Deborah Cohen's book, "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll," serves as a profound exploration of a woman's quest for meaning amidst the tumultuous backdrop of music and relationships. In this enlightening episode, we engage in a dialogue with Cohen, who articulates her unique narrative that transcends mere hedonism, instead uncovering a deeper, spiritual search for God. This memoir is not only aimed at those who have experienced feelings of alienation but also resonates with spiritual seekers grappling with their own existential inquiries. Cohen poignantly asserts that her story reflects the struggles of many in a world dominated by superficial distractions, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and connection. As we delve into her experiences, listeners are invited to recognize their paths of searching may lead them to something profoundly sacred. The conversation unfolds with an introduction to Deborah Cohen, an author whose latest work, "Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll," delves into the intricate tapestry of her experiences as a musician in the vibrant yet tumultuous world of the 1980s Boston music scene. Cohen articulates her journey of self-exploration, detailing how her pursuit of acceptance and belonging led her through a myriad of relationships and musical endeavors, ultimately revealing a profound search for spiritual meaning. The episode captures her reflections on the trials and tribulations of her youth, intertwined with the exhilarating yet ephemeral nature of fame and the artistic lifestyle. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of storytelling as a vehicle for connection and understanding, resonating with listeners who may have navigated similar paths of existential inquiry.

Takeaways:

• The podcast emphasizes the importance of a strong foundation for both stories and homes.
• Deborah Cohen's book explores the search for meaning amidst the chaotic world of music and relationships.
• The narrative invites readers to reflect on their own searches for belonging and identity.
• Cohen's unique approach presents faith as a discovery rather than a given, appealing to spiritual seekers.
• Listeners are encouraged to recognize their own searching as potentially leading them to something profound.
• Cohen's memoir resonates with anyone who has ever felt out of place or unfulfilled in their pursuits.

Links referenced in this episode:

• belairwindowanddoor.com
• debracohenbooks.org
• amazon.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Bel Air Window and Door

Before we begin today's pitch, I want to thank Bel Air Window and Door for sponsoring this episode. Every great story starts with a strong foundation and same is true for your home.

Bel Air Window and Door is a local window depot dealer that offers high quality, energy efficient windows and doors with honest service and professional installation. They are part of our community and take pride in helping homeowners create spaces they love.

Visit bel airwindowanddoor.com to see how they can help you. What if discovering your next great read only took a few minutes?

Welcome to the Author Pitch, the short form podcast where writers from around the world deliver a powerful pitch for their book and read a standout excerpt in their own voice. I'm Rich Bennett, this is the Author Pitch and your next great read starts here. Foreign.

Welcome to the Author Pitch where writers from around the world deliver a powerful pitch for their book and read a short excerpt in their own voice. I'm your host, Rich Bennett and today's guest is Deborah Cohen, author of Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.

And when I say sex, I'm talking S E C T S, not S E X. So first of all, Deborah, how you doing? It's great to see you again.

Oh, it's marvelous to see you too. You DJ you.

So those of you that are wondering, because you're, you're probably thinking, wait a minute, this Deborah's never been on his podcast. No. Deborah was on my other podcast, Conversations with Rich Bennett, and we talked about her music career and her other book and had a blast.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So thanks for having me back.

Oh, absolute, absolutely. And I have a feeling you're going to be on here at least three more times, I hope.

Oh, I love prophecy.

All right, let's, let's go ahead and start with your pitch. Give listeners a tight, high impact overview of what the book is, who it's for, why it matters, and what makes it unique.

Wow. Okay, well, let's tackle it. What the book is. Sex. Like you said, S E C T S Drugs and Rock and Roll.

Series one actually is a true story about a woman searching for meaning in all the wrong and sometimes beautiful places. It begins in the high energy world of music and relationships. You know, I used to be a musician in the 80s in Boston. New wave was paramount.

But underneath it all is a deeper story in my book. A quote, quiet, persistent search for God, even when I didn't yet have the words for it. Hmm. Very interesting. Okay, so who's it for?

