedits. The rest of my summer will be spent on my own long overdue book proposal and writing new songs for Psycher to record in October.

San Francisco treated us very well. The Warfield is a wonderful venue, it’s intimate and very rocknroll. Seeing so many fans who have grown older alongside us is a new element to being in this band, a startling pleasure. There were faces at all of the shows that I have seen out in our crowd now for 30 and 40 years. It prompted me to say from the stage once or twice, Hey! We are all still here, and we’re holding up!

I can assure you, when starting out, wanting to make a career and life in the music business, it never ever occurred to me that this would be part of the sparkly magic sprinkling over our concerts.

Hooboy, can’t say I love Las Vegas. The city gets 40+million visitors a year so there’s plenty who feel differently. I should caveat that to say that I’ve stayed with friends who live there, in normal neighborhoods, very Phoenix or Albuquerque, quite fine. But most of my time in Las Vegas has been for work, and that means big faux fancy suites in massive casino hotels, walking for miles through zombie casino energy every time I venture out of my room. The Pearl at the Palms though, is one of the best, most loose Vegas venues we’ve played at. They aren’t strict with security and the show had very close to the same rock energy of a non-casino venue. Again with the faces. I name checked quite a few, an old Vegas trick, usually saved for celebrity shout outs.

Cruel World was the supreme show, as expected. If you aren’t on social media, more power to you, I salute you, but there are countless photos and accolades and videos and recaps and reviews. It was the best. I didn’t meet or see near as many faves as I thought I would, with the notable exception of a few Garbage pals and a quick Aimee Mann hello.

A consolation was getting to chat with Nick Cave on the flight back to England the next day. Funny that the airline lounge accomplished what a backstage artist area teeming with exceptionals didn’t.

HERE is something I love! My friend Zach Person, who some of you may recall I recorded a single with and released in January 2024, surprised me with this rendition of “Vacation.” It’s amazing how he re-worked it. And even more interesting, he used the original, pre Go-Go’s, Textones version of the song to inspire his vision of how my song could be interpreted. Thank you Zach!!!

Thank you for subscribing, opening, reading, commenting—however you are here, I appreciate your interest and time.

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From the sky perspective there are all these curiosities on the ground, ones I’ll never know where they are geographically or what they are. I’m still remembering a large body of water I saw about seven minutes from Heathrow last week— there were things zipping around, leaving clearly lined visible wakes—too fast to be a duck, too small to be a boat. What were those? I’ll never know.

I prefer aisle seats but with a window view, it’s a treat to get the rare perspective from above. Perfectly symmetrical circular silos in New Mexico and the Midwest—in my mind, missile launch sites or alien spaceship landing fields. In SoCal, the sprawling groundscapes are splattered with turquoise and aqua swimming pools; ovals, rectangles, kidneys. The view morphs into crisscrossing freeways with tiny ant-cars going in all directions, and then it’s just an endless city spilling over the curve of the earth. A window seat over Manhattan showing the vastness of Central Park flanked by precisely placed grids of avenues is also an unforgettable sight.

It turns out there’s a Reddit sub for flight simulator enthusiasts with several thread questions and discussions about what the hell they are seeing on the ground. This is where I found out the circles are center pivoting irrigation fields. They look like art.

The bigger picture is that wonder and curiosity are beautiful traits; instinctive, lively attributes we humans share with other mammals. I mean other species are information seekers, yes, but not at the level of enriching one’s self. Curiosity brings that windfall gift of thinking about something other than my enriched self. It’s a brain chatter spigot, turned off. Curiosity and wonder are a through line to youth and our inherent nature as children.

I suppose age, loss and decay are inevitable, and all the more reason to cherish what we can hang onto.

Speaking of mammals & people..the idea of “negative bias” has been popping up here and there, in one of those funny life things that sometime happen where themes recur. Do you know what I mean? Like someone will mention a person, idea, place, whatever…and then the same thing keeps appearing in conversations or sightings, or just repeating however. I always notice, and like, when that happens.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, negative bias is the human tendency to take in the bad with more impact and weight than we do the positive. Back in the day, when fight/flight was pretty much a 24/7 deal for us, it was a matter of survival to be attuned to danger and threats. It’s believed that evolution didn’t eradicate that hardwired technique of getting through the day—instead it modified and became that oddity whereby one fixates on the one bad review amongst hundreds of good reviews, or is bothered more by the person who dislikes you than the many who adore you.

