Wishing you all a fabulous New Year!!
Love, Trish
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Category: Nostalgia
My Years in the French Quarter, New Orleans! Nostalgia (part 8)
Hand to the heavens these are all true stories of my life in New Orleans. 1977-79 was a wonderful time to live in the French Quarter. I was working full-time as an actor (stage, radio, TV) and since that never pays anything regular, I had a part-time job as personal assistant to the publisher of a tourist magazine. So now to the storytelling:
My apartment was a two room attic above a restored (1860’s) town house. I couldn’t afford the downstairs. (starving artist, remember) The slave quarters on the other side of the garden was also a luxury apartment. But I loved my little place where when you opened the windows you could look out over the French roof tops and see just the upper structure of freighters moving slowly up the river. Late at night I would lie there with the windows open and listen to the clip-clop of the horse-drawn carriages wearily making their way back to the stables. The tenants changed out below me and my new neighbors, it turned out, was the mob boss’s nephew coming up through the ranks and his (high-end call girl) girl friend who worked at Lucky Pierre’s (a lounge and escort service). I’ll tell you more about the ‘connected guy’ later. Continue reading “My Years in the French Quarter, New Orleans! Nostalgia (part 8)”
Prologue to a Saturday Post
Saturday I will post a nostalgic piece about my years living in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans. Full time actress, part time day job (gotta pay the rent) radio and TV talent. Hookers, mob bosses, millionaires all supporting our live theatre productions. Rehearsing in the cellar of the Performing Arts Building, where little beady red eyes watched from the shadows. So we will start with a little poetry to wet your curiosity:
Adieux My Beauty ©
Standing outside the gate,
eager to say goodbye, remembering
all the reasons to say hello
New Orleans, that witchy woman, whose song is
loved and never forgotten, whose taste
lingers on the tongue forever.
Where love bloomed on a rain slick night
Now, as I bend to kiss the powdered, rouged
cheek, my nostrils are assailed by
the sweet odor of rotting flesh eaten
away in the darkest recesses by a decadent,
self indulgent cancer Continue reading “Prologue to a Saturday Post”
Just when you think your life stinks!
Not too long ago I heard from a dear friend that she was battling breast cancer and undergoing chemo. 
In response to this life threatening disease, she thumbed her nose at the cancer, shaved her head, and celebrated her new reality. She also began a blog to chronicle her journey. http://jodeenrevere.wordpress.com/ The blog is a beautiful combination of memories, loves, losses, family lost and regained, life threatening challenges, gratitude, the shining eyes of a child, of a dog, beautiful new human beings coming in and out of our lives.
This post is particularly for my Jodeen of the brave heart. The boiled down, scraped down, bone- raw condition of the human experience. All of it is why I will take every day (good or bad) and squeeze every bit of juice out of it.
She has come out the other side, a different woman in some ways, a new improved version of the other woman before.
A perfect time to celebrate our women who have survived and thrived!!!
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month!
DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!
In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! Barbara Delinsky and Elizabeth Hoyt will be my October authors.
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The History of the ’emoticon’ (8>D
One of my favorite shows on a lazy Sunday morning is (appropriately) CBS Sunday Morning. One segment was about the invention of emoticons. (8>) In the interview Dr. Fahlman stated that in the early days of inter-office email (imagine that!) none of his colleagues got “my wicked sarcastic humor. So I made up this smiley face so that they would know when I was joking.” (:-D
Since the dawn of communication between man there have been many symbols, codes and punctuation used to communicate emotions and feelings difficult to represent through text. Early examples can be seen in Morse code abbreviations from the 1850’s and print publications in the early 1900’s.
There is no clear date as to when the first emoticon was used nor is it clear who really invented the first emoticon. It is however generally accepted that the common sideways smiley face in use today was invented by Scott Fahlman in 1982.
On the morning of September 19, 1982, the use of the first smiley face and frowning face emoticons was proposed by research professor Scott E. Fahlman, from the department of computer science at the Carnegie Mellon University in the USA. In 2002, this claim was verified after the original back-up tapes containing the postings were retrieved by Jeff Baird. (8>( Continue reading “The History of the ’emoticon’ (8>D”
That’s a Wrap! The Final Exit…Robin Williams
What’s with you middle-aged men who give up? Just when the door of freedom is opening. Free to do what you want and ignore the rest, freedom from putting up with a–holes, freedom to NOT set the alarm clock. Freedom to start on your bucket list.
