Canada - yeah right.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/us-election-bluster/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Everyday and every night

Everyday I live in fear that something else is going to happen. Every night I have nightmares about not being able to survive anymore; about not being able to afford our house anymore; about moving into a small apartment, which we still can't afford; about my wife being totally numb to me and her surroundings. Everyday and every night I live with these fears. They never leave me. When I turn a corner, they turn with me. When I take a drink, they take one, too. When I read a book, they are there sitting right beside me. How can I escape these fears? Where can I go? There was a time in my life when I would've gone on vacation; would've spent a few weeks in Jamaica, but now I can't afford to do that anymore. At times, it's impossible for me to put into words how much those trips helped me. There are those close to me who never understood why I needed them, and I at times thought them extravagant, but they helped, nonetheless. Especially Jamaica. God how I miss Jamaica. I'd give thousands of dollars, if I had them, to go there for a couple of months. It seems so selfish to ask for such a thing; to sit on a beach drinking rum and smoking good ganja. It is a luxury, no doubt. But I made a lot more money when I lived that way. I paid more taxes. I was a much more productive citizen. So, shove that up your "Just say no," campaigns.

Whenever I went to Jamaica, it was like meeting the other half of my spirit who lives on the island; while I was there, I was whole. Even though I had to leave half of myself when I left, that half was rejuvenated. But just as a battery has two sides, positive and negative, so do I. One cell lives in Jamaica and the other in Kentucky. Without one, the other weakens.

And I am dying.

Out of touch

All I want is to be totally out of touch. Isn't there anyway to be totally out of touch with the world? I was having a good night and then I saw something someone wrote on facebook that I knew was going to hurt someone's feelings and it just made me furiously upset. But it's all so stupid. Nothing is worth getting upset about. We're all just passing through this world. It's going to be over and done with before we can blink an eye.

Stupid. Stupid. STUPID. I just feel stupid for even getting upset. I want desperately to be totally out of touch because I just want peace.

Damn the world and the people in it. Damn facebook. I don't want anyone to bother me and I don't want to be bothered. I don't want to see what people have to say about other people; I don't want to see what people say about me. I don't want to care. I don't want to get upset. I want desperately to be out of touch.

Maybe

Everyday, death comes a little closer. I see him just behind the tree, and just around the corner. He stalks me, but I don't care anymore. At least I think I don't. Would my defenses cause me to run were he to knock on my door right now? Or would I open it and ask him in? Ah, the relief from worry is alluring. To breathe that last breath, to finish that final struggle. It's so tempting. But there is nothing pretty about it: the decay, the rot, the stench. But at my age, and now that I no longer know how to provide security for my love ones, I cannot help but wonder if isn't time for me to cross that lonely bridge.

I have a good life, but full of worry. I suppose sloth has delivered me to the edge of ruin. But maybe it was the course I was supposed to run. Used to, before I became legally blind and when my hearing was better, I worked quite a bit; I ran the race. But now I tire of not knowing what lane to run in. I'm just tired. Tired of having troubles that I cannot pay for; tired of cars breaking down that I cannot repair; tired of worrying about the trees and tree limbs that need cutting and trimming; tired of first world problems, I suppose. But mostly I'm just tired of not knowing how to make money.

When Adam fell from grace, God punished him by demanding he earn his living by the sweat of his brow. I tire of wondering how.

Maybe today I'll walk down that path and hold hands with that old foe; maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after.

Until that day.

Words

We can see our sadness now. It surrounds us like ghosts in an old parlor, a constant reminder that words once spoken can never be retracted. As all creatures who turned on one another and then recoil, we try to maintain a balance, a semblance of civility. But the ghosts will not go away. Their shadows fall behind us and in front of us. We walk slowly for fear of falling into that dark night. I would say I do not believe in ghosts but it would do me no good; denial will not make them go. I feel them pressing upon me from every side, crushing me, invading me, possessing me even to the bone and marrow. Words. The grief of gall carries us on the current; its turbulence unrelenting. To speak is death. 

Both sides now

Facebook is not a safe place for two-faced people. For as sure as the night follows the day, both sides of their face will eventually be seen by all.

Nocturnal

It's really sort of deceptive when I complain about the nights I'm up and down with insomnia. I make it sound as if it's awful not being able to sleep, and I suppose it is the following day when I'm so tired I can't get much done. But in truth, I love the silence of the night. It's sort of like being stranded in a space station; the continual hum of solitude soothes my soul. Even watching old television shows are better. It's as if no one else in the world is watching 'em but me. I suppose that's why I've always had trouble with a day job; during the daylight, I'm tired, weak and long for the night when the world is mine.

Heart and Soul

I can’t find my heart. I look for it through clear corridors in time. It’s there, I’m sure of that, but it’s changed. I took it for granted in my twenties. But even then, it seemed something mystical, an unknown destination you assumed to be bound for, with no idea of a departure date or length of stay. At times, it feels the innermost part of my being is kept a safe distance from me in some secret chamber, yet I am in constant contact and guided by that force. I feel sure our creator thought it best for us not to know the depths of our heart; he dolls out awareness in small doses because he knows we wouldn’t understand.

