Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream

Carson Tahoe Hospital

2009-03-26T13:56:00.000-07:00

Is presently where I am heading. I met with my surgeon today and it looked like April 6 - a week from Monday would be the likely date. Yes there has been this recent bronchitis that has left me feeling winded. Well upon further review - scratch the bronchitis - this is now in fact - pneumonia. Personally I think stress brings on illness. Before I knew my aorta was twice the size it was supposed to be I was doing just fine - exercising, running all over the place, working hard. But once I found out about this shock, my immune system went down with it. It usually takes a real stressful situation to get me real sick. This is my first pneumonia. But also - my first encounter with a heavy duty heart condition. One day I'm perfectly healthy, next day I am on death's bed. The problem now - as the doctor says - as he told me I had to check in - is that the harder I work to take in oxygen, the more out of breath I get, and the harder my heart works and none of it is a real good combination. So I am attached to an oxygen tank now, enjoying a nice drive to Carson City. The doctor wanted me to go in an ambulance but that seemed like overkill and I talked him out of it. So - not sure how long I'll be there or how long any of this will be going on but it will sure be nice to have it done with.

Fever roll up...

2009-03-23T02:27:00.000-07:00

to a hundred and five

Roll on up gonna roll back down

One more day

I find myself alive

tomorrow maybe go

beneath the ground

(Robert Hunter - who else?)

It's 2:30 AM and I am not sleeping much, but having slept a lot of today, I'll be ready to "roll back down" in a bit. Since my last post here, I predictably have been through my first wave of anxiety on Friday night that kept me up most of the night. I am ready now though - the doctor was kind of enough to check back on me on Saturday after Victoria called with her concerns about me Friday evening, and prescribe that magical pill - Xanax. Somehow even after hearing the news on Wednesday after the first test I held out hope that the second test would either say something different, or that I could treat this with meds and not surgery. Seems to me that having a "dilated aorta" measured at 6.1 cm and 6.3 cm confirmed over the two tests, and 5.5 being the magic threshold, it is bound to happen. I found a picture of an aorta which I have placed here as frankly enough - I am bad with details and I had long forgotten it from my biology classes many years ago. It is a blood supply line, the size of a garden hose and if it goes you go with it. I believe my widening is somewhere near my heart, as my doctor has hold me my heart is now rubbing with every beat. And this is where a lot of the mind games happen - what exactly needs to be done here? Is it the old fashioned hacksaw through the ribs, or can the procedure be done in a less invasive way? Many questions I don't have the answer to but to parphrase my favorite lyricist - and even draw from the same album as the first quote here - I think in time I will.

And as stress and illness go hand in hand, I now have inherited some kind of horrible cough, headache, and fever this weekend that has kept me in bed for several hours out of each day. I woke up tonight feeling like I was burning up, my clothes covered with sweat, and then took some more of the cough medicine/Ibuprofen combo that has gotten me through this. I seem aware now of everything involving my heart. Even sex - or simulation of it - poses the question - is that going to stress out the aorta too much? Of course anxiety is not good for the heart either, but how can anyone who is not entirely cold blooded not feel some anxiety in facing this? I know - look on the bright side - they caught this before the aorta just got so big it ruptured on its own and did me in - apparently what happened to actor John Ritter. It is not fatal cancer, there has been no death sentence, other than the generic line "all surgery has risks". In some ways I am glad I have been through surgery before - even if it was for a pretty dumb reason - just because I know what to expect. Really all that happens is you lie down - get knocked out - and next thing you know you feel incredibly groggy and thirsty. My doctor told me to expect 3 days in the hospital and 3 weeks of recovery. I have accumulated over 4 weeks of sick time so I should be okay there. Even though I put off doing this test from September, it is spring time now and I have much more encouragement from mother nature than I do in October when I would have been facing this if I had done the test when I was supposed to. So now it's just dealing with this fever/cough, dealing with the mind games, and what ifs. The doctor here recommended what he called a great cardio surgeon - and predictably he is not on the United Health Care list. I wanted the procedure done in Carson City, but I see all the surgeons are listed in Reno, so it may have to happen there.

I don't think "tomorrow maybe go beneath the ground" will happen. I am very confident I will survive this. But even knowing the possibility is there brings an awareness of death that I have not had before. Even in my days of depression when I romanticized death, there was some attraction to going out on my own terms. Now I have a wife and child to support who are not going to do too well without me by my predictions, but on top of that - I feel like I make a difference in my existence. I have a job where sometimes just hearing a sympathetic voice to a person who has lost everything in a fire, or being there to hand over a check does help people out. I feel that the world is a better place with me here. I can't afford to donate tons to charity, but I feel like I bring out a positive energy that is helpful to those who come across me, both professionally and otherwise. I have always imagined the image of the Grim Reaper as one who takes us when it is our time to go. I do not believe it is my time. I have been wrong before, and who really knows when it is coming, but I just don't believe I am going now. And of course - on paper - other than this, I have been busting my ass exercising so my heart is in good shape - all widening aorta issues aside - and I really don't have any other health issues that come into play. So although this is forcing me to face the reality of death, I don't see it happening now. But going through what I've been through this weekend has been a form of dying on its own. So maybe that is helpful to me too.

So now the next road starts - seeing the cardiologist, figuring out who will be the surgeon (they are not one and the same), when will it happen, where will it happen, how many more tests do I need to do. Obviously I'll be very relieved when it's all done. Everyone who has either called or written to support or sent prayers - I very much appreciate that. I do believe there is a power to prayer - regardless of what one does or does not believe in, or regardless of the title of the deity being addressed. I will survive, I will get by as the song says. Just have to take this one step at a time.

Broken heart don't feel so bad

2009-03-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

... you ain't got half of what you thought you had. (Robert Hunter)

I am 43 and I consider myself relatively healthy. I have exercised religiously for over half of my life and belonged to some kind of gym where I aim for an hour of cardio at least 4-5 days a week. I can't say I eat perfectly, but feel like I get my share of fruits and veggies and am conscientious of eating well, even though I will never give up chocolate, sweets, or desserts. Sure I stress from time to time, maybe I raise my voice and freak out over things that dont' warrant it - maybe I could use a bit of alcohol from time to time, even though I can't drink - and maye I could stand to lose 20 pounds - but all things considered I thought I was pretty healthy. If anything, at least I thought my heart was in good shape. When I went in for my physical, my doctor said there was a heart murmur going on and thought about it before ordering an echocardiogram. Well, his office never followed up, and I did what anyone would do with a used up health savings account kicking in at the beginning of the year - I put it off. Then I was whirlwinded through Portland for almost a month, and another week in Salt Lake put me out of state for a good chunk of the first two months. Finally I decided when my wife was getting her stress test to stop putting it off and get it done.

It is a little intimidating - walking into a hospital - checking out what may be one of the most important parts of your body. I waited - and waited - and waited - after signing in - before I was finally called up to the front and seen about an hour after I arrived - but no big deal - the day was open. The lady doing the test was nice - I had my shirt off, laying upon my left side, as she took a round ball device and rubbed it around my chest with some lubricant jelly paving the way for this. It was a little alarming when she called in another tech to assist - but heck - maybe she was struggling with something. It seemed like although I was relaxed on one level - close to even falling asleep on the pillow - another side of me wanted to just hear - okay - everything's fine - looking great - be on your way. But as the test dragged on - and the cardiologist, barely acknowledging me at all - came in with a scowl on his face - and said something like set up a case and call his doctor - it started to become clear that this was going to be a bit more involved than I thought it was going to be. When it finally ended - although mum was the word - the first tech told me more testing was definitely going to be needed and I would have to see my doctor. Okay - well - maybe this is not what I thought. But I hadn't felt anything, had I? Okay maybe some chest pain that came and went and didn't really stand out as anything more than a slight ache or cramp, but nothing that really stood out in my mind. The doctor would see me in a week to discuss as I called his office to set up an appointment.

So hearing from him a few hours later with a somewhat urgent sound to his voice was not too assuring. Then he said more tests were needed IMMEDIATELY - and my one week out was changing to 2 days out. Why hadn't I done the test when he told me to - well - the excuses - you know - his office hadn't followed up, I procrastinated, etc. I asked him so - like does this mean I am going to get a heart attack? He said not a heart attack, but what he described as a widened aortic valve - would put me at risk for an aneurism, which could be just as fatal. I don't even know what the heck this is - I have to look it up. What about my trips to the gym? Stop for now. And I am thinking - great - who knows how long this has gone on and hear I've stressed out my fragile heart with exercise, pressure filled trips to handle claims around the clock into emotional whirlwinds and hotbeds up north - and the whole time I've had a heart ready to go off like a time bomb? It seems surreal - hard to take in. On one level - my God - is this really happening to me. But the whole time - a very strong feeling that I'll be okay - this is okay - I'll get through it and - the feeling I've always had that someone or thing is watching over me and protecting me - stronger than ever.

Today I walked outside - did not hit the gym- and just concentrated on nice even walking - like floating - not moving too fast - just deliberate meditational walking and taking everything in. Who knows when each day will be our last - is this the day of my departure? At some point this day will be that day. But a very strong feeling - again - no - I have much to do in this realm, I am not leaving any time soon. Faith - not even that I am looking for - finding me. What happens now after the testing tomorrow and the meeting with the doc - medication, surgery - maybe.. but - whatever the powers that be are sending my way - let them send it. I will be okay. And there is no way not to be okay. Even if I am dying, that's okay too. I'd prefer to live - be there to take care of my wife and daughter, but if it's my time to go - so be it. No way to lose here. Hell - no more worries about paying the mortgage, getting sued by a neighbor, losing my house, having mold in the crawlspace, going bankrupt, getting laid again - hell - none of that matters when you are dead. Death does have its advantages. So God - great spirit - whatever you are - I believe in you more so than ever. Whatever you have in store for me, whatever your plan is for me - I am here to live it out until the day you call me back. Life does not end on that day - it just shifts forms.

You keep me up just one more night...

2009-03-14T06:29:00.000-07:00

I can't stay much longer, Melinda
The sun is getting high
I can't help you with your troubles
If you won't help with mine
I gotta get down I gotta get down
Got to get down to the mine

You keep me up just one more night
I can't sleep here no more
Little Ben clock says quarter to eight
You kept me up till four

(Robert Hunter - Cumberland Blues)

Okay there it is - her name - almost spelled correctly - the lady I have developed a crush on but a crush which is starting to kind of fade a bit over time. Two songs performed by the Dead have this name and I already quoted the other one previously. The more you get to know someone the more you start to see a side which is not very flattering. And the whole reason the crush started to begin with - in my case a kind of inherent assumption that the involved party has mutual feelings - and even that as of now is starting to become a great big ? Here my relationship with my wife is going on near 13 years and I wonder why I keep going through this. Over the time I have been married it has been the Viola Blues, a resurging interest in my previous g/f, a lady from the internet that managed to send me into lala land with typed words, a gal from my gym - and now the last one I've mentioned - and I wonder why my heart seems to have to spill all over the place. Some could say I don't have a good relationship at home but I don't know if it's that simple. Victoria and I are now in the hit and miss phase with sex - sometimes it's great but in between times it may be weeks or even months before it happens. Last time I tried I couldn't even succeed. I can't force it any more - it is either going to happen naturally, or the car just won't get started. Call it middle ages, call it being too familiar with someone, call it lack of inspiration - frankly I don't know what the hell to call it. Still - I am on the same wavelength with her - whether she admits it or not - on many issues - we have similar philosophies, spiritual views, can read the same books, we both share the "outsider" thing, we're both somewhat deep thinkers and she is my best friend. Living with someone isn't easy and there is always tension but overall I think what I have with Victoria - since it is going on 13 years now - probably longer than the natural lifespan of a relationship - but as relationships go - is pretty special in its own way. I know there are couples who are doing better in the bedroom - but then I know of individuals who have had nothing happening at all for years - basically living a celibate lifestyle - often by default more than by choice - so as it all goes maybe I fall somewhere in the middle. But one thing V and I do agree on is that monogamy is not a natural state. It is natural that over time the heart is going to gravitate elsewhere. I don't see anything wrong with it - although frankly it can be a bit of a pain in the ass at times. It would be much easier if I could just pull my heart back into my chest, save myself the time and energy, and just let the energy of my songs and images of some magical female anima "Goddess" entity - which has come up quite a bit in my lyrics lately - just take care of everything - but unfortunately a real life person always falls in the mix. And usually over time it becomes clear that the wait and see approach is much better than acting on the temptation.

Renee - the last lady who I felt it to such an intense degree - about 4 years ago - who I met through the gasbuddy site - is now someone I feel absolutely nothing toward. In fact - when I look back at her and see who she is - pretty much a lost soul whose mother abused her and father left home at an early age, she is a woman approaching 40 trapped in the mind of a pubescent teenager and she is looking for that love thrill fix which happens at the beginning but can never last and once it dies down she is moving on to the next one. It would have been great for a while, but would it have been worth ending the stability of my marriage - and losing my daughter in the process - well - probably not. I would have ended up with nothing. And even though in theory we like to think that we could "explore" here and come back, I don't know if in reality that would turn out well.

If there is an apparent common theme in the ladies I am drawn to they are all usually - in so many words "basket cases". My wife definitely has her issues - but - she has been the most stable of them all and that is why we have lasted so long. I always say she is the most stable unstable woman I know. But these others - it would be much more of a crapshoot to actually get involved with them for a few incredible nights that would have a very high price tag attached to them. It would be nice if I could just shut down that side of my heart, but - well - I don't know - it is not that simple. A dude at my gym says it shows I still have a pulse - since I am drawn to other women still. Yeah - maybe - but if it was up to me I would shut it down because usually more trouble than it's worth. Still - when it does happen - and the anima highs take hold - it feels like a part of my soul that has been neglected is being nourished. The sun shines brighter, the mountains seem more alive, and I feel energized, charged and loved. I feel magical. The dream I had with the last one - where she was holding me - was very inspiring. When I capture these feelings in my songs - and sometimes they can happen without a present encounter happening - I can feel the same thing - some times - but usually it is based on the past summation of experiences with real life women, and I cannot successfully just create them without some thought of an involved party, although I am working on that. So that side of it - the joy, the charge - feels good.

It is always the down side which is a drag - when the reality sets in - that the lady I am drawn to presently is - well - in so many words - a sinking ship who cannot provide me with much of anything when the reality sets in. Getting to the present one - she has opened a side of herself up to me, but another side of her is off limits. She may be completely down to earth on one level, but very much inaccessible in other ways. I may have an hour long discussion with her where I am hearing her problems - her own battles with her inner demons - where her need for approval - meets up with a critical encounter that sends her into a tailspin - and I am trying to be there and be supportive. Maybe after the discussion I want to fix her and help her so much - that as the quoted song says - I am up that night - not sleeping well - and trying to find the words of inspiration to soothe her and calm her. And at some point she may express great appreciation over my efforts. But then - like a steam locomotive - rolling down the track - she's gone - and nothing's going to bring her back - and then I am left with the reality that there is nothing of substance here. As her ship is sinking, she is grasping for anyone or anything to hold onto - and I am not the only one - one apparently of several anyways. As her pattern continues, it is clear that my advice and suggestions can only go so far, and she is incredibly stubborn and her own self-destructive energy - addictive to some degree - is going to win out. So I think she draws me in with a little bit of subtle flirting to get some needed attention - but then moves on to the next victim and at this point I am highly doubtful that what I perceived to be an actual attraction or interest in me is there. That is how I interpreted it initially but no longer - and when I don' think that is there the whole thing fizzles out like a balloon. And I want to come to the rescue - be that knight in shining armor - the ultimate cheesy fantasy - say the right words, do the right thing to inspire her and have her fall into my arms and gratitude and live happily ever after - as ridiculous as that sounds in hindsight. But as reality eventually sets in - you realize - the only person you can ever really hope to rescue is yourself - and I still am in need of rescuing myself. Maybe I can be there some of the time for her, but turn it around - can she be there for me - or for anyone else for that matter. Everyone in her life seems to be grasping for her - her boyfriend - her son - and she is always using her workaholic energy as an excuse or means to distance from them. And if she can't be there for them, why in hell would I want to think she can be there on any level for me? She can't even be there for herself. In so many words - I can see she is "circling the drain" and there isn't really much I can do about it. I really can't help her with her troubles - and then she can't help with mine either. I can pray and then I just have to let it go - twisting a Lennon lyric around. My own energy is used up trying to help her - and it doesn't help her - and then we are back where we started.

So - again - as that inevitable reality sets in - here I am. Why does this have to keep happening- I don't know - it just does. One thing I have learned is that when it does it is better to wait as long as possible - to wait and see - because they longer you wait the more you start to see that how it appears in the beginning is not the same as how it appears in the end. Everything passes over time and pretty soon that mythological fairy tale princess becomes just an ordinary being - who farts, craps, and even pukes the way we all do. The anima energy is like food - it is necessary to feed the soul - and however it can be generated - I do believe it has to be there. But actually going for the physical affair - in this monogamistic world - for right or wrong - is not something I can rule out happening - but the thought of it should be approached with extreme caution. There are two females in my house that mean everything to me and to do anything to risk my continued relationship with them is something that I could live to regret for a long time.

What

2009-02-11T07:19:00.001-08:00

Where did my blog go - I can't find it - help....

The Peasants call her the Goddess of Gloom

2009-02-08T16:09:00.000-08:00

I now have some time to update my place here as I have not been around much in the year 2009 – at least in my home place. I spent 19 out of 31 days in January, either in transit to or working in the Portland or southern Washington vicinity, and it is quite an intense drive – 600 plus miles – and a stretch of it goes from Susanville to Mount Shasta in the mountains and can be a little on the intimidating side when it is getting dark and it is raining buckets and the vehicle starts making strange sounds when it is going over pools of water that are deeper than a vehicle is supposed to travel over – as this was my experience on the way back, after I picked up my obligatory “Enjoy Weed (California)” tie-dye t-shirt at a gas station for a pretty reasonable price. This was the longest stretch away from home since I worked with Crawford & Company and went to Atlanta for 3 weeks of property adjuster training just after Sara was born.

Being away from home is kind of a mixed blessing - I say this as I am sitting in the Reno Tahoe Airport an hour and 15 minutes away from boarding a plane - back to my familiar place I have been working - Portland - this time though I will be working there for a relatively short 4 full days before flying back on Friday afternoon, only to hop another plane to Salt Lake City next week for a 3 day course in water extraction that will get me certified to be able to haggle better with the companies that throw fans and dehumidifiers in place after an unfortunate plumbing incident. So once I get back from that one - next Friday - I will officially have spent considerably far more time in the year 2009 away from my home city than actually at home. Seems to actually improve the sex life at home - the goodbye time, the welcome back time, the day after the welcome back time - absence does seem to help matters there a bit. As it seems to me anyways (from my perspective) that the moods and PMS of my beloved seem to be particularly intense with the hormones doing what they are doing - so that just by breathing I seem to be doing something wrong - then the act of actually engaging in a full minute or two of intimacy seems to at least semi-justify the torturous moments when I am receiving the full brunt of the PMS. (Makes note to himself - spending the day shuttling the girls around to go shopping and eating out is not an experience I will be repeating any time soon - and I will spare the details).

Portland brings up a lot of images - mainly the color grey. A lot of nice trees - but it is so very grey - and the one time it was not grey was when I happened to be right in Troutdale (remember Motel 6 Y-man) and Gresham working in some of the nastiest winds - courtesy of the Columbia River wind tunnel - that I have ever experienced from a roof - and this was re-inforced by one man telling me quite matter of factly that I was "crazy" for even thinking about what I eventually did - getting up on his 2 story roof (from a porch that made the climb not as intense - I am not even that crazy to go straight up in those conditions) and as he held the ladder and I made the leap up he told me as soon as he let go of the ladder the wind brought it crashing down. Once I get up I am basically hugging the roof with all available limbs and asking myself as the cold air is literally punching my body in every way possible - was I really stupid enough to do what I just did? A lot of those scenic trees were coming down onto people's houses and into their yards and giving some of these folks the bad news that insurance does not cover wind damaged trees that fall into a yard is a good way of getting some folks pretty pissed off.

On the up side - it was getting dark early and though I was responsible for at least on paper justifying 12 hours of work a day, it is pretty difficult to do an exterior inspection when it is pitch black outside - so I was usually heading back to the hotel around 5 or so as opposed to the 7 - 8 even 9:00 times I was doing this in the vicinity of Lincoln, Nebraska over the early summer. The hotel - Crowne Plaza - is walking distance from Trader Joes, and even though the hotel does not have a washing machine - strangely enough - the Phoenix Inn didn't mind me walking in and doing it in their basement lobby, and if you look confident enough they even think you are staying there after a while. It was also walking distance from Applebee's, Chevy's, a sushi place that was good, Olive Garden, and a local steak place called Stanford Grille, and a couple miles from a Benihana that had some good sushi as well, and I could either swim or ride the workout machines every morning, so a relatively comfortable place to stay.

So now arriving to the Bob Dylan line that makes up the title of this particular piece, I had an unexpected anima experience - the awakening of the inner feminine through the experience of a real life female - also known as having a crush or infatuation - with a lady whose name I have only indirectly referred to (you never know really if this could get back somehow) and although I won't go into specific details she was someone I was interacting with in the course of doing my job - quite frequently there - usually by phone or e-mail, although I did meet up with her in person a few times - purely on an innocent level. As in nothing physical happened - other than a hug - but if anything it brought home to me how easy it would be for something physical to happen when away from the comforts of home living out of a couple suitcases and hotel room for almost 3 weeks at a time. When you are working as many hours as I am there isn't really time to think about the idea of loneliness, but having an attraction awakened out of nowhere while being away from home made it apparent that loneliness was there. I wasn't pining away for the wife as much as missing my walks with my German Shepherd, and hearing Sara's voice on the phone every day made me realize I miss her - to the point that when driving back and hearing the Phish lyric "so if I'm inside your head" - it actully brought tears to my eyes.

So when you hear the voice of a friendly female on the phone, or have a certain thing going with the e-mails - you kind of feel at home - and of course the danger is - you may not want to be too much at home. I did tell Victoria of this experience when I got back as our relationship is open enough that we do share these things - and her reaction was it was too bad that nothing happened, but then the mind games are going - does she really mean that, was she just saying it, or is she just using it to get a pass for when she feels compelled to stray outside. As far as I know neither of us have - yet - but we have both thought about it and you just never know. The one dream I had with - going back to the title line - the GOG - I was sitting on my hotel bed - fully clothed - and she was right behind me - in a very intimate but not necessarily sexual way - holding my back with her arms over my chest leaning into me, and I woke up feeling very dreamy and content with this image. Now the reality sets in - she is close to my age, but a mother of two kids - one grown and one 12 - getting started very early around the age of 19 - and presently has a boyfriend - who from appearances (she had a gathering at her houes the last night) lives with her and although it may not be her end all relationship that leads to marriage - I don't get that sense anyways - obviously it is somewhat serious. On a certain level I feel that kind of emotional chemistry - like I click with her - relate to her - she even told me she had a dream about me shortly after my dream of her. On another level - night and day - she is a country music fan with towels reading "Cowgirl" on them, she stated she did not like Trader Joe's because of all the hippie types there who go there. I did tell her I am one of those hippies - more in disguise - but it still who I am - and she has a hard time believing it. So in some ways so close, in other ways worlds apart - but something definitely seemed to be there for me - and although I can't read her mind - it is possible for her too - the signs seem to at least suggest the possibility. But when you know somebody through work - not necessarily at work - but through work - and both of you are at least on paper committed - there is that fine line of actually making something happen - and the potential consequences therein - and also a bit of that sense of relief that since on paper you should not be making it happen - then there is no reason to have to go through that burden of trying, but also that disappointment when the what if thoughts start coming in.

So borrowing from some of my Buddhism books - I just go with the experience - not forcing it - not pushing it away - just letting it be what it is without feeling a need to make it more than that and that is where it stands. So imagine my surprise that shortly after hearing from her this week I am heading right back up that way - all over again - this time for a shorter period of time - to a place that I thought I was done with - at least for a good while anyways. As busy as it has been maybe I am going to be spending more time there - who knows. These experiences feel good - I think they are necessary for some reason - but as long as it stays where it is I am fine. Of course the nagging question also comes up what I would do or would have done if she had initiated something. It is quite an interesting question. I have been so kind and careful not to go to her too soon - as the song says. But what if she came to me? It is not a question I have an answer to...

Finally swept away

2009-01-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

I took the 600 mile drive from Dayton, NV to Portland on Tuesday - it took me about 10 1/2 hours to get here. It was raining in most of Oregon, but not bad coming through the rest of the way - I went up from Reno to Susanville, took Feather Lake north of Susanville and connected to 89 leading up to Mount Shasta. When I got here I found out I had assignments in south Washington State including Kelso and Longview. After the first day of assignments one of the associates here told me to check the news as I had more lined up for Longview - well it turned out that I5 flooded and after some checking up on it I realized it was just north of where I was working. A 20 mile stretch was shut down with no detour and no train service so it was pretty bad. I came back to Kelso the next day, and after appt #1 took a wrong turn on Rose Valley Road and went deep into a valley that led me right up to a raging brown river and one of those "water over the road" conditions that was a little intimidating, but in a somewhat panicky state I didn't know any better and waded through in the vehicle. It was only until the road narrowed to a one lane road, with a tree sliding down from a gradual mudslide taking up half of it that I realize I was completely lost. I managed a U turn in a narrow one lane road - probably backing up and coming forward close to 10 times with that nasty raging brown river just next to me, and crossed over one more time through the "water over the road" area, before I found someone there who told me I had veered off about 10 miles the wrong way. Thankfully I got out since I had the feeling that the Forest was swallowing me up - it was dark and ominous the way "Blair Witch Project" felt - no cell service, out in the middle of nowhere and with the rain coming down and that nasty brown river at the side of the road it was like the scene of a scary movie. Needless to say, the whole thing could have been avoided with a GPS unit and as my company was willing to reimburse I got one the next day and it has been a huge help. I saw another area the day before in Longview where a steep back yard was literally pouring water into a furnished basement, and as I waded through in my boots I told yet another person here that there is no flood coverage. I felt like I was in the middle of a rain forest, and also had the same "water over the road" areas there, and with some roads blocked off with flooding I wondered what it would be like to be trapped there with no way out. Sometimes they look like they are about to cry when I tell them. It's the hardest part of my job. Weather is starting to clear up and they may have the I5 ready to go soon.

Obama song by Michael Franti

2008-12-25T10:15:00.000-08:00

Obama Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ou-oz6PZm4
A great song from a great artist!!

Oh demon alcohol

2008-12-20T07:23:00.000-08:00

Oh demon alcohol,Sad memories I cannot recall,

Who thought I would say,Damn it all and blow it all,

Oh demon alcohol,Memories I cannot recall,

Who thought I would fall a slave to demon alcohol

Lines by Ray Davies

This is what my backyard fence now looks like courtesy of the latest windstorm. This is the time of year that everyone gets together for holiday parties. Alcohol is the focus of many of these parties. I am not one to judge, but I stopped drinking years ago after it started to make me sick. I have an addictive personality. I can't imagine a life without chocolate or some kind of sexual activity, whether that activity happens with or without another person. So for those that I know that are - let's come out and say it - addicts - slaves to alcohol, I am not one to condemn or judge since I am far from free from my own addictions. Still - I always notice that the reason I am not entirely comfortable around a group of drinkers is it creates another me vs. them situation. You know the old saying - you are either with us or against us - by that silent act of not participating there is already a difference set. So this time of year when the invites to parties start piling up - like there are so many I don't know what to do with (all 3 of them) I start finding excuses why not to go because it is hard to relate to a group of drinkers when you aren't one of them. Sure I have had my fun times - slamming away on an out of tune guitar until all the strings broke one by one - screaming out singing until my voice got hoarse - I had my moments, but I feel like those were my kiddie days in some ways now. Any addiction serves one purpose - it gets you to avoid a painful side of yourself you don't want to face. Once I go long enough without sex - as defined as the act involving two people, those feelings emerge. With sex I think there is a line between abstaining - which is necessary at times - and partaking - which for the sake of a relationship's survival - is also necessary at times - and every couple has to figure out what works for them. With alcohol though it seems like a much greater and more destructive force, not only because what it does to the body - the liver and the brain - but what it also does to the psyche. It seems like it creates a vampiric state of existence where you are either living for the thrill of being high or recovering in a drained burned out state. Off and on - and in avoiding the pain that you medicate yourself with, you get further and further from yourself - knowing who you really are, really knowing your scars. So again - I am not one to state how one deals with their wounds and their pain - I just know it is difficult for me to be around chronic drinkers because their pain is so openly advertised in the thin disguise of intoxicated pleasure. Party on.

Lord you can see that it's true

2008-11-27T06:33:00.000-08:00

He could pass his time'round some other line

But you know he chose this place beside her

Don't get in the way, there's nothing you can say

Nothing that you need to add or do

They love each other

Lord, you can see it's true

Seeing that my last post was written in a somewhat depressed state I can balance it out with a little neutrality here. When Victoria came back from her individual session with the therapist it seemed pretty hopeless here. Of course what I didn't realize since I have now been back in is that she was giving me her spin on what happened, which amazingly enough was quite different than the therapist's spin on it. Although I love Victoria, her representation of the facts of a situation has never been her greatest strength, so it was interesting to see that from what the therapist told me she was not actually saying what Victoria claims she said in the first place. Victoria said the therapist encouraged her to leave me, the therapist said she told her it is not fair to continue to state she will leave if she doesn't. When asked if she was done (with our relationship), Victoria claims to have answered yes, but the therapist heard her say "I don't know". She heard what she wanted to hear and twisted it. It is not that it didn't happen, but she heard what she wanted to hear.

Without pointing fingers - because it does no good - I still am one that believes that the role model of your parent of the opposite sex shapes your relationships in the future. Seeing that my mother was - and still is - a highly unstable, angry, emotional wreck who never developed a very effective way of dealing with her own issues, I know that has set the stage for all of the women in my life and there has been a common theme. This starts with the first woman - Sharon - she was the first I ever kissed or made love to, and was in love with at the time - she was a troubled woman suffering from schizophrenia and lacked the strength to make any type of decision on a daily level . This unstable theme holds all the way down the relatively short list of women in my life, every woman I have known has been highly troubled and somewhat unstable. The next woman - Brigit - an Italian Jew with amazingly large and beautiful breasts - was such a control freak that it was difficult to be around her - well when the sex wasn't happening anyways - and when sex became a blatant part of the control - it was too much for me to take. Karen - although I lived with her and loved her - and I still do love her - had been through hell with the passing of her mother at 3 and then a wicked abusive stepmother stepping in, and her abandonment issues seemed to make my inevitable abandonment of her a self-fulfilling prophecy. Raulin - a very sexy Latina woman - had alcohol issues, and her issues with sex and intimacy - even though I had some of the best sex ever with her - you can point to her own possible molest as a child and I was in lust/love with her too - but it was like clutching at straws - and when she started running away I called her on it by not allowing her to come back - as much as I wanted to. So by the time Victoria came around, I kind of felt that I had a bit of a sneak preview in that she was a bit of each and every one of them.

I could see the writing on the wall from the beginning. She was there, but then she was trying to back out - even in the first months I was with her. She was telling me I should be with someone else, she was scared of the intimacy that she so desperately needed, she didn't like me living like a slob, wearing cheap shoes and dressing like a complete fucking idiot. I remember when we had some dumb dispute - I am not sure exactly what it was - she may have been upset I wasn't taking her out to dinner, or she thought I was too blame from some very unpleasant physical symptoms that developed from sex - whatever it was - she was running away even then and I was supposed to meet her at Balboa Park in San Diego, but I couldn't find her. I had this very crucial thought in my mind. I knew a pattern was set in motion. I knew that if I threw in the towel with her, that ultimately I would just keep finding her again and again in other women. So I thought this is too big for me to fight - this pattern of women in my life. If I met a stable woman with a good foundation there would be no allure. So as sick as the whole thing was, it was my sickness - being drawn to sick women - and nobody could ever accuse me of being the most mentally stable man in the world anyways - so I thought no - I am not backing away from this because Victoria was the most stable of the unstable women I had known. I know it is a complete contradiction, but she is stable in her own way. This is a woman who endured - most likely - sexual advances from her father - some of which were repressed, an abusive distant mother who hit her more than she spoke to her, she had the intelligence and insight to question a very abusive culture where women are slaves with no rights - and when I met her coming off a rebound from a husband who had beaten her, you would think she would be completely shut down - and even though she was close to it - I saw a strength and resiliency to come through all of these things and somehow of all the women I had known previously on an intimate level, I had the idea that I wanted to be with her. And almost 12 1/2 years later I still am.

I love her and it has been hell at times, sometimes even it still is - but I still love her and have no regrets. Sure it's easy to be in touch with other couples who have much more of a life in the bedroom than I do, but everyone has their own issues to face. Envy is a wasted emotion because you can only live your own life. Sometimes we can go for a long time without it happening at all, but even when it seems hopeless, when I have heard her once again proclaim we are done there, it can never happen again, we always seem to gravitate back to it. I know it is rare that she actually gets off, and the older we get the less frequent it becomes. At the beginning on some survival instinct she was ready for it all the time. Then it started to taper down. Last time she was into it, a Mexican painter student of hers was really getting her worked up, and she wanted him but that sexual energy had nowhere to go and she was receptive to me. Some might take that personally, but hell - whatever works. One time she even got off on the idea that I was going to physically re-unite with Karen. Still - even if the wait is long - when I do make love to her again, I feel like I am at home and I know she is the woman I still want to be with even after years of a struggle.

Victoria once observed that my sister seems to live the role of a little girl in her marriage. The husband provides everything for her - takes care of her - even feeds her (she won't eat if he doesn't) and she acts and talks just like a little teenager. As she explained to my brother, that is where she is safe after all of the hurt she has endured - from the endless screaming of my mother to her sexual assaults and physical abuse in one of her relationships. She is safe there. Victoria seemed to understand that. So imagine my surprise when the therapist without hearing anything about my sister - seemed to paint Victoria the same way. The same pattern is there. In a broken environment growing up, Victoria dreamed of running away and finally did that in her mid teens when her father started asking her to sit on his lap. She moved in with a Wiccan priest twice her age who replaced her father. She had some sex with him, but it didn't last. When she married Stuart - who was completely unstable and beating her up - running away was the right thing. So in her model - as a little girl - running away is what you do. So she talks about it, dreams of it, plans it all the time with me. But I am not hurting her. I don't beat her up. Sometimes the sexuality unfortunately is a connection with her past and there is no way around that. I can't turn it off - I am a sexual being. She in turn has emotional needs and needs to be held. One can't happen without the other. At some point I believe it can get better there, but for now the compromise is it happens some times, other times there are long breaks in between, but it never goes away.

The therapist observed all of her plans to actually go somewhere are disconnected and foggy with no foundation in reality. There is nothing holding them up. She wants to go to school full time and be independent, but she struggles to complete one local community college class without being overwhelmed with fear. She hated San Diego when I met her there - she was ready to move back to Chicago when I met her - but she never did. Now that we are here she has an idea that moving back with her friend Marlene is the answer - that somehow she will raise a very demanding child completely on her own, go to school full time, and become independent. The therapist found it very interesting that Marlene lives not in Chicago, but in San Diego - the place she wanted to get away from. What about the four animals she adores - the two dogs and cats - that she has an easier time expressing affection for - what happens to them - I can't take care of them on my own. And her beloved Chicago - there is not one person in her family she would want to move back in with - including her mother, brother, or any of her sisters. She has no friends there who would take her in. Living alone and paying the bills - she relies on me for that - not just for the money but to actually take the time to get the payments out and get them on time. So long story short - she will always be fixated on something - that with me anyways - will never happen. Because on some level she knows she has a foundation and love here that she will not get anywhere else. It scares her - the intimacy - because she has never been loved before in a way that was consistent and stable, so she cannot accept it now. But here it is.