Negative mindsets in general are best avoided. I’m going to share with you a very simplistic action I took many years ago—it still blows my mind how effective it was. I think a therapist suggested it. Place a rubber band around wrist. Every time you have a negative thought, pull it taut and give yourself a thwack.* Behavior modification at it’s simplest. I did this for a few months and it absolutely altered my thinking processes. I popped myself whenever I noticed judgemental thoughts, negative assumptions, those “with my luck, blablabla” inner dialogs. Anytime I noticed negativity. Sometimes I think I might be due for a tune up with the rubber band.

*this isn’t medical advice, ‘tis anecdotal and not meant to diagnose nor treat mental health disorders or chemical imbalances.

I’ll write some Coachella scoop but there’s not a lot to report. The shows were pretty much professional performances—by that I mean it didn’t sound great on stage. We didn’t get sound checks and the crew doesn’t have loads of time to set up and dial stuff in. If I’m going to have a really great gig, and really have fun onstage, it has to sound fantastic. I have to be able to hear everyone’s vocals and instruments at the right levels, everything blended. My guitar or bass, and the drums, have to sound incredible. When it sounds great, I have the best time: soaring and thoughtless and connected to the present and the music and the audience and my band mates.

When it doesn’t sound good onstage, I’m a professional. For one thing, I assume that what’s being heard out front is better than what I’m hearing. For another thing, I don’t complain or try and get it right. That’s a vibe killer. I mean if there’s absolutely nothing in the monitor I’d have to tell a tech to put me in there, but it would be done quickly, between songs, no stopping the show. Being a professional means playing my best, relying on my knowledge of the songs and focusing on locking in, finding the sweet spots—even if it’s not ideal. And it means looking like it is ideal. I owe it to the audience to put out an energetic, competent performance, no matter what I’m going through inwardly. Afterwards, if it wasn’t great for me, I let it go, I forget about it.

When it’s ideal, when it’s great, I don’t forget about it. I’m high for a long time—even a week to ten days of high. That’s a lot of high from 70 minutes of activity. Really good ROI. This can come from a club gig or a huge concert, doesn’t matter. If it sounds great on stage and I play great and I’m getting the same sense from all the musicians in the band—this is the big reward, this is why I say I’d do it for free. It’s fun and powerful and connected and it’s not like anything else at all—satisfying, and proud, and complete.

So neither the Roxy club date or Coachella was that for me. The second show, weekend 2 at Coachella, there was a somewhat better stage sound, but nothing near like I want it to be. The reception and accolades for all the shows were phenomenal, which is another good reason to let it go—I can get residual goodies from hearing how great everyone thought it was, and while that’s not quite as good as having an ideal sound onstage, it’s something. It also helps knowing that there’s three more to come. Any or all of them might be that magic. And if not, it’s still a great job.

I can’t imagine the money that’s spent on everything at Coachella. The catering tent for artists and crew is Gatsby level incredible; non-stop buffet lines of delicious food, masses of tables spread out like a canteen, and decorated like a top tier elite wedding with foliage and flowers and inflatables and lanterns. Same with the artist area, which is a bunch of inter-connected enclaves of star-trailers with outdoor sofas, tables, umbrellas. I’m sure I was surrounded at both places by Spotify’s top streaming artists, but I didn’t recognize one single person. Charli XCX could’ve come sat on my lap and I wouldn’t know. At least at Cruel World I will know if Nick Cave is next to me at catering or if Shirley Manson sits on my lap.

That earlier landing returned me to a home I will be leaving in less than a month. I’ve already started the detaching process, I no longer look for the charm or reasons to love it here. While I was in LA, in the midst of losing Clem and playing Go-Go’s shows, I rented a house in London, courtesy of a couple new pals who went and looked for me and sent videos. Kind of reckless, but I felt very unsettled knowing I had to move and nowhere to move into, and I’d looked at dozens in the months before.