Well, this book is for anyone who has ever felt like they didn't quite belong. That's the story of my life. Anyone who has chased love, success, or identity, hoping it would finally fill that empty place inside that we all have.

It's for memoir readers who love real stories and for spiritual seekers who are still asking, where is God in all of this?

So I love that.

Why it matters. Because. Because, because, because, because, because, because so many people are living this exact story right now.

We live in a world full of noise, distraction, and performance, but very little truth with a capital T. This book matters because it says you're not alone in your searching. And even when you think you're far from God, he may be closer than you think. Or she may be closer if you're into the feminine aspects of Elohim.

And finally, what makes it unique besides.

The fact that you wrote it?

We're all unique, though I can't brag about that. So what makes this story different is that it doesn't start with faith. It discovers it. Oh, I did not grow up with clear answers, did you?

I walk through music, relationships, different belief systems, even different countries. And instead of presenting a perfect path, this book invites readers into the messy, honest process of finding God in real life.

Wow. You already got me hooked. See, I love a perfect pitch. Oh, I just realized something. What perfect pitch? Talking about pitching your book.

And with you being a musician, you got to have the right pitch.

Oh, I hear another title coming.

Whoa.

Let me have it. Let me have it.

All right, so let's hear the excerpt that you actually brought for us today. Go ahead and take your time. Settle in and read at your natural pace.

Okay.

And I'll give you. Give you a moment. Go ahead. Begin when you're ready.

Okay, so as a setting up the scene kind of thing, this was a time in my life when everything looked like it was working. And of course, I had to be in my 20s, right? Early 20s. But something inside me was already beginning to question it.

Now imagine my favorite place to play was at the Rathskeller in Boston, Massachusetts. We called it the Rat for short. This was in the 80s, I think the Rat was in Kenmore Square. But it's kind of fuzzy right now, but it was dark.

The kind of place where the lights didn't quite reach the corners, and the people who gathered there didn't seem to belong anywhere else. But I fit right in. These night owls, they felt like my people. For the first time, I felt something I hadn't felt at home.

A sense of belonging, of acceptance. And then one night, everything changed. Our stage Manager came to us with news that felt bigger than anything we had imagined.

We were going to open for Joan Jett and the Black Hearts. I remember thinking, this is it. This is what we've been working for. This is what it means to be on your way.

Joan Jett had a hit radio song at that time. I Love Rock and Roll. So put another dime in the jukebox, baby. And our song, Boston Knights, was also getting airplay on wbcn.

It felt like the door was opening, like maybe we were finally stepping into something real. I remember the energy of those nights. The music, the movement, the feeling that anything could happen.

There was always somewhere to go, someone to meet. Something just ahead of you, like that. Felt it might finally be the thing.

As a side note, going through the turnstile the revolving door at my apartment on Mass Ave. And I saw the cars spinning around in the revolving door oh, I wanted to go upstairs with them, but I was going out for a gig. Oh, shucks. I had a chance to meet Rick Ocasett, but that wasn't in the book. Okay, so getting back to the script.

I remember how I felt, though, when I saw him. And in the middle of all that, I was writing my own music. One of my songs was called Dreamin.

I was young, in my early 20s, and everything I felt poured into those lyrics.

Woke up in the morning with a fever I was thinking about you God, I've gotta get up get my senses Catch my breath Before I'm blue It was all about longing, desire. That feeling of wanting something or someone so much you could almost convince yourself it was real. And I knew that I was dreaming.

Knew that I was only dreaming. At the time, I did not question it. That intensity, that emotional pull. It felt like life, like love, like meaning.

But looking back now, looking back on those years as a rock and roll woman, I can see something I couldn't see then. I can see where I went wrong. I was chasing something, but I didn't really understand what it was. I thought it was success. I thought it was love.

I thought it was the next opportunity, the next song, the next moment on stage. But none of those things ever lasted. The music would end, the night would be over. The feeling would fade.

And I'd find myself right back where I started. Still searching, still wondering, still asking. Without even having the words for it yet. Is that all there is?