Meanwhile - my mother confused me by being affectionate at times and being an endless screaming witch at other times - so to me love and rejection experience are intertwined. So my pattern works well here too because when I am rejected - physically - it is familiar to me. When I feel rejection I become physically and emotionally down - my heart hurts (broken heart as cheesy at it sounds becomes a real symptom), I am lethargic, on the verge of tears constantly, everything takes an effort. I relive the hurt I experienced with my mother all the time. So where some in my situation might have said fuck this and moved on, I take the emotional blows because it is familiar territory. There is just enough love and intimacy here to hold out because if the rejection was all I experienced it would be too much to take. But on some dysfunctional miracle that holds this mess together here, when it gets that bad somehow Victoria knows it and we always seem to make up in the bedroom at the right time before it gets too far in that direction. It seems that on our 13th year together there is some built in survival mechanism that keeps us together and keeps the bad times from getting too bad. When I fell in love with Renee on line and was desperate enough to consider being with her physically, we found the right therapist and actually experienced a brief upswing where we both enjoyed sex for a while. Every time she is drawn to someone, she seems to have the sense to know acting on it physically would get her nowhere. We come back to each other - we always do - because on some level we know we belong together.

So she is hurtful at times - I know that experience well - she says things she doesn't always mean and I have to hear her and let her speak without taking her literally - because what she says is not what she really means on a deeper level. She is reliving her own hurt and her own distrust of love and I have to distance myself from it and not take it personally. Somehow within this dysfunctional mess of two broken hearts and minds who have taken their share of hurt growing up, there is the waiting flower of love like a rose waiting to come up from the cracks of a concrete sidewalk. I have to hold out in the times of apparent hopelessness and never give up. As long as I continue to believe in love - love will always find me - one way or the other. Today is Thanksgiving and I give thanks for the love that is in my life. It is a long and lonely road at times, but even so - love is always there if you continue to believe in her.

Brokedown Palace

2008-11-23T06:35:00.000-08:00

Goin to leave this Broke-down Palace

On my hands and my knees I will roll roll roll

Make myself a bed by the waterside

In my time - in my time - I will roll roll roll
In a bed, in a bed by the waterside I will lay my head

Listen to the river sing sweet songsto rock my soul

Ollabelle is one of my favorite recent groups so to see them doing their cover of this song at this highly emotional point in my life was just bringing tears running down my face as I watched it.

God damn why does life have to be so hard? I know I'm lucky to have a job when many are losing their houses and starving, and it's not that I am not grateful, but it's enough to take on this time of year when the daylight is nearly cut in half over the peak time of year for me, but to take on the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of my marriage on top of it almost seems too much. I know some were speculating that my younger brother was on the verge of a divorce after his wife was absentee on the Love Boat, but are we the ones who are really heading there? I chose a recommended therapist for our latest wave of counseling, and after the first session with my wife this lady is strongly urging her to consider separation. I also saw this lady and she seemed pretty solid to me - so here is the recommended diagnosis and is that where we are headed? It seems pretty darn bleak and I didn't sleep much last night. I ended up staying up with Victoria and holding her and she had me laughing - once again - and in some ways she is my best and closest friend, and yet sex has a way of fucking everything up because you can't just make it go away. This year my desire has been down, but sometimes it comes back and the counselor told V that if she goes through with it without really enjoying it she is a prostitute who is betraying herself. So maybe that is the case and if that is then how can that issue possibly be resolved? It may have diminished, but I have a sex drive and I do desire love - even if it is not constant - I can't live a brother sister life with someone I have a desire for. I was hoping another wave of counseling would turn us around the way it once did a few years back, and instead we are already talking about separating. I am one of those impossible optimists and even though sometimes it is hard to get through the day without tears streaming down my face and the heaviest of hearts, I still believe we belong together and can work this out - even if we have to separate to figure that out. As far as the answer to our sex struggles, I just don't know what it is but there has to be one somewhere. All in all - a pretty depressing situation and sometimes I just don't know how I even deal with this or get through it.

You don't always show your sweet side

2008-11-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

I've seen you in the kitchen cookin' me supper
I listened to you bitchin' I watched you suffer
I still love you baby 'cause I know you
Don't mean to do the cruel things you do
I've seen you sewin' buttons on your shirt
I've seen you throwin' up when your stomach hurt
I'll stick by you baby through thick and thin
No matter what kind of shape you're in

from Sweet Side by Lucinda Williams

This is my point of view from one side of a marriage. It is not right or wrong as it is my perspective and I address this letter to you. I try to write this as objectively as peacefully as possible, even though it would be very easy to turn it into an angry tirade, blame you, say it's all your fault, but since we share this space each other, and chose each other - even right now - at this very moment, time and space - to be around each other - regardless of those I'd really like to be somewhere else thoughts - never mind that - here we are - at this moment - together right now - by mutual choice. Choices have been made - repeatedly. Ever day of the 12 years we have been together we have chosen for one reason or another to stay with each other. And yet for 10 of those 12 years I have heard plans and desires of yours to be other than this place. From the very first "I'm leaving you" about 10 years ago - when I was convinced it was really going to happen, to dozens of dozens more - to the point now when I hear it - in all due respect - I don't really attach much credence to it.

It's not that I don't believe you feel like you mean it when you say it. I completely believe you say it with full belief that you do intend for it to happen. But one problem is - it never does happen. Not to say that I am pushing you to either go or stay. I only want to hold you, I don't want to tie you down - as a certain song says. But it kind of comes down to the old saying - shit or get off the pot. After so many years of hearing this - shit - for lack of a better word - I start to believe it is nothing but - well - shit. And then I feel like someone is crapping all over me. So unless you have immediate plans to put this plan into motion, why do you need to keep telling me this same lie over and over? Frustrated - yes - I know you are - and I share your frustration. Somewhere else always sounds better. You would love your beloved Chicago, I would love a nymphomaniac who wanted constant sex all the time. And yet - again - here we are - stuck with the choices we have made - both of us. Another place sounds better, sounds like the answer to everything - but again - here we are. And it some point it all comes down to facing your own writhing guts when there is no place left to turn to - no refuge in sex, drugs, alcohol, mind numbing TV, or medicating junk food. It's just the place they talk about in medication - that numbing silence that can either calm one's mind or send it to the brink of insanity. So my proposal here - as long as we are together - whether that means one more day - one more decade - or an entire lifetime - is to try to make the best of it. Yes - being on your own sounds great. For some single mothers - being on their own - it means working two minimum wage jobs 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, struggling constantly to make ends meet. It is not as glamorous as it sounds. And then add going to school on top of that. Where would this happen? With your family - your supportive family - the same family that does not approve of the way our daughter acts, the same one that always saw you as the black sheep, the same one you will never see eye to eye with? Or with Marlene - the same woman who left you on Thanksgiving with a bowl of cold chili, the same Marlene, almost incapable of taking care of herself, who has never been too patient with children, let alone a difficult one. Is she the answer? Or is it the ideal that it will be on your own - independent of everyone, needing nobody. Can that really work, raising a child? Can any of us really survive on our own.

I know I am far from perfect. I know I may have caused you pain in the past. Maybe every time in the interest of pursuing my own desires you have had to relive an uncomfortable experience that you did not care to re-live. Maybe that has led to simmering rage - to relive and express that simmering rage every time you make a comment like I am leaving you, I would rather be on my own, or look at those old man clothes you wear, or look how incompetent you are compared to my father or my Latin associates - and maybe on some unconscious level those comments that seem filled with rage seem justified to you. I must admit I do feel hurt and pain when you say them. But I think in saying them you are hurting yourself as well. Do you really need to keep saying these things - and better yet do you really mean them? As another song says - can you say what you mean, and do you mean what you say? As the old saying goes, isn't it better to not say anything then to say anything out of spite and hate? I have been trying to spend more time around you lately, but every time I do it seems like one of these comments comes up? Is the answer then, spending less time around each other - and that you are in fact now finally going to move out and live up to what you have been saying you would do for over 10 years now?

Whatever you need to do, you have my support but every day you are around me - I believe both of us need to show mutual respect, and choose not to say the first thing we happen to say or think, just because maybe that is what one of our parents did. You are welcome in my home every moment you want to be here. I made a vow and commitment to God and the government that I would take care of you in times of sickness and health. This is a time of sickness. And I don't believe everything you say, even if I do feel hurt by it. Because 12 years of being around me speaks for itself, even if you have spent a considerable amount of those years stating you wish you were elsewhere. Because I love you as much as I do, I believe if you can be any happier away from me than with me I encourage you to chase that dream before your time does expire. At the same time, I am pretty confident that on the flip side there are many equally valid reasons to stay with me - as despite my shortcomings - shortcomings that have been made clear to me repeatedly and often in not the friendliest manner, I do love you, and will alway support you even in times of sickness. But in the spirt of the Great loving Goddess, Buddha, and every high spirit that we believe in, I ask that in the time we do continue to choose to be around each other, we make every effort to be as kind, loving and compassionate to the other person as possible. As long as we can do this, I believe we are good for each other. But if this is not possible, well - than as long as we are living together, we should make every possible effort to avoid and not be around one another, as this is nothing but hostile, and resentful energy. I can sign up for every possible volunteer effort out of town. We can do all activities completely apart, and avoid each other if we have nothing good to say to each other. Personally - I think we can do better than that.

Obama has it

2008-10-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

I don't want to be one of those typical bloggers who devotes 100% of the time to politics and following every move of the one I am for or against. I vote Democrat, but I honestly wasn't real excited by Gore, Kerry, or Clinton - even if I did vote for them. What I don't like about the Republican party is the alignment with the extreme born again Christians, and the notion that religion should interfere with politics to affect issues such as abortion and stem cell research. Although my brother was correct in nothing I was a fan of Ayn Rand, what drew me to her was not her commitment to pure market capitalism, but the issue of individuality and the ability to stand out in a crowd and be true to your self. I will always like that part of her philosophy, but since as she says you are either 100% for or against her, I guess I am against now because I have never been 100% for anything. I do believe there has to be an incentive for certain kinds of work. If a Walmart cashier is paid as much as a heart surgeon, the incentive is taken away - so some people inevitably need to earn more money than others. But I also think if the rich get richer and the poor get poorer to extreme- as seems to be the case now - where all the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a select few, so that people lose their houses, and don't have the coverage to see a doctor, I don't think that works either. In short there has to be a balance between capitalism - for incentive - and socialism - to regulate the inherent need for power and destructive greed - which I believe in stark contradiction to Ayn Rand's philosophy, does not necessarily result in the common good overall. People do stupid things - get greedy - cheat - rig the books - make dumb investments - pollute - and then look what is happening now on Wall Street and the world overall. On the socialist side, I don't see a great crime in taking care of the sick and dying - those who can't afford health care. I see a selfish end in the unselfish act of taking care of others - if we live in a healthy society, that helps the individuals who live in it. If the sick and dying are lining the street - as the case with very stark rich/poor distributions - such as Mexico - that is a tragedy for everyone involved. So in so many words - I think the center is better than any extreme and that sums up how I feel - in so many words about politics.
When Obama took the stage at yesterday's rally here in the Reno area, I felt the incredible energy that once drew me to see the Grateful Dead as many times as I did. The crowd was ecstatic - in my You Tube film you can see a young lady (I think) jumping up at down the way I did when I first heard "Scarlet Begonias" or "Dark Star" at a Grateful Dead concert. There was an incredible energy and Obama didn't have to say some kind of phony "my friends" because it was clear that he was connected to the crowd. It was there in his body language, his mannerism, who he was. He didn't seem to be putting on an act - he was just being himself - he was one of us but he was the one with the collective magic and gift to be the one - of us - who was doing the talking. I felt like I could - in another set of circumstances - sit down and chat with him and it would be like talking to an old friend. You feel like you know him - the same way we felt like we knew Jerry Garcia - even if you don't know him, but there is not an aura of I am better than you I see in so many politicians.
We arrived at 7:30 after all waking up at 5:00 AM, and because I had found the location of the baseball park at the University of Nevada Reno location on line, I wasn't fumbling around looking for it, and we found a somewhat convenient spot in a lot. Maybe why I am always drawn to Democrats is they seem like they are the true down to earth people, people not hung up on wealth, status, or power but more people who generally speaking are looking out for the common good. I always see more of a selfishness in Republicans - I've got mine - so fuck you - lower my taxes and you are on your own. Damn it I worked hard, so you work hard too and you maybe are lucky enough to hit the lotto like I did, if not - fuck you - not my problem. That was impression of the "Contract of America" among other things. I know - we all like to see ourselves as cowboys, and damn to hell the "free loaders" who collect from the system and take welfare or health care. Nobody likes a freeloader, but on a larger scale, sucking up a disproportionate amount of the world's resources - oil among them - and belching out a huge amount of pollution and having this mis-match contribute to worldwide poverty and hunger - aren't we on a certain collective level, all freeloaders, here in this country - at least those who can afford it? Why do I deserve good food, TV, power and electricity more than a starving man in Africa.. because I am American and that makes me entitled? That to me is hypocrisy. I take more of the Buddhist approach - and adopt the previously spoken line that when one is not free, all are not free, and when one is oppressed, all are. When people in this world are going hungry and sick, it affects all of us - because we are all one organism.
I am a realist. I don't think Obama just takes office, waves a magic wand, and makes this all go away. The economic crisis does not go away overnight. I was against the Iraq invasion from day one and I believe the economic, political, and moral repercussions will be devastating for decades to come. This "war on terror" which I see more as world class warfare than a war on ideology, can only really be solved when billions are not living in hunger and poverty - and I don't see how one man can really change the destructive consumption and waste built into our collective American consciousness, because this has been centuries in the making.
Even so - when I see Obama speak, and possibly even risk his life in his run for president as the first African American doing this, I see the courage of Martin Luther King who also knew his own life was in danger by doing what he believed in. I don't see a phony George Bush, who wrapped himself in his born again Christian righteousness, and then paid back all the companies who put him in office with his favoritism of the wealthy, and business as usual corruption that ended up with one of the worst policy invasions of all time, the invasion of Iraq. Bush didn't really seem to care about anybody but those who took care of him. In Obama I see somebody who wants to change the country for the better because he does care - and I see sincerity and a sense of reality in him that I don't see in many politicians.
At his speech I saw a real presence in him. He made us laugh - he was funny - but at the same time he looked like a leader, someone who genuinely wants to steer the country back not to payoff the rich elite as Bush did, but someone who really wants the best for all of us. I know every point of mine can be debated by Republican and religious conservatives. I know some feel as passionate about McCain and Palin (who drew about 1/3 of the same crowd numbers when she came here a few days earlier) and who am I to say who is right or wrong. I tend to see Republicans as a combination of ignorant and selfish, but I don't hold it against them. They want what is right just like I do, I just don't agree with how they make it happen.
In short, I left the rally buzzing - feeling like I had witnessed history, feeling like I had seen a man with a real presence to him, and I went back and watched my little home made video of him, where on You Tube his physical size is not much bigger than a thumbtack due to my cheap camera, but even watching that I picked up on the energy and excitement of the crowd, and the power of his movement and body language even from a far. I was close enough to actually see him better than my footage came out, and though he has hit the trail and moved on - I still feel like he is here and I still feel a connection. God help us if he loses, but if he wins I am going to feel a real sense of joy and optimism that I haven't felt in years. No - he is no miracle worker - one person can't do it alone - but if there is anybody who can steer us out of the mess we are in, I truly believe he is the guy.

Addicted to love

2008-10-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

Victoria read to me some of the characteristics of addictive love in a book she saw. Of course - like anything - some fit - some did not. I take a look at where I am now. At some point there is a selfish desire that makes intimate love happen - sex feels pretty darn good - and it is nice to have it with a new woman. I was very happy when I first started this relationship. But at some point - the only way love can survive is to slowly transition from selfish to selfless - because on a pure selfish level, the payoff starts to lessen over time. Speaking for my own anyways. It seems like anything will diminish over a period of time - hence the law of diminishing returns. Here I am now - 43 years old - and I am noticing that the testosterone level is not what it once was. Sure I take care of personal business quite frequently, but the idea of sex is starting to seem like a lot of trouble and effort. Sara loves the song "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" and when I listen to it I almost feel like it doesn't mean the same thing at 43 as it did at age 20 - when just looking at a picture of a nude woman in a Playboy or Penthouse magazine was enough to send me through the roof. Now my friend e-mails me something like that and I think - yeah - they're kind of pretty - actually they're starting to look now like they are young enough to be my daughter.

Sex has held us together for a long time now, somewhat grudgingly - but now I amazingly find myself backing away from it. It seems forced, contrived - now neither of us are really into it, and simulating it at this time seems preferable to making it happen. Is this a permanent state? I think that is another key to love - to realize that even when there is a bad time going on that it is not permanent. So even when I feel like the last place I want to be is around my wife, when our mutual irritations with each other feed into unpleasant comments, when love becomes nothing more than drudgery and the feeling of I would rather be absolutely anywhere but here, when the discussions of maybe we'd be better off apart than together, so that we'd be "free" to chase that elusive romance that lies waiting - the one that is going to fulfill all the hidden repressed desires and passions - that is when the selfless aspect of love comes in. In "Husbands and Wives" the man found a younger woman who loved sex and he had a great time with her, only to eventually come back to his much less sexually interested wife - and he realized she was the one he really belonged with all along, despite the illusive temptation of something better.

So I look at the big picture now when the talks of separation come up. I know I love my wife. I don't love her because I hope to get a great sexual experience, because right now it isn't in the cards. I am optimistic at some point it will come back, but sometimes in the hope of something coming back, letting go has to happen first. I know both of us at times dream of being "somewhere else" - maybe a bustling city for her, maybe a hot passionate romance for me - and yet here we are. Right here - now - this. I don't love everything about my wife. Gone are the days of putting her on a pedestal. When she said nobody would be interested in you - I didn't like the comment, or the way it was said. I didn't care for the implied cruelty within it, but I didn't take it personally either. Because first of all, I know it is not true - and even if it was - there is more to what "I" am then who is interested in me, because the older I get the inevitability will be that less and less will find me attractive, but that is part of the eventual letting go. It is not me - who is interested in me - or repulsed by me - I see myself as a pure spirit that transcends the opinions of others. So within minutes - that is done - and now what. The day goes on. I don't love her because I imagine her to be a wonderful, kind person because I have seen her cruel side. We all have it. Nobody is perfect. Kindness is mixed with cruelty.

This is as far from addictive love as I can imagine, because there is no real payoff now that sex seems to be at least for the time being removed from the picture. I love here because after 12 years she is a part of who I am. I love her because we have a daughter who depends on us to guide her and we can do a much better job of it together than apart. The ultimate biological aspect of love is to bring up offspring and that is what we are doing. I love her because if we did separate this whole household of cuddly animals and one child would be no more. I love her because I believe we are better off together than apart, even if it is a hell of a lot of hardwork, drudgery, bitterness, and tension - and the feeling that there has to be something better. That is where selfless comes in - as I am at a restaurant I would rather not be at because I know it is where she wants to be, or I am driving her to her doctor, standing in a long line for her medicine, feeling that I am there to take care of her in "sickness and health" just like the vows said - because I believe whether times are going great and we are in la la land, or we are in a rut and just want to get the hell away from each other - it is the same big picture, the two sides of the same coin. I am not going to back down when times are tough, the hormones are going downhill, old age approaching in the form of middle age is rearing its ugly head, when the whole charm is long gone, because I see we have something that has kept us together for more than 12 years, more than most couple on average will last, and I am not going to walk away. I know even laughing, holding hands, hugging, just doing the basics that go beyond sex, are still satisfying in their own way. I know I will sometimes lose it and voices may be raised, and remember Sara falling to her feet in desperation at seeing us fight, knowing how frightening and upsetting it is for her to think we can separate, and I know that I will do everything I can to not let my daughter down, or let my wife down, even if she doesn't want to f___ing be here - I still have a karmic responsibility to take care of every moving living creature in this household - being the one main source of income here - and that by the grace of God I am in a position to have a job to do that in a time when people are losing their jobs, and losing their houses, and it is my karmic reward to be in a place to do that.

So you call this addictive love? Right now it feels like anything other than addiction. It seems like a lot of hard work and hard times, but I am not going to back down from it. That to me is selfless and that to me is the true meaning of love - getting outside of yourself and doing your part in caring for and taking care of others who are counting on you. Even when you don't really feel like it. You do it because you know that is your place in life. So here I am.

There is no pain you are receding

2008-10-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

"There is no pain, you are receding.

A distant ships smoke on the horizon.

You are only coming through in waves.

Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone

.I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown, the dream is gone

I have become comfortably numb."

Comfortably numb might be a nice place to be now. If I lived my life by those who wanted me to take anti-depressants, that might be where I would be. Instead here I am - doing a little better than I was last night when I sat there lying on my bed in a dark room, tears streaming down my face, feeling hopeless, feeling angry at the injustice and misery of living, feeling life was just a cruel, ironic joke, feeling like a failure for taking apart my leaking bathtub faucet as I had successfully done a few years ago, but this time failing to fix the problem and causing more of a drip than I had before, knowing I was going to have to throw in the towel and call a plumber who will probably charge me something I can't afford for something I - at least in theory - could have fixed myself if not for the old plumbing faucet cartridge being so corroded and stuck that I could only get the middle of it out, not just have it pop right out as it does on the Moen website instructions. In the spirit of my father, I did give it the college try and attempt repairs, I just came up short and I was taking the defeat of the faucet very personally, like my failure to fix it was a symbol of my own inherent failure.

Maybe they were right all along - maybe I am "bipolar" - even if it is more of a controlled bipolar. I alternate from feeling spiritually connected and grateful to be alive, when I feel like I am in part of the flow of existence, to feeling hopeless, infatuated with death, and walking around with "tear stained eyes" and a physical feeling of having a heavy heart when I am on the other side. Each time it doesn't keep me from doing my job and taking care of my family. I just got a compliment from an upper level manager for my ability to continue to "razzle dazzle" the customers, all because I hit it off pretty well with an 84 year old customer, wrote him a check as I always do for his laminate floor damages, and getting a little personal and telling him of my love for music and playing guitar seemed to really impress a guy, who in person as a child met his idol at the time, John Philip Sousa, shortly before his passing. So point being - whether I am on the high side or low side, I have enough sense to not let either side take me too far, which is why I seem to get by without the wonders of pharmaceuticals.

But that is not to say it isnt' a bitch at times. Last night, I was really feeling horrible and today I forced myself against my immediate wishes to drag my ass to the gym and do my hour of cardio and about 200 weight reps, speaking to an Iranian-American Southwest pilot named JT - who shared with me his disgust with American tendencies and values. Sometimes you just have to get your ass out there as I did this morning, have a little human contact, get some exercise, do what it takes to grab a little bit of balance, and just hope that the inevitable gloominess will come to an end, but when it hits, man it is a motherfucker. When those death thoughts seem so prevalent, I just have to remind myself it is temporary and think of my own lyrics "I surrendur to death but I don't need to be dead" or "don't be the pain" and realize that what is so strong at the point to make me a crying babbling idiot, does not have to take hold of me. It does pass - like a solid mountain as our local meditation teacher uses as a symbol - it is a hell of a storm - just like the grey gloominess of our first snow here with face biting cold, but it is going to go away. It just seems so real and permanent whenever it is happening. I am not suicidal, but sometimes I think when it is my time to pass on to whatever lies next, I will feel somewhat relieved to not have to go through the down side any more.

On some level I feel like my own depression I seem to be experiencing now is somehow or another synchronistic with our country's financial troubles. I try to stay away from politics. On My Space, I have Barack Obama as my first listed "friend", I've voted Democrat ever since I can remember and I always will, but I am not going to go on about every move the candidate makes, or how much Sarah Palin appears to me to be a religious right fanatic as the second coming of Hitler, because I just don't get caught up in it. I vote Democratic, hope we get the hell out of Iraq soon, hope whoever gets in there does what's best for our country, but I don't dwell on it too much. The financial meltdown is a little different though and it speaks to our collective culture in a lot of ways. Sometimes I wonder if a financial collapse is a blessing or curse or combination of both. I was very much in agreement with columnist Lenore Skenazy writing about A Great Depression for Kids, but I think that applies to American adults as well as the kids addressed here. Not counting those that are homeless or living in ghettos, I think the majority of us are spoiled sick and have a sense of "entitlement". There is a collective American arrogance that somehow we are better than the rest of the world, and that our excessive proportional use of the world's resources is justified, because hey - we deserve it - even if as a result of this excessive consumption of ours, those resources we unevenly consume lead to excessive pollution, global warming, and maybe somebody else in the world starving to death because those resources are taken away. Hey - Fuck them - that's too bad, but I need my two all beef patties, even if deforestation somewhere is the result, I need to travel all over the place because I feel like it, even if pollution and global warming result, I need my fucking 42 inch Plasma TV to keep up with the Joneses cus damn it they have one, and if they have one, I deserve one too. I think of the "Samsara" concept in the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, where you are thirsty and drink a glass of sand to quench your thirst, and our thirst for nice things, for the desire to go on cheesy cruises, have the best shit, have nice landscaping to show off to our neighbors - all seem to me part of a collective sickness that western culture eats up. TV brainwashes us constantly into buying the latest car to be fashionable, wearing the nice clothes and perfumes, even drinking the right beer to increase sex appeal - that somehow all this stuff will make us happy. Every day on the news we hear that god forbid the economy is doing poorly because of all things SALES are down. Consume - consume - and everyone is happy. But at what cost - not only in resources exhausted for the world around us, but our own spiritual cost for the endless desire to have something that cannot be obtained.

I don't know if she reads this any more, but one of our friends out this way - perfect example - they bought a house for 150K - got it as a steal from their parents - and then went ahead and borrowed about another amount close to double that to do everything from re-model the kitchen to buy a custom new van with doors that open by themselves, and spend the rest going on their constant travels and vacations. The real jaw dropper was when she told me they borrowed an amount to cover the actual payments. Why not - re-model, cash in on some equity, make a killing on the house that could only increase in value, and then get the hell out and move to Seattle and live happily ever after. Never mind the hygiene issues that are quite apparent when you walk into the house due to noticeable traces of urine. I have nothing against them - they are nice people and their kids have played with Sara - but I continue to find this type of behavior not only shocking, but completely destructive. Barring some miracle, I don't see how they hold onto their house. Last I checked the husband makes a decent, but not overwhelming salary, the wife works a little part time, and they had their second kid, may have a third, and have a barn full of animals to care for.

Yes - the Wall Street execs - using creative terms like leveraging, credit default, whatever they were doing and whatever they call it - in simple terms were doing nothing more than gambling on the strength of the market - that the bubble would never burst. In the event that it did, they had shakey "insurance" policies with no adequate funds to back them up, and as long as the gravy train kept coming they could inflate the numbers, own their mini-mansions and live the high life of the American dream. I don't see them as any more or less guilty than my friends who decided to borrow double the amount of their house to live a lifestyle they can't really afford, because from top to bottom it's all part of the same delusion and at some point every bubble is going to burst, just like every high time of mine is inevitably going to fall into gloom and doom. I seem to know first-hand what many in a collective state of denial had to learn the hard way. Apparently even billionaire Warren Buffett warned of coming doom, but as long as the gravy train was flowing nobody cared too much about tomorrow. It is all part of the same sickness the way I see it - Wall Street - Main Street - we all buy into the same arrogant lie of entitlement, and when we all end up on our asses - maybe that's where we need to be to balance it out. For me it is a mere matter of having somewhere between 100 to 150, 000 in dollars on paper anyways, gone, but life goes on - I have a job - I don't see myself foreclosing - at least any time soon - and I try to live at least as responsibly as I can, though honestly we have our excesses too. I resisted the temptation to dip further into debt to redo a lot of badly needed home repairs - from cabinets falling apart to cheap-ass low grade carpet with holes in it needing replacement - to realize that I can only afford so much after the first re-fi that covered the roof and new siding, among other things.

My re-fi shows I succumbed to it too, but I at least did not get too far out of line. I do not owe more than the very decreased value of my house, and if I were to sell now I'd probably break even, but sure it was a shock to have the equity line stripped down dramatically, and the 401K drop down to 50% dramatically. We may scrape, but we'll get by. For others - losing their jobs, their houses, losing it all - I can only imagine what hell they are going through - but sadly to me - if we all just lived a little bit more modestly and realistically, none of this would have had to happen. But when we all go overboard, collectively, consuming more than we are entitled to at the expense of the remainder of the poplulation of the world, running off on our cheesy little cruises and travels, buying our stupid little toys - consuming - consuming - consuming - then what the hell did anyone really expect and is it so bad now that some of us can't afford the toys we had before. Some cows out there must be living it up - probably now some people who can't afford to buy steak are saving their lives.

So - I have to stop somewhere and there may be more to say - but a kick in the ass and a depression is often something we need to balance our delusions of grandeur. In the end it's not the end of the world and somehow we'll get by. Maybe we'll even learn a thing or two in the process. Once can only hope.

One silver lining to add - thanks to the help of a neighbor who works in construction and takes apart cars in his spare time, he yanked out the old cartridge and now my faucet is working great - no drips!

I think I might be sinking

2008-10-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

lyric from "Going to California"

I react to the seasons. It seems to be the way it is. In the spring and summer an entire amazing universe opens up to me as I play my music with the sun coming down over the mountains and the moon bursting up at night. I feel alive and connected, and then some time right around the fall - it shuts off. Every year this time of year it seems like someone I am close to has died and then my eyes seem to be constantly watering and I feel a sense of grief and loss. That is what fall and inevitably winter seem to represent to me. Spring and summer burst with life and hope, and then "summer dies and August flies, and then world grows dark and mine" as stated by Robert Hunter. I guess losing about 60 plus in your IRA account in a matter of few weeks doesn't necessarily help much, but I would probably be feeling this anyways. An amazing sense of profound grief - here it is - the first snow of the year already, it is cold and freezing out. Our first attempt at gardening -a huge success yielding incredible squashes, zucchinis, and tomatoes from a community garden in Carson City near a grave yard - set up by University of Reno - now with the first freeze I picked the crop for the last time, and as the blowing flurries "chilled me to the bone" again - a sense of grief, loss, and sadness. I know on some level it is a part of life. As my own song says "there is more than these feelings than this plane". I know you take the ying and the yang, and that is what I do. Still - every time this hits me it's like my ass is getting kicked for the first time all over again.

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL

2008-10-05T06:25:00.001-07:00

Rather than talking about how horrific I find Sarah Palin to be on every level, I am going to put up a link to a skit mocking the debate - I was in tears laughing so hard -

Saturday Night Live debate

Were you born an ass-hole?

2008-09-20T06:24:00.000-07:00

See the cut up version of the song on You Tube

"Were you born an ass-hole
Or did you work at it your whole life
Either way it worked out fine
Cus you're an ass-hole tonight
Yes you're an A-S-S-H-O-L-E
And don't you try to blame it on me
You deserve all the credit
You're an ass-hole tonight"

(George Jones??)

One of my best friends, Youndy, told me I need to forgive my parents. In Unstuck it is recommended too - and I agree - forgiveness, though often monumentally difficult to achieve - is a high state of awareness. My last song about It's Over - although it does not mention forgiveness in particular, preaches the idea of moving on and not reliving the past over and over until the point of nausea. After all - today is here, and the past is gone. So the problem for me is that when the people you are trying to forgive - are just plain ass-holes. I am not stating this out of anger, but just out of plain objective fact. All my siblings at least ackknowledged me on my birthday, but my ass-hole parents did not - which is their choice - or at least their ass-holish way of making a statement that they are not speaking to me because of my little review of their ass-hole fest on the ocean back in July. (Card finally came - a day late - signed "MOTHER AND FATHER" - no "love" so I do stand corrected, but they are still ass-holes anyways). My mom did take me to the doctor when I needed to go, fed me, and clothed me - I'll give her that - but she was still a chronic ass-hole. She was an ass-hole when she - whacked out of her mind - drove me to the shrink and told me she couldn't believe one of her kids was going to a shrink. She has been a chronic ass-hole to all the in-laws, although one through the amazing use of smoke and mirrors has won her over, the remainder of us have seen her in her full ass-hole state. And my parents were ass-holes by pressuring me to go on the ass-hole fest, even when I didn't want to go and gave them the option of just having Sara and Victoria go. No they had to be ass-holes and insist on me going. So if they're crying about all the money they spent, well - they are ass-holes and that is just ass-hole karma. They were ass-holes by telling us we couldn't stay with them on night one, but allowing other more favorable members of the family to stay.

And I know I am an ass-hole too - "ladies you can be an ass-hole too" in the words of Frank Zappa. Growing up in a family of ass-holes, raised by ass-holes, how could I not be one? My younger brother saw me as a real ass-hole, and then spent the rest of his life being an ass-hole to me to compensate.

So I am not here to convince anyone we are a family of ass-holes, because as far as I'm concerned it's a given. My question is more - how do you use the forgiveness exercise as listed in Unstuck when in fact it is being applied to an ass-hole? So here is my solution:

Get into meditative position - breathe in - breathe out - imagine the ass-hole that you are trying to forgive. Listen ass-hole - I know you are an ass-hole - I am not going to deny it - I mean who can deny, you can't deny it's not just a change in ass-hole style. More - I just see it is your God-given task on this planet to be an ass-hole - it's in your ass-hole nature - and I forgive you for being an ass-hole. You just can't help yourself. I forgive you - ass-hole - for being an ass-hole and hope that even though I have inherited your ass-holeness from you that I don't have to be as much of an ass-hole as you are. You are forgiven - ass-hole. See the ass-hole - become one with the ass-hole - exchange the light with the ass-hole and see you and the ass-hole covered in a pool of brilliant white light. Feel compassion for the ass-hole - s/he did not chooose to be one, karma chose it for him/her. The ass-hole is living out his/her destiny. Breathe in - breathe out - repeat - doesn't that feel much better now.

Letting go

2008-09-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

I like to think my thought process is a work in process and moves toward something positive. I hope so anyways. So in the wake of what may have looked like a very negative and angry post, (my last one), a song was born that is a lot more positive and has been up on You Tube for a week or so. It was born, not just from the last writing, but also from doing a little meditation group here in Dayton, and last time I actually sang a love song I wrote for Victoria (the one thanking her for being in my life) and my song for Sara for a small group of people outside my family, and I came back and just started thinking about living in the present and how much of a drag it is to keep reliving the past. My thoughts are - you can't run away and just act like something tragic was wonderful - because that is denial and then you start turning into a cheerleader - and as much as I'd like to be a cheerleader, it's not who I am. But I do think once the thoughts have been faced there is some point to at least attempt to put it to rest. Maybe it can't be done completely, but as I've said before, most of my songwriting these days is about striving for a sweeter way of life by describing it first in song, in the hopes that singing it enough can convert a bleak reality into a nicer one. I know it works and I think it is why overall I am happier now than I've ever been, despite all my lurking demons. So this song was brought upon by two different past entities - one being my mother who I've seen as the tormenting wicked witch who reaked havoc on my psyche, and the other being my younger brother, who basically saw me the same way I see her. It is not necesarily about forgiveness - it sounds great in concept, but a lot harder to do - especially when the person in question continues to have a negative impact on my marriage. It is more of an exercise to realize that you don't necessarily have to think about someone who is not there, the damage has been done and at some point enough is enough and there's a conscious choice in whether or not to continue to relive it. These are the words, and my You Tube site has the video:

It's over...9-8-08

Whatever has happened, isn't happening now, I've beaten it to death, beaten it into the ground, It's over, and I'm burying it now.