Yesterday I went to check out my new home for the first time and was a bit underwhelmed by the house and overwhelmed by having to move as soon as I get back in May. Being underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time is as draining and exhausting as one might imagine. When the current tenant told me I’d have to remove the reception room windows to get my sofa into the house I was ready to walk. But I’m committing, and given the way time slides by in a blink, I’ll be looking and moving again in a year. Where, I don’t know. The direction of motion indeed.

Clem continues to be in my life, through friends of his that I didn’t know who have reached out to me, and are now my friends. But losing big chunks of my supply of close, history filled, reliable and certain love is a jolt. I had a pretty good supply for awhile. And it occurs to me I will not live long enough to build those kind of 40+ year relationships again.

There’s work to do. I hope readers here are hanging in there and managing in these very uncertain and unprecedented times. I’m going to operate as though we will land on our feet and regain balance! Thank you as always, for your time, interest, and subscriptions which are of great support to me.

I woke up from that dream shaken at how much I’d felt it, how little solace it gave me and how oddly pointed it was to pierce a simple, basic aspect of life: feeling good. Feeling good is minimal, it’s absence of pain and suffering, it’s being able to feel like yourself, familiar. Feeling good is one of the cruelest thefts of cancer and treatment.

A week after the dream, I was frantically trying to arrange an air ticket change so that I could arrive two days earlier than I was booked to Los Angeles. Two days more time was worth whatever it cost to change. I’ve never been too hung up on money. To me, time is infinitely more valuable. Money spent that saves me time or gives me more time is money well spent. Across the board. The greatest thing money can do is buy time. And I wanted all the time I could have with my best friend.

His doctor, the one I arranged for him to meet at the beginning, who I begged to take a look at his case, and who Clem decided was the right doctor to oversee his care, had determined that treatment was no longer an option and that the next best step was hospice care. I got into LA, climbed into the bed next to him and when he woke up, I told him. It had to be me. I’d been protective and honest, positive and realistic, and a valiant advocate throughout the illness, both away and during my many visits to be there for him.

“Fuck,” he said. “So I’m dying?”

“I think so, but not today,” I said. He went back to sleep.

Things went fast after that. The changes happened on Wednesday, the next Saturday, mid-week, the following weekend. My rehearsals with the Go-Go’s started, 4-5 hours each day, but I spent mornings and evenings, as much as I could, and our little team of Clem support made sure he was looked after. The end was so swift, and unexpected—yes, even with terminal illness, they can tell when it is imminent, and it wasn’t. It happened sooner than expected, but was peaceful, and easy, and the nurse we’d gotten to stay that night told me she was sure he’d waited until I was there, laying next to him like I had so many times.

Last month we watched all the Godfather movies together. The last book he read was “Sonny Boy”—the Al Pacino memoir. That was a few months ago. The last song he listened to was “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed. That was about a week before he died. Cancer took his interest and passion for all the things he’d always loved. It’s hard to have interest in much if you don’t feel good. Cancer did not take his pride. No one deserves to be sick, but Clem monumentally did not deserve it. He refused to be known as a sick man. I honor his privacy by not discussing any further this disease or what he went through. This is about Clem as I knew him.

Clem was spectacular. When I think of him, I think of his life force: the energy, vitality, stamina, and charisma that he embodied as effortlessly as breathing. I think of his joy and passion when he played drums. I think of how devastatingly good looking and elegant he was, without an ounce of self-consciousness or doubt about his appearance ever. I think of his boyish smiles, his ease and confidence in every setting and situation, his conviction and certainty in his own taste and preferences. I think of his devotion to music and his friends.

Things you wouldn’t know unless you knew him, things I’d like you to know: Clem was tolerant and open-minded, which naturally put him on the left side of politics. He paid attention, watched the news, read the paper, voted. He didn’t pretend to know more than he knew, and was curious and interested in listening to anyone he could learn from. He didn’t care for gossip and had little interest in people’s private lives. He never made jokes at other people’s expense and was steadfastly loyal. He treated his friends who were renowned and famous exactly how he treated his friends who were neither.