You might say, ‘Trish, you’re being a little harsh. You don’t know what he was going through.” YEAH, I DO and I’m harsh because it’s such a damn waste of life and living. And because my middle-aged man took his own life so I’m an expert on the devastation, guilt and grief that suicide leaves behind! I am more than a little pissed off at Robin for leaving us…his fans. And I know exactly what his wife and family are going through. The worst being that there are so many unanswered questions. I was one of the lucky ones who got answers. Did they make me feel any better, NO.
…
Continue reading “That’s a Wrap! The Final Exit…Robin Williams”
“I’ll Take It”….Bukowski and Me
From his later life writings and his book, “You Get so Alone at Times that it Just Makes Sense” Bukowski wrote about how he felt 
he had beaten the odds….poetry gushing faster than he could write it down and grateful that he was still alive after the hard life he had lived.
I can relate….although I had been writing since my eighth grade history class (Thank you, Miss O’Connor) I certainly didn’t consider myself a ‘writer‘. Then very late in life, (1994) I began in earnest. Writing my first full length play. The next one came even easier….then the next one…it’s never stopped, the ideas.
Then friends who read my plays insisted that they wanted the ‘rest of the story’. What happened to a particular character? Did Bill ever get out of prison? Did Monty kill Samantha? Did Charlie make good his escape? Did Violet get her kids back? So…now I’ve written seven novels, stage plays and countless poems. Continue reading ““I’ll Take It”….Bukowski and Me”
REVIEW…’Queen of Hearts’ by Rhys Bowen
REVIEW 5 out 5 quills
Queen of Hearts by Rhys Bowen
I love my job! Especially when the best selling author and their publicist asks me to review the ‘new book’. Rhys’ newest book in the Royal Spyness series goes on sale today.
Lady Georgiana Rannoch is a cousin to the present King of England (1934) and umpteenth in the line of succession to the throne. Never able to keep a job for long and struggling to keep food on the table for her and her maid, Queenie, her (absent) Mummy appears and wants her to go to America with her. And that is where the style, glamour, decadence and fun begins. And the cherry on the top is a jewel thief and a nice juicy murder! Continue reading “REVIEW…’Queen of Hearts’ by Rhys Bowen”
Blogger Declares August as Charles Bukowski Month!
It’s unofficially Charles Bukowski month because this blogger has declared it so! Who the heck is Bukowski you might be asking. In my opinion he is one of the great writers of our time. Known for his cutting, take no prisoners, urban poetry and musings.
It’s no secret. I am in love with the man’s poetry. If you love ‘bad boys’ who are shot with talent, he’s the guy for you. I read his work every day that I write….whatever his commentary is about I am inspired to be a better writer.
Bukowski’s life was horrific by most people’s standards. He was a raging alcoholic, womanizer, gambler and bum. He worked regular 
jobs only enough to keep himself in cigarettes, booze, rent (occasionally) stamps, typewriter paper and money for the race track . My fantasy is; oh yes I have fantasized about him….to spend a weekend with him at my cabin, deep in the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the evenings, before a fire, we would drink whiskey neat, talk of people, past and present, swear at each other and tell stories. We would end the nights Continue reading “Blogger Declares August as Charles Bukowski Month!”
Nostalgia……Spanish Camp (part 2)
Part 2, At Spanish Camp TS: We set up a terrific camp. A comfortable tent under the trees, a small camp fire and another fire in our cook stove. (I remember as a child hearing Tonto tell the Lone Ranger, “white man build big fire and sit far away; Indian build small fire and sit close.”) Our camp chairs were of the wooden and canvas style and were positioned for the best view. Rolling high country meadows, spotted with pure water springs, looked across at Canada, just a few miles away.
Like Jack said (in part 1) we were dropped off by the guide for two weeks. Setting up camp, hunting, getting along on our own was up to us. One day, shortly after we had arrived we were sitting around enjoying a leisurely afternoon when suddenly a beautiful bay horse with white stockings galloped into our camp. No halter, no bridle, no tack at all; he looked so free! He took one look at us and galloped away. It happened so quickly and then he was gone! Did we imagine it?
This story would not be complete without mentioning ‘Toby’. He was our miniature poodle with the heart of a wolf. He went everywhere with us and this trip was no exception. He rode the 22 miles on horseback inside my coat. He wore a red hunters’ vest (sweater really, but let him be as manly as possible. Because his ancestors were retrievers.) We didn’t want some trigger happy hunter to take him for a gray rabbit! Continue reading “Nostalgia……Spanish Camp (part 2)”