No matter who I've wronged, no matter who has wronged me, There are so many rapturous beautiful sights to see, but I can't see them, when I'm stuck in the past.

So righteously angry when I'm stuck in past times But how many times will I return to the scene of the crime, Or can I just let it pass.

I'm not who I was, you're not who you once were. I once saw a wicked witch, but now I just see a frightened little girl, We're all someone else now...

CHORUS...It's gone, it's gone, it's done - it's a sailing away.
..It's done, it's done, it's in the past it not now, not today....

I'm digging me a hole, six feet deep in the ground, A place she can rest, a place where I can set her down. A place for ashes and dust.

I've cried, I've screamed, I've tried to hurt myself. I've blamed myself so many times, I've even blamed someone else, My blame is buried in the grave.

Cus nobody could stop what destiny made to come, It's gone in the coffin, as of now I'm saying it's done, May my anger rest in peace.

Love is the only place that's now left behind, The hatred the anger is exiting my mind, Hate is death it's the past, only love can be now.

All hope abandon ye who enter here

2008-09-07T02:52:00.000-07:00

Through me you pass into the city of woe

Through me you pass into eternal pain

Through me among the people lost for aye.

Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:

To rear me was the task of power divine

Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

Before me things create were none, save things

Eternal, and eternal I endure

All hope abandon ye who enter here

I'm not sure, but I think some dude named Dante wrote that. If anyone who happens to be reading this is tired of this subject, you're not alone - because I am tired of writing about it. Yet because it is an essential part of who I am - raw guts and all - then here it comes again, or watch out here comes the big one in the words of Frank Zappa - speaking about a male prisoner who is about to be raped by a very well endowed fellow prisoner named bald headed John. Like it or not, your family - the one that raises you - leaves permanent imprints for life. I know this - I know I am doing this as well with my daughter - and although I try very hard to instill confidence in her, I have a hard time keeping my cool when in the process of demonstrating what type of salt she has by pouring it into her hand, it ends up all over the kitchen floor - especially when I am on the irritable side. I know in talking to my buddy Kirk I am told that a lot of the dysfunctional aspects of my family are a lot more common than I may realize. I know part of it is my expectation that a family is supposed to be a certain way. But hell - my job involves going to people's houses - and when I was last in Salt Lake City I saw a house area where 3 grown brothers all lived literally next door to each other. And this concept actually shocked me seeing that my brothers are all a comfortable multitude of hundreds of miles from me. I see families - extended families - interacting - grandparents and all - and maybe these things happen on some level to test me, but when they do I think it is natural that the "what if" thought process starts "dancing in my head".

So let's go back - one more time - to this cruise. NOOOOOO - not again! But forgive my obsessive personality. My brother Dan has written his first book. Despite the fact that I don't consider the old house in Palos Verdes to actually be an A-frame in the technical sense of the word, or I have yet to ever meet a 10 year old entomologist - I commend him for writing a very well conceived and descriptive book, and hiking a monster trail that even in my most masochistic moments I would never even consider doing. Anyone who does something I can't do earns my respect, and respect is earned for these items, never mind that I was not all that respectful to him growing up. For some reason - I have now read 4 chapters - (and of course I had to track down the paragraph describing the "strawberry blond sadist" that left a strange sensation of burning in my soles) - every time I read the book I have trouble sleeping. First two chapters - boom - very bad dreams. My soul brother Youndy - upon my recommendation - bought the book and couldn't put it down - burning through 150 pages in a day or so - so I think - maybe I can handle this after all. Yesterday I knock down Chapter 3 and 4 - and here I am up at 3 in the morning. Maybe some might find it disturbing to read a book where the author describes a fantasy of a particular person (that being me) - being struck down by lightning as a delicious memory, but in all honesty - considering how I treated him, I really can't blame him for wishing that - despite assurances from him that these feelings are all in the past. I can even relate in that I so much wanted to avoid this God forsaken cruise to not take place that I found myself hoping for the convenient (but painless) deaths of certain people in the family, and if that wasn't going to happen I actually reverted to sick fantasies of adding more scars to my wrists (lightning shaped ironically) and getting the job done right this time - all so that I would not have to attend this gathering. When I would share these thoughts with my wife, she'd give me the old line of something to the effect like there's something really wrong with you (tell me something I don't know) and you really need to go back into therapy (like I need one more therapist staring at me bug eyed every time I repeat the sadistic details of how my my mother treated me, things I am not creative enough to even make up if I wanted to).

But getting back to this passage, reading this stuff is just one more reminder to me of how broken our family is. When asked if there are any regrets, I used to think why have them because it does no good - and that is true - you can't change back the clock. Still - Victoria points out to me - as is the case with her older siblings - that my younger brother needed me - looked up to me as an older brother - and I betrayed him - every time I was critical - especially of his writings of all things - which to some degree - was really the worse thing I could have ever done - and I see that now - to mock somebody's creative input - regardless of what shape or form it is expressed - truly is unforgivable. And yes I was a real ass-hole. I do regret it, but what good will that do. Although I was described as a sadist, if anything I was really a masochist. I hated myself - and after countless hours in vivid details from a screaming raving lunatic disguised as my primary caregiver, telling me exactly how fucked up I was - with no defense I had no choice but to believe it. So I hated myself - to the point that I couldn't ask out a woman in my high school PE class who clearly was interested, because I wasn't good enough for her - and then out of my complete lack of confidence and paralyzed inability to move, I hated myself for not having the guts to do what I was beaten - psychologically anyways - down into doing. I know - the fact this caregiver only hit me once makes me a real pussy in the eyes of some- because if I had been beaten it would have been a lot worse - but please - don't tell me screaming like a maniac into your helpless child's ears for hours on end is better because it is an upgraded form of torture - because that's just rationalizing bullshit. So because I hated myself, I clearly didn't like him too much either. He was a threat to me - just his very existence, and my earliest memory even at the age of 4 was tormenting him. It was a side of myself I am not proud of, but nothing I can do about it - shit rolls down hill, I was treated like shit and passed it along. In some ways it is convenient for me to be the perceived demon, because then it frees them up to be the good guys and his relationship with them is far better than mine will ever be. I would like to think that when I attemped to end my own life, a bad part of me died too. Whatever you want to call me now, sadistic is not on the list. If anyone would know my wife would, and she has called me every name in the book at one time or another, but sadistic has not been named. Her first husband who called her a "piece of shit" and other lovely names, really was - and even at my most angry the best I can do is something like "shut the fuck up" before slamming the door and running out of the room. The point being - what I was I am not now - I consider myself very conscientious of the emotions and feelings of others. And yet at the same time, you cant' turn back the clock either - because thanks to my actions - despite the fucked up environment that enabled them to take place - my relationship with my brother is permanently sealed, and like it or not, I will always be perceived as the sadist to his dying day. That was very clear to me after I talked to him on the boat, and then again after reading the passage in the book. It can't be undone - it just is. Ironically - maybe because I was the shit thrower, the predator so to speak, I have some good memories with him- laughing to the point of crying at the God awful boring religious services, taking naps listening to our favorite records in the dark so we could stay up and laugh ourselves silly watching SCTV at midnight. That to me is the tragedy in all this - that what maybe could have been a close brotherhood in a better environment, became the doomed and fated cursed shell of a relationship that it presently is and always will be. But as I've said - that's bigger than both of us now. Just the way it is. Part of the difficulty I have in reading this book is seeing a whole life out there he has lived that I fell out of the loop to the point I didn't even know it was going on. Upon reading I "feel a little lost cause we've drifted away so far" in the words of Lucinda Williams.

But shifting back to this cruise, maybe it's because I am the sensitive one in the family that I had the deepest and most advertised dread of the event. In using our dysfunctional family as a case study, there are different ways of approaching the past. There is the "rah rah" side of the family, that smiles just a little too hard, cheers just a little too loudly, every time there is a family gathering - acting like we are just one big happy group - always have been. I can understand the look on the bright side approach, especially since it is not one of my strengths, but to me it often comes across as flat out avoidance and denial. Then from my perspective, seeing it gets me even more depressed. That's why certain factions of the family I will also never be close to. I kind of come across like the gloom and doomer for calling it out for what it is - at least how it appears to me - and quite honestly, it is quite difficult to get overly enthusiastic about a cheesy picture of my mother in honor of her 80th birthday, when I am still filled with rage and resentment - not only for how I was treated, but in how I continue to be treated - especially in terms of my marriage - as it seems like a lifetime of shitty upbringing wasn't quite good enough - she had to get once last grab in by doing everything possible to sabotage my marriage. I can envy Victoria's father - even though he was physically abusive, violent, and even lecherous as a drunk - before he died he actually owned it - apologized to her for his past - even though it couldn't be undone - there was actually some accountability. As for my mother, once in a while I get some little note from her like she finds it offensive how I portray these things, and I have to bite my tongue and say - YOU - find it offensive - when YOU - were the one who made my life a living hell? I was the one who lived it, I am just trying to work though it. So her perceived offensiveness for calling a spade a spade - I in turn find equally offensive, and her condescending belittling of my wife - even if it is out of her own tragic and pathetic self-loathing and insecurity - is a present problem to add to a massive list of past problems. At the first lunch meeting on board, it seemed she hid from all of us long enough for my enabling father to have us all come up to her and approach her as the Queen, although I just saw it as the cowardly hiding from years of backstabbing most of the inlaws in the family. So forgive me if I have a hard time getting excited about her 80th birthday or an age old picture of her, for that is not the association that comes to mind. And part of this fucked up drama leading up to the cruise was all the bullshit that came down on the way. I knew it was coming - part of why I didn't want to go - but since it was my fatherly duty to not deprive my daughter of such a grand event, I had to. My wife could have gone for me to spare me, but no - that was not acceptable to them. We all had to be there, right? Although when it was proposed maybe I would go without her, I guess that was okay.. - sound a little contradictory? How about this - a year - a whole fucking year ahead of time - when I decided to go, it was made clear we were not to stay at their house the night before. Too much going on - too much pressure - which might have made sense if that applied to all of us, but then I found out Dan and his wife were staying there. Then I found out we were even booked at a ratbag hell-hole hotel so we wouldn't have to stay there. But when I found out about the condition of this hotel, what were we thinking - I was told we had been WELCOME there all along! See I think I'd respect them a little more if they just came out and said - well we can't stand the bitch you're married to because she doesn't bow down to us and cater to us while we openly stab her in the heart, so we don't want her here or you either. But all this lying, blatant, ridiculous lying to the point where it's an insult to the other's intelligence because it isn't even a good lie - was all part of the maddening process of this trip. I was told so many times she was coming on this trip because she is "family". Well we lcome to the God-damn family. When she innocently asked my father on the cruise where we would meet them in Ensenada, he in so many words said get the hell away from us - we aren't hanging out with you. Basically other than seeing us at the dinner table, and having us at the ever so important photo op, he didn't want a thing to do with her - or me for that matter. Which makes it all the more bizarre to me that we were ever invited to begin with, but hey - it's a look what I can do matter - I can bring the whole family together - look at me - look how powerful I am. The powerless always seem to need to assert their power. Yes - I hate to say this - but somebody had to represent not being there to call out how messed up the whole thing was, and whether this person had some rare form of the African Measles - whatever the hell the reason was - it makes perfect sense to me that a perfect home run was just not going to be hit in such a neurotic and twisted setting.

So fast forward about 2 months after the cruise now - and asking myself why did I have to suffer through this, why did this have to happen, why did I have to blow money on putting up the animals in kennels that could have been far served to a better purpose - why as a matter of karma did I have to go through this - the answer is clear to me now - and maybe why I needed to do this. Basically to come to the unavoidable conclusion that is so crystal clear to me now - there is no hope at all for us as a family. The cruise ship was like one big floating coffin. Some I may never see again, but even worse, whether or not I do almost seems to make no difference now because we're all doing such a good job hiding from showing "a little bit of emotion" that we don't seem to be there even when we are physically present around one another . If that was the best we could do, have our father spend thousands upon thousands of dollars (hey complain all you want, it sure as hell wasn't my idea) in a forced and unnatural gathering, all to have the majority of us avoid each other most of the time, and then tell "sweet little lies" for the times we were, then the dysfunctionality is a permanent factor and we are all basically just fucked. I know I sound negative here to some, but I am just calling it for what it is. My life ain't all bad - hell - I think I believe in God now for no other reason then I can't see how I did not turn out to be dead, in prison, or hopelessly hooked on booze or drugs - because I had no foundation at all growing up. Really I shouldn't be here - relatively together for a broken person (we're all broken - that is crystal clear) - able to hold down a job and lead some sort of spiritually fulfilling existence through my music - on paper I should be dead or one of those fucked up people dependent on the state or others to take care of me. Logically I don't see how this worked out, but it did. So yes - I am bitching on one level, but calling it for what it is on another because my family and the way we have treated and will treat each other will haunt me forever. I can't get away from it - I think of them all the time - I think of Dan constantly. In some ways he never left me, but he just became a permanent ghost in my head. You can't break away from the past, but the rah rahs don't work for me - I have to call it the way I saw it and the way I see it now. Hopefully - some day (every thing's going to be different) I can move past this dismal viewing, but it's the only way I know how to take it on. Life is a mixed bag, because even in the midst of somewhat tragic circumstances, hope can flourish. I have a beautiful family, I don't go hungry, and nature and music continue to blow me away all the time and give me the constant reminder that the spiritual void I experienced for the first half of my life, is now filled in a way it never was before. So count the blessings along with the curses, I'll take what I can get.

Excerpt from "The Cactus Eaters" by Dan White

2008-08-24T20:53:00.001-07:00

Page 169:

"It's not that the woods made me feel competent; quite the opposite. It's just that the woods made everyone in my family feel like an idiot. They were a great equalizer. Even my older brother, a strawberry-blond sadist with a weakness for Ayn Rand, was reduced to a wood louse by the sequoias. Out in the woods, he screamed with fright when yellow jackets swarmed around him. Once, while he was already panicking, I informed him that these stinging creatures were attracted to the glare of his brightly colored windbreaker, though who knows if this was true. I never claimed to be an entomologist. Out in the forest, during a sudden storm over the Minarets, my brother scanned the sky with rabbity eyes, searching for the lightning bolg I dearly hoped would roast him in his boots. That's what I loved so much about the High Sierra. It was a reliable producer of long-lasting and delicious memories."

The Music Never Stopped

2008-08-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

Crazy rooster crowin' midnight.

Balls of lightning roll along.

Old men sing about their dreams.

Women laugh and children scream,

And the band keeps playin' on

Trying to figure out a way to start this out - a title - and drawing a blank so I'll let it come to me. That's how I do what I do - to seek it never seems to work - it seems to need to find me - hey - that's it - from my own song - maybe that's I'll how to start it. Well - anyways - I am going back in time now - a full 9 days for this one - because it is one of those nights that will stand out in my mind for a while - not necessarily because I reached the "zone" - a place I seem to reach somewhat consistently, even this morning when I was walking my dog along the base of my favorite mountain range - a range which I can see from my back yard, but even better in the open space behind our development - a range which seems to really be alive and talks to me with silent words - not necessarily words - but more a calm presence which seems to suggest a very present being in what some would see as merely a chain of rock formed by volcanoes many years ago. But as I was walking along I started singing my own songs - just out loud - no guitar present - and my recent writings "There is Only Love" - "My Sweet Love" are writings that take on a life of their own and seem to fit in quite well at the base of my beloved mountains - the same mountains that my wife always tells me something like - they're just mountains, what's the big deal. The big deal to me is they are inspiring beautiful entities that calm my soul, give me hope in the face of hopelessness, and have a mysterious presence that sums up my own relationship with what some call God. So singing these songs, with my beloved German Shepherd by my side, I can get into the zone, just like I can during my favorite time of the day when the sun is setting, and everything seems to be bursting with spirit and presence, when it seems so clear to me that so much that is unseen is present, that other dimensions beyond the ones we detect are alive and well, that everything from the wind, tree leaves, branches, birds and insects - are all in on this same symphony - and I could swear to God my dog looks over at me at times, looks right through me as if to say "I am in on it too". So even if this zone - which at times I believe in experiencing it is my way of re-charging my own energy levels - is something I often experience alone (although it feels far from actually being alone) with only my possibly somewhat irritated neighbors listening to the notes and vocal sounds - it is something I seem to be fortunate enough to experience on a somewhat consistent level - especially when the weather allows me enough warmth and daylight to be outside without freezing off my fingers.

It is hard to diminish an experience that happens on any regular frequency, but I guess I have gotten somewhat used to it. To get "there" is never something entirely within my control. Certain things help - a full night's sleep, the weather conditions - a breeze, a sunset - always nice - when it is too hot out it can be a distraction just as much as it can be if it is too cold - but even when everything seems to be just right there are other things that can get in the way. Having the onset of a cold coming on last night seemed to distract when I gave up in futility, but then again that same cold was here this morning and then there I was - right there - so it just goes to show - you don't ever know - (so to speak and to borrow famous words) how it is going to arrive or when because there is a certain surrender involved that is almost like catching a wave - and the wave has to be there to begin with and the wave is the ocean of creativity, nurturing, love, inspiration, happiness - everything I associate with my conception of the term God. And I shouldn't necessarily see it as a failure if I try and fail to arrive, it's more like - okay - try it again later because there is the faith there that at some point it is bound to hit.

But I guess what stands out about this particular experience is that it happened with one of my best friends. John from UCSD - who I have been in touch with for many years, is one of my readers here - who actually takes the time to convert my shabby 4 track recordings - out of tune notes, hissing, mistakes and all - from cassette to CD which allows me to listen to them when I am driving - this legend of a human being - was present. I have named them before - the folks I have known for 20-25 years - who seem to me more of my family than the family I was born into - because I have had regular contact with them, shared my soul with them, had psychedelic experiences where the bare-ass raw naked revealed essence of my being was exposed to them - and you form a bond that you can't ever have even with your own brothers and sisters, especially considering that my family is very guarded and poised around each other - and they never seem to let it hang out. This clearly is my observation - and the last time I saw them all it seemed to be clearly reinforced. Then again - who knows - maybe every time I turn away they are all very open when I am gone, but somehow I doubt this. So I have named them before - the 5 that come to mind - Joe, John, Youndy, Kirk, and Rich - are the 5 I have this connection with - and I somehow doubt I will ever find anything like this with anyone else - with the obvious exception of my new family - that consisting of my wife and daughter - who have seen me at my best and worst as well and have been my almost constant companions throughout the last 10 plus years of my life.

The background was I had to spend a week working in Salt Lake. The drive out there on Highway 80 is one boring ass drive - featuring such scenic highlights as Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, Elko, Lovelock, and at the border between Nevada and Utah - Wendover (also affectionately referred to as Bendover by some). I'll take it over Highway 50 which features one lane all the way, and no public bathrooms for a 230 mile stretch, but it still gets old. Seeing that my daughter was pretty upset still over the parting with her aunt - who just recently had come to visit - it didn't seem like the best time to go, but hell - my company feeds us, allows us to have a house and live somewhat comfortably. My sister in law lives in a farm area called Watsonville and they are slowly all killing themselves from exhaustion working 16 to 20 hours a day 7 days a week doing impossibly demanding work for next to no money. So relatively speaking, how can I really complain. I did have to leave on a Sunday, and in seeing John - extend my visit one more day - coming back on Friday instead of Saturday (okay - switch that around - Saturday instead of Friday). It might seem like just one more day, but by the time Friday came around I found myself in the morning saying why the hell am I doing this when I could just be heading home today. John was late in arriving - which meant 6:00 PM turned to 7:30 PM for the time I showed up to meet him at his friend's house. And at the beginning of the visit they were whipping out the wine and beer (I was the one non-drinker) and they were giving us the "grand tour" of their nice two level house (the bottom level being a basement) and their spacious yard. Somehow every time I get the grand tour I always feel like I am in the middle of a dick size contest - hey - look how big mine is. So those same thoughts returned to me from the morning - what the hell am I doing here, and why did I extend my visit for this when I could be back home already. It seems to me like the dick size contest is another version of jacking off, and to quote Jerry Garcia along the same lines - he once said something like we came here to fuck.

So - at some point when they were all eating (I passed the time before in between stops already stopping at a steak joint in the Ogden area - pretty cheesy but good enough) when I was full - I decided it was time to "whip it out" so to speak. The dude had 2 Takamine guitars, better in quality than the one I brought along, so I started by grabbing one - asking permission of course first - and noodling away. My noodling is basically finding a comfortable chord with a few accompanying scale notes - and finding what seems to get me ready for that zone appearance. The notes may be simple - I like to think any idiot with half a brain can do what I do musically because I keep it very simple - but the point is not to show off - because getting back to the dick size contest, that is not what music is about to me. My friend Rich can run me around in circles and make me look downright retarded musically, but that does not take away from what I experience when I get into the zone. I just keep it simple - and that is what works for me. So as I was noodling - trying to be somewhat inconspicuous as my friends were eating, I heard John's wife Mary asked me if I had written what I was playing - which I had to think about at first for a second - kind of come back into reality - and I told her something like - oh this? I'm just pulling this out of my ass. Which was another way of saying I was just noodling.

So the guy who lives there and owns the guitars is named Shane and he also knows a lot of Grateful Dead - so it is a pretty good set up - I am basically going to play the songs and he is going to follow with the lead notes. So I start out with Cassidy - as the "fare thee well let your life proceed by it's own design - nothing to tell now, let the words be yours I am done with mine" portion has been something I have used as a healing mantra to think of my departed greater family ever since I saw them last in July - kind of a quiet surrender to realizing they are living their lives, I am living mine and the paths are clearly never going to be crossing again on any type of real level. Even when we are around each other, we aren't really there - our hearts aren't in it - and singing that song is kind of to me the way of just surrendering to the inevitable notion that it's just the way it is - it is nobody's fault really, it's just karma, fate and something bigger than anyone of us. So naturally I think about this as I am singing this song, and I notice the remaining three at the table, Shane's wife, John and his wife Mary appear to be focusing on the energy - especially the two females who haven't heard me sing as far as I know (John has heard me for years so he is somewhat used to me). You never quite know what effect your playing is having on others - if people are just kissing your ass and saying they like it because they feel that is what they are supposed to be doing - but in this particularly setting I feel like I am making a connection with them and that always feels good. At some point the two ladies went back inside, and I dedicated "Wharf Rat" to all the drinking going on. Normally I am pretty low key with my voice when I sing this out in my yard, but hell - it's their neighbors - not mine - so I sang out the " I know that my liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiffe" part with full force - knowing my vocal cords will probably be retaliating the next couple days - and then as the sun slowly started sinking it was quite natural to transition into songs like the Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows" - Turn off your mind relax and float downstream - which may look like familiar lines (try the top of this blog) as these simple lines written by John Lennon (no disrespect to Paul, but his name on the songwriting credits are nothing but a technicality) - to me are some of the most profound statements ever expressed in a popular song, and the very essence of the "zone" state I describe here so much. So it's getting darker as we have a great view of the mountains that as far as I know are some of the ski range near Park City - although I could be wrong - but Dark Star is a natural fit. The two ladies come back outside and want to hear one of my own compositions, but as we are fortunate enough to get to see an incredible view of the moon bursting over the mountain range - similar to what I get to see at home - with the main difference - these mountains are more vertical, jagged and pointy, whereas ours at home melt into the earth slowly like a voluptuous human female breast - but it is still the same idea - and seeing that glow behind them, followed by that first tip of light - will always be one of the most incredible experiences of nature I will ever know. That was supposed to be a sentence. Oh well - but what I am getting at is I have to play a moon song and one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs is "Mountains of the Moon" and it all seems to fit in with this incredible view of the bright moon bursting out with such a cosmic heavenly light that just seems to pour right into one's consciousness. So I obliged in playing one of my own songs right after this - the one mentioned before "There is Only Love" and maybe because this is "my" song I am a little self-conscious, but in that zone state (I am singing mostly with my eyes closed) several things come to me as I am singing what may be the most profound song I have written. First of all - I know I am being watched. Second - I get the feeling there is a response on the other side - like I am reaching the people watching me. Third - they are listening to me singing and playing my song - but fourth and most importantly - it has nothing to do with me at all. It is kind of like I am the conduit for this burst of incredible energy. It is coming through me, but I am just a vehicle for it - like the antenna of a radio that allows the music to come out that is already there - the radio is not playing it, it is just picking it up. It is almost like being on automatic. These are not my words really - and really they are borrowed from many different sources - books and philosophies I have been exposed to over time - I put them together in a way that made sense to me - but really how can I take credit for such profound wisdom that has been passed on from century to century for who knows how long. The chords are basic - somewhat borrowed - at least in part from the Grateful Dead's Morning Dew cover. So in this state I realize - not only is this not really my song - but as I observe others watching me in this zone state - I detach myself from it - my voice and fingers are on automatic - I am watching it too - and then who is actually doing this? If I am not playing - if I am not writing who is? But to me that is the essence of being in the zone - when it happens it is going through you and it is not about ego - it is about surrender - it is about becoming one with something much greater than myself or anyone - really it is being one with God because this force is coming through me and I am just letting it happen. It is like this ball of fire is being spit out - slowly - through my fingertips and voice and I may be the center of it - as it is coming through me - but that does not mean it is me - because I can't make it happen if it is not meant to happen. So this is a long song - it goes on for about 10 minutes - and then we have completely lost track of time because it is 10:00 PM, the neighbor has dramatically slammed the window as if to say - okay guys - enough is enough. I know Shane also played one of his songs outside before this, and I noodled my way through that. Then we went inside - I did a couple more of my own (Cheese and Today) , Shane did one of his - I stumbled through "Crazy Fingers" and by the time I picked out Bob Dylan's - I Shall Be Released to finish it was already midnight, I was on my second wind but exhausted - said my goodbyes - drove back to the hotel, slept like shit, and then had a horrendous journey back home, covering the near 550 miles through 90 plus degree desert heat pulling over to sleep for 10 minute spurts three different times - and feeling like it was one of the longest drives ever.

But still - worth it - even though it takes me about 2 days to recover from the drive back and staying up late. Just as it is worth it to do the monthly drum circles in town here - because even if I can get there by myself, it is important to try to get there in some kind of community setting as well. These people - who were basically strangers before I showed up - shared something with me and now I already have a bond with them - even though they are friends of friends so to speak - because of what we shared. Music is the most powerful spiritual force I have ever come across - and it is amazing that it can be experienced at its full height just sitting in my lawn chair in my backyard with my faithful dog by my side, or with a group of friends, or in an a stadium full of 50,000 or more people. That is what it amazing about it - it can work on any level. As I told Mary that night, this is my religion. It is not what I picked up in any religious building - such as any church or synagogue I have ever been to. I can respect those places may work for some, but they have never done it for me. My problem with the Judeo-Christian religions is that they are looking back to something that happened thousands of years ago. As far as I am concerned - open up your eyes - and you can see it is happening every day - right now. That's why I keep on getting out there - with my voice, drum, and guitar - that's why I am writing about it now. This experience I described from 9 days ago didn't stop. It lives on for me. It lived on when I drove back. I don't miss any of them now because they are all still with me. A musical experience has no start and no end - it is infinite - it goes on forever. Music and the expression of it - as I said in one of my recent tunes - will always be my path to God.

Unstuck

2008-08-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

Book review time - and I haven't even finished Unstuck by Dr. James Gordon, but I am probably about half way through it. Victoria and I were listening to Science Friday on NPR and there was one guy - Dr. Gordon who seemed to have a pretty revolutionary approach to treating depression, and then there was the drug company cock-sucking whore who was countering him every step of the way and saying that pills were the answer to everything. For anyone who hasn't heard this already, this subject hits home for me. Back when I was on the verge of death - having been from one bipolar extreme to the other, a miraculous discovery was made by the people treating me and caring for me - I had a CHEMICAL IMBALANCE. That's all! Nothing involving my spirit, my lifestyle, who I was, how I was raised, any of those small trivial details. It was just like catching a fucking cold! But instead of taking Nyquil to get better, all I had to do was take what the doctor ordered, and then I would be back to normal. And even as fucked up as I was, I knew on some level that this was wrong - because I trust my intuition - even in a messed up depression state - I seem to know when I am being sold down the river. The doctor told me to take my little pills, so like a good dog I did just that. So after X amount of time playing along with the game, I just stopped taking it. For a while I tried to look like I was taking it to appease everyone, until I passed out in a doctor's office while they were drawing my blood (they have to monitor your levels for lithium with blood tests) after being hung over from drinking with my college buddies the night before. There is nothing like coming to on the floor with a nice big puddle in your pants that you just created. So at some point I said fuck this shit - and I stopped taking it. And guess what - NOTHING HAPPENED. And 20 years later guess what - NOTHING HAS STILL HAPPENED.

But what has happened is I am not the same person who I was back then. My lifestyle has changed dramatically since then. I learned that getting in touch with my spirit was literally a matter of life or death. I was spiritually dead at age 20, so it was no wonder that I wanted to FUCKING SLASH MY WRISTS AND KILL MYSELF! Really - at that point in my life, that made more sense than anything else. But what I was dealing with was infinitely more complicated than just popping a pill. And it didn't happen overnight - but slowly but surely a spirit began to emerge from the wastelands of my unconscious soul, and it is now something that I have to continue to cultivate and take care of. I have to watch what I eat, get my cardio and hour of exercise in every day, I have spent 25 plus years exploring my music, singing, guitar playing, and writing and at some point I finally hit something in the ground because now there it is - the spiritual gold mine I was searching for. It took a lot of hard work - psychological work, facing the inner demons, even a few acid trips that took me to the depths of my fears, but somewhere along the way I realized that medication was not the answer. The answer(s) were a combination of getting to know myself, love myself, and make the changes I needed to make to get out of this spiritual void. The people I am with make a difference in my life too. My judgemental caretakers may think my wife is the fucking anti-Christ (even if they aren't Christian) but the reality is even if you think of her as some fucking free-loading parasitical fatass Mexican bitch who stole your royalty prince of a son from you - a lot of my happiness comes from my marriage. Marriage is hard work - you get into it on some level as an escape from yourself, and then at some point your staring right up your own ass as you land right in the middle of everything you thought you were running away from to begin with. I am not saying it's easy, but at the same time at some point it starts to come together and it does add to your life. My wife and my daughter have given me all sorts of avenues to my spirit that I never thought I would have. So long story short with my life - when I read a book that was standing up to the evil empire of drug companies - shamelessly pimping their goods and spending billions of dollars gobbling up TV time and buying off health care professionals in the process - to promote toxic products which not only have horrible side effects, but can actually make you worse off than you started - I thought halla fucking lulyah it's about time!

It seems to be in the collective consciousness - medication - medication - if you are feeling down - take a pill! And before my daughter was born, and I had a little mini depression going - I thought oh well - I'll give it a try. I took some SSRI - either Paxil or Zoloft - to feel better and after 5 days I was hiding naked in the shower feeling anxious, hopeless, and terrified all over again and finally I thought - hell - if this shit is making me feel like this, I'd rather just be miserable all my life. And I still hear it - even from a recent counselor who saw us for marriage assistance - she said she still thinks I exhibit biploar behavior and recommended me for - guess what - MEDICATION! And hell maybe there is something to bipolar behavior - whatever the hell that means - I do have ups and downs - even still. Not to the point like I was in college where I was getting by on 2 hours or less of sleep and babbling away, running into traffic screaming, and carrying on like a complete madman - but I do have some highs and lows going. Even still - I am incredibly grounded because I have been in the insurance industry almost 20 years now, 18 with my first company and almost 2 with my last, and I am the go to guy - I am the guy who is going to get it down (done) - and everyone in charge of me always seems to find that out. I am as stable as they come - in the workforce anyways. Sure I may meltdown from time to time, freak out, get angry, or go off on something that really isn't worth the energy I put into it. I am still recovering from this God forsaken cruise I was just on - and I may never recover from it entirely. But even so - I get by, I do my job, I take care of my family, my house isn't on the foreclosure list - so I must be doing something right. I may take an occasional supplement like St. John's Wort a few years ago, or SAM-E now, but for the most part - no pharmaceuticals and that's fine with me. The idea of taking anything that is not going to allow me to get it up is about as much of a deterrent as there can be.

So getting back to the book - Dr. Gordon say depression is a wake up call. It is a time for us to look at what's going on, and make the changes necessary to do that. When I got depressed, getting back to who I was before the depression wasn't the answer because it was who I was that made me depressed to begin with. There were toxic hateful forces that submerged themselves deep into my soul, and I had to slowly exorcise myself of them. I'm still doing it now - that parasite always seems to rear it's ugly head, but it's just not quite as much in charge as it once was. He also advocates diet, exercise and spiritual practices such as yoga and meditation. For me my music is both of those things, and I have been exercising pretty faithfully for years. The diet could always improve, but I'm drinking more water and trying to at least be conscious of what I eat. Sure I could stand to lose about 15-20 pounds, but I'm not going to flog myself to death over it either. So this really wasn't an actual book review, as much of my way of relating to a book and I hope this catches on. Why would something as complicated as a mind - a mind that consists of one's intellect, heart, soul and energy be reduced to something so crude as a "CHEMICAL IMBALANCE" so that medication would be pimped as the one and for all answer for everyone. Like Dr. Gordon says - as a last resort - only - it may be necessary and helpful in some circumstances. But in our society the evil pharmaceuticals shove it down our throat, often poisoning and killing us along the way. Dr. Gordon is the brave David taking on Goliath, and providing us with real solutions to something as complicated and devastating as depression. And believe me as someone who has been there - there's a lot more to it than just popping a fucking pill.

Don't seek the light - BE the light

2008-08-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

I don't want to claim originality just because I am quoting my own line from my own song - as I am not the first to say it and I bet someone else already said it. Like my cheese song says - everything's been done before to be done again and again. Maybe I say it with one punctuation mark different. I claim nothing as my own as I am a product of the world around me, all 6 billion, including all who have come before and all who will pass. My wife may not like me after I read this to her, but as she has seen it as her job to tear me a new ass opening at times, obviously I am inclined to pay her back - even if it will completely sabotage any chance at sex - as I am doing this in a loving way and my intentions are good. Maybe she won't hit me as hard after I am done knowing that. Yeah - probably won't make a difference. I love you honey - you know it (I see her gritting her teeth).