His interests tended to revolve around music, pop culture, art, rock history, records and recording, movies, books, style and fashion. He loved the music trades and magazines, saving hundreds of them because they had articles he thought were too important to toss. It was a continual surprise how much he knew about films and bands and records, it was always fresh, I never heard him repeat the same information.

He was complicated and simple at the same time. He was generous and frugal at the same time. He was shy and humble in equal parts as he was arrogantly confident about his place in his chosen world. Clem was very resistant to change, he didn’t “pivot,” but was also very adventurous and independent. He spent a lot of time on his own, more than anyone I know. I often worried that he was lonely, but instead of making him depressed, his willingness to be alone seemed to make him stronger.

Whether on the road or at home, he never took his health for granted and worked hard to make sure his strength and stamina to play his best was in peak form. Clem would call me from the treadmill at the gym, usually around the second hour of his run, and not even be out of breath. It was a basic routine for him to spend a couple hours running, an hour on weights, an hour in the sauna, then go home and swim for an hour. One Christmas I gave him a basket full of health supplements, a fortune’s worth of supplies of Sun Chorella and vitamins, and it might have been the best gift I ever came up with.

When he wasn’t alone, he absolutely loved showing you the places he’d discovered or knew about. A year ago, last March, shortly after I’d moved to England, we spent a day walking, for hours. 1000s of steps, from Notting Hill to Kensington to Covent Garden to Soho, ducking into the Gore Hotel where the Stones threw their Beggar’s Banquet release party, to the Colony Room Bar where Francis Bacon and a retinue of outsiders and elites debauched and drank through the night, to the spot where Bowie was shot for the Ziggy Stardust album cover. We ended up at Claridges where he got high tea comped for us. He knew places and facts and history in cities all through North America, Australia, and Europe, and was the best guide and exploring partner. He had friends or knew people everywhere. Over the years of our love and friendship, we traveled to Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Mexico and Jamaica together. Each trip is a vividly saturated memory.

I understood him perfectly and accepted him unconditionally. I knew the source of his discipline and need for control, and why the various encountered life traumas that challenged his well being could sometimes elicit a fit of anger. I cherished his laughter, his smiles, and his unwavering support. I knew without reservation that he would always be there for me.

He was terrified to tell me why, after all, he wouldn’t be able to be there for me always. He knew how lost I would feel. I don’t think he knew how fiercely I would insist on being there for him, flying back and forth across an ocean and continent to do my best to ease and soften the tragic fate that had randomly chosen him.

I think I fell in love with Clem the very first time I saw him play the drums. It might have been the Mike Douglas show, circa 1978. He played a red sparkly kit, wore a black suit, white shirt, black tie, that jet black mop top of hair framing this angelically handsome baby face. I couldn’t wait for the camera to wander off Debbie for a bit and find him. Notably, the camera found him more than anyone else in the band. I was smitten, like countless other girls and boys, over Clem Burke. By the end of 1984, we were in love, and stayed that way, although the shape of the love would change from romantic to a deep familial bond and friendship. We were each other’s brother and sister, two only children who longed for more family, more connection.

It was Clem that made me start really paying attention to the drummer in a band. As a rocknroll fan, I certainly knew who the drummer was in my favorite bands; Keith Moon, Bonham, Charlie, Ringo—but I don’t think I ever really focused on their playing until Clem’s playing showed me what the drums did for a song, for a vibe, for a band. Maybe another drummer could talk better about his particular style and technique, but I know enough to say some things. There’s talent, and there’s sensational, singular combinations of more than talent. I know the primary reason he commanded attention is because he was having fun, the best, most consummate kind of fun. His head bopping and shaking, completely absorbed in the music, completely committed to giving the moment; the other musicians, the audience, the singer, the song—everything he’s got to give. He could play thunderously and tastefully over the top, while injecting enough restraint to keep the song contained in its song walls rather than becoming a mere vehicle for his drumming. He created signature hooks, he made mediocre songs into good songs and good songs into great songs. He did all of this with a smooth, fluent and completely innate showmanship.