What I didn't realize at the time was that the thing I was searching for wasn't something the world could give me. It wasn't in the music. It wasn't in the relationships. It wasn't in the applause or the attention or the next big break.

I was searching for something deeper, something eternal. And even though I didn't understand it then, I believe now that in all of that searching, God was already there.

Wow. Wow.

When you first started that, that took me back to the days of when I would go to the Stone Pony up in Jersey or the Hammer Jacks in Baltimore and then work and then DJing in the clubs. And then when you ended it, I was waiting for you to. I didn't think you would mention God at all. I figured you would stop and leave a cliffhanger.

And I was gonna have to ask you, well, what. What was he searching for?

Now, that wouldn't be fair if I did that to you.

God, that. That was good. So why did you choo. Excerpt?

Well, because I wanted people to feel or see the contrast of the story. Myself as an artist, a musician, I lived for the nighttime. I lived for the music. God wasn't even on my radar.

And it wasn't until I almost died of a drug overdose when I was 28 that I actually called out to God for the first time in my life. And I'm like, I didn't even realize what I was saying. I was just so desperate.

You know, when you're ready to check out in this life, who do you call on? Your mother?

You know, I mean, I was alone, and actually I was in nightclub feeling alone, and I was freaking out, and I'm like, oh, my God, what's happening to me? I think I just took some LSD that was laced with rat poison or something.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. Found out afterwards what it was. I'm like, oh, my. Because I loved. I love tripping, you know?

Yeah.

So.

But I wanted people to know that this book is really about seeking God no matter where you are, you know, And I didn't want somebody to buy the book and think it was going to be about sex, which I've already had a few guys write to me and say, there's no sex in this book. I feel like saying, you dumb S H I t. You didn't even read the title. It's not.

Obviously not.

Oh, my God. You know, and having. Having the audacity to write to me on the social media and say, there's no sex in this book. Well, I'm glad you read it.

But, God, what do you want me for? You know, what do you want me to say?

So I take it that your search for God is what actually sparked the book for you to write it?

Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And I, I just tell people these stories, you know, like people share with each other.

And every time I share my story, people say, you got to put that in a book. So this book is probably up to my life when I, let's see. I think I fast Forward into the 90s and I was in a Nashville.

I started singing the blues after I tried to join a convent. But anyway, God really, God really zapped me, you know, he really did. He had, he got my. He's just that way. Oh, yeah, yeah, he's just that way.

You know, he calls. Yeah.

So what do you hope readers actually feel after finishing reading it?

Well, I'm hoping that they feel honesty because I'm bearing my soul in this book. It's really kind of like my legacy.

When you make mistakes in life, you know, sometimes you want to help somebody else so they don't go through the same pain.

Yeah.

Drama. So it's not a perfect life, but a real story about me. And it could be about anybody else that suffered from trauma. Right.

They'll experience the energy of the music world, the complexity of relationships, and the deeper spiritual thread that runs quietly through it all.

And by the end, I hope they begin to recognize something, that their own questions, their own searching might actually be leading them somewhere sacred.

So the big question here, what's next for Deborah Cohen as an author?

Well, actually, I am right now writing series two, because this first one is that it is series one and my husband is getting a little impatient because I didn't mention him in series one. I didn't know him then. You know, I like, okay. And I don't blame him.

I have to keep reassuring them and saying, darling, I promise you I'm going to write about you. But we didn't get married until I was 60 and I did a lot of living before then.

You know, I got married a few times to the wrong guy and that's, you know, I don't slander anybody. It takes two to tango, right. So. But I just talk about the romance in a clean way.

PG and, but you know, my husband and I met in Texas and that I was a full time rver then. So I talk. That's what I'm writing about right now. So that'll be sex, drugs and rock and roll. Series 2.

Why do I have a funny feeling there's going to be three series in this?

You know, you must be prophetic, like I said in the beginning, because I think I'm saving the third series for when? Let's see. I don't know. Maybe I'll make aliyah to Israel or we move a lot. My husband, right. We're like nomads.