I had a Shamanic experience yesterday. If that was it's all about, I am not sure how many more I want to have. But it is the best way of explaining it. A little background first - my sister Edie came to visit us - it was 3 days of sightseeing and pretty draining, but overall went about as well as a visit like this could go. My daughter got very attached, and when Edie left she was wailing, howling, crying, screaming - and this went on off and on for over a day. She was yelling at us in the car - it's only you two, nobody else - only you two and I am sick of it. My wife is always telling me how isolated we are. Of course hearing this she will tell me, that is the way it IS. Technicallhy speaking, it is hard to argue against. She started into it - once again - on our love seat in the living room in the afternoon. I did not resist, I did not argue - I just took in the world view being presented it to me. It came at me in a wave of desperation, depression and sadness. We are out here - we have no family - we have no connections. Our only friends are the Bergers and take a look at them - they are cold. I should have never left Chicago - I hate it out here - what a bunch of fucking rednecks - they are so closed off - they won't accept you if you aren't one of them - there are no services - what are we doing to our daughter - we are destroying her - this is not good for her. I took it all in and I couldn't say a thing. I just felt myself getting more and more depressed, sinking deeper and deeper. And she was right - all of these things were true - we are isolated and miserable, we are depressed - we are screwing up our daughter and it all seemed so hopeless. I started sinking into the mindset of the days when I thought suicide seemed like the best option and I was thinking why bother. Those families of mass murder suicide seemed to make sense in their own way and I almost found myself thinking - why live - what's the point. I sank and I sank. I finally had to walk away - I told her I can't hear this any more but the damage was done. I was stumbling around in a state of depressed delirium. I felt drugged. I had to summon all of my energy just to get in the car and go into the store. I was nodding off in a dream state in the car. It was all so hopeless - doomed - a no way out situation. At some point along the line I stepped back and said to myself "this is the voice of the parasite" - the one Don Miguel Ruiz describes in all of his books. I didn't condemn it - I just identified it. Yep - there it is - clear as day - it is telling me once again to end my life, no point in living - what a fuck up I am. And then somewhere else from far away I heard something else - a quiet voice behind the screaming voice of the parasite - very quietly and firmly say - no - don't believe it. And then - boom - it was gone. I came to - almost like a feeling of waking up - and then it was like snapping out of a spell.

I played some life affirming songs in the backyard later, went to bed early and now it is all clear to me. It's all true and it's all a lie at the same time. But what it comes down to is very simple. Like Ruiz says, it all comes down to darkness and light. We all need the light to survive. And if you look for the light in any place outside of yourself, you won't find it. My light was very dim when all this was happening, but I held on and now I have it back. My wife points out every time I read this that I am a fucking hypocrite - I am not the spiritual person I claim to be - I am not generous - I am cold, I am not out giving to the poor. True - true - true - Hell - I am just trying to keep us all afloat - the three of us, the two dogs, and now two cats that we have here. Am I a Hindu Guru or the Dalai Lama? Hell no - I am not. I claim to be nothing. I am everything you want to call me. Am I depressed? Yes. Am I neurotic - hell yes. Am I cold - yes - at times I am. Am I anxious - sometimes I am. Am I fearful - yes. Do I hoard out of fear of losing what I have? Yes - I am afraid of losing my house - I watch it - I don't have the money to donate. Could I be doing more than I am - yes. You want to call me a fraud? Go ahead. The only thing is - I don't claim to be anything other than a human being. I have faults - like just about everyone. The only thing is now I am not ashamed any more of what I am. I accept myself - everything - good and bad and I am what I am. But one thing I've learned that I didn't know 23 years ago when I was suicidal is that I can find it all in my heart and soul. It's all there to be claimed. I know how to claim it now - at times - and that is what gets me through all this. It is what gets me through the times at work when people see me as the evil insurance guy, the times I fight it out with the home repair contractors, the days I get up without any seeming trace of energy and have to drive all over the place and work up to 12 hours at times, it is what gets me through the marital difficulties, the problems with raising a demanding and difficult child - that light is what gets me through all of it - and to know and believe that in the face of how seemingly hopeless it all seems to be - EVERY LITTLE THING'S GONNA TO BE ALL RIGHT - anyway, just like Bob Marley says it will.

My beloved wife left Chicago - and her Queen Anne furniture - to be in a relationship with screaming red flags blaring at her. Everyone warned her not to go. She didn't listen. She decided that. Why I ask her? Because she wanted to be a part of something. Because as great as everything was there, it wasn't enough. She had a chance to say no. Didn't happen. When it fell apart she had a chance to return, but mother wasn't encouraging it and out of pride she could not go back. There were many chances to go back. When she was with me and it was getting ugly at times, but she has chosen to stay here. Even now she could go back if she wants to. But the first thing you have to accept is that you have some choice in your life for your destiny. She can blame Stuart, her mother, me - but the reality is some kind of karma brought her here for a reason. That is the first part of accepting responsibility. Stop the blaming. What good does it do? If this place is the living epitome of barren isolation, then you are a part of this karma and you are making it happen. Out here she is a part of a loving family, has Mexican students who see her as a providing mother, she has more out here than she has ever had in Chicago. But I know - it is not enough - and why?

Because nobody can do it for her. Nobody can do it for anybody. I am screaming at her practically to wake up and see the love and beauty around her. But she won't see it. All she sees are karmic mirror images of herself that she condemns. Our best friends out here - through lack of any competition really - she describes as miserable, cold people in denial - the man looks like a beggar. And yet she is also in a state of misery, and when it comes to other people she is a beggar - she is begging them for company, to take her away from herself, for a deep connection - for a bond - but as she begs she pushes away and finds fault with everybody who crosses her path. Guess what - WE ALL HAVE THEM - WE ARE ALL FUCKED UP! You want the perfect person to cross your path - well tell me - why would they want an emotional beggar in return? We met some people at a Meet UP who seemed really nice - I think she scared them half to death - told them that they were like family that we should do stuff together. They avoided us like the plague and then she seemed very disappointed. Well hell - if you see an emotional beggar who wants to take your emotional energy to make up for your own depleted energy, what are you going to do? You - like most people are going to RUN FOR THE HILLS.

But it is all perspective. See the way I see it nobody has anything to offer me. My wife - hopefully at times - will offer me physical comfort, but it is something I can also provide for myself. I have a very willing and experienced hand! Yes I am sorry - nature takes over - sometimes I want the real thing - and somehow or another maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't - but for the most part I see myself as the center of my own light. I cultivate my own light - like a farmer cultivating a garden - and then it is my light to share with you. We both have two different ways of experiencing our Berger friends. She says they are miserable, they are condescending, they talk down to her - and hell yes they are all those things. You want to buy into it - you want to believe you are a servant, they will treat you like one and you will be upset and offended. They have offended me before. They didn't let us use their house for a b-day party - I didn't like that. But hey - when I go over there I don't buy into any of it. I am the shining light and I own the place and they are lucky to have my energy. I shine in a place of darkness, but I don't let the darkness take me in. I feel at times people gravitate toward me when I am in this state. No they are not flocking to my house for dinner - it is more subtle - but I do sense it.

The other people we know - the Schrantz family - are users - they are trying to take from others - well isn't the light going on? When you are looking for others to fulfill your own desperate void, aren't you doing just that? Is it really a coincidence that all these people are the ones we know here? What are they trying to tell us? Do we condemn them for being who they are, or do we look into ourselves and see the side of our own selves that they bring about and look in rather than looking outside?

I see everything happens for a reason. Everything. Period. Where you are - where you go - the people who come into your life - they are all trying to tell you something. You can accept it or you can resist. Resisting is much harder. Everything becomes the enemy. Everything from the place you live to every person who comes into your life who you end up fighting with because they aren't getting it, they aren't seeing it the way you do, they don't agree with you politically, morally, they are wrong and Damn it - what is wrong with THEM! Everybody is bad - they are stupid, close-minded, selfish for not GETTING WITH THE PROGRAM! The world becomes your enemy and then it is me vs. the world. If only - if only they understood me - if only they were warmer - if only this was Chicago - if only my family understood me and did not see me as an outcast. And if you are looking for a good way to beat yourself up - try reversing the past - I should have gone back when I had the chance - that is always a win win - trying to change something that has already been done.

Call me crazy - I know you have - and I know you think I am - but I don't see myself as isolated. I feel connected to people. I have stopped expecting anything from my family. With my sister I wrote her a letter a few years ago - you betrayed me - you weren't there for me - I reached for you and you rejected me. But that is out of my system - as much as it can be now. I have no expectations any more. No coincidence that with that in mind she has finally come out to see us. I expect nothing because what can she give me anyways? I mine for the light - and it is within my heart - my own attachment to God through my own heart and soul. My family is with me in spirit - I don't feel like Edie ever left - her spirit is walking besides me, I think about Dan and Phil all the time, even my parents as evil as they can be - I think about them too. But they live in my heart - I don't need to see them, hear from them - have them here. I am in touch with humans in my heart, and I can never be alone. Ram Dass said it in one of his books - once you feel that, what are you going to do - hide in a bathroom? Where can you hide? Yet conversely - when you tell yourself over and over how isolated you are, how can you be anything other than that and then coincidentally - end up in a physical and mental spot that is the caricature representation of isolation? Well there is the Law of Attraction for you - I am soooo isolated - then wham - that is your life - nothing but isolation. You start to feel connected - and then you can be living in a one horse town in the middle of nowhere, and you won't feel the slightest feeling of it. Because it is all perspective. What you believe happens, and what happens is what you believe.

Do I have the answer for you - my beloved wife? No - I pray and hope all the time that the light - no pun intended - will turn on. But until then - all I can do is what I am doing - and put out all the positive energy I can. I am not a perfect Dad, but I love my daughter. I am not a perfect husband, but I love my wife. I am who I am. I am not who you want me to be. I have my needs and desires and I need the light to keep shining. I will do the best I can. And I will be the light. If I keep on focusing - I will be the light.

I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream

2008-08-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream.
I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream.
Ah, child of countless trees
Ah, child of boundless seas.
What you are, what you're meant to be
Speaks his name, though you were born to me,
Born to me,
Cassidy...

Words by John Barlow

I had a profound dream last night that spoke to me on many levels. It was about me - it was about my brother - it was about me and my brother. I was back at my parent's house in the downstairs family room. He had just cut himself to death - something I had once flirted with doing myself many years ago. He had succeeded though - he had passed on. My daughter Sara was very sad - and she was crying. Although I sensed a feeling of sadness in the air, I also distinctly remember feeling a sense of peace - knowing that he had arrived to where he needed to be.

Did you only need me for those three days

2008-07-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

You say there's always gonna be this thing
Between us days are filled with dreams
Scorpions crawl across my screen
Make their home beneath my skin
Underneath my dress stick their tongues
Bite through the flesh down to the bone
And I have been so fuckin' alone
Since those three days
Did you only want me for those three days?
Did you only need me for those three days?
Did you love me foreverjust for those three days?

by Lucinda Williams

Is it possible to have PTSD from 3 days on a cruise? Dan wrote about having something like that after hiking 2600 miles - so why would 3 days on a fucking boat do that - unless it was exposure to the family that did it to me. But here I am - the summer - a time I normally enjoy - seems to be getting me down. Every day gets a little further away from the event, but every day is not quite far enough. The folks and I are back to not speaking to each other again - all of the cruise stuff I posted on My Space and I don't think they are too happy about it. They are pissed off that I am not grateful for subjecting me to this nightmare since they funded it. Meanwhile, all sorts of painful shit - like the stuff with my brother in the last post has come up - and the best way for me to deal with the majority of my family - is just to keep them as far away from me as I can - physically and mentally. How could have anyone possibly imagined a possible worse setting for a dreaded gathering to take place than on a fucking cruise line. It's like God wanted to make it as bad as possible. I got some pics in the mail from Edie yesterday (surprise surpise - I am not in a single one of them). It appears the in crowd was spending a lot of time together. Surprisingly nobody seemed to invite us to any of these gatherings - not that we would have necessarily wanted to come. If not for Sara running into them, she would not have been either. I just want to know - how 3 fucking days - preparing for them, and now recovering from them - could have fucked me up so much.

I know I know - gotta be like some and family who just let it come and go and just don't let it get to them. I wish anyways. Just not who I am. Still - every day it is a little further behind me.

The silent war that bloodied both our hands

2008-07-26T06:26:00.000-07:00

Lyrics from My Brother Esau by John Barlow:

Esau skates on mirrors anymore...
He meets his pale reflection at the door.
Yet sometimes at night I dream
He's still that hairy man
Shadowboxing the Apocalypse
And wandering the land
Shadowboxing the Apocalypse
And wandering the land.

Esau holds a blessing;
Brother Esau bears a curse.
I would say that the blame is mine
But I suspect it's something worse.
The more my brother looks like me,
The less I understand
The silent war that bloodied both our hands
Sometimes at night, I think I understand.

Sometimes the spaces in between say more than the words on the page. Sometimes the words not said speak louder. My brother has just finished writing his first book. There is a lot to be impressed about. He has a publisher who has backed him and sent him to various places to promote it. You can order it on line as I did. It appears to be doing well for a book of its kind. Dan sought me out to warn me that there was a part in there that refers to me - but it was really not to be intended as a literal statement. The opposite rule works well with most of my family including Dan. Take what they say - take the opposite of it - and there it is. So when he says he wanted me to be struck down by lightning in his book, his attempts to diminish and distance himself from this only serve to reinforce it in my mind. I don't take it too personally though. He has basically shunned me for the last 20 years. I have been shut out. Being struck by lightning pales in comparison. My wife read the first two chapters and I didn't even know that certain phases of his life existed. The book is well written - I need my dictionary to look up some of the words. He paints a picture in a novel setting in a way that I would never be able to bring myself to do. It is quite clear that he reveals some and holds quite a bit back, but that is who he is. He does not lay all the cards out on the table. My folks never have, and he has inherited that from them. To toot my own horn here, I have always seen that as my ability. I respect those who can't do what I can do - I couldn't hike the Pacific Crest Trail and I couldn't write a book - or let's just say - wouldn't want to do either one. I am more of a short essay type - I spit it out and I am done. I don't want to revisit or rewrite it. Honestly I am not too interested - to borrow a Rutles line - in flogging my memory and filling in the blanks in the past for events I barely even remember from 10 years ago. I get bits and pieces, sometimes I write bits and pieces, but I just don't see a whole book in me.

But getting back to the biggest kick in the ass - it is in the two page thanks and acknowledgements section. Over half of the family is mentioned - Mom, Dad, Edie. Two people - I know - the two ASS-HOLES of the family - are left out. One being myself, and the other being Phil. The two mean older brothers. The two ones who never respected the baby brother. I don't want to sound egotistical, but I know I have had a big influence on him and still do. To not mention me - in the same way he danced over Amy's absence on the cruise by saying she was "sick" is just another elephant in the room. I was sick that week too - sick with emotional nausea. I could have gotten the doctor's note by saying I was having suicidal urges. But I went anyway- for my daughter's sake. She had a great time and even if I am scarred for life I did it for her. That's being a Dad for you. Otherwise no way in hell I would have put myself through this. I admire her for not going - for being the one person who was not going to subject herself to unnecesary misery in dealing with my folks. I believe I had a share in inspiring him to write this book - the way he mentioned those who told him he couldn't do the trail pushed him to show them he could. My biggest crime while being young was making fun of his writing. Well - FUCK YOU - I wrote a book - how do ya like them apples. I know I was part of it. To not mention my name was a way to specifically get another revenge stab back at me. That seems to be the silent jab in there. FUCK YOU - I am going to make it a point NOT to mention you. And if the intention was to hurt me - mission accomplished. I didn't have the best dreams last night. I had a dream something like there was this brief window of time where he could be open and honest with me, but that window kept closing in.

I don't remember too much of my dispute with Dan. I know it was ongoing. It goes back to my earliest memory - even being close to 4 - I was fighting with him. I don't know why. Who is to blame for this? Do I blame my mother for her constant psychotic rages? Do I blame my father for his unrealistic expectations of my mother, and his rages toward her, that in turn caused her to pass the shit down hill, until I in turn passed it down one more rung to my brother, and he had no place left to pass it down to? When I mocked him for saying how much he liked ice cream - yeah - that was pretty lame. Do I regret all this happened? Well of course I do. I am sorry that it happened. But how many fucking times can I apologize? FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME - I'M SORRY. Sorry - I am done apologizing. I think of the Michael Franti line from One Step Closer "I didn't mean to hurt you no, and you didn't mean to hurt me too - but it seems like we always do." But - I don't blame myself - not any more. I don't really know who to blame. What good is it going to do anyways? The past sucks, but I can choose to let it keep on sucking or finally say enough is enough. It is like this sick cloud of mental illness and dark rage and despair settled over my family and we all succumbed to it - every one of us. That is why going on this cruise was something I dreaded so much - because I don't really care to be brought back to it and my parent's delusional attempts to see us as being a close family just seems that much more desperate and pathetic to me. Don Miguel Ruiz says we can punish ourselves over and over for an event in the past that happened once. I have forgiven myself. I may have had an 18 month edge over Dan at one point, but he probably could kick my ass now. He is stronger, more muscular, and in better shape. And I do remember that although I was pretty mean to him, that it was not all one-sided either. He had his way of getting back at me too. He made it a point to stick the knife in my back when I came back from college in a depression. He almost seemed to be gloating and acting like I deserved it. Scoreboard - karma. He would mock me when I got high. He even had his way of nailing me when we were young. The scoreboard is not nearly as onesided as he thinks it is. Maybe I was winning the brutality game, but he got some pretty good hits on me in the process. He underestimated his own power. I might have been one mean son of a bitch, but he was a mean motherfucker too. I had one and a half years on him, but the older we got he bridged the gap closely. It wasn't all bad though - I made him laugh - he liked my twisted sense of humor. At the God awful boring religious services, I had him in tears a couple times. What is sad to me is that he still feels like it was all my fault and has blamed the whole thing on me. We spent a lot of time together growing up. In college we communicated some, but it got ugly at times. And then at one point, the door just closed shut - BOOM OUTTA HERE. It has never opened since. It is so big I am not sure if it can be opened any more. On the cruise he made it clear that he is over all of this, no longer sees me as the voice of his undoing, and no longer wishes me to be struck down by lightning. He is past all this now. Just like the line from Spinal Tap where Nigel says something like brothers fight, but our relationship is way past that now. I wished that I believed Dan. I just know that is not the way he feels, even if that is how he tries to present it. Actions speak louder than words.

I admit - I do want us to be close. I just don't see it as being possible. He fooled me last time I saw him at Mammoth Lakes - I thought he wanted that too. But I grasped like Charlie Brown at Lucy's football - SUCKER! It became quickly clear that I fell for the show, but that is all it was. I know better now. I came into the cruise prepared this time. We avoided each other the first two days. The last day he sought me out to be with me on the deck with my guitar. He said it meant a lot to me that I was there. I do believe him. I do believe he meant it. That is what is crazy about this - it is not all one sided. There is an incredible amount of rage and hatred he has for what I represent to him, but that has taken on a life of its own. I am not that person any more, but that is how he will always see me. At one point maybe I acted out the part, but my personality has changed. I am not a bitter 4 year old looking to bully his brother any more. Hell - almost 40 fucking years have passed. But he is still there. Yet in a way he looks up to me too. Our writing styles are kind of like opposites. His is poised, prepared, researched with picturesque and elaborate words, mine are more raw in your face unconscious exposure of emotions. Here I am - I am naked - my penis is dangling out to the left. What you see is what you get. If you put our two styles together, imagine what we could do. He did make an effort to come out and see me a few times - ironically shortly after his hike. Every time though something went wrong, either an exchange with Vicky, or I found out that I treaded on too personal territory by bringing up his mental collapse - never mind that I shared a similar collapse. He wrote to me in a fit of rage - don't EVER EVER EVER EVER - bring it up again. So I haven't. I thought it was something that could bond us. He saw it as an intrusion. He was enraged by my wife asking him how he was doing in his relationship. Way too personal. So when we see him now we watch what we say. If you have so many limiations on what you can bring up, than what is there left to discuss? So although the intent was there, we are back to square one. He says he may come out this way to see us. Honestly I am not holding my breath.

I feel bad for him too. I get a sense he is not walking on solid ground. There was a pretty retarded review at Amazon condeming his book and he seemed consumed by it. He took it very personally. I tried to convey some of the Ruiz philosophy - don't take anything personally - believe in your work and fuck everyone else. Who cares. I actually felt a current of spirit going through me as I tried to discuss this with him. It was one of the high points of my trip. I guess that is one thing that separates us now - I just don't get too caught up in what others think of me now. With the wife and family it is a little harder to do. Obviously my omission in his book was a slap in the face to me, but in time that will fade too. At some point I will surrendur to the script of my life and move on. I am probably not reading much more of the book - I honestly find it too depressing to be reminded of the shut-out and how much of his life I have been left out of, but Victoria will find the lightning sequence and convey it to me. What am I going to do - hire a hitman at that point? For me - the most hurtful thing that happened was the excommunication. I have found his replacement - to a degree - in some of my best friends, Kirk, Youndy, John, Rich and Joe - they have become my brothers and then some. I can say anything to them. And I still have a bond with my older brother Phil. But to say it doesn't hurt - hell - I am lying. He thinks I deserve it and he will always see me owing him for what I did. I just don't see it that way. So here we are - so close but worlds apart. Like the song lyric says - both our hands are bloodied, not just mine - not just his - both. Can this ever change or are we stuck in this limited role playing for the rest of our lives? Hell - our time may be running out - people start getting cancer at our age. Michael Franti writes "It's never too late to start the day over". It seems like in this case it is, but if he ever wants to prove me wrong - I am here. I have a lot to offer. I know I do. But at this point, it is just going to go where it goes. I am not delusional though. It is dead and it is never going to come back to life. And quite frankly - as broken as he is now (however much of it is seemingly my doing) - I don't really see what he has to offer me anyways.

"Like a steam locomotive - rolling down the track
He's gone - and nothing's gonna bring him back" Robert Hunter

Poised for flight, wings spread bright, spring from night into the sun

2008-07-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

(from Help on the Way - lyrics - Robert Hunter) This is intended to be a reading in a meditation setting - in the most relaxed setting possible - with some nice Loreena McKennitt style music and soothing incense. Today I am living in this moment and this moment is now. We forget about our responsibilities, our desires, where we want to be, what we expect from ourselves and others - all that is set aside and we can return to it when we need to. As of now, we breathe in - slowly and concentrate on every breath coming in and out of our bodies. We reflect on the miracle of this simple process - taking in the oxygen we need to give our bodies life, and we see that it is not just oxygen and air coming in, but the great an all empowering life force which some of us know as God or Goddess - she is a living being that is inside all of us and every object and being that surrounds us - all is alive and we reflect on the miracle of life, the simple miracle that we live at this very moment, in this very set time and space where we can breathe in, and have the ability to sustain life through water and food. As we breathe in this life force, we breathe in love as well - an equally essential nutrient that by choice at times we deprive ourselves of. As of now - I breathe in this breath and I breathe in life, love and I for this one moment take in and feel the joy of being alive.

Maybe this joy is not something I am feeling at the moment. Maybe at this moment I am immersed in sadness and pain. I came into this world with innocence and trust, and at some point along the way that innocence and trust was betrayed. I looked to the ones who raised me in trust and hope to love me and take care of me, but instead something else happened - maybe this is so painful that I cannot even completely take it in. This may have happened many years ago, but for ages upon ages I have chosen - consciously and unconcsiously - to relive it over and over again. Because it has happened, my world is a world of constant pain and grief. Everything appears to be hopeless and meaningless. I live in a continual state of grieving and I don't even know it. I even find the thought coming into my head - why do this right now - because what does it matter anyways - I will just return to this world of pain and grief and it is all that I know and all that there is. I wear my pain on my sleeve, and every day is a pointless and empty void inside of me that knows no bounds. Everything seems pointless, and yet I do this anyways because I have to. I have to go through the motions, be a parent, do chores and respond to those who love me, but there is no love inside me and I have nothing to give anyways. I am a fraud, I feel loathing toward myself because I am not what I should be. I judge myself and condemn myself to experience the past indefinitely because I do not deserve to be happy. At some point, every day there is a choice to experience happiness or sadness. I choose sadness and emptiness because I deserve nothing more. And yet if I look very deep - deep into the well of the emptiness, the void of lifelessness that seems to expand infinitely - forever and forever - I see a light that goes beyond the darkness. This light is the love that I breathe in now with this very breath. For this moment, I immerse myself in this light and love. Yes - I may have been starved for this love and light as a child, and maybe I was not able to quench this thirst or the hunger, but now - at this very moment - through the miracle of this breath - the life that the Goddess force allows us to live - I empower myself with the force and power of this all loving and all knowing Goddess force and I choose happiness. I know that no matter where I am and where I go, I always have this choice in my heart. If I pray for happiness I can make it happen, as impossible at it may seem. I do not need this from any other person, place or thing - all I need is the love and light that I take in with this very breath, the loving sweet breath of the Goddess herself.

I am walking through a beautiful forest. In this forest I see everything is very colorful and alive - the trees have faces that are powerful and mystical all knowing beings that have been here forever, the sun shines through the tips of the trees, the animals are speaking to me - all the colors of the rainbow are present in the living beings, trees, and flowers and this is the most beautiful place in the world. I am not alone here - all of the animals, trees, plants and flowers are extensions and living beings of the Goddess, and although I see no other fellow human beings around me I have never felt so present - so together with the life force. And then there is a shaded area where all of this stops. It is like a cave where all of a sudden this one spot is disconnected from all of this. I step closer and I hear the voice of a small kitten, and then I see her - she is small, helpless and my heart wants to make her better and save her. It appears that she has not been fed, she needs water, food - but more than anything she needs love. I have a responsiblity to take care of her, to give her the nutrients she needs, but I have been so caught up in my own grief, sorrow, and emptiness that I have neglected her and she is dying because of me - and I am dying with her - because in my connectedness to the world and the universe, I realize that she is me. I have created this separation from the beautiful forest around me because I feel safe here. I realize that through the power of the all loving Goddess that runs through me, that I have the choice to go to either place. I make this choice every single day, and although it does not feel like I am making the choice, it is in fact exactly what I am doing. There is an amazing all knowing spirit and Goddess that runs through me, but I shun her. I cut off her life because I don't feel worthy of her. I cut her off and retreat to this dark cave because I do not believe I deserve anything better. I choose a life of continual self-doubt, pain and sadness because I am choosing to punish myself every day for a past even that I can't even remember and was not even my fault - but I blame myself for this.

At this point I pray to God, the Goddess - the love and light all around me and I realize this one tihng - I can stay in my cave - cut off from life, love, food, water and nutrients and the kitten will die. My soul is dying in this state and the kitten as a reflection of me is dying too. Or else I can decide that I am one with the God and the Goddess - she runs through me and rather than reject her presence I beg her, pray to her, summon her and if I do this with all of my heart, soul, and intent she will arrive to me. This is happening right now. If I choose her, she will be here. I do not need to follow anybody. This does not need to happen with a church, religious instition, guru or group. I do not need anybody else to show me the way. The way is right here - right now - right in front of me - and deep down when I look to my deeper self, my deeper soul - that stranger who on some level has become distant, and yet as I look deeper I know she is no stranger at all - she is very familiar and very present - I know that I have this power. I can make a miracle happen at this very moment - I can choose to believe in myself. I believe in myself, I belive in the God, the Goddess and the miracle and then she is present and she is here now. As I believe in her, with all of my heart and soul, I look down at the kitten and I see a different being altogether. She is no longer starving and thin, but she is nurtured and full. She purrs with content, and she is coming to life as I believe in the possibility of this miracle. But the moment I choose to go back to the pointlessness, the emptiness, the grieving - she returns to the starving creature that she is.

There is no one being that needs to destroy the other. Accepting the miracle of the joy, love and beauty of the Goddess does not mean that pain and grieving are a thing of the past. The grieving woman - mourning in her black dress and head cover - can continue to grieve and mourn as long as she needs to. Maybe the pain is so strong that the grieving will take lifetimes upon lifetimes of sadness. But we remember one thing as we continue with this exercise - she is not the only one. On one side she grieves, she cries, she wails at how unjust and how unfair life has been. She doubts herself and her own abiltity to live. But she is not the only one here. On the other side is a being of pure light and love that brings color, connectedness and meaning to everything. She is an all powerful mothering being who is the mother we have longed for but never had, but she is here right now if we choose her to be. Every moment we make this choice. It is not a choice to relinquish pain and never feel it again, but it is a choice to medicate and soothe the pain and to realize that there is more than the pain. The pain is not all that there is. On the other side, there is the pain, joy and beauty in every aspect of life that we are all entitled to feel while we are blessed to spend our remaining hours roaming this planet. At this very moment - no matter what I am feeling - no matter how sad, hurt, angry or empty - I choose to embrace the love, beauty and nurturning of the Goddess force. And the kitten comes to life with every breath - as every breath affirming life comes into my body, I cradle her, nourish her, and feed her and I feed myself as I do this.

I'll promise you anything - get me out of this hell

2008-07-22T22:01:00.001-07:00

(from Cold Turkey) I am trying to get in touch with this dream that keeps haunting me - you know dreams are somewhat evasive - but I'll do my best through the power of active imagination and recall to try to get in touch with this demon that has taken hold of my mind via the cruise experience. It starts with coming onto the ship. Everything about it feels wrong - it is like the smell, that deodorizer is trying to cover something up - I don't know - maybe it is the smell of raw sewage that I smelled throughout the actual ordeal, maybe it is death - the death of the environment, the living dead who roam the ship as vampires looking to pour blood into their empty souls via the alcoholic blood transfusion, but everything is screaming at me that I don't belong here and yet at the same time, here I am - and once I set foot on board I can never get off - sure it may seem just another 36 hours, just another 24 hours and 37 minutes (but who is counting) - but that is all part of the illusion - the idea that you can escape from hell is all the part of what makes it all the more hellish - because somehow you really do think you will be able to escape, and believe it but it is all in vain. Hell I am still on that hell-hole of a ship now - I can feel the room inside the house slowly starting to tilt back and forth, I can feel the faint trace of nausea in the background as the experience of returning to the scene of the crime comes back.Curiously absent in these dreams is the presence of my family - it is almost like they were never there to begin with - it is just the trick of my mind - though I can almost see my father in the form of a living corpse with skin falling off the bones with an empty smile stating - "izzzzznnn't thisssssssssss a life of lugggggzzzzzuurrry" (to live so pleasantly) as he is sitting inside a restaurant where barrels upon barrels of rotting moldy decomposing food are spilled all over the table, almost coming to life as creatures of their own, like slithering intestines swarming with maggots, creatures so completely nauseating on every level that it is hard to be in the presence of them without wanting to endlessly throw up - a throw up that cannot ever quite get the nausea out - and he is soon joined by other corpses at the table and he is hanging onto a few slime encrusted moldy coins that keep falling through his boney fingers and he is grinning mindlessly stating in a hypnotized vampiric bloodless tone as he holds them 'yewwwllll nevvvvver hafffff to work annnuuuutther dayyyyyyyy in yourrrrrrr liiifffeeeeee' and laughing as if these coins somehow or another hold the key to my future, and in holding these coins he holds that key himself.And then I walk onto the upper deck and everyone is setting themselves on fire and burning up, but they are not particularly concerned about it - as they seem to believe the very colorful beverages they hold in their hand will douse the fire and stop themselves from utter destruction - as it is a slow burn, but a burn nevertheless and although everyone seems to be smiling an imbecilic mindless bloodshot eye smile, they are quite in deed in fact slowly destroying themselves as they do it. And all along the way, a slow demonic voice is coming through the PA system saying 'last channsssssss to win BINNNNGGGOOO - it's a four thoussssssssssand dollllar jacckkkkkkpoottt and it alllll mustttt go" and he has said this every day for eternity, because this same day has repeated itself endlessly - over and over - the same day - as it will forever and there is just enough memory to realize that there is no real way anyone can win because to win means to leave and nobody - including myself - will ever escape from this neverending hellish misery. The crew keeps saying "goood morning" but underneath the bloodshot decomposing zombie eyes it is clear that in the respectful and polite friendliness there is in fact a desire to murder and eat the respected guests for dinner and they are waiting to see if you are maybe not one of them too and the only way to fool them is to smile smile SMILE - and act like you are having the TIME OF YOUR LIFE - and maybe if you smile too hard they might know, but if you don't smile at all they will realize that you are a real live HUMAN BEING - and descend upon the brains and eyeballs like thirsty vampires craving the food they have thirsted an eternity for.But if you want to leave the ship - sure - no problem - all you have to do - is find the MAGIC NUMBER - it is right in the middle of the card - the one that has the key to your jail cell quarters - but easy enough to find it - just find the one right in the middle - slightly left of center but a little to the right under the left and take that number and square it - divide it by 7 and multiply it by three and then find that magic number and it is all you need to get off the ship and then you can leave - you can really leave - they are even holding the door open for you with that creepy lifeless smile - and everyone believes it - they believe they are going to leave - you want to believe that you are going to leave but deep down - you know this mother fucking blood sucking life draining stinky death ship - the ship with that pleasant little deodorizer to cover up the blood, sewage and decomposing bodies - is the rest of eternity - because there really is no escape from that cheezy PA system - this is ETERNITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEE

You can check out any time but you can never leave

2008-07-21T05:57:00.001-07:00

If you don't know what that line is from I can't help you. I can tell you I didn't think of it. You know I thought once I stepped off the ship it would end. For almost 2 years (I think I knew on some level it was inevitable I was going to end up on the croooooooooooooozzzzzzzzzz ship) I dreaded the encounter, anticipated it. It triggered dormant rage issues, it triggered yet another power struggle with the Gods who raised me, it triggered a dispute with my wife, a drama with my daughter, I am going to have to withdraw more money from my retirement plan just to cover my side of the trip expenses - for a trip that I dreaded and never wanted to do in the first place - I mean I AM NOT COMPLAINING (it may seem like it) in that I know this is all my KARMA - and nobody took a gun to my head or anything - even though a wife's pressure in some ways is probably worse - but what I am saying is that out of my own seemingly FREE WILL (if that really exists) I did agree to go on this dreaded outing - and during the trip - it really - amazingly - wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - thanks to the miraculous escape of Deck 7 and the ability for me to retreat with my guitar. The food - I'd give it a C+ - and the family interaction was about what I expected it to be - restrained, polite, distant. I just thought once I walked off the ship it would be over. But

IT'S NOT OVER!!! - I keep obsessively having bad dreams about ships now. I am stuck on one, I can't get off one, I am back to the scene of the crime and it won't leave me alone. Every fucking night I dream about a ship and this is haunting me and I think I am really messed up now. What's going on? This is going to screw me up. I may even have to do something really drastic - like quit my job, have my house foreclosed and show up at my parent's front door with a beggars' bag and see if they will let me move back in with them - because I can't get these dreams to go away. I am haunted now, I am branded for life - I will spend the rest of my eternity in a dream world as a prisoner on a haunted ghost ship and they won't let me off the boat. When I die and go to the next realm I know where it will be - I will be spending limbo on a ship. And I thought it was all over - but it's not - HELPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Test me - test me - Why don't you arrest me

2008-07-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

This secret blog may not be so much of a secret any more - anybody who has read my shit somewhere else - I left great big gaping foot prints for everyone to track me over here. So this may not be a great secret any more. Oh well - nothing to hide anyways. I saw in the paper some people actually end up doing time over the pics that show up on their sites. Good thing my party days are long gone in the past - and that's the truth - and nothing but.

Mountains of the Moon - Electra - bow and bend to me

2008-07-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

Twenty degrees of solitude,

twenty degrees in all,

All the dancing kings and wives

assembled in the hall.

Lost is the long and loneliest town

fairy sybil flying.