Watching Clem play the drums was almost a metaphysical thing—he was there in his own world, oblivious to you and simultaneously aware that he was performing. You might know nothing about him, who he was as a person, but watching him, even standing apart, at a distance, you were a part of his reality and existence. It was more than watching, it was intangible and formed of something fundamental and stripped away. It was bearing witness to the essence of a person, and it was hard to look away.

Two days after he died, I had the first Go-Go’s shows in a very long time where it was all five us. In 2022, we played a series of gigs with Clem subbing for Gina. He liked to say he was the best looking guy in the band. For Coachella, Audrey came out, which gave me more distraction. But returning alone to LA, the first of what I suspect will be many tidal waves of loss hit me. Yesterday, the grief was a hollow, ravaged hole and I was reduced to being just the edges around it.

Normally, we would have had long, involved discussions about the gigs, both the Roxy and Coachella. Normally, he wouldn’t have been at either of my shows because he would've been out of town, playing with one of the many bands he enjoyed playing with. Clem rarely stayed home. If he got off a months-long Blondie tour, he might be back for a week before leaving to play with another band, at a whole different level. I’ve emulated that ethic in many ways; being a working musician, not being a snob or thinking I was too successful or “above” a gig. I had a kid and pets and other interests and wasn’t in demand the way he was, but I’ve never stopped playing or being in bands and that’s because of him. It seemed like every gig I might get to play, he had already done, and he’d fill me in, whether it was a pub in Wales or a theater in Detroit or a festival like Coachella—the big one that I don’t get to discuss with him. It’s unimaginable to me that I will not be texting, video chatting and talking with him again.

Clem has done so many things that were important and kind and intended solely to support me and help me. I wish I’d made a list and made sure he knew I knew and recognized and appreciated each and every effort. I’m pretty sure I let him know at the time, but seen all together, it becomes a testament to what we meant to each other. In return, he knew from experience that I would drop everything and come to him when he needed me.

Me being in England is heartbreakingly Clem skewed; in many ways I’m living a chapter of my life that is a mirror of one he wanted and planned for himself. I’ve rented a house where he dreamed of living, I joined the gang at Chelsea Arts Club, where he hoped to belong, several of his friends I met from him are becoming my good friends. I recently loved a lunch at Soutine in St John’s Wood, and was told by my companion that it was one of Clem’s favorite places.

He is everywhere for me and always will be. I hope he knows that for so many of us, he will always be. Clem would have been astounded at the outpouring of love and respect and affection that flooded the press and media at his passing. He knew how good he was, he knew who his friends were, but I don’t think he knew how far and wide he’d made an impact. Equal or greater to the accolades about his talent was the repeated and continual collective praise of how he interacted with people; from talking with a drummer he’d just met at a gig while helping load their drums into the car to friendly chats while waiting in line next to a fan, to showing up and jamming with a local band. I read the accounts and stories for days and wasn’t surprised by any of it. He will be a featured character in my ongoing story, the future one I intend to write, the one I hope to live.

When I wrote “All I Ever Wanted” I wanted two things; for my book to be honest and real, and for it to be interesting and well written. I had no idea that Clem would emerge as one of the heroes of my book, but that was the outcome. Hundreds of people have told me that reading about him, and us, made his passing much more of a loss. It was already a magnitude loss, to have one of the best musicians in one of the most iconic and trailblazing bands of our generation die. It softens the harshness to think my story brought him into people’s hearts and minds in a more fully realized way than being a known or favorite musician did. I vow to continue, to the best of my ability, to make sure he is always remembered and known. Not just his legacy as a drummer, as a member of Blondie and other bands, but as a really good man and the best friend anyone could ever hope to have. I hope wherever he is, he is feeling good today.

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• Catastroflourish?When one is experiencing catastrophe while flourishing?

• Disprosperpair? That’s a combination of despair and prospering.