The universe is in the heart; all things, including the hearts of all others, reside there. But until we can see it from the inside, our only clue to the depth of this realm is what a sense in our soul. 

If we knew what our souls were and where they were kept, then we would be robbed of the journey, the excitement of finding secret passageways and corridors along the way. For all we know, our soul guides us and it, too, thinks it best to supply information in small doses, just enough to keep us searching for our heart and soul. 

Questions

I am frantically trying to decide what to do. I'm always frantically trying to decide what to do. Indecision is my life's theme. It is not a good theme; I wish I could change it, but I seem totally unable to do so. I'm constantly plagued by questions. Should I write? If so, what should I write? Should I write on my blog? Should I work on a novel? If I work on a novel, which one should I work on? Should I go back and rewrite the novel I wrote about six years ago but never published? Or should I write a memoir about my experiences with churches, and how corrupt they are? Or should I write that story as fiction? Or since I've played music most of my life, should I write a novel about rock & roll? How about a novel about rock & roll and religion?

All these questions about writing are constantly weighed against the question as to whether or not I should be playing music. I've drummed most of my life, but in the past year, I started singing, too. I've also been teaching myself to play guitar. Since I have sang in public, I'd say I'm much more of an accomplished singer than a guitar player. But I am also entertaining the thought of playing acoustic guitar on stage. I went to Florida on vacation a few weeks ago. Prior to leaving, a guitar player friend of mine talked to me about doing an acoustic duo, with me singing and him playing guitar. Hopefully, at some point, after much practice I'm sure, I'd get good enough on guitar to strum along on a few songs. But I was also asked recently if I'd want to front a band as the lead singer, and only drumming occasionally. That also sounds incredibly interesting and challenging. Who doesn't want to be Mick Jagger?

These opportunities open up many more questions. Should I put together a band together with me drumming? Should I put a band together with me fronting it as a singer? Should I just do the acoustic duo? Should I try to write and drum at the same time? I sort of know the answer to that one: I'm not good at multitasking. When I'm playing music, I tend to work at it constantly, which leaves no time for writing.

And then there's the question of whether or not I want to do more damage to my hearing. The loud volume of drumming and rock & roll has taken such a toll on my hearing that I now have to wear hearing aids at rehearsals in order to understand what people are saying. Drumming robs me of a little more hearing each time I do it. People always ask me, "Can't you wear earplugs?" The answer is, "yes, I can, but I usually take them out because I can't hear the music well enough with them in." And I've been told by doctors that hearing protection will not totally protect someone with extensive hearing loss such as mine. Even with earplugs, a huge amount of volume is still absorbed through the jawbone and skin. And when I learn new songs, I have to wear headphones, and everyone says that headphones do tremendous damage.

Besides the hearing damage, there's really very little money to be made drumming in local bars. Club owners act as if they are showing more grace than God if they pay as little as $50 a night. When you figure in the price of gas and drumsticks, which have to be replaced much more often than these merciful gods realize, and the occasional new set of drumheads, around $200, then you quickly realize that one rarely makes any money playing music. More often than not, one pays to play; hence, another question. Why do it?

All these questions haunt me to the point of exhaustion. Seriously! I'm constantly trying to figure out what to do. So much so, that I get absolutely nothing done. I haven't written anything in weeks. Well, that's not exactly true. If it were, you wouldn't be reading this. The truth is that I finally forced myself to sit down and share my dilemma with you in this blog.

Can you tell me what I should I do?

Now I'm asking you, the reader, questions. You see, there's no end to it. These questions increase exponentially.  

I can't start writing a novel if I know I'm going to get sidetracked playing music, and I can't play music if I know I'm going to have to sit at my desk writing for hours and hours everyday.

Does this sound unstable? Hell YES. There is a scripture that says a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. I don't know about the rest of the Bible, but that verse is certainly true.

But I can't go on this way. I've got to decide what to do and what not to do. I want to write because I've got stories to share, but to a certain degree, I fear that I'm not smart enough to write a novel. I'm not the sort of person who outlines and thinks of dramatic questions and plots, climaxes, endings, and all that.  But I also fear that drumming and singing are merely a waste of time. Writing is something that lives on. Music merely satisfies the moment if it's not recorded.

As I read and reread the previous paragraph, I'm struck by the recurring word, "fear." Once again, I'm reminded of the ageless wisdom of Franklin D. Roosevelt, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Maybe I need to conquer my fears as much as I need to decide what to do and what not to do. But now I have to figure out which fear to conquer first. You see, these damn questions never end.

As God is my witness.

Today marks a sad passing in my life. It is the last day to renew my season tickets for the Broadway series at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. I've been a season ticket holder for fifteen years with seats in the Orchestra section, row C, 9 & 10. Back when I purchased these seats, there was no additional charge for being down front. About six or seven years ago, they added a charge of $1,000 a seat, which they call a donation, for season tickets to seats in the first ten rows. I never had to pay the new "donation" because I was grandfathered in. That's another reason we have held on to those seats even in previous years when we could not afford them.

But finances this year took an even dimmer path and we are now forced to let them go.