We stay in a place for three years, and actually, we're. We're packing up to move to Hollywood, Florida, so.

Oh, wow.

That could be series three. Yeah. So, you know, the Bible says we can live to be 120, and, you know, I want to have something to write about, so I got to live.

Right, Exactly. You know, you'll still be singing and writing at 120.

You know, honestly, my husband and I, I tell him, don't have the mindset like a lot of American senior citizens have. Yes, let's sit in the rocking chair and wait for the cows to come home like our parents and grandparents did.

That was the mentality, you know, back in the 50s. You just work hard all your life, and then you just wait to die. Or you talk about the grandkids and you got nothing going on for yourself.

And even today, when I hang around with people my age, I'm 71 now. Right. Most of them, ladies especially, they pull out pictures of their kids and their dogs and their prescriptions, and I'm like.

I'm like, okay, well, what about you? What are you doing with your life? You make it sound like your life is over. It's not.

I mean, and that's just it. You. You think about it. We work a majority of our life.

Yes.

And when it's time. When it's time to retire. I mean, granted, even while you're working, you should still be living life.

But when you retire, my God, that's when you should be living life to the fullest, enjoying it. And it's going to keep you young.

Yeah.

And it's gonna. And I think I said it before when I was talking to you before on the other podcast. Age is nothing but a number of. But we're always young at heart.

Yes, that's right. You have to. And there is. If you're a psychology major or you've been through counseling, they try to get you in touch with the child within.

Yeah.

And the child within likes to play. Even when you're a senior citizen, we still want to have a good time and moving. You know, motion is lotion, I say.

Because I. I also teach Tai chi, so, you know, we got to keep moving around or otherwise, like a slant six engine, you're going to seize up and sit in the garage. Right.

You don't want that.

You know, that's not my Idea of living.

All right, so something very important. Where can people purchase sex, drugs in rock and roll? Any of your other books, and follow you.

Ah, that's great. Well, first, the easiest way to find out what my books are is just to go to my website, Debra Cohenbooks. And it's D E B R A C O H E N books dot org.

But if you want to find me as an author on Amazon, a little birdie told me that if you sign up and follow, follow, follow me, follow me, follow me on Amazon and again, get the spelling right. Deborah Cohen. Not only do I sell books on Amazon and you can follow me as an author, but I also sell all of my music on Amazon and I make band merch.

So, yes, if you want a T shirt that says Golden Age with the number 47 on it, get them while they're hot. They're selling like hotcakes.

I love that.

Just do a search because they make our Amazon makes it hard for you to find merch, you know?

Yeah.

You have to sign up and say, deborah Cohen music, golden Age T shirt. Maybe it'll come up that way. It's kind of a challenge.

Well, I mean, you think about it, Amazon's the biggest store out there.

Oh, it's a. What a great idea.

Yeah. So that's why it's so hard to find. Deborah, I want to thank you so much. It. It was great seeing you again.

Deborah probably didn't recognize me when we first logged on because I think when I talked to you before, I had.

The full beard, that's what it was. Yes.

Yeah.

Yes. I'm like, the cap looks familiar, but not the face.

That's why I was wearing it. It's like, I better wear the cap because I don't have the full beard anymore. So. But thank you so much, those of you listening.

When you purchase her books, not just this book, but the other ones, make sure you leave a full review, whether it be actually leave a full review on Amazon, Goodreads, bars, and Noble everywhere, where you can leave reviews at and purchase copies for other people as well.

Aren't you cool? And as a final note here, let me just say I've been chosen as an author on tour with Jewish book council for 26, 27. So, yes, author on tour.

If you want me to come and speak about my children's book called the Sand Garden by the Sea, call me.

Sounds like you're gonna have to come on again and pitch that book, too.

Absolutely. I'd love to. I'd love to. Yes.

Thanks. For listening to the author pitch. I'm Rich Bennett, and until next time, keep turning pages and discovering new voices.