• BotWot? Audrey thought of this one…acronym for “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Probably my favorite.

I suppose that’s why there isn’t an existing word, no one can think of one.

I’m in Los Angeles to rehearse with the Go-Go’s, preparing for some high profile and exciting shows. This would normally be fun, but it’s coinciding with experiencing the final times of my beloved. It’s beyond stressful; extreme relentless anxiety and heartbreak. Bearing witness, helping. The only thing that soothes this shattered heart is when our little team of helpers rallies and we all become temporary heroes during the many crises and phases of this process.

I’m familiar with grief. Rough waters to navigate, but the inevitable cost of love. I’ve battered through mazes of doctors, procedures, hospitals, ERs, skilled nursing and hospice care with an innate persistence, determination, and common sense—attributes that I never realized the full value of until they were applied in this realm. My mom’s massive brain tumor, my dad’s eight month slide into the great beyond in 2018, my beloved Denny Freeman in 2021, my mom’s death in 2022.

And now this. I am strong and crumbling at once. I miss the calm place in the middle, it seems like everything is presenting as extreme duality opposites.

Fender made me a bass to my specs, it’s gold metal flake, very large flakes, so it’s gaudy and yet still sort of elegant. It plays like a dream, with a Jazz neck, which are more slim than Precision necks and suit my hands better, but I prefer the Precision body and knobs. I’m very good at doing this gig, so every day I get that familiar satisfaction of doing a job well; I think we all know and enjoy that feeling. It’s a small recompense for what comprises the rest of the day. The usual band camaraderie and jokes—always a high octane dose with the Go-Go’s— don’t penetrate the melancholy, but my own competence—which I value so very highly, is a salve. Seeing Audrey, who is taking a weekend break from her final month at university to see her mom play Coachella, will be full medicine. I love her more than anything, and her life is launching and expanding. It’s a reasonable hope that her presence will even the scales of my spirit. More balance, that sweet spot in between the swings.

Psycher tracks are done and while I wish it were all systems are go, drummer Linda Pitmon is in high demand, as is bassist Cáit O’Riordan. They both have upcoming records and tours so we don’t reconvene until the fall. Speaking of “the fall” Brix and I—(see what I did there?) will continue writing together in person while collecting song input and ideas from our band mates. Not much we can do with only four songs anyway, and we aren’t interested in cobbling together a set using past material we are associated with.

This band is something. Maybe this is why I moved to England? I don’t know, but for my subscribers, here’s a little Psycher sample to get psyched about. The first clip has me on lead vocals. It’s called “I’m On Red” —a play on words for that annoying deal when you text someone and see that it’s been “read” but not replied to. Leave it to me to figure out at age 66 that I can pull off a vocal like this. It ends with Brix and I trading guitar riffs in our very different styles. The next clip features Brix on lead vox, me on backing vocals. It’s called “Into the Sun” and I think of it as our festival song because when I hear it I can imagine a festival of people singing along to the anthem refrain—which I’m not including, sorry! The last clip is my solo from same song—you also get a glimpse of the powerhouse drumming of Linda. These aren’t even the best songs of the four. Very anxious to create more with these women, they are all excellent players and people. I’ve done the band thing long enough to know when it’s got the x factor.

I’m in a cozy AirBnB I found in the valley—my usual stay places are un-stayable, and the band is picking up the tab. It’s a long time for me to be in LA, the longest I’ve been gone from my England home. I realize that once again, it’s that experience of two things at once—comfortably familiar in the city I lived in for 27 years, spending terrible time with one of my dearest and oldest beloveds, spending good time with a band I have played with on and off since I was 22 years old. But also longing for my return, wanting to nurture and cultivate the life I’ve started growing 5000 miles away. This present is very past-ish.

Most of us I think admonish ourselves to stay present, be in the moment. I struggle with it. I’m often imagining things that are going to be happening, scripting it out in my head. What I will be wearing, saying, doing. I suppose it’s just trying to have some control, or maybe it’s just what they call monkey brain, or perhaps it keeps me sane to focus on something other than what I’d like to avoid thinking about. Which is a lot. There are a whole lot of things I do not wish to think about.