All along the, all along

the mountains of the moon

Where I live I get an incredible access to a view of an event that is pure religion from my limited "fucking perspective". From the kitchen side of my backyard last night I could see the moon rising over the Rawe Peak mountain range. At different times of the year she (I almost wrote it - my mistake) may appear to be rising from different portions of the mountain range. I knew where to look since it had occurred the previous night. It starts with a very faint glow of light - almost kind of orange, and you can't even quite tell if it is real or not because it is so faint, but the color and intensity slowly starts to lighten up until it turns a very distinct white. The white glows more intensely and there is an almost orgasmic anticipation of the rising of our beautiful lady of the night. And then just when it seems like it is going to take forever, the very tip emerges of a pure, beautiful glowing white light, just over the top of the left side of the range, and then slowly but surely she emerges - her glowing white face, pure heavenly light - the light that reminds me of the reported images of those who have claimed to survive a death experience and imagine they are being pulled to a light.

I was outside - singing the above listed Grateful Dead song as this even occurred, also turning to my favorite personal song that describes the interaction between an observer and a very seemingly spiritually charged environment - which I call "The Witching Hour" - with a tribute line "souring to a black cloud in the sky, with a full moon pouring through a flowing tide" (never mind that I got the flowing tide idea from a nearby dive restaurant) - and then of course - followed by one of my favorite lyrical experiences of the Grateful Dead - Help On the Way - and this way my own way of having a tribal experience with this event. I understand out in Reno they have all night drum circles during the full moon - a little much for a 42 year old who likes to get his sleep, but even so - I am out there alone with this experience - not entirely as I feel a connection to a Goddess force in the shape of the moon, and very much apart of God's world and when I experience this, I don't really feel alone - but I couldn't help but wonder why I was alone in my neighborhood observing this- with all the AC's roaring (like we really even need them at all - what the hell did they do before they were invented - I think AC's will go down in eventual history as the reason our species became instinct), and most people inside, probably watching some cheesy movie on their big screen TV's - trying to re-enact a little fantasy in their lives, when outside Mother Nature was putting on an incredible show that nobody even cared about. It made me long for the tribal days when that was the entertainment, when there was no TV or AC to turn to and the Great Mother Goddess in the form of the moon was the source of inspiration and light for all to see. What the hell has happened to us that we can't see the light in front of our eyes.

Even so - I stayed out enjoying this incredible light for as long as I could, and I felt so fortunate to be able to have this experience, to musically and spiritually connect to it with my voice and guitar, to have this soothing blissful light just pouring into my soul. I would like to try to put into words better, but "Statements Just seem Vain at Last".

Divine to define she is moving to define

2008-07-13T06:13:00.000-07:00

Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so

The world moves on a womans hips

The world moves and it swivels and bops

The world moves on a womans hips

The world moves and it bounces and hops

A world of light...shes gonna open our eyes up

A world of light...shes gonna open our eyes up

Shes gonna hold/it move/it hold it/move it hold/it move it hold/It move it

A world of light...shes gonna open out eyes up

She is moving to describe the world

Night must fall now-darker, darker.

She has messages for everyone

Night must fall now-darker, darker.

She is moving by remote control

Night must fall now-darker, darker.

Hands that move her are invisible

Night must fall now-darker, darker.

From The Great Curve

I have had a lot of time to come up with my own religion and now I am going to describe it here, as insane as it may sound. Really the idea that we have come to worship a man who was nailed to a wooden object in the desert could sound crazy to those who don't know any better, so crazy is all relative. It is no great relevation to anyone who reads the stuff I write that the person who has had the biggest influence over my life the last several years is named Don Miguel Ruiz, and one of my favorite ways his philosophy is expressed is in this You Tube video which magically keeps showing up on the top of my favorites. How I do this - magically - is by continuing to add and remove it as You Tube has no way I know of to organize favorites differently. In my comment to the guy who assembled this video - beautifully set to two songs from Loreena McKennitt and with very fitting slide show images on top of it - I wrote : "I've already been in but one more time expressing my gratitude for this video - it is my favorite on on this site and I have come back to watch it several times - it is like drinking a glass of cold water on a very hot day", shortly following some guy asking someone else to suck his cock - as these types of primitive comments seem to show up all over You Tube. Ruiz writes very much to the point - no real big words - no need to show off how smart he is or how much knowledge he has - in fact he seems to think knowledge in itself is a weakness, as also pointed out by Ram Dass - my very close second influence behind Ruiz.

I was introduced to religion through Judaism, which being my first date so to speak, is something I have stayed with. I still believe in the idea of one universal being described as God. The idea that this being chose any one group of people as his people to me seems ridiculous, and believing that one individual as a person or group is better than others - unfortunately - sets up all sorts of horrible events such as gas chambers and mass executions. I am not saying we as a people were to blame for the Holocaust, but I do think such destructive mindsets can lead to bad things and made us pretty obvious targets for a desperate group of people looking to blame their own problems on someone. That is the problem I have with Judaism - we are chosen and you are a bunch of Pagans who need to be destroyed - as spelled out clearly in The New Testament. Now that I have some beliefs which fall into the realm of Paganism, I kind of have a problem with this. I also - wondered as I sat in this empty silent building known as a temple, why God happened to be listening to our prayers here - here only, as opposed to the prayers everywhere else - what gave us the right to be his sole petitioners. I had some of the most torturously painful and boring experiences of my life at a synagogue, and to this day I will never believe any type of building from a so called religious institution of any kind has the answer for me. Attending a communion here in town at a Catholic church, I was relieved to know Catholic services are just as torturously cold and empty as Jewish services. I also wondered why these folks from thousands of years ago were the only ones allowed to experience God directly, while all we could do was read about it.

At some point in my life I started having thoughts come into my head that I did not recognize as my normal everyday thoughts. They were magically inspiring - I had them in my home town, and often at times at college - and somehow in the face of all sorts of anxiety, depression, and self-doubt I found something inside of me to reassure me that despite all of the obstacles to success and happiness - that seemed overwhelming and impossible at times, that I was going to get through it and get to the places I need to go to. This voice seemed to be like God speaking to me. After much going back and forth about this, I am now convinced it was. I am not the only one who has the ability to speak to God - we all do - it is just that some of us may have these things happen more, or be more open to it. Obviously someone with a very scientific mindset is going to see this as the voice of the self, id - or whatever you want to call it - a deeper part of the brain that can all be explained by chemicals and atoms. That's fine - maybe it's that too, but that just is not going to be where it stops for me. At some point I have to surrender myself to my own intuition to think as a religious being as most of us are, and say whatever science has come up with does not rule out God and the spirit, even though I have a great respect for science and scientists.

The Grateful Dead - obviously the greatest musical force in my life - their concerts were a place where this force of God seemed to come out very strongly. I believe part of this was the music, and then part of this was the energy of a very charged group of artistic and creative folks, with a little hallucinogenic magic on top of it - and you had the recipe for a great source of inspiration that I could never find in the building of a religious institution. I could experience this either under the influence of some of mind altering substances, or not - and I would often find that it was hard to tell the difference - as I had some amazing mind altering experiences completely sober, with nothing but a contact high with those who were ingesting those things. After 120 plus Dead shows, 30 Phish shows, and God knows how many other shows I went to - I was into a local reggae group called the Cardiff Reefers in San Diego that I saw a bunch also - I believe that you take this magic and it stays in a part of your soul somewhere. I remember my friend Kirk who I saw more shows with than anyone else - telling me that he saw Dead shows as a kind of school, and at some point we were going to graduate. Graduation was forced on me with the very sudden and tragic death of Jerry Garcia, but my life changed as well. I believe the spirit of these concerts, and even a part of Jerry's spirit, lives on within me and I have stored it up somewhere so that when I play my own music it comes back out.

So cutting fast forward to where I am now, musical experiences still remain as my pathway to God. God to me is the sum total of everything - which all living beings are a part of - and together we are this entity - kind of like Jung's notion of Collective Unconscious. I don't adhere to the Bible's notion of a particularly pissed off old man up in the sky throwing down lightning bolts at us and sending us to hell when we don't do what he wants. That makes no sense to me at all. I have a higher regard for God than that. God to me is a being that transcends sexuality and even to a certain degree - existence in the form of any living being I can relate to. I can say he since it is a little more flattering than it, but it is only for reference, espeically since I mainly relate to God as a female Goddess being. I am presently reading a book by Deepack Chopra called How to Know God which honestly is a little hard for me to follow at times, but essentially talks about how God can be experienced at so many different levels - from the pissed off old man in the sky I described before, to a much larger and all embracing figure of love and acceptance - which is more the notion I buy into.

I make no claim to have any predictions of the after life. I am leaning toward believing in some form of it, but I wouldn't bet my life on what is coming next. I just know that to have faith in life and God as I do that whatever is coming next is the right thing - whatever that may be. What I have to work with are the days in front of me as a mortal human walking this planet, so those are of greater relevance than what is coming next. Somehow I think whatever that may be coming next will work itself out when the time comes. I am not believing in God because I believe it gets me preferential treatment, or a key to the doors of heaven - I believe because this is what I feel.

So let me just cut to the chase now and get into my religion. My religion is interactive. In the last book I read by Don Miguel Ruiz - at least a co-author anyways - a beautifully inspiring book called Beyond Fear - he said that the earth is a living being. (I see some people at Amazon just flat out didn't get this book and gave it bad reviews - and that should be encouraging to my brother that just because someone doesn't like a book there it really doesn't mean shit.) I actually posted my one sole Amazon review there saying I loved it. I experience the earth as a living being. I know all of the faces I have seen - from the faces in the cliffs at La Jolla, to the faces in the rocks eveywhere , the trees in my backyard, the mountain next to my house which seems to be magically alive - seem like living beings to me. While reading this section of the book on the flight to Nebraska, I looked down to see some incredible rock formations that seemed to be bursting with magical life and spiritual energy. Under the right amount of hallucinogens everything seems alive - but I no longer have to take them to sense that. To me the great Mother Earth is a magically alive being. I don't discount a "tripping" experience - if anything I think that "tripping" is the gateway to a new and magical reality that our present spiritually deprived awareness has a tough time taking in. Once this is experienced and you see Mother Earth as alive, you find it sad to see us as humans treating her so poorly, and it is heartbreaking to see all the smog, and smoke from fires, and the gradual destruction taking place to our beautiful mother, but I think that is a whole side point for now. When I am outside with my guitar and feel particularly inspired, I experience the wind as a living being that responds to my presence. The wind picks up at times in seeming response to what I am playing or feeling. I know - this could also be descrieed as random coincidence, but after enough of those random coincidences take place - that what if the wind is really alive notion takes over, and I believe as an element of the living being Earth that the wind is a part of this and she really does talk to me in in her own beautiful way. I don't care how irrational it sounds, this is my experience.

So now I slowly make my way back to the words and lyrics listed by David Byrne at the beginning of this post. I understand these words are a reference to a Goddess religion of a tribe or group of people who believed in a great mother female force and saw the world moving on a woman's hips. My connection to the life force, to God so to speak, is actually through the energy of the female or Goddess. It is no coincidence that I am a male and the female force has made me what I am. The perceived lack of loving female energy took me into a horrible depression, and knowing that this potential always exists, I see it as my task, both spiritually and emotionally, to constantly summon this force. Victoria and I have now been together 12 years - ironically the 12th anniversary of our relationship was the day I with great relief walked off of a cruise ship with an enormous sigh of relief. 12 years together comes one day after the 80th birthday of my mother. I got Victoria 12 peach colored roses (one for each year) with a note saying thanks for the best 12 years of my life. Not that it has not had its struggles, conflicts, and disputes over some of the lamest and dumbest reasons for a fight that ever existed - it has. I have had to redefine my desires - emotionally and physically - from the time when it seemed like the passion was happening constantly, to present times when being older and having a child to take care of, there was also an adjustment to an opposing desire level which is not always on the same page as mine - but I still believe my life is much better with a woman in it, than without. I love my wife, would miss her very much if she left for whatever reason that might happen, but I also have faith that if that were to happen I would be able to adapt to it. I do love her, want her, and have a need for her, but I don't need her to the point my life depends on it. I love her, but she is not essential to my being. I love her, but give her the freedom to do what she wants and go where she wants, even if she has to leave me altogether. At one point in my life that would have shattered me, but now - I know it would hurt and I would miss her , but I would be able to get by

And this in part is due to the "other" woman in my life. I am convinced that this woman - the woman so beautifully described by Jung as Anima - is a living being. How do I describe her? The first woman I ever experienced gave birth to me, so naturally the mother force as lived out through her shapes and influences this being. I wrote about my romantic experience of females in one of my songs that I recorded in Utah on my You Tube page (This is a song that...) - and I listed out names of women I have all been in love with - starting with Cathy - the flute player in my high school band. The subject of projection is interesting. I fell in love with a complete stranger, and filled in the blanks, imagining she was also in love with me. I believe she may have had some kind of attraction to me, but whatever it was - it was not enough for her to accept my nervous invitation to come to a dance with me. My projections of the feminine force go in both directions - the very beautifully all embracing love I experience at times, to the more ugly reactions to rejection ("you fucking bitch") - sometimes I here myself muttering the "bitch" word without even realizing it, and I see that the negative wicked witch feminine energy is taking over again. (I know there are good witches too) When I ask myself if these women who have brought me in tough with the anima - starting with Cathy in junior high, to Tracy in High School, and Christina in college - all women who I never experienced anything with other than fantasies - even if they were incredible fantasies - are these women real - the answer is yes and no. The Goddess force experienced through falling in love is the other person, but is also more than the other person, and sometimes completely separate from the other person altogether. At some point there is the realization that this is a human being after all, but without the face of a human being, The Goddess has a difficult time existing on her own as we relate to her as human beings through other human beings. So the best answer is yes and no when you want to know is that woman you are magically in love with really the one you think she is - because she is those things, and she is not at the same time. Any woman I interact with, from my wife to a woman I have sexual fantasies about - will become both sides of the experience of the feminine I have - the loving, accepting, warm embracing being on the one side, to the cold, cruel, hateful, critical, rejecting being on the other. That is my experience of the feminine - the yin and yang. One of them can bring me great joy and happiness, while the other has the potential on its own if unbalanced to literally bring me to depression and even suicide. So they seem to have to balance each other out. If I went too far into the ecstasy direction, "get too much you get too high" as the Sweet song points out, that could have consequences as well. Being in a full state of mania makes the basic essentials like holding a job and paying bills a little difficult.

So trying to sort of get back to what I was starting at from the beginning, this feminine force of love that I need as an essential to my being - just like I need exercise, food, and water - is the being that I summon now when I play my music in my yard. Sometimes she arrives, sometimes she doesn't. She is a real being which almost seems like a ghost, but I know she is real. To call her nothing but a figment of my imagination just doesn't cut it any more. Last night for example - I was playing certain songs that are like invitations "Crazy Fingers", "Help On the Way" by the Dead are too good ones, a beautiful romantic song by Syd Barrett called Terrapin, one called Broken Arrow that the Dead covered - that focus on love - and then add on others of my own like "Behind Me" and the one I wrote about "now's the time to treasure every precious breath alive" (whose title is constantly subject to change) - and one which I intend to You Tube soon called "The Witching Hour" - these are summoning songs. When I was experiencing the bitter cruel feminine rejection energy in the early 1990s, I would write very depressing songs to capture my experience - ones like There is No Love, hopelessly waiting for a love that would never arrive, or stuff like God damn I hate being alone and this really sucks (to paraphrase) and then that became my reality. The songs I write and sing now focus on the positive experience because that is what I need to have more than anything, (especially after 3 days on a fucking cruise ship). So yesterday, when I summoned and she came and I experienced the Goddess energy - it filled me up and made me feel very alive with love. Then I bring this energy back to my relationship here - I am not a desperate being seeking fulfillment from my wife, but I am a being glowing with love and I want to share this love with my wife rather than seek it from her, and I even concentrated on this notion during our intimacy last night (yes it still does happen from time to time) and even though I was obviously getting something out of it, I was not just taking something to get my rocks off, but I was focusing on giving back too - and I actually received a rare positive review of the experience from my wife. This to me is the key to relationships that Ruiz so beautifully nails down in Mastery of Love - when your cup is full - as stated in Ripple - may it be again. When you have something to bring to a relationship - something to offer - than you can share that without having it be the life end if it does not come from the other half. So even though sex can be a beautiful experience, I have to be willing to give it up for as long as I have to, so that I am not an overwhelming burden upon my wife, who may not be in the same frame of mind I am, and then have that faith that it will happen again when meant to, and that even if it is a long time, that I am still loved and nourished through my experience of the Goddess. Buddhism describes this in the emphasis on freedom from desires and giving up attachment. That way, when a real woman cannot be present, the woman of the Spirit is always not far away. She is experienced as the Virgin Mary in Christianity and other religions, and McCartney described her very well in Let it Be - she comes to you when you need her "in my darkest hour she is standing right in front of me".

When I am fulfilled - when my cup is full - when the Goddess energy is there, I feel love for human beings. Even with my parents - who I have every justifiable reason to despise - and I could go back over every single hateful past incident, or think about how much of a pain in the ass they can even be in the present, especially the way they treat my wife - I can still feel love for them in spite of it all. It helps though to not get so locked into the parent-son role - as Ram Dass talks about in a couple of books - and just see them as people. I was wondering if I had it in me to hug my mother after all the negative emotions and past experiences were stirred up in my head from the events leading up to the cruise, but it came naturally to hug her at the end, and to sing Happy Birthday very enthusiastically. I can go in either direction - the hate can be summoned very easily and I have every reason in the world to justify my hatred, but in the end - it just doesn't do much for me to hold onto it. Sure I will get angry, sure I will not be necessarily be happy with the way I was raised or even the way they continue to treat me, but I can love them even in spite of all this - just because they are human beings, not because they are my parents. I don't expect a damn thing from them and in a fit of anger they can cut me off any time they want to - cut me out of the will, cut me off of communications - and I'll love them anyways. I may not like what they do, or the way they handled this God awful cruise experience, but I love them. They may not like the way I write about the cruise, or see me as some ungrateful ass-hole for not gushing the experience with praise as some may have done. That's fine too. Some positives even came out of this - my sister Edie is going to come visit us and see Sara, I have been in touch with my nephewJosh, got to have a good talk with my nephews who I had lost touch with up to this time - and our family did need to come together in its own strange way, even if we spent a great part of the time avoiding each other - that's just who we are. Part of love is just accepting what life is, and who people are, even if on one level you can't stand them or feel disappointed by their actions, because once your cup is full, it really doesn't matter what they do. You love them anwyays, because your cup is full and you have love to offer. It then becomes an offering - I have this to offer you, and whatever you want to give back is fine - even if it is nothing at all.

So again - I am all over the place and not even quite sure if I accomplished what I originally set out to do in the first place - but hopefully I got something across here. I think I did. And I close with one of my favorite summoning Dead song lyrics from Help On The Way:

Paradise waits on the crest of a wave her angels in flame
She has no pain Like a child, she is pure She is not to blame
Poised for flight Wings spread bright Spring from night into the sun
Don't stop to run She can fly like a lie She cannot be outdone

Tell me the cost I can pay Let me go Tell me love is not lost
Sell everything Without love, day to day, insanity is king
I will payday by day anywayLock, bolt and key
Crippled but freeI was blind all the time I was learning to see

Help on the wayI know only this I've got you today
Don't fly away'cause I love what I love and I want it that way
I will stay one more day Like I sayHoney, it's you
Making it too Without love in the dream It will never come true

See the world

2008-07-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

This is an age where gas prices are going up - up - up - up - just like the line from Shattered by The Stones. And although I don't like paying more at the pump, in some ways I'm glad because maybe it forces people to stop their excessive wasteful ways that are slowly beating the shit out of our beautiful planet Earth. Maybe it ain't so cool to cruise around in a gas guzzling RV now that gets 5 miles to the gallon. Times are tough - I understand. So I have it figured out. How can you see the world? We all want to see the world, don't we. How can this be done in a way that we can afford, that does not screw up our environment, contribute to global warming, or allow tons of toxic human waste to be dumped into the ocean from an excessive glutonous wasteful display of excess known as a cruise line? How can we get from one place to another without flying on an airline, which apparently also contributes to global warming. You know - the answer may not be as complicated as it seems, and it is pretty inexpensive too. Ready?
Here goes - open a fucking window - walk out the fucking door - and there it is - there's the world right there! How can it be anything else than the world. It may not be the cheesy glamorous world you want with fancy waiters walking down the aisle catering to your every need, and it may not be some exotic place that makes you revel in your cheesy ability to traverse the four corners of the globe - but I'll tell you what - maybe it is another world. Maybe it is the world you are trying to run away from - maybe it is your own world - your inner world. What the hell is wrong with facing that world and taking a good look at it while you are still fortunate to be alive. Who knows - maybe you even find out that once you take a good look at that world, it isn't so bad as you thought and there is less of a need to leave skidmarks on a trail behind you and run away from it.
Call me one twisted fuck but I like the world I live in. I like every minute of the desert air around me, and it actually kind of irritates me to have to leave it. When I sit down and really take a look at it, and look inside, do a little bit of a musical meditation and tune in, I am no longer in one spot - I feel like I am everywhere - looking at everywhere from one spot - and I feel like I become one with everywhere - and then I am everywhere - and once I am there why the hell do I need to get onto a plane and go to some cheesy place like - oh I don't know - BALI - for example? I'm already in Bali - I'm already there in my mind and I don't have to get on some gas belching airplane to make it happen. Maybe the world around us we see every day we are spending so much time trying to avoid has an amazing infinite realm of possibilities that we aren't even bothering to try to notice. I see every day I wake up and walk around there is so much to see that surrounds me on a daily basis, and I don't have to spend a hell of a lot of money or waste any gas to get there because I am already there. Call it mind travel if you want - the only way to fly.
To each his own - if you need to burn through every corner of the globe to say you've been there, knock your socks off. It's just not the way I choose to go about it.

To twist a Zappa song be a cruise slut and see the world. Just remember - I ain't gonna squash it and you don't need to wash it.

I love my work, if u don't fuck u - & pollution from cruise ships

2008-07-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

Sounds kind of blunt - but that is the way it has to be. I have a confession - I must be my biggest fan. I have read and re-read my last writing over and over and every time I read it I make myself laugh. I think it's funny, and it is real at the same time. These are my feelings and I captured them. I captured my experience of three days aboard a cruise ship, and when I read it I know it is real. When I read it to my wife, we are enough of the same mindset - she was there too - that she also knows that is the way it went down - for us anyways. Maybe others saw it differently. Great. No matter what you say, you can't take away that this is my perspective, and that is what writing is all about. I don't care about style, grammar, techniques - once I know it is me that is all that matters. I know - laughing at my own jokes sounds pretty self absorbed - but I do. The fact is I like what I write. I don't need to hear it from anyone else. If you like it too - great. If not - well - I already like it already, so that doesn't really matter. I am not a slave to the opinions of others. Same with my music - I write it to sing it over and over again and some of my songs I have sung close to 100's of times and every time I get something new out of it, like it comes to life and has a life on its own. I love to sing it, play it, and listen to it because it takes on a life of its own - something I may have given birth to in some ways, but something above and beyond me in many other ways. Some may be offended by my writings - but they are real. If I don't feel it, I don't write. They come from me. This is who I am. In some ways I feel like I am not actually writing any of this - like I could really think of this - from my ego - and sit down and make it happen. I couldn't do that. I am just like a vehicle and the force comes through me, and there it is. Somebody else may have said it before, and I don't claim to be original, but maybe nobody has said it just the way I did. That is what I think the key is to creativity and I highly recommend this approach to someone else who possibly may be reading this down the road, who seems to take it very personally when someone criticizes his work. Two word s- fuck 'em. Fall in love with your writings, and then once that happens, the bad reviews aren't going to matter. Not if you already love your work. Once that happens, nobody can take that away from you -no matter what they say or do.Oh - and by the way - just in case you are wondering how much cruise lines fuck up the environment - check out these stats from this site:"Cruise ships - the largest of which carry more than 5,000 passengers and crew - are floating cities that produce enormous volumes of waste. A large cruise ship on a one week voyage is estimated to generate:210,000 gallons of human sewage,1 million gallons of gray water (water from sinks, baths, showers, laundry, and galleys),25,000 gallons of oily bilge water,Up to 11,550 gallons of sewage sludge, andMore than 130 gallons of hazardous wastes.Most of this waste is dumped directly into the ocean, some treated, some not. In addition, luxury liners spew a range of pollutants into the air that can lead to acid rain and contribute to global warming. They can also spread invasive species by dumping untreated ballast water in coastal zones."See this site for information about Royal Carribean:http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnN1cmZyaWRlci5vcmcvYS16L2NydWlzZS5hc3A=In 2001, Royal Caribbean admitted in court it had installed special piping to bypass pollution control devices and pleaded guilty to dumping toxic chemicals. Royal Caribbean was levied fines and penalties totaling $33.5 million to settle dumping complaints that occurred between 1994 and 1998. Apparently Royal Caribbean has one of the worst pollution records out there. You wouldn't know it by reading their Save the Waves link on their website. California is one of the few states with a "no dumping" law, but something tells me Mexico doesn't have one. I wonder what we were doing spending so much time floating around their waters. What a bunch of horse-shit. It sickens me to know I was on one of their earth raping vehicles.

Cheese, Splotch and Elephants on a Ship of Fools

2008-07-05T17:19:00.001-07:00

The bottles stand as empty

as they were filled before

Time there was and plenty, but from that cup no more

Though I could not caution all

I still might warn a few:

Don't lend your hand to raise no flag

atop no ship of fools

Ship of fools on a cruel sea

Ship of fools sail away from me

It was later than I thought

when I first believed you

now I cannot share your laughter

Ship of Fools (words - Robert Hunter)

At the time I started writing this I was half way through it. The light was at the end of the tunnel. I can now say I have been on a cruise and I can safely say it has lived down to all of my expectations. I am concerned now about the human race. If human beings can actually desire to pay to be on one of these massive cheesy boats and look forward to the cruise experience, spend their hard earned money on this type of experience, than I think Frank Zappa is correct when he says there is absolutely no hope for humanity. It is nice though to see during the life boat drill that the cruise line is so concerned about the environment to ask people not to throw their trash overboard. Never mind the thousands of tons of carbon put out into the atmosphere from the tons of fuel used up, just don't throw a can of soda pop in the water because a fish already choking from the fuel spilled on the water might be hurt. How conscientious. And speaking of pollution, I think we now deserve the full effect of global warming. Send in the hurricanes, tornadoes, floods - you name it - our species is so completely pathetic that I now realize we don't deserve to be on this planet. Cockroaches - take over - it's all yours - you can have it.

Our family has done well. Nobody killed or physically attacked one another. No instead we split off into our respective camps and pretty much did a good job of avoiding each other, or keeping contact to the bare obligatory minimum. At the time I started on this writing, I may have exchanged about 5 sentences with one of my brothers, and on my way to 10 at most. We did manage a full on conversation about the last full day. There were several elephants in the room that members of our family were all doing a great job of pretending to avoid seeing. So many elephants that they were all on the verge of suffocating each other. You can't come out and say look at the elephant because then the classic reply is "what elephant?". I used to, but now I've learned. I observe all the elephants, so close they are practically shitting on my face, and act like they aren't there. It ends up for the best that way. My laptop finally crashed - there was no technical reason - but I am convinced it just simply could no longer handle the weight of the elephants one moment longer. Our family is like a bunch of magnets that basically repel each other in different segments. We have done a great job of staying the course. This has been the greatest union/non-re-union ever conceived by the Jehovah like God who arranged this. Thanks Jehovah. I don't know how Jehovah did not have a heart attack with all of the neurotic attempts to control and orchestrate this entire endeavor. Some never learn that the more they try to take control the more out of control everything becomes. Maybe that's why he was shaking so much. And he thinks I am the one messed up in the head. I also see the dark, ugly, hateful rage in all members of the family - including yours truly - to be something like a Medusa that you cannot look directly in the eye. Most of us drank excessively to avoid looking at this Medusa. As for me, I minimized contact - and eye contact especially.

When you walk onto the ship before anything happens, after you have cleared all the procedures to show you are really not Juan Jose trying to smuggle into or out of the glorious U S of A, the first thing you notice is a stale musty smell in the middle of the ship. It kind of seems like someone has ripped an enormous mold encrusted disgusting fart, and to make up for it they have sprayed a whole bunch of odor remover, but the odor doesn't quite go away. The fart is so odorous and strong, that maybe the farter died in the process, because it also smells like someone has just died. All the reason to crank up the deodorizer, but the smell of the dead farter never quite goes away. After a while you kind of get used to the smell - almost - well maybe - not quite. And then the cheese attacks from all directions. It is so overwhelming you almost can't quite take it in. It is beyond Godlike. You almost have to bow down to it. And then there is a constant sensation of having a phallic like object stuck up your butt, and no matter how much you try to avoid the sensation, you can' t get rid of it. BOHICA - bend over, here it comes again - courtesy of a caller of the Jim Rome show. Where to start. Well - let's see - how about the music. You are greeted by a cheesy synthesizer and a lady trying to sound Latin - to go with theme of heading down to lovely Ensenada. Other groups perform completely watered down Reggae versions of Everything's Going to be All Right and Margaritaville out by the pool, while quite appropriately people are getting wasted "wasting away" - drinking their sun exposed asses off and having the party of their lives. It seems like everyone on the boat is engaged in constant sexual activity - all except myself - unless self-gratification counts for anything.

Let's hear it for the food. It is a luxury experience as described by the Jehovah who arranged the gathering. Let me try to describe the food. Imagine being in a futuristic space ship where magically you can have anything you want - all you do is tell the computer. And then SPLOTCH - out it comes out of a little faucet - but it is a just a couple chromosomes away from what it is supposed to be. SPLOTCH - give me a steak. But instead out comes a shoe - with about the same texture and consistency. Luxury dining at its finest. The orange juice is delicious too - imagine a can of left over concentrate that has been in the refrigerator for two straight weeks, and then so much water is added to it that it almost is a stretch to say an orange ever gave birth to it to begin with. OJ on the house - drink as much as you want. Anything else - cough up the money - because if you don't feel like lemonade, iced tea, OJ, or mutated apple juice - its gonna cost ya. I will say the food improved toward the end, and that quality was definitely better away from the taste bud Jammer cafe buffet. The coke and bottle of water they kindly place in your room - boom - two bucks each you are told - and that is after you have already downed a couple of them. Toilet paper is complimentary - at least for the time being - though I am sure that is subject to change. I was almost afraid to wipe my ass. It seems like just about everything I ate at the buffet was a SPLOTCH version of something it was supposed to be, mutated away and just could not arrive and ended up in a bland wanna be version of what it was and never quite arrived. But there was plenty of food - eat all you want. Eat up - the space aliens want you fed well so they can eat you for dinner - ala TO SERVE MAN - a Twilight Zone episode. The way we were herded into the muggy kitchen at the beginning, I almost felt like they were getting ready to round us up for a mass execution and throw us into the gas chamber or shoot us once it was done. And eat up - as much as you can - stuff your face - if you can't just throw it away - never mind the beggars rotting away in the Baja town awaiting that would sell their souls to even get a chance to eat the McFood that you have the luxury of eating all you want of - if that is grammatically correct - if not - well - oh well. But seeing it was a short little McCruise to begin with that was okay. I am not complaining though. Even a short cruise was far too long for me.

The sleeping arrangements are like Sting's "packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes" you almost bump your head on the ceiling on the bunk level as it appears the residents of the adjacent sardine units are all loudly screwing the daylights out of each other and bumping into your box on the way. The constant motion of the waves provides the sensation of a constant feeling of nausea that never quite goes away as your mind plays trick on you for your close to near sleepless night to welcome you aboard to the cabin. I had one decent night of sleep. The last night I was awakened to the sound of a drunken female lush singing that her friend Ashley never takes it from behind. Being back home now, I thank God constantly I am no longer in that sardine box, and I don't have to pay for a drink of water from a bottle. The little things we take for granted in life...

And the crew was so friendly - good morning - good morning - good morning - to the point you want to go like the dude in AIRPLANE - who starts punching everyone in the face who comes across his path. Shut the hell up - just let me enjoy my God Dam good morning without telling me how f-ing good it is. Shut up - but the cheese continues - the cheesy sounds of the crew telling you the latest cheesy event coming up, or the waiter dancing away to the cheesy disco music that they are dancing to as the "meal" comes to an end. So much cheese - it comes from all directions - there is no way to avoid it, so all you can do is surrender. For the last time, I don't give a flying rat's ass about how much is in the bingo jackpot. Find another way to take my money - you have found plenty already - and I wasn't even the Jehovah funding most of this thing.

But - there is a cloud behind the silver lining. I can now say I have survived a cruise - once I made it to the finish line - and 3 days seemed like 3 years. It was nice - kind of - to see some elements of the family - especially the ones I could actually have a somewhat honest conversation with, the ones who are willing to open up a little and not constantly try to act like the elephant isn't in the room, or that the thing they just told you five minutes ago does not completely contradict what they have been telling you for the last year(s) in Orwellian double speak. And I have had some very spiritual experiences here, amazingly enough. The guitar sessions under the lifeboats, where I could get away from everyone and I probably spent a good 3-4 or so hours a day on average were particularly inspiring, especially at the sunrise and sunset portions of the day. An oriental lady doing what looked like Tai Chi did some weird chant while I was singing Misfits by Ray Davies and smiled at me - it was somewhat bizarre but nice. It was fitting to finally record "Everything is Cheese" on such a cheesy venue - and it is soon to show up on You Tube. I had a nice talk and singing session with my brother Dan there, even if I may not see or hear from him for another decade or so - it was still pleasant and I take that with no expectations of any kind for the future. That's the way it is with my family - now you see them and now you don't. Many times we flat out avoided each other. My daughter couldn't understand why. She was baffled by the lack of interaction. My wife was astounded by this, especially at the beginning when we separated off to our cabins, and at the end when we were dumped at the airport almost 7 hours before the flight without an invitation to hang out or come to the house. I was constantly reminded of how much warmer her family is. My daughter is now heartbroken that the family she was so close to for a few days is now long gone and makes absolutely no effort to stay in touch with her or follow through with the empty promises to come and see her. But for me - I have no expectations, and that is why I didn't feel the same empty misery I felt at our last gathering in Mammoth Lakes, even if that venue was much easier to take physically. (For the next gathering if one is proposed I suggest either an Alaska Iditarod - we all get our own dogs, or a re-enactment of Dan's book hiking across the Pacific Crest Trail, with a detour over Donner where we can all eat each other for dinner). I have come to terms with what I would like our family to be as opposed to the clear reality of the distant being that it is, because I have made my efforts to bring us closer and now I resign myself to the fact that it can only be what it is. Nothing more or less. I have pretty much come to accept what it is - it is kind of like a ghost family - it no longer seems real to me. It is clear after all the demons passed through me a year and a half from the time I found out about it, all the way up to the days before, where I confronted some major emotional baggage on the way, that the most difficult part was all of the mind fucking leading up to the cruise. The actual cruise, though not particularly pleasant, was kind of anti-climactic. No one fought - my wife and mother in law did not come to blows, we all smiled and took the family photo - which I couldn't bring myself to smile for but I endured anyways. We are not going to kill each other over the $250.00 jackpot of an inheritance that will be left for us, but we will never exactly be in love with each other. That's okay. I just for now - thank God constantly that this ordeal is over and I am back - home sweet home - where I belong.

