It’s What I Do

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I’m excited about The Rolling Stones record - Hackney Diamonds - that is coming out next month.

A little known fact is that I was a Stones fan before I was a Springsteen fan. I loved the record ‘Some Girls’ and I was just 13 years old when they came to the Ralph to promote the record - Mom said:

“No freaking way!”

Four short years later, The Stones at the Ralph was my first ever concert and I remember it all. They opened with ‘Under My Thumb’ and did a great, ‘Tumbling Dice’ in the encore.

People were calling them The Rolling Bones back then because they were considered old!

42 years later they have a new record coming out and they will tour to support it.

A great New York Times article went through the making of the record and I laughed a couple of times.

Keith Richards spoke about playing Rock & Roll as an 80-year old man.

“It’s what I do.”

He was asked if this was the last Rolling Stones record and he said he had no idea but mentioned that he was supposed to be dead about 40 years ago.

I get what Keith was saying about, “It’s what I do.”

Lately I’ve been looking through all I’ve written in the last couple of years.

I have three books completely ready to go.

I have two more that are just about done and it dawned on me the other day that I have an entire manuscript worth of short stories and I finished the edit of the first two of the fifteen I have stored in my phone, and I’m very happy with them.

It’s what I do.

It’s as natural as mowing the lawn, and when too many days pass and I haven’t written things down I get anxious without even realizing it.

The Rolling Stones certainly don’t need to make another record.

They are worth about a billion dollars.

They’re 80 years old!

Richards spoke about being nervous about how the new record will be received.

They did the best they could, but until the audience reacts - one way or another - they have no idea how good it is.

I’m going to take the time to get things out the door over the next year or so.

I’ll start with “What Are You An idiot?”

It’s autobiographical in nature, and it has made me laugh. They were stories I’ve shared as I’ve walked around the world, and I want to get them down for my kids.

The plan is to follow that up with a crime drama that is actually entitled:

“The Crime.”

But who knows?

I may release the short story collection first.

I don’t have the title yet - it’s in my computer as:

“Bunch of Stories.”

Hopefully I don’t start something new in between!

It’s what I do.

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