Anyway. I need to tell you all about THIS. It’s a substack series of live streams happening from loads of us music ‘stackers. We were asked to come up with something to live stream and I decided to see if the Go-Go’s would let me give my subscribers a backstage, behind the scenes peek next Weds at the Roxy. Turns out the Substack platform/ app has a great capability for this and even a special setting to make music sound good. I’ll launch my live stream at 8:15 PST, before we go onstage, show what’s happening, and capture a couple songs. Hopefully it won’t go wrong, that time before showtime is always a little hectic and crazy, but I’m going to try.

This is the end of this one. If you’re new here as a subscriber, I promise my dispatches aren’t always me me me, I actually write much of the time rather than relay what I’m going through or up to. So bear with me in this strange space I’m occupying right now, truly the worst thing I’ve experienced side by side the coolest shows I’ve ever gotten to do.

Thank you for being here, for keeping the dreaded void occupied. I am truly grateful for your time, interest, and attention. I will see you on Weds, and send out a reminder ahead of then. xKV

I spent last weekend in Vienna, Austria, my first time there. I mainly went to hang out with some friends on tour, but got some sightseeing in. I did prep a little bit by watching this excellent documentary recommended to me from Glen, one in a series about three different cities at pivotal times during the 20th century.

Vienna 1908 describes a city in a peak period of prosperity, culture and science—but it all disguises a darker truth at the core of the Viennese people. The narrator excellently winds through the architects, composers, and artists who challenge the norms and are ostracized for their audacity. Freud uncovers a population that was as sex obsessed and hypocritical as so many pious groups we are still plagued with. Prostitution is rampant, revealed in the revolutionary novel Der heilige Skarabäus (Red House Alley) by all-but-forgotten feminist intellectual Elsa Jerusalem. And a deluge of mole men living in the sewers beneath the city is reported on by journalist Emil Kläger and photographer Hermann Drawe. The power elite do everything possible to stop these truths from surfacing. This was the city of Mozart and Beethoven, a sophisticated cultural center—not a hotbed of despair and crime with a population living in reeking underground tunnels.

As a cherry picker history buff, the rule of the Habsburg Empire is one I’ve always found uninteresting and vaguely repellent. This visit to Vienna changed that. For centuries this dynasty ruled over a shifting series of territories from Austria to Hungary, parts of Germany and Italy, Spain, Portugal, and beyond. By the early 20th century, a series of catastrophic events led to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, World War I, a massive growth of anti-semitism, and Hitler. Most of which happened in this shining jewel of a city and changed the course of history in terrible, tragic ways.

sounds familiar

There was a sobering exhibit I happened upon, illustrating the history of the city after World War I. When the empire was toppled in 1918 after 600 years of rule, there was a brief foray into being a Republic—complete with voting rights for women (2 years before the 19th amendment in the US allowing for the same) and labor legislation allowing support for the unemployed and the implementation of an 8 hour work day.

But the government was thwarted by political factions of extremism and economic hardships and poverty. The conditions were ripe for dictatorship and fascism; enter one Engelbert Dollfuss who took the opportunity to exploit the instability of the country, and was soon aligned with other baddies like Hitler. Sound familiar?

Some pics that interested me, read the captions.

lenny and craig

The reason I chose to visit Vienna was to see my good friend Craig Ross on his birthday weekend, and at a concert—he plays guitar with Lenny Kravitz. They’d just been in London but I was playing Colchester that night. The good thing about living here is being able to take a 2 hour flight and be in Europe. I didn’t want to miss this tour, it had been a while since I’d seen the show and LK has a new album out.

There’s a backstory here that perfectly captures both the divine and random order of how things can go down in life. It goes like this:

Back in the mid-late 80’s Craig was in an LA band I loved, the Broken Homes. He moved in with me as a housemate in Studio City around 1988. A year later, I was newly sober and single after a 6 year relationship with Clem Burke. 2 years later, word on the street was that Lenny Kravitz was checking out LA musicians to put together a touring band behind “Mama Said.” I was certain that Craig was the right guy.