As a little follow up post script - if it sounds like I am completely over this - I'm not. Just moved a little closer but not there - that's why I avoid family gatherings because at some point the depression inevitably kicks in. I didn't get thoroughly depressed about this during the actual journey - which is a plus, but it is slowly creeping in now the more it all starts to slowly sink in - how completely impossibly hopeless the whole situation is with my family relations. So no - I have not risen above this by any stretch. Many demons still remain. To quote the author originally cited at the beginning of this:

Any which way you are tempted to roam

It's a long long long long long long way

Way to go home

Already home

2008-07-02T15:16:00.001-07:00

In a remarkable shift of energy here, I bring you a somewhat positive writing. The idea for this song came from my head while I was doing my CAT duty in Nebraska - I had Joni Mitchell on my mind so the melody came from thinking of her songs - I can't say which one in particular - coming soon to my You Tube site - I just put it together this morning

Already Home

From another time zone, another hotel, I find myself here now today
Home might be another thousand miles from here, but this time it's not seeming so far away
Familiar faces I'm seeing in strangers I feel like I already know
You're here in my heart, no matter how far apart, I find home is wherever I go
There's no place to get to, no place left for waiting when in my heart I know
That I'm already home

Maybe I can't see you and I can't touch you, but still feel in my heart like you are right here
Maybe unknown places are lying awaiting, but in a place of pure love there's no place left for fear
I'm hearing the sounds of the crickets and birds singing to me that I'm gonna be all right
The sun's beating down at the peak of the day, but I dream of the cool breeze of the coming sweet night
My family and friends are all right here, say now where else could they possibly be
Cus I'm already home

BB's got his Lucille, I've got my own Lucille, my sweet honey she always travels with me
My hands massage her neck, and she's wrapped around mine, and then where else can home
possibly be
Singing her sweet notes, and I'm singing with her and this empty hotel room's coming to life
Music will always be my path to God, my sweet guitar here's always been my wife
Singing in bliss and I'm in harmony, and even if I'm a bit out of key
I am already home

Once I had a little game

2008-07-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

Once I had, a little game
I liked to crawl, back in my brain
I think you know, the game
I mean I mean the game, called 'go insane'
you should try, this little game
Just close your eyes, forget your name
Forget the world, forget the people
And we'll erect, a different steeple
This little game, is fun to do
Just close your eyes, no way to lose
And I'm right there, I'm going too
Release control, we're breaking thru

(Jim Morrison)

Patience runs out on the junkie
The dark side hires another soul
Did he steal his fate or earn it
Was he force-fed, did he learn it
Whatever happened to his precious self control
Like him I'm tired of trying to heal
This tom-cat heart with which I'm blessed
Is destruction loving's twin
Must I choose to lose or win
Maybe when my turn comes I will have guessed

from "Victim or the Crime"

Yesterday I felt like I was cracking up. I have found there is a down-side to Sam-E - it is like a prolonged cup of coffee - which is great for staying awake - I relied on it to get me through my marathon of roof inspections in humid Nebraska, but it also has a way of planting a doubtful anxiety bordering upon anger seed in my head - and it did a good job of that yesterday. The daily countdown to the Voyage of the Damned seems to give me plenty to write about. And dealing with my parents to an outsider would border upon the assinine and absurd, and if it wasn't in my head like the parasite Don Ruize writes about it, maybe I could laugh at it too if I wasn't cracking up so much. It was already a year ago when I agreed to sell my soul and embark on this voyage that my father already let me know we were not welcome to stay at the house the night before. The reason at the time was it would be too much. But then it turns out Dan - my writer/brother - and his wife - would be staying there. And - the story then changed that in a house where there are 4 bedrooms downstairs and probably close to 3,000 square feet total - there would not be room. I guess Dan and Amy were staying in separate rooms and had a room a piece for their luggage - in other words - it was bullshit. They didn't want Victoria to stay - and as stated in the last post were going to put us in a rat-hole to compromise. So - after I called him - it turned out to be okay to stay there after all - but of course - Victoria already had the message she was not welcome and if we had stayed there it would have gotten ugly, so I made a reservation for the LAX Holiday Inn - plane flight sounds and all - instead - and as it turns out it was an online reservation that couldn't be reversed. Meanwhile my control freak of a Dad said this was out of the question and implied we were welcome all along. I also let slip a much more mild version of the last blog post on My Space (now deleted) implying in so many words that I couldn't wait for the cruise to be over as I was on the verge of losing my mind. So he calls me to complain about that post and tell me I don't have to go and why am I staying at the Holiday Inn - and it is the perfect storm in my head where I finally went to the screaming "leave me the fuck alone" as I hung up and threw the phone into the side of the house, causing the battery to come out. So - then Victoria calls back and basically asks him why we were never welcome in a house with 4 downstairs rooms (and of course he doesn't know what to say) and tells him that we are in fact staying at the Holiday Inn despite his demand to the contrary - and then she manages to hang up on him too. Two hang ups in 15 minutes - not bad. Since he complained we were "out of the way" (according to Map Quest we are a full 19 miles from the port where the cruise will be) she says we will take a cab. Finally he calls back - I have calmed down by now - he agrees he will pick us up at the hotel.

But it is just starting because then my wife questions why I have to lose it on them. She has stayed cool, calm and collected during her portion of the pre-hang up call - so why can't I - and basically what the hell is wrong with me. This behavior is not "normal". Please tell me what behavior is. Mabye it means I am going manic - she suggests. I calmly tell her there is a significant difference between one loud display of anger, vs. mania which is a complete personality transformation affecting sleep patterns and overall behavior over a period of time. Do other members of my family flip out when dealing with my parents? I don't know - maybe you should ask them. But in so many words - it doesn't take a therapist to know she is not comfortable with her own anger, so clearly disapproves of my loud display of it. After all - I have scared Sara. I guess her physical lashings don't scare her. I guess the time she pushed my daughter's head into the cabinet door in response to my daughter throwing something at her, or slapping her in the face when she was a brat in the grocery store - somehow is better than my intense scream and throwing the phone. So I go back to the old - well gee - I guess - you never get angry - and then she tells me to go away - and then to cap it off there is an ugly dispute about when to turn off the air conditioner. Just a day in the life of marital bliss here. As fights go, that one was almost as lame as the one with my parents. Two hang up calls in an hour to my Dad from two different people, and two different fights in that same hour. That hour must have been quite proud of its self.

Really if you take a step back every fight is pretty ridiculous - the problem is sometimes it is hard to do that. I am all for Thich Nhat Hanh's approach to anger - don't let it get to you - don't go off - stay loving and kind - and I really believe it is the best approach. The reality is though - sometimes that parasite is going to win and then it is just going to come out. I don't care how much God-damn anger management or therapy you have, this takes years to overcome. I am better. I don't stay angry, I don't hold grudges, I actually slept some last night, and I did apologize to my Dad for raising my voice - and I am not angry at him now, even if he has been lying his ASS off - and maybe like Kobe I am starting to find out what it tastes like - but even so - that is who he is. They are never going to get along with my wife, and because of that I will never really get along with them. I know Phil and Vicki - have 12 years on me - and they seem to have found a way to not let it get to them. I just am not there yet.

So once you cross over to that point - what do you do? Thankfully I do not resort to violence. I imagine there are some who experience what I do and then start hitting their wives or children. I do have anger issues, and one of my neighbors once thought my loudness was a pre-cursor to violence, but it hasn't happened and I don't see it happening. As a counterpoint, I also do believe "anger can be power" as stated by the Clash, and I used it to end a destructive romance and sometimes it does create a little needed distance - as was the case yesterday. Is it the ideal way to deal with a problem - no - but at the same time - as long as nobody is hurt - I don't see it quite being the end of the world either as my wife does.

I've experienced just about every emotion out there. I have been through full blown depression, I have experienced seething rage, anxiety to the point where the world is caving in, bliss, love, intense self-hatred - have hallucinated to the point where I believed I was dead and the afterlife was not looking all that promising, have been through Shamanic types of trance states from singing in my back yard and/or drumming - I've been through the whole spectrum. Some states are pleasing, others are hell. I am sure in my most extreme states I was perceived as being crazy, self-destructive, imbalanced - but I am proud to say I am functional despite all of that. I know it is a cop-out to blame the past, but objectively speaking I am amazed I even still function after all of the rage and hatred I was subjected to by my borderline mother. And who knows with genetics - what chemical imbalances might be in the mix. But I have said it before - I sang a whole song about "it's gonna go away" and that is the key. Emotions are like the weather - they are very intense, it seems to the point where they are going to destroy everything, but then they pass. When I fell into the abyss at the age of 20, I didn't see a way out - and knowing that I kept on falling. Now I do know it will pass - and ideally the extremes wouldn't have to be experienced at all, but the sad reality is that it just is what it needs to be and I go through what I have to. So where my wife may be the voice of the what the fuck is wrong with you parasite, my response is - I am doing the best I can - even if I do flip out once in a while - and be patient if at all possible - because in a matter of time I'll be back on my feet. You can react to my emotions however you want to, but your reaction is just that - yours. I am sorry for any inconvenience they cause. If you want a guarantee that they will never come back, the only guarantee I can give you is that if you leave my life you will be guaranteed you won't have to be around it any more. My wife was not particularly thrilled with that response, but it was the only one I could give her. I used to go to that groveling I'll work on it - I'll change - anything but please don't go - and now - to borrow the line of my ex - it is more like don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. I love my wife - but can I survive without her? Absolutely - no doubt in my mind. I am doing the best I can - going back to the "Four Agreements" and that is the best I can tell you. I still travel upon the fringes of my emotions from time to time, but rather than saying oh my God I'm going crazy, it is more like - oh yeah - that again. When it comes down are you going crazy? Sure you are. Will you stay that way forever? Only if you believe you will. And when you approach it like that, at some point it just bounces away. It passes. Just like the Monarch of the Seas boat ride will pass. I just have to earn it - and slowly but surely - I will.

Living in a HELL HOLE

2008-06-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

The windows dirty
the mattress stinks
This ain't no place to be a man
Ain't got no future, ain't got no past
And I don't think I ever can
The floor is filthy the walls are thin
The wind is howling in my face
The rats are peeling, I'm losing ground
Can't seem to join the human race.

Chorus:Yeah, I'm living in a hell hole
Don't want to stay in this hell hole
Don't want to die in this hell hole
Girl, get me out of this hell hole.

Song by the legendary Spinal Tap - you can even check out the video

Have I stated that my parents are motherfucking ass-holes? If I haven't let me state it for the record - my parents are in fact motherfucking ass-holes and the end of this fucking boat ride can't come soon enough. They are racist motherfucking pieces of shit. I just said it. And I believe it. I know - love is the answer, forgive and forget - but sometimes feelings are just what they are and you can't dress them up.

The last iron in the detail of this trip was accomodations for the first night. My Dad agreed we would fly out from Sacramento to LA to avoid driving all day. Instead just a 3 hour drive to Sacramento from here - fair enough - even almost makes sense. Then we were given the bullshit line - well you can't stay here because there is not enough room and Dan and Amy are staying here. They would put us up for the night. In a "nice place" - what my Dad told Victoria. If it were a 3 bedroom house it would almost make sense. Except there are 4 bedrooms downstairs - one converted to an office - and then a large family room - so even if every god damn member of the family were staying there we could work it out. But the reality is my Mom is still projecting all her racist spewing hatred onto my wife and has a problem with her. But the honesty never comes out with them - it is just the same lying bullshit. So fine - if you put me in a place where I can stay for the night that is halfway decent I will overlook the bullshit and deal with it. But in fact it was the Days Inn at Torrance - go ahead and click on those highlighted words and see what comes up. Ahh - a Google search - full of flattering reviews:

"Hell Hole‎ - A TripAdvisor Member‎ - Aug 22, 2007
Do not go there - it was like a dirty bomb shelter - if you pay $50 a night - you paid too much - and I paid way too much. Day's Inn as a franchisor should be embarassed to allow "

"Avoid at all cost!‎ - A TripAdvisor Member‎ - Feb 8, 2007
... This hotel is dirty, unkempt and scary. Seems to be a place where locals live long term. Noisy, dirty and frightening. Rudest housekeepers I've ever encountered"

"Stay Away!!!‎ - A TripAdvisor Member‎ - Jul 25, 2007
The property is under renovations, and obviously in great need of it. But some room's just shouldn't be rented. The room I stayed in was absolutely horrific. ..."

And we're just getting started. One of them points out the cost 50 dollars a night. Going all out I guess. The shitty reviews goes on and on. So needless to say that little anger button went off in my head and I was ready to tell them fuck you - go to hell - the whole thing is off. But - I stayed level and calm and after a few outbursts here I called and politely pointed out the reviews of the place we were going to stay. My Dad seemed a little taken aback. I politely ask can we stay there instead? He will have to get back to me. Have to consult with the one who wears the pants - that fucking bitch he is married to who calls the shots and the one we are honoring for this god-forsaken gathering. I asked politely but I wasn't going to back down. If he said no - I was going to say the whole God dam thing was off. And he KNEW that. I didn't have to say it - he just knew. So 15 or so minutes later - okay - we can stay there - I may have to stay on an airmattress - fine - what the fuck - that's okay. I guess Dan and Amy - the asskisser as dubbed by another member of the family - were okay - but some fucking loudmouth Mexican was not. But oh yeah - Victoria IS a member of the family - that's why they insisted she come on the cruise. Just not enough a member of the family to stay at their fucking house.

So I am gritting my teeth as I write this. Do you sense my hatred? It is there. It is real. Fuck with me all you want, but don't fuck with my wife. That is just a basic instinct. And I am not the Dalai fucking lama as much as I would like to be. There should be some real interesting moments on this cruise. If I seem withdrawn - it is because I am not planning on saying much. I am in survival mode. No warm and fuzzy feelings because they just aren't there. I am doing this because I have to - and for no other reason. I survived 2 fucking weeks in Nebraska slaving away in overwhelming humidity, I can survive 3 days on a fucking cheezy boat even it is with my parents from hell.

"One way or another - this darkness - got to give"

Sweat

2008-06-27T03:29:00.000-07:00

Rivers running down my back
Makes me slippery, like a fish
If I don't stop, I might drown
Falling down, down, down, down,
not dead yet covered with Sweat
(from the song of same name by Oingo Boingo)

Yesterday I did it. At about 7:30 in the town of Beatrice, Nebraska, I came down off the ladder for the last time on this outing. I was still an hour from the hotel which meant getting back at 8:30 at night, grabbing my favorite shrimp and Spinach salad from Applebees which I have had several times out here, but there was a huge sense of relief that I had survived one of the most physically challenging experiences of my life. For 14 straight days - with no weekends off - I was expected to put in 12 hours a day - and it was easy to go more than that in an efffort to call everybody, map out where I was going on Mapquest, and just try to keep up. I have to go back and look, but I averaged close to 6 inspections a day - some of them were within a block of each other, others separated by up to 50 miles of distance, and I covered about 1200 miles or so and another 70 to go to drop off the rental car as I head back to Omaha from Lincoln.

About 2 weeks ago I received an e-mail along with others saying help was needed with our office in Nebraska after a lot of storms had come through in the area. Seeing that my equity line had been chopped down and I never quite seem to "get ahead of bills I got to pay - no way no way" to borrow a line from "Rock the Nation" I thought I could use the extra 800 a week in overtime that was offered. Being away from home has ups and downs. I miss my dog, I miss my little girl who was very upset I was leaving - as far as the wife - a little absence makes the heart grow fonder never hurts anything, and probably even helps. My first run in Utah - 12 days including two days of driving to get there and back - was not nearly as physically demanding, though I did cover a lot more distance, suffer a nasty bout of diarrhea there, and was pretty drained by that one - but most of those claims were in doors in relative physical comfort. This one will now be a total of 16 days, today is a travel day, and 14 of them were nothing but inspections without a break other than to sleep and maybe to pick up my guitar if I wasn't too tired to fall asleep in the middle of it. I have now stayed at the Regency in Omaha, Holiday Inn Express in Lincoln - the longest run, 3 days at Holiday Inn in Grand Island, and the last 2 nights here at Staybridge Suites in Lincoln.

I was told to lug my bulky 15 foot collapsing Little Giant ladder along. Logistically it would have been challenging. I am not going anywhere without my guitar - it is what keeps me sane in the midst of impending insanity. Plus 2 weeks of packing in a suitcase - although after having done about 6 loads of laundry here I probably can pack less next time. My mother of a suitcase was actually over the 50 pound limit so Southwest - the last airline that doesn't charge you for wiping your ass - was going to charge me 25 for the over limit, but gave me the chance to re-shift. My company would have covered it, but still the thought of it bugged me - so a lot of stuff went into my guitar, my shoes went into my carry on, and I was covered. On the way back my guitar will be stuffed with underwear so I don't have to go through that again. In my briefcase all the essentials for work - laptop, car charger, portable printer, my back up drive - and really just packed with everything I used out here. With these things, and then a ladder - I can work just about anywhere - I have a wireless card and the whole world becomes my portable office. At every inspection, once I come down from the roof drenched in sweat, I then proceeed to write an estimate, print it out, write a check, and print it out, and try to avoid sweating all over it in the process. So anyways - I wasn't sure how many extra hands I had to carry a ladder, so at my wife's suggestion I asked if I could use one of the ladders in their Omaha office and they said sure.

Well when I checked out of the Regency (it turns out the Men's College World Series was going on which made finding rooms more difficult - the Carolina Tar Heels stayed at my hotel apparently the first night) I went to our Omaha office - after about 20 wrong turns not spelled out by Mapquest. I would get lost here many times - Mapquest is good about 98% of the time, but sometimes it is confusing, you miss your turn, or it just doesn't quite do it's job. A GPS would have helped, but I relied on the computer - often at times getting on line after pulling over - checking the address of the place I was near - and then re-Mapquesting from the place where I had gotten lost. Often this process of getting lost - after sweating all day - would result in something akin to manic screaming with all sorts of variations on the F word in the process. At times I thought I was losing my mind altogether. But anyways - I get to the Omaha office, and just being in the basement trying to figure out how to use the ladder I am sweating up a storm. The brief walk from the rental counter to the Enterprise car lot at the airport was also a major ordeal, so things were already looking ominous. On top of that, the ladder I took - it was the biggest one I could see - is this old wooden ladder with 6 metal hinges - two for each joint area - that are stubborn and often get stuck requiring gloves to unfasten them. It had duck tape around a splintered part. For two weeks I was married to this ladder - and after all the times I had to push and pull to get those hinges going, I was ready to haul it into the nearest river at times, but I must say it did the job.

I found out after my first inspection how much sweat was involved. Even though I work out on cardio machines at the gyms regularly, this is a different type of sweat. On the cardio machine, you are in doors at a comfortable temperature. You have a towel and you get in the shower after you are done about an hour later. Out here, my body temperature would make me feel like I was an oven producing sweat. And after doing this physical activity - going around the roof slopes, looking for my "test square" to determine how much hail damage there was - and depending on the size of the roof and number of slopes this could take from 15 minutes to an hour, I would come down, sweat bullets, and then have to shift to offfice worker entering data to get the claim processed. There was no shower until the last inspection was done, so I would drive around and work in soaked clothes most of the day. The data entry would involve a diagram of the roof onto the computer, calculating the estimate costs, uploading and labeling photos, printing up a check after manually entering the numbers, and then entering those same numbers into the "main frame", and putting notes into the activity diary and using the payment tracker in Xactimate to finish this. It was like juggling 6 different activities - and at times I had to figure out how to not sweat onto the computer because it would be dripping like bullets. At times, I was offered to come inside, lug my mess of tangled wires, printer, checkbook, and laptop in the house, work in air conditioning, and maybe be offered a nice glass of cool water, soda, or ice tea. At other times, I would be working in the "Cruiser" Enterprise gave me - hopefully but not always in a shady spot if I could find one. I would sometimes find if the humidity was bad enough I would be sweating almost as much inside the vehicle with all windows open as I was going up and down the ladder - and many homes have a separate detached garage or outbuilding which would mean I would go up and down the ladder two or more times for some inspections. I would always look for the shortest way up, try to avoid resting it on a gutter as it tends to slide, try to enlist the owner to hold the ladder for me if possible, and then just pray that this wooden antique was not going to buckle in on me. One of my customers told me he used to go up on ladders regularly and carefully like me, until one day he fell off for an unknown reason, messed up his back and is now disabled for life. That is always encouraging to hear that - and the reality is any day it could happen to me - no matter how careful I am. You prepare as much as you can, are as careful as you can be, hold the ladder in a secure place, but if karma is going to put you on your ass and your back, what can you really do. Same with driving in a car - you can't control not getting into an accident - you do your best not to, but if it is going to happen it is going to.

Every day - I would get back from a day of doing this - sometimes as many as 8 times in a day, exhausted, sweaty, dying from the humidity and heat, stumble into the shower, maybe pick up something to eat from Applebees, map out my next day, see how many new assignments I had gotten since the last day, how many calls to make. I would try to sleep, but the new time zone threw me off and hotel sleep is off and on. One night explosive thunder from the sky and there goes the sleep. So I would wake up, ever day, some feeling better than others, knowing it was all starting over again. Saturday was another work day. While people were home enjoying their air conditioning, the sound of them would almost mock me while I was sweating away on a roof. I have these Cougar Paws massive roof shoes that help, but on the steeper slopes all the blood goes to my toes. The steeper slopes are the worst - they are uncomfortable - there is more of a fear of falling off, getting around is not easy. I had one in Lincoln around 5 PM- you know it was the hottest part of the day, the sun was beating down on me with the humidity going, it was a charcoal black roof which captured all the heat, and I should have brought my gloves but instead burned the palms of my hand as I tend to Spiderman my way around the steeper roofs and by the end of the day at the most tired and worn out day, this was a real ass kicker.

So in so many words - the day I never thought was going to arrive is here - I head back - in one piece - no falls - all inspections completed - only one customer who looked like he was ready to take my head off when I told him the mortgage company had to be named on the check and he was an ex-Vietnam fuck everybody type - but I am ready to go home. Somehow I survived one of the most grueling experiences of my life. The typical CAT - catastrophe run is 3 weeks and I have barely made it through two. I am sure I will have no problems sleeping on the plane.

To live outside the law you must be honest

2008-06-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan quote from Sweet Marie

My brother and I are never going to get along. Period. We may try, but it won't happen. There is no way to change it - it is above and beyond both of us. Sure I picked on him when I was young, but I think the thing he will always hold against me is that I was critical of his writing. Thankfully he has no link to this, but the reality is - I still am. It is not that he doesn't have the "chops" so to speak. He has been to Columbia School of Journalism, has all the tools of the trade, he can sit down and write a book - which I can't do - or simply don't want to - so I can respect him for that. But I just read the few pages here on Amazon and this is a very calculated attempt to present something in a very self-conscious way, but in doing that honesty goes out the window. I see he is already dwelling on how well he did at his prestigious school - which again - is great he did well - but to have to emphasize that I'm better than you because I have status - is pretty - well - pretty sad I hate to say. In Jim Rome terminology he is a red ass. I criticized his writing, so damn it he had to go out and write a book to prove me wrong. Unfortunately after reading just a few pages of this I got the idea of the book all too quickly. I see one of the reviewers chopped him to shreds already, while most people did seem to enjoy it. I am reading it - the same guy who never wanted to say the f-word - spewing it out left and right - the same reserved prudish guy I knew talking about sex and I am wondering is this the same guy I grew up with? Well - no - it isn't because he is trying very hard to be something acceptable in the literary world, and once you try to be anything other than what you are it isn't going to work. I don't want to say it's hopeless - this is his first book - maybe he'll dig a little deeper next time around. I know he lies to me all the time - it's just who he is. He lied when he ratted out on Vicki to my evil parents during one of his visits and then earnestly told me he did not, when it simply had no possibility of being anyone else. When I see him on the cruise, he'll act like my long lost friend, but I know there is still a lot of rage flowing toward me and what I represent to him. Sadly we are enough alike that it would benefit us if we let bygones be bygones. But I can't do it by myself, and I don't see it happening on his side any time soon. Too many demons that haven't been exorcised. Unfortunately he had a chance to be himself in this book, but he was more concerned with image than substance. I've read the 6 page teaser and I feel like I've already read the whole thing. I hope he makes some money on it, but I also hope some day he can come to terms with who he really is and not be so ashamed of that.

Thought I heard a jugband play IF YOU DON'T WHO ELSE WILL?

2008-06-07T08:02:00.000-07:00

I am probably repeating myself but the message has to come across. Even if I do I will say it slightly different this time. As the King Crimson song says, I repeat myself when under stress. Am I under stress? Well of course - but I am not alone. Gas is climbing to new record prices, the economy is going down the tubes - the chickens seem to be coming home to roost. I mean when one group of people lives and consumes most of the world's resources at the expense of another group, you would think at some point things are going to even out. Bob Marley has a song that goes "them belly full" and it seems that ours as a culture is beyond full - it is outright bloated. But actually - I am not here on a cultural rant, I am off on an individual one. Selfish - I know - but as I am constantly told I am selfish here at home, I guess that is the nature of the beast.

But that is what I really am focusing on - who am I? Who do you think I am? It probably depends on who you ask. My view of any question is there is no one answer. I think the key to accessing the truth is to not lock into one view point. The more ways you can look at it, the more you can see it from different angles, the more it all starts to make sense in its own weird way. There is a book called the "Naked Ape" that describes us as a bunch of animals shitting in the woods and here it might seem offensive for some to see humans that way. But of course - it's true - that what we are. But what about those that see us as civilized and more advanced than apes - well - I can kind of see that works too. What about the spiritual realm - where one sees life and humans as one extension of the realm of God - we are all God's children, God's creations - what about that? Well - why not that too. Science - sees us evolving from a bunch of lifeless particles, to fish, to apes, to humans - we are all in a laboratory in some kind of biological experiment. Well hell - why not that too - why not all of it? Why not look at it from as many dimensions as angles as possible - and why the absolute need to zero in on one as the right way - so that it has to be a war between evolution and religion, or right and wrong. The author of Letter to a Christian Nation boldly proclaims - one of us is right and of us is wrong. The way I see it the only thing that is wrong is the concept of wrong to begin with - kind of along the lines of the only thing to fear is fear itself.

So that goes back to who am I and how you see me. Well let's start with the psychotherapist perspective. Anyone who reads this knows the story, but I'll say it again. My mother was a very troubled woman. I have often seen her as almost downright evil, but I think troubled is a better way of looking at it. I don't sit there fuming in my righteous anger that way. I think she could easily have been thrown in a mental hospital for life if someone ever observed her, but like many of us - including myself to a degree - we learn to operate within the parameters of society and play the game enough so we are left alone, even if we are out of our minds. She hated herself but somehow willed herself through Harvard just long enough to work a couple years and then fall into the sexist role of mother and housewife, which she resented on one level but welcomed at another. She replaced her screaming father with my screaming father and all appeared to be status quo again. Who better then to take out all that rage, blame, aggression and hostility on then her own children - and I was at the brunt of it - like all of us were. I don't know how the others dealt with it, but I know how I did. Sure she knew how to touch every point of pain and hurt like a master surgeon - it was frightening how well she knew me - but since I was her son and a lot like her, it wasn't too surprising either. But as she went on for minutes, hours, timeless eternities of these attacks I believe I had to distance myself from it to certain degree as a matter of self-preservation, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to deal with it. So that's what I did - just like in a dream where it seems like someone wants to hurt or kill you and you defend yourself by saying it isn't really happening - that's what I must have done. And the only reason I know this is that is what I still continue to do. It just isn't really happening - freeze frame - there I am - it's all a dream.

I'll never really know how I got from there to here. Yes there was the flirtation with death - I didn't succeed - it was not my karma too - I guess if that was my time to go I would have - but I didn't. Somewhere along the way I found - I know this sounds cheesy - but I found - for lack of better word - God. I became born again. Not a born again Christian - although I don't have the innate Jewish hostility towards Christianity that I once did. I just kind of look at religion the same way I stated before - once one says this way is right and that way is wrong, I am done with it. Because all of it is right as far as I am concerned. So there is no right answer. Was Christ chosen - he must have been - assuming he really existed - because look at the impact he had on humanity. Was he the son of God - of course he was - just like I am - just like you are - just like "I am he as you are me and we are all together" - I don't like to zero in on one way - you know "God's too big for just one religion". I would like to say that I am completely solid in my faith - but I'd be lying. It is the old heart and mind battle - there is doubt in my mind - after all - I don't want to exclude atheism either. I really don't want to exclude anything. It is all real - God - atheism - science - it all makes sense - even if it is contradictory at the same time. But for me it is not a matter of God being a proven real entity to protect me and give me everlasting life - I would love that to be the case, although I haven't honestly entirely bought into that notion of God - as much as I feel a God like presence in my life which has saved me from complete despair and hopelessness - the two forces of my childhood - and brought me to the point where life seems to be something I can handle now. To all the skeptics out there who want to see this as just a creation in my mind to make myself better - go ahead - because I am not going to rule that out either. I am not going to try to explain it - all I know is it is something I feel in my heart and leave it at that. It has come out through music - through all the groups I loved as a kid - the Beatles, Doors, Elton John, Talking Heads, Led Zeppelin - all the tons of Grateful Dead and Phish shows I saw, and now my own songs and singing. That has been my doorway to "God" along with my own intuition and the thoughts that pop up in my head from time to time that feel like they are coming from somewhere else.

So back to who I am now - who I am depends on how you either see me or how I see myself. My wife when she is up late with my daughter who is having a fear attack will see Sara as having something wrong with her, see her as an emotional cripple. And maybe it's true - at least on one level. Then again maybe I am an emotional cripple too - am I? Well - look at me. Fear and depression still are very strong forces in my life. They haven't just gone away. My mother's haunting venomous words will be with me forever. As the same emotional cripple I once came to her desperately needing love and I experienced horribly cruel rejection instead. And that is what I will continue to experience. That is what I know. In my intimate relationships, after the great sex and passionate kissing come to an inevitable end, then that is what I will gravitate to. I can long for love somewhere else - a love with great sex and passion, but I will seek what I am familiar with. So again - here I am - in my song I say there is nowhere else to go - because there isn't. You can't get away from yourself. So I seem to play different roles in my life without even trying. There is the goody two shoes nice guy role. I am good at that. I got good grades, knew how to please the teachers. In my job everyone loves me. I can do no wrong. I took over for a guy who was fucking up left and right, who was pissing off everyone in and outside of the company, and now here I am just doing what I do and everyone talks of me so adoringly. And to a certain extent I am not even trying - I am just doing what comes natural - being the good guy. I go to someone's home, play the nice guy, write them a check - they think what a nice guy - and I get a compliment and everyone's happy. I do what I do - play the nice caring guy and everyone is thrilled.

And then at home there is the opposite extreme. I can't do anything right here. No matter what I do, whether I am trying or not trying, I am going to screw it up. My role here is to play distant father. I don't try to play it, but that role was assigned to me by my wife, and of course I had a distant father too, so it all fits perfectly. Sara fell off her bike yesterday - and there it is - yelling - crying - too much reality. If my wife wasn't there I would try to comfort her, but all I would hear is I want Mama. I couldn't say anything or do anything to make it better if Mama wasn't there. In this case Mama was there doing her thing and I let it be that. I didn't do anything. I froze - stepped back - and let it take care of itself. Today without warning I was told by my wife how upsetting that was to her that I wasn't doing anything. But I do stuff like that constantly to upset her. I am the distant father - at least that role is assigned to me by her. It doesn't matter if I try to convince her that I love my daughter, that she means everything to me - because that is my role in her mind and nothing can change that - which in turn - leads to the rejection from my mother - transferred now to Sara's mother - that I am so comfortable with. Everyone plays their roles perfectly. I was chosen by my wife as distant father - which is why she married me - and I chose her as rejecting mother and we are all doing a great job with our roles. It hurts - it sucks - it isn't fair - it's hell - it's all of those things - but on another level - it just is what it is.

So I live out the two roles - the one who can do nothing right and the one who can do nothing wrong - in the eyes of others- and I ask you - which one is me? And am I even here to begin with, as Syd Barrett says in one of his songs? I like the first one better, but I seem to have tons of experience living out the second. I could do no right in the eyes of my mother either. They are both very real to me. And I am struggling with it. It is hurtful - I still feel like crying - hey I am even watering up a little now. Why does it have to be this way? It just does - and that is part of the key to me - accepting it for what it is. Is karma a punishing cruel force or is it more of a life lesson? What do I get from this? Very simple - if I want love - I have to turn to the spirits for it. It is not going to come from a human member of the opposite sex. I might find the act of sex and love there, but in my experience at this point in life anyways I am just not meant to have it in the flesh as a real experience. Maybe some day. It happened with work - my job is much better than it used to be. Can it happen with physical love too? I don't know. Hasn't happened yet - at least not a "love I can hold on to" (Olabelle lyric). But in the spirit it is another matter entirely. Yeah - sounds like a ton of masturbation - which obviously is a part of it, but not really all of it. This is where God and the spirit come in - and why I like the Goddess concept so much - or Jung's anima - because you just go straight to the source - it's all a dream, it's all in my mind anyways - and when I am out there playing my guitar and feeling a joyous rapture with the mountains breathing, the trees making faces at me, and the birds and wind coming in at just the right time - I am tuning into the real force of what life is all about - and I seek love, merge with love, become love and then I can deal with everything else. I feel the presence of a woman - a spirit woman - and she provides nothing but love. I can deal with the cruel reality of marriage, of the neurotic forces that bring us together and realize that no matter how anyone sees me, it is all a lie. It is what I truly believe and see in my heart that matters. And in my heart, when I am out there feeling these things and writing these things, love is the answer to everything. So when I hear I am fucking up again, I know I am doing the best I can. I know no matter what I do a role is going to be assigned to me that I have no control over - whether it is a bad or good role. So what can I do? Just what I am doing now - no more or no less. I work out every day, play guitar every day - work hard every day because I need to do these things to believe in myself. I am not doing them for fun - I am doing this to survive - phyically and emotionally. Because if not for those things, I am going to go back to being suicidal again and I just can't afford to do that now. Too many are depending on me - even if they don't necessarily appreciate me, they are depending on me - and I need to come through for them. I need to survive. I have finally figured out how to do that.

Am I an emotional cripple? Sure - you want to call me that - go ahead and I won't argue with you - there is enough evidence to win that argument. Am I oversensitive, irritable, angry, depressed - do I worry too much - yeah of course. I am those things too. But I also know I am something else. I am a part of God, the Goddess, the great spirit - whatever you want to call him or her - the great mystery and magic that makes up all of the meaning in life - I am a part of it and when I tune into it I am right in the center of it - and then another's concept of me means nothing at all, no matter what it is. I have to work at it - sometimes it is right there, other times it is not and the forces of fear, hopelessness and sadness take over. No one ever said it was easy. And I can't tell you what will happen with my marriage, relationships - I just don't know. All I can do is my part and know I am doing the best I can at being me. You want to give me an F - go ahead - in my mind I am getting an A all the time - I am doing the best I can at being myself. Like I once said in a song, I can only be who I am. I have to keep on digging into that well of love every day - sometimes I hit gold, sometimes I come up short - but knowing it is there I keep on trying and sometimes I succeed and sometimes not but overall the fact I am still here fighting on speaks for itself. I have to do it because as the line from So Many Roads says - who else will?

Going to hell in a bucket

2008-05-22T18:41:00.001-07:00

I know I am not the only one talking about this, but gas prices keep going up, fires burning out of control, people continue to pound the shit out of each other all over the world, earthquakes everywhere and it seems like everything is coming down at once. My rude awakening was getting a letter from Bank of America stating my equity line - previously set at 50,000 had now lowered to 13,500 due to the decline in my house value. Just like that - 37,500 in potential credit - not that I was using it - I was usually hovering around 14 to 16 with pending payments as my 2 year assault - mainly medical expenses - has kept me from making any ground on any of my debt. But now there is the scramble to change all my due dates to the right time for my credit cards, come up with the extra 2,000 - which against the advice of some I pulled out of my IRA - I know I'll be taxed and I have a 10% penalty, but if it means staying out of credit card interest rates - it is worth it to me - but not something I would have preferred to have done. I always try to stay optimistic, but I rode a a little wave of anxiety after getting this friendly financial letter in the mail - and combined with the throbbing sinus and allergies that linger over me and make me feel constantly tired, and my co-worker is out in Kansas on storm duty, and I have been pretty busy climbing up on roofs and handling wind claims - it seems like I am kind of always feeling beat up. In a panic I grabbed my cell phone stuck in my car seat and ripped it in half - just because I wasn't thinking. My camera died on me the week before. The same day I ripped the phone, I went up on a roof, came down feeling weak and dehydrated, and managed to even get a little sun burn on my arm. My job is great when I can manage it, but driving 500-700 miles a week with the allergy/sinus weakness pounding at me, is like fighting an up hill constant battle against exhaustion - and that is no fun at all.

I read another Ram Dass book called Paths to God, and yet even so I am still somewhat obsessed on the desire level. I always want to eat in moderation, but that never seems to happen - and I honestly admit I am always in kind of a fantasy land with my love life - like something out there is waiting for me and as much as the book says sex is for procreation only and you have to get beyond it, I certainly haven't. I talk to a gal at my gym - she doesn't stay in relationships - but still - she always seems to be getting it - and naturally asking me if I am, and I always have to politely say - no not this time. It is near the death level in my marriage, and as much as I try to make light of it, like I did in my posted song on You Tube, the reality is I do think about it. There is no one in particular I gravitate my thoughts to - there have been a few on rotation over the last few years, after the one major explosion a few years back, but it is more the idea that there is something more to life than I am experiencing and maybe it shouldn't get to me, but the clear reality is that it does. I try to compensate as much as I can by experiencing it on a dream level, but dreams only go so far. I know I am not the only one here feeling this way either. And what can really be done about it - I don't know. Does everyone go through this - is this just an inevitable part of life. Is that why so many people move on, or have affairs? Is monogamy just an unnatural cutural imposed condition that we feel obligated to live by against our own inner longings? Some times I wonder.

So needless to say - with the finances going to hell, with the constant longing for something more than what I have - my life is in a bit of turmoil some times. If I could successfully practice everything in the book, everything I try to impose as an ideal in my own writings - these things wouldn't bother me. And over all, looking at the bright side - the music does have a way of pulling everything together and inspiring me. How all this will ever resolve itself - if ever - God only knows.

You Tube

2008-04-25T08:40:00.001-07:00

I seem to be spending more time there than here lately. Got the day off and have time to record one maybe two songs there, using my 4 track to provide the back drop..

A practical love song

2008-04-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

I sing it here on You Tube

A Practical Love Song (I♥u because you're here)

Whoever said love's a bed of roses, must have had his nose cut off
We've smelled each other's horrendous farts, so nasty that we gagged and coughed
Some times head turning bodily odors, can often make one's head start to spin
And I oughta put a hazardous contamination sign, in the bathroom after I've been in
We've both gotten older, we've both gotten fatter since we met a dozen years ago
We've learned each others deepest, darkest secrets, some that we'd rather not have known
I've seen you after you had your colonoscopy, you sure weren't a pleasant sight
Most nights the best thought 'bout making love, is just a sleeping straight through the night

I know I've never been confused with movie stars, my gut's hanging over my belt
I'm no Don Juan, Johhny Depp or Brad Pitt, who's gonna make all the ladies ♥s melts
Sometimes growing old isn't so plain romantic, as we move toward impending death
No matter how much gum or mouthwash is applied, there's nothing quite like morning breath
I've got to admit, my eyes and heart have roamed, we've both checked to see what's around
The grass is always greener til you're stepping on it, but at some point it's gonna turn brown
I know sometimes it seems like a life sentence, and we're thinking is this all there is
As the car and the house keep falling apart, the dog just soaked the carpet with piss

But I ♥ you because you're here babe, because you're here and you're all I know
After 12 long years, we're still together - even if it's cus there nowhere else to go
The passion and romance are long gone ghosts, but you'll always have a place in my heart
I meant it at the county administration center when I said til death do us part

Maybe I just keep a pissing you off, since my car's such a big fucking mess
Maybe I'm not the handiest guy, the bathroom floor is uglier than death
Maybe my life in the bedroom with you's not the porn movie I'd like it to be
But you're always around, when I really need you - I thank you for not leaving me
In a world where most couples stick around for a while, just to chase yet another high
To search and chase for an impossible dream, a couple's life is born just to die
Where brainless pretty boys in cowboy hats fills the radio with cheesy love songs
We may keep on wanting what we can't ever have, but our friendship's still going strong

I love you even though you don't look perfect, you're still beautiful to me
I know from here we're just heading further down hill, but your image is what I long to see
I've lived life alone and it's just plain lonely, my remaining days they may be few
You make me laugh, sometimes so hard I cry, you know I'd love to spend the rest with you
No matter how much the fantasy lies waiting, of the thrill of new love with another
I've always known you were the one to spend my life with, there really is no other
I'll stick with you through thick and thin, even after you almost poisoned the cat
You're in the house, every time I come home, and I couldn't ask for more than that

Now that I've gotten that out of my system...

2008-04-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

That pretty bitter set of words that made up my last post, I have tried a more hopefully practical approach to merge the world of my vindictive self-righteous anger and my spirit - I have just recorded an emotional outpouring (this does bring tears to my eyes as I think and live this out) and here it is on You Tube..

Trying to Forgive:

I live in the present, but my heart's stuck in the past
I want on to move on now, but the page keeps turning back
Know you couldn't help it, but I still feel how much it hurts
I'm hunched banck, trying to stand tall, but I keep sinking into the dirt
Know maybe it's karma, but I still feel the tears of my cries
I'm suggesting lets' all come clean, they still say I made it up, it's all lies
I know you're gonna do what you do, you won't admit or apologize
But I couldn't live the life you dreamed for me, no matter how hard I tried

Lord I'm trying to forgive them, but this wound doesn't seem to heal
I want to say that I love them, but I know that's not what I feel
Goddess give me the strengh now, to live not in anger but love
These demons got a hold of my heart, let them go, let me rise above
Let my heart merge with my spirit, let me break free from yesterday
Let my heart decide her own course, no matter what they do or they say
Let the life be lived by my spirit, won't you heal this sick angry soul
I accept whatever has to be, I embrace what I can't control

Growing up in a house of hatred, in a void of crippled souls
Screaming lashing out was a way of life, to beat you down into their mould
They didn't know how to be any other way, they couldn't provide for themselves
So of course it was no big surprise, that they couldn't care for anyone else
Even when I broke free to my own life, they've invaded, so critically
Picking apart my life, my work, and the bride I've chosen for me
The further I distance myself from them, the better I start to feel
But at some point they're awaiting, in attack to pick apart my shield

Nothing was delivered

2008-04-03T00:30:00.000-07:00

I have been listening to this Byrds version of the Bob Dylan song while I am out here in Utah:

Nothing was delivered
And I tell this truth to you
Not out of spite or anger
But simply because it's true
Now, I hope you won't object to this
Giving back all what you owe
The fewer words you have to waste on this
The sooner you can go.
Nothing is better, nothing is best
Take heed of this and get plenty of rest.

Nothing was delivered
But I can't say I sympathize
With what your fate is going to be
Yes, for telling all those lies
Now you must provide some answers
For what you sold has not been received
And the sooner you come up with them
The sooner you can leave.
Nothing is better, nothing is best
Take heed of this and get plenty of rest.

Now you know
Nothing was delivered
And it's up to you to say
Just what you had in mind
When you made ev'rybody pay
No, nothing was delivered
Yes, 'n' someone must explain
That as long as it takes to do this
Then that's how long that you'll remain

I have been divided on even wasting one more moment talking about this shit, since on some level it seems so ridiculous that I shouldn't bother, but I once again find myself sucked in to my unfortunate past and the sorry ass people who technically and biologically speaking are my parents, although on a deeper level I will never truly see them as my parents. This song seems to bring me back to the fact that nothing really was delivered from them on a parental level, other than going through the motions, because people who have nothing in their souls, have noghing to give, nothing to offer, and have nothing to deliver and that's why all of us unfortunate offspring are such bloody mental cases. I am less of a mental case the more I am away from them, but even reading one of my Dad's fucking stupid neurotic e-mails about this God forsaken cruise that I have sold my soul to participate in is enough to make me want to take over where I left off over 20 years ago when I was slashing my wrists, and just get it right for once and for all so I don't have to deal with these soul-less shells of misery any more. Don't worry - I am not really suicidal, but the idea of driving my car off the nearest bridge just to thwart this damn gathering does seem quite appealing to me, even if it is just a fantasy. And yes - I am a sick fuck, but considering where I came from, it all makes sense that I am. I heal myself by staying away, and then the more I am exposed to this toxic mind set the more I revert back to a candidate for a mental institution.

On one cheesy delusional level, my Dad really thinks we are a happy family and that we all really wanted to go on this damn journey to honor "Mom's 80th Birthday". On a deeper level, he knows he has to buy us off, lure us in with the reward of a luxury cruise - like that is some fucking reward, to be on a cheesy exhibition of materialistic excess and be exposed to the worst possible aspects of our culture in the process. On a still deeper level I think he did this whole trip to torture himself freaking out about everything that may not go as he planned it. I am grudgingly going on this thing because my wife basically put my testicles ina vice grip, and told me that it was something my daughter needed to experience - I guess because her colonoscopy wasn't enough of an experience in itself. So I grudgingly agreed - I gave my father my word - in writing - as he asked, that I was going to do this back in September.

But see my father, being the shadow of a man that he is, is starting to grip. Those little demons are gnawing away in his head and he is wondering maybe he is going to spend all this money and some of us are going to back out of it. So now the bar has been raised and the note has gone out that if we don't have all our papers ready (I have been putting off ordering the birth certificate because it drives home the idea that I am actually doing this damn trip) by May and give him yet another signed notice of intent that we are going, he is going to cancel the reservation. I get this fucking neurotic e-mail from him on the way out to another of my monster 300 plus miles through the back country out here for work - a trip that culminated in me hiking up a pretty damn steep roof with snow covered on one side and dog shit getting all over my ladder. I let him know in so many words, that I had already given him my word once, and asked how many damn times did I need to do that. And this - in exact quoted words - was his response: "David, my son, I am talking thousands of dolllars. This is a lot of money for me. You're damned right! I want to hear that you have your birth certificate in hand by May 1st,and I will get off your case.I meant every f---g word, not only to you but all the addressees as well. VW"

My response was I am not reading any more of your e-mails - call me if you feel like it. And if he wants to give me an out on this stupid thing, because I am not jumping through more hoops, fine - but he is paying any costs on this if he does, because that was his decision, not mine to start raising the bar after the agreement was done. If he doesn't trust me enough that I meant it the first time, I am not going to make it my problem. What next - signing a letter in blood every day leading up to the day of the cruise, that we really meant it and weren't just joking when we agreed to go. It poses the natural question - if he was that fucking freaked out and worried about us going - then WHY DID HE PLAN THIS STUPID THING TO BEGIN WITH? DID I PUT A GUN TO HIS HEAD AND TELL HIM TO SPEND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS? (Sigh) Like the alternate Bob Dylan line - You have no faith to lose and you know it - he has no faith in anything. He is a shadow of a man, a walking dead soul without a soul, and it is just really sad and pathetic to see that in any conscious mind, let alone someone who is related to me. It just isn't my job to re-assure him. Because really nobody can. Along the Ken Kesey lines of why should I be a part of your bad trip - I am not going to be. I said I was going - once - and once is fucking enough for me. I will finally get around to ordering that God-forsaken birth certificate, and our little happy family gathering will take place. We are a big happy family, just the way Hillary and Obama are, the way George Bush and Bin Laden are a happy family, or China's government and the Dalai Lama. Sure we are. It is so fucking pathetic on every level, and if there is one day to look forward, it is the day the damn cruise is over, the day I walk off the boat like a "seasick sailor going home" in the words of another Bob Dylan song, and get another twisted neurotic chapter of my life over with - that is if I don't give into a suicidal moment and just hurl myself off the edge of the fucking boat to begin with. Really as much as I would like to die just to keep the family gathering from happening, this completely twisted, delusional, pathetic cruise idea just is not worth doing that.

I allow myself to get sucked in - and here I am writing this in the middle of the night - but I am venting because I just can't believe how sorry ass ridiculous the whole situation is. Maybe there is a way out - maybe he will just pull me off the fucking list and save me a lot of misery. Probably not though - really the true reason for this trip - as the king and master of misery - was to impose as much misery on himself, and on all of us as a result. Misery is what keeps them alive - misery for themselves, spreading misery for the others, in laws, family. Misery because that is all you have when you are one of the walking dead - when you have nothing to live for other than running like a dog with your tail between your legs all around the globe and then sending nasty grams to the family filled with threats and demands. What a sad state of existence. If I ever get to that point in life - and I will pray my ass off that I don't - just shove me over a cliff - because that's not living - and death can only be an improvement.

What the fuck? The conspiracy that made me miss the last flight out.

2008-03-19T23:38:00.000-07:00

Here I am. Depending on what time zone it is maybe it is 11:40 Nevada time, or 12:40 Salt Lake time. All I know is it is fucking late and I should be asleep and the more I don't sleep the harder it is going to be. But once that sleep button is missed forget it - you might catch a "few winks under the bed" so to speak (no coincidence the manager out this way is named Jed), but the actual sleep train is just not going to arrive the way it normally does. Doesn't matter how fucking exhausted you may be - just ain't going to happen. But let me backtrack a little bit.

I flew out from Reno to Salt Lake yesterday to attend some training out this way that took place today. All in all based on what I actually learned during training, I can't say it was really that imperative I should have attended this class, but that is the way the people who feed me and employ me say it had to be, so who was I to question. Never mind I am going to be driving right back out this way next week and starting about a couple 84 hour work week shifts (that's right 12 hours a day, 7 days a week) as part of the call to help out the neighboring region, but I was supposed to make this one a quick run in and out of here yesterday and today, although today has now turned into tomorrow - based on local time anyways.

First of all airports are the biggest centers of stress you can imagine. 9/11 didn't help the already tense feeling of an airport, now the paranoia is greater - the dudes at security stared at my little camera bag like it was some kind of terrorist detonation device in security today and held up the line. You start to feel guilty of something, even though you are just trying to get your shit on the plane. To add to that stress, for me there is always that nagging feeling that I better get to the gate on time or I will miss my plane. The idea of missing my plane always seemed like such a horrifying possibility to me. The possibility of being stranded, not being able to get to where I needed to be - struck a real fear in me. Of course, getting there real early always seemed to help, a little. Back when I first met my now best (or one of my best anyways - four way tie between Kirk, Younday, John and Rich - Joe might be the runner up, but being in Europe makes it hard to communicate) - excuse me - friends - Kirk, we were all tripping on the chemicals that make the trip possible- and we had a 6:00 AM flight out of Oakland after an incredible Grateful Dead performance at the arena on New Years Eve 1989 going to 1990 - and we had time to kill after the show ended, so Kirk was driving around town and cutting it real close to get to the flight out. There wasn't all the 9-11 shit going on back then, but as I was tripping and we finally got to the airport at something like 5 minutes to 6 - I was completely freaked out and I had this thought that I wanted to strangle this guy who was going to make me miss my plane. Somehow we made it on time, but that idea was planted in my head - that overwhelming fear of missing the plane. He often cut it close a few other times, but nothing like that.

More recently, last summer coming out of the nightmare airport - Vegas - on an overnight run, I got confused about the location of the gate - ended up taking some passenger bus that went along the runway, it got stuck behind spilled luggage, was dragging on and on - and finally it got me to another place and I ultimately realized I had gotten lost and had no need to ever take the bus to begin with. I raced over and arrived just 10 minutes to flight time. That flight was delayed and I was spared - but still - the tension, the anxiety, the race to get to that plane was upsetting. One of my last times out, I left my glasses behind at the Reno airport and got completely flustered when I couldn't find where I had placed my driver's license after security. After all, God forbid I fly out to Vegas and get stranded because I lost my damn license. Yeah I know - I need to calm down - well that just isn't who I am. I am wound tight and the whole flying process brings out the worst of it.

So here is the stage for today - on an unconscious level I sabotaged myself and it was a conspiracy of events that played into it. I am not a shizophrenic, but this had the elements of a shizophrenic bad trip even though no chemical were involved this time around - except maybe a little of my latest over the counter SAM-e I am now taking. Okay - I am against pills - and right now maybe this is an experiment - the good part is it helps joint pain (my left knee bothers me) and colors/lifts the mood , kind of a jolt - the bad side is the increase in anxiety and I am already prone to it - and this extra anxiety was all going into my system when this event happened. It should have been a foreshadowing that at the Delta check in gate I heard them offer a cheap hotel to a very frustrated man. He looked quite defeated and little did I know that was my first indication of a sneak preview. The last flight out of here - of course it had to be - was booked by my travel department at 9:00 PM. It was non-stop to Reno - one of the few available, and if I had left on an earlier flight I would have gone through Vegas and it would have gotten me back even later. So this made sense. The guys in the training class took us all out to eat at 6 and I was checking the clock. I wolfed down my steak and got out at 7:30, got gas filled in the rental and had plenty of time to do my thing. I dropped off the rental, and after getting through security I had about 50 minutes of time to spare. I was behind on some work, so I decided to get going on my laptop. The ticket said D5 for the boarding gate, but my mind was in conspiracy mode - I saw D4, not 5. Maybe it was the lack of sleep from the night before, due to adjusting to the time zone change of an hour, or just staying at a new place often throws me out of my beloved routine. I was a zombie for most of the day, and training just dragged on and on. I could swear I saw D4 on that ticket. Maybe I just remembered the 4 after seeing the 5. The numbers are close enought. Most of the time I doublecheck the ticket almost obsessively, but I was pretty confident I was at the right gate. I did check the boards for the Reno flight upstairs, but they only listed the 8:30 one - at the time, another part of the conspiracy of mis-information. At D4 there was no sign of any flight listed out. It did not occur to me strange that no flight information was posted. In the past they have posted the earlier flight if you arrive too far in advance. Yes - it SHOULD have occurred to me that was strange, but I rationalized I had gotten there early and they hadn't set it up yet. Oddly, there was a Delta dude hanging out behind the counter the way someone normally is prior to a flight. It just concluded the plane was just coming in late the closer it got to 9. I looked outside and it was dim, but in my mind the gate looked empty without a plane. I heard the Delta guy at the counter mentioning a late plane from Mexico. Kids near me seemed to be saying when are we going to board. It all seemed to fit in my head that the plane was running late. I checked on line and another clue should have told me something - no delays listed - but I just figured they hadn't caught on yet. I waited and waited. At some point the plane in the dark was visible - maybe it had always been there, I thought it was not there earlier - possibly a trick of the light? People started coming in, but from the opposite gate on D3. My friend Kirk (yes - more irony - the same one who so often came so close to being the car drive to allow me to almost miss my flight) called me about 5 minutes prior to the flight and about 10 minutes later it dawned on me to doublecheck my ticket. This was now 5 minutes after the flight left. I looked down and saw it was a 5, not a 4. To my horror I ran over to the right gate, and it was too late. It was still open the way it normally would be before a flight, but no plane - that was clear. I had missed it by minutes and caught on just too late.

In Jungian terms this was my own shadow that set me up for this mess. Not looking closely at the ticket, the little charade with the man at the counter talking about a late plane and the kids asking for the plane - it was the perfect setup to fool me - to allow me to fool myself. I created my own little distorted reality, with a little help from some other participants who played along - the same way my same friend Kirk does when he is in his paranoid tripping mode and everyone around appears to be coming down on him. I believe this is the one time it will happen in my life in this particular fashion, just like the one time I tried to drive off with the gasoline nozzle still in the tank of my car when I was drop dead exhausted from a road trip to and from Bishop for my job. Being tired always helps. But - I just had to know what it was like - on some level, unconsciously perhaps, to have my fear realized - to actually experience missing a flight - not just one where I could take out the next one in a couple hours, but to actually strand me for the night - like all those people you see stranded on TV when weather screws them up. I just had to know for myself. Years after I have stopped doing pyschedlics, I created my own edgy trip here. My first reaction was to blame myself - of course - after years of being beaten down with blame by my folks, that is the first thing I will cling to. I called my boss and told him I was going to spend the night at the airport, and told him I had made a bad mistake. He insisted I get a hotel, so I did. Granted it was the cheap-o Econolodge, kind of reminiscent of all those Motel Sixes I used to stay at for Dead shows. But, I took what I could get. The Latino driver of the shuttle from the airport was like a savior, I only had a 5 dollar bill as my smallest and I handed it to him as a tip in gratitude. I showered and my mind screwed with me and I had all sorts of twisted unconscious dementor like images while I tried in vain to sleep. I can hear the train come by hear blaring its horn every 5 minutes and traffic is loud out. If I sleep at all it will be a miracle. Maybe if I am lucky I will get another hour or two. It won't be enough - that is all part of the karma here.

And still - oddly it seems this was what the real plan was all along, I just didn't realize it until now. I took a little detour and my soul led me to the core of my fears. It is on a deeper level - the fear of falling through the cracks, going homeless, living on the streets, falling off the path of employment and relative success - the fear of being one of those people begging for money. It terrifies me. I have never really known it, but when I fall off the normal plan or path, even for one instant - like I did tonight, I live that out - taste it anyways, even though you can never really know something like that until you actually are on the street. Sure I am in a smelly, cigarette smoke filled cheezy motel room - with a signed note that if I smoke here I will pay a fine of another 300 bucks (as if smoking could make this room smell any worse) , and I am sure it is a shitty part of town. But even so I have it pretty good compared to those who experience walking the streets every day of their life, or one of the millions upon millions that cannot eat enough to survive. I am too wound up to sleep, but I am using this as an opportunity to try to forgive myself, send love to myself, and accept the situation and myself in a time when the natural tendency is to do the opposite and call myself a big fucking idiot. This situation was my own karma and I created it, but blaming myself won't help. What's done is done. Initially I did want to say what a fucking idiot I was for doing this. Technically it was a mistake, but the more I think about it - it was no mistake at all. My shadow finally took over and brought me a little closer to the core of my fears. I may not arrive home for another 12 hours, but that's okay. I will get there when I need to.

Something tells me though - that maybe next time I have to deal with aiport hell again, I won't quite be so nervous. And I will probably think twice before sitting down at a gate without any flight information - and hell yes - I will be doublechecking my ticket for the gate! Once in a while when I get too comfortable, I seem to need something to shake me up a little to keep me on my toes. On that level - mission accomplished.

As follow up to last night's writing, I am back at the airport. One thing I notice is that even though you would think gate 4 and 5 would be next to each other, they are at about a 100 foot break separated by shops. Otherwise I probably would have heard the boarding announcement and caught my mistake. I am flying out at 11:45, only about 13 hours behind schedule. Talk about an erie coincidence - today's flight is actually at gate 4 - and yes I have doublechecked a few times. With about 20 possible gate numbers from 1 to 20, that is quite some odd probability. In hindsight, maybe I was just looking at the gate number for my future ticket...

I am Alive

2008-03-02T05:26:00.000-08:00

My newest song from yesterday - recorded and posted here on You Tube

This song is kind of like a ritual for pulling out of a rut. I was in one yesterday - at home after going for a nice walk, but it was windy out and there was nowhere to really go after that - so kind of stuck in the house for a bit. I was feeling that lethargic boredom pulling at me, the same one that pulled at me for so much of my life for such a long time. I thought of these words, to kind of pull myself out of it. I am not too concerned about saying basically the same thing over and over with my tunes - because even though the message is pretty basic and simple, it needs to be said - over and over - no matter how much repetition it takes. I don't even necessarily see the writings as mine - I just feel more like a conduit for the inspiration that comes to me when it is there. This one is a way of re-connecting with all that I have found to give life meaning - and although spirit is a big part of it, it does not necessarily belong to any one spiritual path either:

I am awake, I have awoken
I was asleep, now Spirit has spoken
I am inspired, I am in love, I am alive
Blood filled with water, heart filled with fire
Feet filled with earth, lungs filled with fresh air
I am eternal, life moves through me, I am alive
Lethargic boredom, transformed to power
Fear paralysis, transformed to faith
I can do anything, I set my mind to, if I believe
Black empty darkness, to a bright shining fire
Dusty stale stillness, to a lit up live wire
Energy through me, pass through my heart, I am alive

Move though my mouth, from my lips to my tongue
Come through my chest, fill my heart and my lungs
Pass through my blood, pass through my body, sweep through my soul
Take in this breath, say I believe
Exhale this breath, I still believe
I know my love, I know my heart, I know my light
I cannot see her, but I know she's with me
She may have left, but I am bringing her back
Merge with my heart, merge with my soul -- loving angel come to me
Mother Earth is home, with her liquid blue sky
Glowing red sun, my soul soars on the fly
One with my world, one with my heart, one with my life

Bridge: I once believed, all there was to existence
Was to go through the motions, without knowing why
But now I believe, without a spirit- life's an empty cold lie
So when I get stuck now, revert to my past
I look to my heart, and know this phase will pass
Once I summon my energy she brings me to life

Facts just twist the truth around

2008-02-24T13:56:00.000-08:00

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things
Facts don't stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape

David Byrne said it right there - and now I expand upon his words. I expand because as an NPR listener I have heard several people come on and discuss the subject of God. Richard Dawkins speaks of The God Delusion, there is God's Problem by a Christian converted to an agnostic, advising how the Bible fails to answer our most important questions, and then Sam Harris in his Letter to a Christian Nation mocks the bible point for point and questions how any kind of supreme being could create a life that allows for swollen prostate glands. I personally like God Laughs and Plays because it falls more within my beliefs.

I think that a subject as personal and subjective as a supreme being can be argued any way one happens to feel about it, quite convincingly. An atheist/agnostic can disprove God's existence, a religious being can turn around and prove it - and who is going to be convinced who does not already happen to side with that one perspective to begin with? Is someone actually going to be swayed by these arguments?

I think anything can be argued very well and given the arguments, logic, facts, and point of views anyone can prove just about anything. Adolf Hitler proved to all of Europe that the Jews were the cause of the world's problems, enough proof to actually result in their mass murder and destruction. Today Nazis around the world still carry the torch and still believe that. To these people this is not a point of view, it is THE truth. It is not a truth I happen to agree with, but I am sure Hitler's arguments were quite convincing. To his believers they probably even seemed logical. To many of us now, especially us Jews, they are horrifying, but the reason I even mention this is that it is to show that with enough convincing just about anything can be argued.

So where I am going with all of this is I will listen to any point of view, regarding whether God does or does not exist and each may be convincing in its own way, but when it comes down to it I am going to believe what I believe regardless of the arguments. The fact that God cannot scientifically be proven to exist does not prove God does not exist. There are horrible things that happen in the world - constant starvation, murders, rapes, injustices. From a personal point of view, I don't like these things happening. On a larger scale destruction and creation go hand in hand. Ideally speaking, and some day given enough evolution, we will live in a world where there will no longer be a need for starvation, rape, and violence to exist. But as it stands, because the world is not perfect, because these things happen more than I want them to, does not prove anything one way or the other. There is always the argument what kind of God would allow these things to happen? Good question. Answer - the jury is out.

To become inevitably selfish though, even though I know I am not the only living being, I am definitely the only one living my life. I have to start by looking at my own life. In some ways I have been fortunate - blessed - I realize that. I have never had to go hungry or sleep out in the cold. I have been exposed to a minimum of violence, I have never been shot at, I don't get into many fights - I realize - I am lucky. I can also look at the down side, I have been through a horrible depression that had the ability to take my own life if I had let it, I grew up feeling depressed in a spiritual void where nothing had any meaning, I have spent many years feeling alone, angry, disconnected from the society around me, jealous and envious of those who had friends and lovers while I felt shut out. These things were truly trying and difficult times, and to a certain degree - it never entirely leaves you. Still - looking at how it has turned out - how I am blessed to have a beautiful family, animals I love surrounding me, living in a place that makes me feel at home where the doors are open to experience my vision of God - an interactive and mysterious but beautiful God nevertheless - I am lucky to feel that connection. Speaking to a person last week telling me how completely bored he or she was - my answer was boredom is the same as spiritual disconnectedness. I know that from my experience - my first part of my life was filled with boredom, the last few years where I am starting to feel like I am part of something powerful and spiritual, boredom just doesn't seem to be there the way it once did.

So I go back to my life "life is just a dream" and the Don Miguel Ruiz books talk about life being a dream, then there it is - "it seems like all this life was just a dream". I look at my dream and my experience and that is really all I have to go on. Sometimes - like today - I was out with my daughter on a hill around the corner from us - the sky was blue, we had just had a half foot of snow - we were sharing a sled going down the hill, both enjoying the moment of fun together - and this thought comes to me. This same thought was there when the blowing snow in Washoe Valley kept me from seeing the road 5 feet in front of me. Here it is - the thought that life is kind of like a long movie - a movie in 3-D, with senses included - in the movie you get a hell of a visual looking up at the sky, it seems so real. The smell of the fresh snow, the feel and taste of it as it gets in your mouth - it all seems very convincing. My senses are the gateway to the "world" around me, and as What the Bleep do we Know points out, our senses not only interpret the world around us, but even shape it. It seems to me at times that the movie does not seem real, that I am sitting in a Matrix somewhere and someone is programming it out for me. Who knows how real any of it is - who is to say how real or unreal it may be? And really when it comes down to it - there is only one thing I know - and that is that the dream in my head, the thoughts in my head, are the ones I am having. I really don't know for certain anything else. I know there are consistencies in the dream - I can't seem to walk through walls, if I try to fly I will fall, in the dream the physical world seems to have some properties that are consistent with the scientific laws that have been "proven" in laboratories. But how do I know one day I won't be able to walk through a wall, or fly, or do something I have never done before. All I know is so far I haven't been able to.

Looking at my life, I can all of a sudden turn on my TV and see that other people are living their lives too. In just a half hour, I can read about suicide bombings, murder, destruction, the burial of beloved Brianna Dennison in our community, the family sickened. I can put myself in their shoes - or try to anyways - I can try to imagine what it would be like to experience that, and I can interpret it through my own life. But until these things happen to me, I can never really know. Going back to the movie, it is kind of like glimpsing into someone else's without seeing the whole thing. I know this local co-ed was raped and strangled, I know she will soon be buried - I can imagine the horror of experiencing my life ending like that, or knowing that it happened to someone I loved - how I would react. But other than that, I can't really know someone else's experience. Most importantly - I don't know what it is like to die or be dead. I can't conceptualize the scientific notion that my life stops suddenly, that I no longer have any experience of sense, smell, or being alive any more. Yet if life is how I suspect it to be - a continuous experience of my spirit, than I can't even begin to perceive the notion of what an after life may be. If upon death, we find out that life here is just one chapter in an infinite realm of experience, than maybe the notion of death is different. Maybe the idea of a tragic death changes its meaning if instead of it being the end it just means shifting dimensions when we are done with what we need to do here on the earth plane, and going onto the next chapter. My own belief is I am here as long as I need to be. If that was the fate and karma of Brianna for example, who in her own way through her passing has brought thousands of people here together here, than maybe it just took her 19 years to accomplish what I have been unable to do in 42. In that case, is it really a tragedy, or do we just see it that way?

I have to go back to my own life, my life here and now, because when it comes down to it - it is the most direct experience I have. My movie, my life, my experiences are all I have to go on. From my own experience, the more connected I am to the notion of the spirit - whether it was through going to my hundreds of musical concerts - mainly but not limited to the Grateful Dead - often re-lived in dreams, to my more recent ability to create my own "concert" on my own, today even doing this walking with my dog through the snow, chanting some of my own compositions, without a guitar, just singing into the wind and feeling very connected and inspired - the more I feel in touch with this spirit, the happier I am. All of the people on NPR can tell me that this is my delusion. My answer to their statement is that I am the one living my life, not them. They can tell me how they view the spirit, how a world without God is the only one that makes sense. My answer is that in their experience that is the most valid conclusion that they can make, and it would not be my place to call them wrong or misguided, or even counterattack that they are the ones who are delusional. It is not my place to tell anyone what they should be experiencing for that matter. But - what I can say - for my own life - is that the notion of a spirit, God, Goddess, spiritual entity, force, mysterious presence - whatever you want to call it - that this presence is just as real to me as the world I take in with my senses. If I accept on faith that the world I live in - is real - and not just some twisted figment of my imagination - and I do accept that on faith, than I must also accept on faith that regardless of what other people may say, think, argue, or logically prove or disprove - my experience is that this spiritual presence is as real as the ground I walk upon. I feel it now, as I am writing this. I trust my own feelings. And I also know that my experience of a world where this presence exists, makes much more sense than a world where we are nothing but blank chemical reactions sitting in a petri dish as some of our scientist portray it. To me that world is part of the picture, but the spirit is the other equally meaningful part of it. Those people I know who have the misfortune of not having this presence in their life - and don't get me wrong - I believe agnostics and atheists can experience fulfillment and magic in their own way - but those who do not feel any presence of any kind, and we know two of them who live in the "Lakeview" area, I truly feel sorry for. I have lived this disconnection myself, it almost killed me - and to feel separate from it to some degree is hell on earth.

I can and will not prove to you which point of view is right or wrong. All of the different religions are like 31 Flavors - they may be slightly different, but when it comes down to it they are all still ice cream. To mock one or the other for believing in the wrong God seems ludicrous. And even for the atheists and agnostics - if you are that certain of your point of view, why do you have the need to try to prove it? For what reason and what is the point? I contend that to anyone who really believes in their experience, there is no reason to impose it upon another - it can't be done and nobody's experience is any more or less valid than another's. From my perspective, the Bible was the best attempt at the time - 2,000 years ago, to translate a mystical experience based on the time it was written. Now there are so many books that also capture this and to say that any one of them is the one and only - from my perspective - is nothing but shutting the door to a number of possibilities. It feels secure to think one has the answer, but I believe all of them have only part of it, the rest of it cannot come from any book of any kind, but has to be lived out and experienced by each and every person living.

So in conclusion - there is no conclusion, except my own conclusion and experience, and that experience is mine and mine alone. Maybe it makes sense to you to a degree, maybe it is a heap of bullshit - but to me after all of my time living here - a world with a magical presence and mysterious spirit makes all the sense in the world to me. I will not try to put it in a laboratory, or prove it to anyone - I don't need to really - I have already proven it to myself. I do not know what will happen today or tomorrow, and I certainly have no idea really what may happen when I will be destined to experience my passing - either onto the next plan, or possibly no plane at all. Whatever that may be, I surrender to the faith that it will be the best thing that can happen. My suspicion is I have only just begun.

Dream

2008-02-18T06:54:00.000-08:00

What the hell - how many people actually read this thing anyways.