Someday I’ll tell you about all my band matchmaking ideas—I’m gifted in this area and could probably have had a career putting the right musicians together!

There was a fabulous pool hall on Sunset Blvd for a while, the Hollywood Athletic Club. Craig and I used to kill a few hours several times a week shooting pool there or at House of Billiards in Studio City. On one visit, I saw Lenny with a posse. I told Craig, “wait here” and went to re-introduce myself to Lenny. We’d become acquainted almost a decade before at the old A&M studios on La Brea, when he was calling himself Romeo Blue and making demos, trying to get a deal, and the Go-Go’s were mixing our 2nd record. We used to sit outside and smoke and talk. Six years later he reappeared on my radar, this time from afar, as actress Lisa Bonet’s husband. I remember saying, wow, there’s that cool guy I met, Romeo Blue. In 1989, his debut album “Let Love Rule” came out, and he’d returned to his given name. It was a great record and I was happy to see talent triumph in a music biz that had tried to pigeon-hole an artist.

I’ll let Lenny tell you the rest—which he did at an arena in Vienna in front of thousands of people after he shouted me out and a spotlight found me standing at the soundboard! Pardon my terrible camera work. I was trying to be in the moment and capture the moment at the same time. An impossible feat, as we all know.

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more music

Reporting on my second round of solo opening slots with Glen Matlock, I can tell you that I did these with noticeably more confidence and ease. My favorite was Ramsgate, a sold out crowd in a small venue with a full SST board taking up a quarter of the floor, but making everything sound incredible. The intimacy and closeness of the audience fit perfectly with my songs and stories, and showed me how successfully I could continue to do this in the right environments. I added Nick Lowe’s “Heart of the City” –a song I used to play in one of my first bands, and another original, “In My Closet” –introduced with a story that explained how writing songs has gotten me through some of the worst times of my life. I closed out with the guys joining me for The Whole World Lost Its Head and the new single “I Love You More.” After my support slot, I’m usually down front enjoying Glen’s set. He’s a fantastic entertainer, and at the end, the highlight for me is being invited up to join this ace band for the encores; Glen’s Sex Pistols anthem “Pretty Vacant,” Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women,” and the Faces “All or Nothing.”

In some unpredictable and totally unplanned way, the combination of me and these fellas just ended up working really well. Professionally, musically, and personality-wise. And even better, I got some great friends out of the deal. I’m sure there will be more of this happening in the future.

coming of aging

Lately I’ve been having an irrational fear that one day I will be much older, and of the many bonkers directions of motion that much-older-ness can take us, mine will be some terrible tendency to say bizarre, embarrassing, and really inappropriate things. Like tourette’s but worse, because it’s not that, it’s just every filter known to decency has withered and died. In this scenario, any exposure or knowledge of things that shouldn’t be said or thought becomes all I think or say.

It’s a terrifying thought, to have your entire life, work, love, deeds, will and spirit, your accomplishments, and innate goodness negated by some cruel twist like that. To be clueless as to why everyone who looks after you is always laughing or insulted or appalled by what comes out of your mouth.

I’m not a stranger to recurring, disturbing thoughts and fears but am fortunate that they do eventually subside. It would be a hellish existence to have it be a constant. I’m sure there are mental aberrations that manifest in that way. For months before the Rock Hall of Fame induction ceremony I had an irrational fear that I’d get Bell’s Palsy and that my face would be lopsided and drooping for that big deal event. When I was pregnant, I had an irrational fear that my baby would look like a little monkey. These episodes are quite singular and specific. It might be a downside of having an active imagination.

This business didn’t start until well into my 40’s, but like I say, they aren’t all the time and they do subside. I write about it here because I think it’s good to share weird human stuff. I’ve revealed the pork chop bones I kept under my pillow and the orange traffic cone I made into a friend as a child, so why stop? Humans are odd creatures and I’d hate for any of my readers to think they are isolated cases.

Here is where I thank you again, for your time, effort and interest in subscribing, opening, reading what I send out. Connection is everything.