I had a dream that echoes reality to an extent - I am the initiator of sex here when it does happen - about once or twice a month - less than I want, more than she wants - lately I am the only one who enjoys it - so it is a compromise we both live with. So I was doing the normal pleading in the dream - and there were obstacles - the typical one being my daughter hanging around, but somehow my father was lurking in the background and at one point I think we were even in their room at the house I grew up in. Somehow we ended up in the backseat of a car - a place I have never claimed for that activity in real life. Somehow we got my daughter to go somewhere else to play and it was just us. At some point the real thing happened. My wife had lost a lot of weight and I was complimenting her. She looked very good and I was very attracted. It has been a while since we both enjoyed the intimacy together, but in this dream it was really happening for each of us. We were doing things it has been ages since have really happened - passionate kissing, oral sex - and somehow or another someone was driving the car - because the car was moving, but I never knew who the driver was - all I know was the car was moving. My wife was singing and clearly enjoying what was happening. Finally the real penetration took place and she was really into it - as I could tell by the wetness down there, but as the dream approached my recent wake-up at 6:30 I remember something - I couldn't reach a climax. I am pretty sure she did reach heres, and at one point I remember feeling like I needed to - wanted to - was even feeling pressure to, but I couldn't reach it. As we drove by some people were watching us and it was uncomfortable. She had on a white dress, some like she wore when I first met her. Some times I remember her singing pleasantly. At the end she was loudly speaking, almost shrieking a bunch of stuff that didn't make sense. That is when I woke up and took care of what I could not make happen at the end of the dream.

Knockin on Heaven's Door

2008-02-17T13:30:00.001-08:00

I briefly mentioned in my last post the local case of a 19 year old kid named Brianna Denison. She was in the local news every night for the last month, and she had been abducted from a friend's home near the University of Nevada, Reno and had gone missing. A serial rapist was suspected, they found a spot of blood on her pillow from the scene of the crime. It felt ominous and I suspected the worst, but night after night we saw search parties on TV going through remote parts of the area, looking in near blizard conditions at times in Washoe Valley and other spots, a whole community captivated by this woman. I know it is easy to be cynical. OJ Simpson once uttered the great quote that people die every day when asked how he felt about Ron Goldman's murder. Yes - people do - and we can't see the faces of the countless hundreds of thousands who die in wars, of hunger, of violence in the inner cities. These faces do not make it into the papers. Yes - it is somewhat biased that the beautiful women who are tragic victims are the ones people pay attention to.

Even so - when I found out yesterday that they had found her body - so decomposed it could not immediately be identified - and then they confirmed it was in fact her - I felt a loss as if I knew her, when I never met her or saw her until I found out about this. I know everyone always sounds great after they die, but according to this article she brought people together, put other people ahead of her, and was looking forward to studying to be a child counselor. Based on what everyone had to say about her, she was well loved and admired in this community. Even local Latina activist writer Emma Sepulveda who normally focuses on issues such as South American politics and immigration laws, took the opportunity in her Sunday column to focus on her, sayng that she had been in her home and knew her and felt the sense of tragedy upon interviewing her friends who were coping with the possibility of her death, before the reality of it was confirmed by an autopsy yesterday afternoon.

I agree she is pretty based on her pictures. If I was in her class, maybe I would have been one of several drawn to her, who even possibly had a crush on her. Unfortunately attractive women can be targets. Sexual predators are drawn to them and if they spot a chance of vulnerability they will seize on it like lions zooming on unsuspecting prey. My wife knows this first hand, in her own way. This may be one of the many reasons why we have our daughter in Tae Kwan Do - although it cannot guarantee a defense against a predator who is relying on the element of deadly surprise for an attack, it certainly can't hurt either.

For whatever reason - I can't exactly explain - I was tossing and turning last night, images of the field in the South area of Reno (not far from where my buddy Youndy stayed when he visited me this summer) stuck in my head. I know some who read my posts may see me as an unrealistic, idealistic hippie type - muttering my love mantras in a world where terrible acts of violence are happening all the time. I realize the cheesy cliche Bush utters about the terrorists kind of applies here - as this is an act of terror in itself - one that has terrorized the community anyway - but as he says (or one of his high paid speech writers anyways) , if you let these acts defeat you, throw you into a resigned state of pessimistic fear and let it trample on your faith, they have won. Despite the intentions of the rhetoric used - maybe to add in more funds to this stupid fucking war in Iraq (GO OBAMA!!!) - excuse me - but anyways - there is something to be said. All the same, at moments like last night, where I think one twisted act that ended in a disturbed mind's temporary satisfaction - possibly even an orgasm - one moment where the demons running around in his head let him rest for a moment - one where he felt a calm peace after reaching his climax - at what price did this reward come? He felt good for a second, but now he is going to spend the rest of his life on the run, looking over his shoulder, plagued by nightmares of his own. I don't entirely blame him - his demons got the better of him - I don't even necessarily know if lethal injection or execution is necessarily the answer here - although I definitely want him off the streets so that this doesn't happen again. There is good and evil in every one of us - my own demons once told me to hurt myself and cut myself, sometimes they still come back, but I have enough of a foundation to hold my ground against them. Obviously this man does not have that and he has lost, they have won. But for him the rest of his life is either a sentence - on the run for the law - or finally when he is caught (if not killed) waiting for the justice system to decide his fate.

As for her - this is it - one horrific instance where she was beaten, raped, and strangled - and there is no more of her life for her. It is over. She had her whole life ahead of her in one moment, and now she is done. Hopefully her spirit lives on - she is in heaven or some place like it, she is at rest and now the nightmare is over. But think - what her life could have been if she had gone on to become a child counselor. In some ways it is easier for her, it is all over now. But as a fellow parent, the people I really feel for are her parents - the people who invested day after day, maybe sleepless nights - difficult times - working hard, sacrificing themselves to raise her and provide her so that she could make something of herself - they appeared to be doing a pretty good job based on how she turned out - all that effort and toil for this, the opportunity to see her in an early funeral that was never planned for or ever thought of in their wildest dreams. The shock, the disbelief, the realization that they will never see her again and the image of this tragedy haunting them night after night, for the rest of their lives, as they are powerless to go back in time and turn back the clock for even one more chance to see her again, hold her again, talk to her again - the shocking and absolute finality - this is it - never more.

What brings it home to a person who has never met this young woman, is seeing my daughter at age 9 - knowing how much I love her - my only child - the child who is my future - and I cannot even begin to comprehend what it would be like to go through that experience. At 42, I am old enough to be Brianna's father and somehow I feel like she is - as she has now become a daughter of the entire community according to the family's statement released to the press. It is one thing to die in the later part of life, in your 50's, 60's, or later when you at least have lived a certain part of your life already. At 42 I am now approaching the age where diseases are more likely to come into play. But at 19 - with it all in front of you - as the way it is for young soldiers who never come back home - something about it seems unfair. Nobody ever said life is fair, and this is the part where the cynical atheists can come out with where was their God to protect them when they died. What is the answer to why this happens? The only honest answer - is there is no way to explain it. It is a helpless I don't know because there is no G0d-damn answer. These things just happen. Where is God where they happen? I don't know. How can God exist in a place where these things happen all the time? I don't know. What kind of a world is it we live in where these things do happen, where a crazy man bursts into gunfire at an Illinois college and all we can think of is - oh no - not this again..what kind of world is that?

Again - maybe somebody out there has the answer to this. I don't. I do know this - these tragedies must be remembered - just like every genocide present and ongoing - has to be remembered. Like I wrote last week, if humanity can evolve from its present state to a place where these acts are a rarity, or don't even happen at all - maybe there is hope for humanity. Evolution of consciousness is our only hope, without it we are doomed. We have evolved to a point, but mentally and spiritually we are still living in the caves to a certain degree. All I know - despite my heavy heart and exhausted head-ache filled head - in feeling these things is hope must remain - even in the face of apparent hopelessness - hope is all we have. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family, to all of us - for experiencing what appears to be such a pointless and senseless tragedy.

I can only be who I am

2008-02-10T07:04:00.000-08:00

I can only be who I am
I can’t be anyone else
Can only experience my pleasures
Can only suffer through my hells

Sometimes I long in envy
To have all that you do
But no matter how much I want to
I just cannot ever be you

Yes - no picture to paste in today as these are my own words - although I may not have been the only one to think them, or even say them necessarily, or maybe somebody else has said them not quite in that order or in that way - but as they came to me and I did not copy them word for word I can call them mine. I think of ideas floating around in a collective pool and in that pool they are there for the taking to be borrowed and re-stated, but nobody is the one sole author of them.

I held out okay in the later part of the fall - normally a difficult time for me - I was quite creative in doing so - imagining the light when the light was not there, feeding off the lights of the Christmas holiday that I normally find offensive - I did pretty well. January essentially kicked my ass - but that is nothing new - January always seems to do that. I concede losing January - which has carried inevitably over to February, but I'll be back to pick up my momentum. I haven't hit the gym in over two weeks and my ability to tap into the pool through my music has been somewhat restricted these days as this ugly cold I am fighting - now in lethargic cough your brains out mode - has been lingering over two weeks now. The snow has just kept coming and coming - up until now anyways - and the one month when sunlight has been in short supply has finally kicked me down somewhat, but knowing it is temporary seems to at least diminish the suicidal thoughts, or at least let me push them away when they inevitably come back for a re-visit. I will know I have won when they are gone altogether, but the fact that they don't stick around too long any more when they do come is a victory I will claim for now.

I acknolwedge the duality between the world I want to believe in - and the "real world" which inevitably is out there - the world I find out about when reading about a pretty 19 year old somewhat local college student - Briana Dennison - (plenty out there on line if you don't already know the story) - who appartently was a great kid - a beautiful girl - who was grabbed away from the house she was in at 4 AM near the Univeristy of Nevada Reno, raped and most likely murdered - and the whole community is searching for her - almost 3 weeks later when hope is looking pretty bleak. Her mother or relative asks how can such a horrible thing happen to a girl who has brought so much good into the world. This is the same world where you read about ethnic cleansing involving the use of machete attacks, systematic rape and genital mutilations in parts of South Africa, brutal suicide bombings, the same world where millions of people are being beaten, starved, tortured and abused in prisons and camps in North Korea and China, the same world where the Holocaust took place 60 years ago and the images still live on in my mind - reading on Wikipedia that before the gas chamber, when the Jews came off the trains after being starved and deprived of food/water for countless horrific hours on a cattle train- hungry and thirsty - would ask for something to drink and were told in response a nice hot cup of coffee was waiting fot them as soon as they came out of the gas chamber disguised as shower. Greed and overconsumption continue to take place, global warming is inevitably leading to changes in the weather, droughts, famines and floods. Our culture's infatuation with material possession is now biting us on the ass as the cost of obtaining these possessions - through an infinite loop of borrowing - is now becoming evident that we are all in tons of fucking debt and nobody actually has any money. I am only just getting started on all this shit - but what I am getting at is there is plenty to get down and out about on the collective level - this is the world I live in - I don't like any of these things - and yet they can and will continue to happen.

So how can I be optimistic knowing this is the world I live in? And look at my personal world - the out of pocket medical bills keep piling up in a never-ending heap. Just when I think I have paid off a batch, a new pile arrives. I work hard but have nothing to show for it. The house which at once had made money, now thanks to the housing market plunge - I would be lucky to even break even if I sold it. The carpet is shot, the cabinets are falling apart, the house can easily use a 20,000 dollar face lift but the money can't be found for it to happen - every day I am greeted to the new spot that the dog puked on or had an accident on, so much needs to be done - our home is a wreck, my wife is a constant overpressured, depressed and resentful insomniac who doesn't want to be where she lives, who is not happy with her life - including my part in it. Even the friends of my wife - whose United States residency - let's just say - is a little bit in question - have nicer shit and a neater home than we do. Everybody seems to be achieving something, my little brother has a higher degree than I do and his first book is due to hit the printing press soon, and probably make him a household name - as my wife states last night - he has the "spark" that none of us have to drive himself to higher education, fame, fortune, and artistic recognition - the same spark that drives my brother in law to be approaching his Phd.

So with all that said - the answer to all this is to be like the cornerback who just got burned for a touchdown by a faster wide receiver and forget it all and put it all behind him and start over again. In other words - FUCK ALL THAT! I am not saying none of it is true - I am not denying all these things are happening - but the question I ask myself - kind of a continuation of my last post showing Mavis Staples to a certain degree - is - do I identify myself by my level of status, by my chain on the pecking order, the trophy wife, the trophy house, the trophy educational level, the trophy job, the trophy bank account - once I have this great big hard-on I can show off to the world - does that define and justify my life? Absolutely not. How about all those horrible violent events that happen - and one of them any day and time could happen to me - how can I be optimistic living in that world. Well - going back to a lecture I saw by one of my heroes - Ram Dass (who by the way became the great spirtual being he was after he walked away from the tenured professor trip and gave up all of that status shit) - he talked about the duality of accetping the world and the karma and fate of one's place in the world, even when certain aspects of it - such as ethnic cleansing - purely suck. I don't like all these thing happening, I don't like hearing about them on the news, I can't deny they are happening - but if I am going to let it pull me down into defeated cynicism than what will I be able to do to put forth the energy that will possibly and hopefully change that world?

I see the world as a collective pool of "Every Single Soul". It is all energy and consciousness, and I admit a lof the energy is negative - hence the violence, pain, and hurt that takes place around us. But there is the flip side argument as well. What keeps the world from being a universal mayhem of war, chaos, starvation and violence? I know it happens - but if we are purely dark creatures - why isn't it happening everywhere? Why have we not nuked ourselves into oblivion already? See - for all the darkness taking place in the world, there is a lot of lightness balancing it out. I think all of the prayers for peace, enlightenment, the folks who walk the "higher path" so to speak of love, tolerance, and compassion - my heroes - heroes who do this regardless of their educational accomplishments, I think we are the ones holding it together and keeping it from being a helluva lot worse than it is. Every one of our souls makes up every cell of the human race - and you put all the cells together and we are one. And then - when you realize we are all tied in it together, "I am he as you are me as you are we and we are altogether" as John Lennon said in I am The Walrus - then individual accomplishments and places in society - ego level stuff - doesn't really mean that much in perspective. Than it is not a matter of how big your dick is, how big your ego is, and what can be listed on the back of your resume and more a matter of what kind of energy are you putting out there to make the world better than it is now for all of us. Money has not a fucking thing to do with it - I mean I need to eat and give my body what it needs, but having a three story custom house up at Lake Tahoe as a second home - means that place is just another place - and if the entire world is my home, than I own that house as a visitor just as much as I own the house which is listed on the title with my name on it that I may payoff in the course of my lifetime should I be so lucky.

I know when I am really getting off on my spiritual trip - when I am out there playing my notes and every note is just ringing out and regardless of mistakes of the voice or guitar, it is perfect, even if faulty - when I feel like some beautiful spiritual entity is right there with me - I can feel her - she is alive - she is with me - embracing me - she is the great creator Mother Earth manifest to me as an individual spirit form - and even though a rigid logical scientist will never see her in a laboratory, and can probably logically proove that she does not exist - and whether or not she does exist in the "real world" at some point almost becomes a moot point - and yes this is a FUCKING run-on sentence - but don't worry - the end of it is approaching - what I am saying is at these moments I realize that is not about me as much as it is about my place in the world surrounding me - one small but beautiful part of it - and me as this one cell - my purpose is to lift it higher and do my part in counteracting the events that happen as the result of the more primitive, violent, hateful consciousness. See - I told you that sentence would end.

So I cannot claim anything as my own, but it is all our own and I am a part of it. Congratultions on your PHD - except it is not yours - it is ours - I am sharing it with you. If not for the collective world of ideas - that I am a part of and you are as well - that I contribute to, you couldn't have obtained it. So give me why 1/5,000,0000,0000,000th share of it that I am entitled to while you are at it. People tell me I should write a book. Thanks for the compliment - but why and for what? Do I want or need name recognition? No. I am already writing now - isn't that good enough? It is for me. Do I need to write to eat? Thankfully no - it actually gives me a lot of freedom not to have to do that. Although I appreciate the positive feedback, do I really need 100's of thousands of people to acknowledge me? At one point I thought I did, but now - no - hey I know I write, sing and play beautiful stuff - it is beautiful to me - and that is good enough for me. If I am not my biggest fan already, than thousands of fans will mean nothing, but once I am, I don't really need thousands of fans. As far as needing to get "the message" out there, there are already plenty of people out there who are doing a pretty good job of it and are commercially successful, that is good enough for me.

I remember once coming down from a pretty heavy feel good psychedlic trip at a Grateful Dead show I came up with thought "it is and it is becoming". What I think I meant by that - as it still - of all of my thoughts I have once written from way back when - still rings out now - is that collective consciousness, along with the humans who think the collective thoughts, continues to evolve. I am not necessarily referring to Darwin evolution - survival of the fittest - dog eat dog competition - although it could fit to a point, but more the evolution of the human mind to realize that love, compassion, tolerance, and seeing one's place in the world surrounding is more important than the one individual alone. To be part of the world is higher than to conquer the world. To love your neighbor is better than beating his or her head with a machete, or raping a female that appears desirable to satisfy an urge. It is better and higher to sacrifice your own immediate wishes or desires if the effects of those are going to hurt another. On a bigger challenge, the burning shadow hate and anger that leads to murder, brutalization, even genocide - is a personal battle to be overcome within the walls of one's consciousness, and has no solution with the brutal murder of hundreds of thousands of people who happen to be a part of the demonized race or group of people. In other words, to re-claim your shadow and to pull out from that hate is to own your demons for yourself, rather than place them onto another so that the only apparent solution is to kill them, or a group of them, to feel peace. The peace must happen from within, and peace is no peace when murder of another entity appears to be the only way to claim it. These are the collective lessons that we are learning, that we continue to need to learn, and unfortunately many hundreds, thousands, of millions have died brutally in the evolutionary process, but in my mind the light at the end of the tunnel is they will not have died in vain if the high consciousness finally wins out over the lower consciousness, and the human consciousness evolves to the point where these things no longer have to happen any more. To me that is real evolution, when the mind collectively can realize what I am realizing individually, that to live life in love and harmony with the world around is so much better than to live in complete hatred of those that appear to be in the way of perceived love and happiness. I am working my way toward this - I admit I am not completely successful, but still further along than I once was - so I have to pat myself on the back for what I have done.

If I can do it alone - with all the adversity that has come my way, than it is my hope and desire that there are more like me who can do it now - and who knows - maybe this world can start evolving and changing into a better place - and maybe I will even have the miraculous fortune to see it happen while I am alive. Maybe it is even happening now, in a subtle way, while I am still alive and my own one in 5-6 billion human consciousnesses is making it happen, in my own small and large way simultaneously. I have to keep on encouraging myself and those around me - keep on believing in myself. I laughed when my wife said my brother was the only one with the spark in the family - maybe she meant the drive to accomplish higher education to be equated with the spark - but still the use of the word "spark" and saying he was the only one that had it made me laugh - because I know for a fact there is a burning spark and spirit within me. It is there even when I am feeling sick, tired, grouchy, and just want to lie down after a day filled with exhaustion and no sunlight to lift me. It is burning up within me on a beautiful summer evening in the mountains when everything around me is alive and seems to be speaking to me in its own magical language. It is the miracle that this once self-proclaimed cynic who thought it was all hopeless for many years, is one who is now an optimist in the face of overwhelming odds. I believe in myself, even though I have hated myself for years and still do from time to time inevitably. I have to keep on working at it, practicing affirmations of love, even at times when the tendency is to revert back to the familiar self-hate. I believe in who I am, what I am, what I have done and continue to do and if in spite of all odds I can do that, I can believe in the world around me as well, and believe that she can accomplish collectively what I have done within the walls of my own soul. She, like me, is evolving, she is beautiful - and yes she is becoming.

At the end of the day we're all the same

2008-01-22T06:23:00.000-08:00

I look at my life and my drama unfolds

I walk onto my stage and I continue to play the part of the one with less than everyone else

I see people with nicer well-furnished, neat homes

Everyone else has a higher education, status

I see people taking several classes while they have kids to take care of, jobs to work - working 24 hour a days, seven days a week doing stunning tasks while I am having troubles with my own limited tasks

Everyone else is doing something, but here I am stuck

I look at myself as a fraud, unable to play the part I am assigned to play, I should know more, do more than I am, I should be the expert and instead I feel ignorant while everyone around me has knowledge, I know nothing

And then - there is the flip side of all of this

Maybe this script is unfolding as a way for me to defeat myself

I constantly run into the illusion that I am less than another, when in reality there is no way that one can be less than another

We all breath the same air, eat the same food, drink water, sleep, defecate, urinate

We are all part of the one great spirit separated into many different cells, and our separation is an illusion

Maybe if I could talk to one of these others who appear to have more than what I do they would speak differently

Maybe one of them would say - this knowledge that I have - this piece of paper that states I have a "degree", an amount of education, that separates me from you is nothing but a lie

It is an award stating that I have jumped through hoops, forced my mind to go bulimic with knowledge so that I can memorize it for a test, vomit it all out and then forget it all within a year

What piece of paper can really claim that one has obtained knowledge - especially knowledge which continues to slip away and be forgotten

Who among us can claim to really know anything of substance, when in comparison to the vast infinite realms of knowledge that none of us can really ever know or have - we are all equally ignorant

Who is to say that a man who can make food come out of the ground from a seed is any more or less special than a man qualified to argue a case in front of a courtroom, or to prescribe pills for another's illness

Who is to say that a woman armed with scientific knowledge but unable to take care of her own soul spirit is any more accomplished than another who can nourish helpless animals that come in from the cold

Who is to say that the house or home I claim to call my own sets me apart from another who cannot make that claim, when tomorrow my house maybe decimated by flood, fire, wind, water or disaster and set me out on the street

Who is to say that I really can make a claim to own anyone or anything, when every day I spend alive maybe my last - without warning - it can all be taken away

How many who are going to quickly and suddenly die today without any hint or warning even had any hint it was coming, and if they did would they have lived their last day the way they did

Knowledge is a beautiful thing when people use it to take care of themselves and others

The only knowledge of any value is the knowledge of knowing love - how to love one's self, and to love others

I look at the wounded victim in the mirror, the one who I constantly judge for not being somebody else with the illusion of more and I embrace her for being just who she is

I look at her with love and I see the warmth coming out of her heart

I realize that I am here to help her, guide her, and love her - not to judge her or condemn her for being something she is not

I realize that she is a product of a past she cannot control, an "innocent victim of circumstance and coincidence" (Annette Peacock) and that I cannot blame her for what she is now

I release her from her past

I release her from my expectation that she should be anything other than who she is, that she should know anything more than she does, or have anything more than she has

I see she is the most beautiful shining being on the planet because her life is the life I am living

I see that my part in the script that continues to unfold in front of me does not have to be the part of the doomed victim, and that I can empower her to be the beautiful, confident warm being that is hiding underneath that frightened mask

I look at her and know that the tasks in front of me that terrify me when I face them and see them for what they are, beyond the the mask of fear, self-judgement, self-deprecation and shame are tasks that I can and will accomplish

I do not blame myself for a question that I cannot answer - I am not afraid to say I don't know but I can obtain the answer

I realize that knowledge is available to all of us and that I can do anything anyone else can, and know anything anybody else knows

I see that the only true knowledge is to become one with the warm, beautiful, loving Goddess, crone, grandmother spirit that burns like a fire in my heart, and encourages me to be the best that I can be

I shed my negativity, my fears, my feeling like I am a victim, my feeling that all are better than I am and realize that I have been lying to myself in my judgments for not having a higher degree or a higher social status

I know that the spirit and flame within my soul is the only possession I can ever have, within the parameters of my own life, and to live my day today as if it were my last I must completely embrace and nourish her, and let her be just who she is - so that when the day comes when I do part with my body I will be ready to fly to the great beyond and know that I have served my appointed task here with pride - to know that I have loved myself and loved those around me to the highest of my ability - a task that transcends knowledge, status, and possessions that are all fleeting, illusory and temporary

I look into the mirror and see that all of the medicine I need is my faith in myself

I look inside and realize that one small step at a time, I can do it - I can be there for others, I can continue to play the role of student and teacher simultaneously, that I can and will be the force of spirit and love for myself and those around me

I look a myself and say these simple words - I love you, I forgive you, I accept you, I allow you to be nothing more and less than just who you are

I embrace the divine miracle that is my life, the life appointed to me by the great Goddess spirit, the life that she gave me to be my own - a life that to call a curse is an ungrateful insult for the beautiful gift she has placed upon my existence

I promise to make my remaining days here a thank you in gratitude for the gift I have received

I can't figure out if it's the end or beginning

2008-01-01T10:32:00.001-08:00

I am reading a book by a student of Don Ruiz named Susan Gregg called Mastering the Toltec Way and I am on board with this school of thinking. I like it more than Buddhism which seems to focus on taming all emotions and letting them all pass by - which does have its place - but these Toltec books focus on the idea of living your life in happiness as the end reult. Happiness, they say, is not necessarily dependent on outside circumstances - you don't necessarily need constant sex, money, material things, the ideal appearance, hot numbers from the opposite sex coming onto you, drugs, booze - all the shit that gets shoved down our throats in the media in ways so subtle we don't always even realize it. I admit that I don't know what the answer is for someone being beaten to death in a concentration camp, but since fortunately most of us don't seem to be in that situation at present times, it is not something we need to concern ourselves with (for the record I wish concentration camps were a thing of the past) - although many people seem to live in their own built in concentration camp - and I have done this myself for many years without even realizing it. The personal concentration camp is the self doubt, spiritual vacuum, self loathing - the feeling you don't deserve to be happy - basically the environment I spent the first half of my life in.

Now - at present times - if there is a "resolution" or set of them I happen to have now - it is that I want to spend as much of the remaining part of my life as possible feeling good about myself, enjoying life, feeling a sense of spiritual connectedness, and as a result of that happiness - I want to share it with those I come into contact with - my friends, family, people I come across in the workplace - hell - even anyone with the exclusive right to the link to this place. My batting average is better these days thanks to my practice at this. For me it is my music - although it wouldn't be possible without the music and influences of others - but music that affirms the quality of life and happiness. I try not to listen to as much depressing music - like Pink Floyd the Wall - for example - even though I think it is a great recording in its own way - because I want to constantly affirm to myself that life is a beautiful and divine gift, and not something to be suffered through. This does not mean suffering is eliminated - I know it is an essential part of life, but I also think it has its place and does not have to necessarily dominate everything. So much of our lives - as presented in the movie What the Bleep do We Know is the result of our own perception. Perception has a great influence upon so called reality - and reality is not some inevitable set of events that we don't control - we control and influence reality constantly, but then again - if you buy into the notion of not being able to control it - of being the doomed victim - than that in itself will become your reality.

So - my practice - especially with all of the songs that I was blessed enough to have the presence and state of mind to have conceived of in the year 2007 - is to affirm the beautiful aspects of life, and not the negative, angry, critical and mocking stuff that dominated most of my writing in past days. For me graduating from "There is No Love" to "There is Only Love" was a big step. That is one of the essential beliefs of these Toltec books - that the world is a loving place. I know - turn on the news - read about the suicide bombings, the execution of Bhutto - all the crimes that happen on a daily basis - and there is plenty of evidence to support that it is really a cold, heartless and violent place. I know these things are happening, I don't deny them. I also know it is less of a reason to turn on the news, and watch these violent bloodspilling movies - because that may be a part of the world, but how much of MY world I choose to make it is up to me. If I dedicate my life to living in peace and love, if I make that my world - then my hope is it spills over to others around me to increase the peace and decrease the violence, instead of yeah - look another murder on TV - that just proves how fucked up the world is. So it is not that bad shit does not happen, but just because it does happen - on a relatively small scale when you really think about it - does not mean I have to buy in and just say the world is fucked up. I can feel compassion for those suffering, I can bring my energy and prayers to try to push for a peaceful and loving world, but I do not need to be pulled down by the negative events that appear in the movies and the media.

This is a season which has often depressed me in the past - from my flirtations with suicide 22 years ago, to my recent noticing that the short daylight hours have an effect on me. And this year I was resigned to another low daylight depression, but it has not happened. I have had bad days for certain, and last night was not one of my best. But when it does happen now, I am doing everything I can to drive it out. On one level I accept it is what I need to be feeling, but on another I sleep more, exercise more, drink more water (the diet unfortunately I haven't quite conquered yet) but I give myself everything I can to have a fighting chance to drive out the negativity. Part of this includes my affirmations that state lines like "I can feel it now but it's gonna go away" - or "something inside me is crying right now, but something else inside me it smiles" - it is my way of constantly reminding myself that despite the negativity, the depressed feelings of hurt and sadness - the oppressive grief that creeps back into my consciousness - that there is another side to it. I take care of myself in any way that I can, I affirm the positive feelings despite the present feelings of negativity, and eventually they do pass. I am feeling a lot better today than yesterday. It never means I am cured for good, that I will never have another sad thought or depressed feeling again. It does mean that when I do, I have tools and thought mechanisms to help me deal with these things, and I believe that with the proper thoughts and attitudes, that this can be the most effective way to get over them. I know the drug companies ram it down our throats that popping pills is the only way, and for some I know maybe it is necessary, but for myself I have been presented with some who should say I should be on medication. It is my hope that I never have to take another pharmaceutical for depression ever again. So far it has worked. The power of the mind and spirit can never be underestimated.

So getting back to this season, you can look at it however you want. I have looked at it with great skepticism before, since I have never cared for the notion that we all have to run out like sheep and buy tons of gifts because that is just what we are supposed to do. I have never cared for the cheesy commercialism, or hearing all of those holiday tunes in stores and restaurants so many times that you are on the verge of throwing up. But - whatever your belief is - whether you think Jesus was our Lord and Saviour whow was really born this time of year or not, to me it represents a time of birth and renewal. The idea of Yule involves the birth of a newborn sun, while Christianity has a newborn son. Either way, "something new is waiting to be born" and after December 21, the days reverse the trend and start getting longer again. After New Year's Day, the birth of a new year itself is born and then although we are in the heart of winter, spring (and all of the allergies that come with it) is not far away. So although I can focus on the bleakness, the suicide attempt, the commercialism, the hostility of the competitive shoppers - I can also choose to see this as a chance to start again, to start anew, to wipe the clean slate and have a new beginning.

This new beginning coincides with how I have approached my life over the last few years. I choose to not continue in the spiritual void that marked the first half of my life. I know that my parents will always be living in that world, but that does not mean I have to do this - even if the blueprints of their personalities are all over mine. That is fine - I can accept that - but I also know that regardless of what you believe in, and regardless of what the actual answer is - the answer that to some degree we can never really know - in this plane anyways - - - that the world and the universe can be a beautiful place once you have faith in something outside of yourself, greater than yourself - and you can choose to align yourself with that force. Whether this force is love, compassion, a spirit, or a deity - or some combination of those - the world takes on such a greater meaning than looking at it as a cold laboratory where we are a bunch of chemicals interacting within the laws of science, nothing more or less. I know we are those things, but if I look at the magic of a sunset as a spiritual event, it means a lot more to me than the meteorological interpretation of how it all got to appear that way. I believe in something greater because in my heart - not my mind - there is something greater. Granted, I don't know what it is - I can never quite put my finger on it - or have the answer to the tragedies that occur in the world, or what happens after my life comes to an end - all I can do is acknowledge that is all part of the beautiful mystery and accept that I don't have the answer to those things. I don't know what God is - I can't prove God exists or convince a non-believer to believe what I believe - I just believe that the notion of God - introduced to me through my Jewish upbringing - in some way is valid - and I will just take it at that. The more I try to describe it, read or write a book with laws or a set of commandments with rules, in my mind, the further I get from it. So I just believe and I leave it at that. Don't ask me to tell you what I believe - every day I am in the process of discovering it.

I also believe - regardless of the presence of a spirit or deity - whether or not one exists or not - that it is essential to believe in one's self. I come from a life where doubt and self-loathing was thrust upon me, to the point that I did not believe in living my own life at all. I don't believe my death wish was just a fucking "chemical imbalance" - it was a result of everything I took in from my parents, how they saw themselves, and how they saw me as an extension of them. This is programming which set the course of my life, and only in the relatively recent last 10th or so of my life have I realized two things - one - that I have a say in how I live my life and how I feel about myself - and two that all of the negative programming can be reversed with enough practice and affirmations. I love myself - I am beautiful within and without - and that is completely independent of how anybody else feels about me. Some of you may agree, some of you may not - and although I never mind positive reinforcement outside of myself, it simply is not necessary. I don't have to look like Tom Cruise, or have the body in the cheesy Bod commercials, or 3% body fat to believe that. I just look in the mirror and I see a beautiful person looking back at me. 22 years ago I saw a person that I hated, screamed at, and cursed looking back at me. That was then, I do not choose for it to be now.

And - it goes without saying - as far as I have come, I have this far still to go. 2007 was a big step for me - I had the ability to write many affirmations that continue to help me to this day. As far as the people around me, I do believe my belief in myself has rubbed off on my daughter Sara. The song I wrote for her asking her to believe in herself would not have been possible without me doing the same. As I know first hand, if the parent lives in doubt, so will the child. I know my belief and my song - combined with Sara's Tae Kwan Do and counseling, have all been positive steps in helping to reverse her chronic anxiety. Like the case with me, it takes constant work - and you can never just believe it is cured and that is it. Every day you start over again, and there are no guarantees of sinking back. As for my marriage, it continues to be a challenge. Our intimate contact has been about as low as ever, I have heard my share of declarations that it is over, that we need to live in different places, that she is better off with me. I refuse to believe those things, and I have great faith that our marriage will work and we will become closer over time. Then again - who is to say. I believe our family is better together than apart. I also believe that if it came down to it, I could live separated from my wife and find happiness. My new job has also been a huge step in my happiness, because I am not under the exhausting pressure I was with my last company. Financially - it is still a challenge and a struggle, but I can live with it. Ultimately, regardless of what happens around me I buy in - I know happiness is within my reach. That is my new beginning - to resolve to feel connected, play my music, believe in myself and know that whatever life brings me, whatever chapter of the mystery unfolds, that as long as I am fortunate enough to be alive in this plane, that I will make the best of it. I believe that is what "God" intends for us anyways. To close - his is a song I wrote - maybe I can get myself to sing it here (I actually put it on my My Space - see my videos - Yule song) - that describes some of these thoughts:

Smiling as I sing 12-28-07

I am not only what appears to surround me -

It's dark, black and cold out - there are tears in my soul

But I feel the brightness - rows of candles softly glowing

Lit up for my altar to my flowing white Goddess

She's a sweet spirit lover - giving all she has to me

Her full breasts and wet lips and her soft melting kiss

Her sweet womb awaits my long anticipated entrance

Of my release inside to my white heaven laced spirit bride

I can feel the lights shining turning dark into warmth

Yule colors burning glow into a sunset's rainbow

The lights that I yearn for radiate from my heart

I feel such warm within, all seasons now will die and start again

I see my soul now born rising deep from its coffin

For so long it had died, but now I shout out I'm alive

I'm here to feel a steady deep constant rapture

Of the spirit's liquid gift of eternal elixir

I can fly I can rise be everywhere in the world

All dimensions I know, no other Place I need to go

I am right here alive, I can sing I can cry

I can bathe in my grief, without it drowning me deep

I can bring out this gift, of this river of love

Spread it all around me, go from one I to we

I can share it with you, without instructing you

To just where you should go, that's only something you know

I will life live in love, discard my envy rage anger

I will minimize fear, all that I need is right here

I will tune out my pain, and move to Candyland Lane

I will do all I can do, to make life better for me and for you

I can smell the fragrant pollen, of a garden of flowers

so bright and so fresh, they speak to me with each breath

The barren tree branches, ready to give birth

To the arriving spring, I'm outside smiling as I sing