One of the first dates with my dear wife, Leslie, was to see Fiddler On The Roof. We have seen so many wonderful shows that it's impossible to single one out. Many times, we assumed a play was going to be a dud, but it turned out to be spectacular, such as the recent Adam's Family and most especially, Mary Poppins, which was just phenomenal. I have had the personal pleasure of looking directly into the eyes of such great stars as Jerry Lewis, Hayley Mills, Richard Chamberlain, Elliott Gould, Lou Diamond Phillips, Michael Learned, Richard Thomas, Tom Bosley, Ted Neely, Robert Goulet, Cathy Rigby, and was able to get front row seats to see the one and only, Tony Bennett; plus others I'm sure I cannot recall at this moment.

This day brings me face-to-face with the downside of my disability; with hearing damage; with being legally blind and unable to drive; with having had two back surgeries, a budging disc in my neck and a partially herniated disc in my lower back; and with my three knee surgeries. It is these things, but mostly my hearing and vision loss, that has made it hard for me to have a steady income. I feel like Scarlett O'Hara.

"As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be in a position where I can't afford luxurious, front row, season tickets, again."

Doesn't sound near as desperate when you add the luxurious line, I know, but still, this is a very sad day and one I damn well plan on redeeming. As God is my witness.

I long for heaven with no dreams

It's really starting to annoy me that I repeatedly have anxious dreams about the same people. They rotate, but they're always the same, always old acquaintances with whom I no longer associate. "Why?" I ask myself. Why do certain people haunt me? I have no ill feelings toward them. Is it because the expectations were higher when I ran in their crowd? Is it because they expected more of me? Or is it that I expected more of myself? Or maybe that I felt inferior to them, and still do?

These things trouble me, and cripple me. I dread sleeping because I know my dreams will torture me. I want nothing more in life than to escape my past, to be free of its disappointments. But freedom cannot be attained in this life. We are bound by flesh to our mistakes, wrapped up in them like a corpse in a coffin with no chance of escape. It could well be that hell is being forever bound to our memories and heaven is being released from them. I long for heaven with no dreams.

My Road to Ruin

The first sin I remember committing was in church. I was barely old enough to walk, but I could certainly crawl. The fact that my first awareness of sin came about during a church service has always made me suspicious that the church itself was somewhat responsible for my seditious behavior. Had I not been exposed to such a rigid environment that demanded unnatural conformity from a toddler, the said event might well have never happened. So it has always made me wonder if religion itself is not responsible for sin; a thought that has been speculated on by many I am sure, and one I continue to entertain.

But getting back to my original sin. It occurred at a small, backwoods church by the name of Pleasant View Baptist, which to this day sits upon a hill overlooking rich Kentucky bottomland. My dad grew up on farm not far from that sacred spot that put me on the road to ruin. It was considered to be his family’s church, although he was certainly not a churchgoer by anyone’s account. His interests in spirituality were limited to spirits in liquid form. Nor was my mother a fan of churches. Her family had a small construction business, and she was left unimpressed by the fact that the faithful often tried to renegotiate their bill after the work was done. One of her favorite sayings was, “I wouldn’t trust a deacon or a preacher any further than I could throw ‘em.”

I don’t know why my mother and my dad attended church on the day I officially became a sinner. I assume they were hoping a little religion would miraculously save their doomed marriage. She later informed me that they were separated at the time, and divorced not long afterwards. That knowledge often led me to believe, though I know it’s not true, that my ill conduct could well have been the catalyst that caused their demise. Because of my infant state, my mother always found it hard to believe that I could so vividly recall the event at all. But it is as clear to me today as it was that fateful night that I sat on the floor, beneath a wooden pew, near the back of Pleasant View Baptist Church. I nestled in, as children do, and hid directly under the seat, my mother’s feet in front of me, making a cave of sorts to protect me from the strange surroundings. The constant chatter of conversation gave way to the roar of what I now know was the preacher blasting out a sermon. This foreign world quickly became very boring, so I amused myself by exploring the surroundings.

There wasn’t much to see in my immediate vicinity, so I peered off into the distance, toward the front of the church. That’s when I saw my first object of lust: a brown fedora hat. It was sitting on the floor next to the feet of its owner. I don’t know why, but I had to have that hat. There was nothing special about it at all, especially in that day and age. It was typical attire for men in the late 1950s. But once I set my eyes upon it, I could think of nothing else.

Between my objective and me was a jagged path filled with dangling legs hanging from under the pews, several purses, and a few sweaters and jackets strewn about. I waited and listened to the roar of the speaker and the echoing shouts from the congregation. When they grew to a volume I perceived to be their loudest, I glanced up at my mother to see if she was looking down at me. To my liking, her eyes were fixed straight ahead. I shot out from under the pew, crawling quickly, weaving and bobbing between people’s feet and purses and garments. It took me only a few seconds to reach my goal. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, I snatched the hat and made my way back.

I curled quietly once again beneath the pew, and snuggled safely behind my mother’s nylon covered legs. I held the hat before me, admiring it as if it was the only thing I’d ever need in this life. I put it on my head; it fell over my eyes. Its velvet like material felt warm and closed off the world around me. Everything became quiet, dark, still and serene. I could’ve stayed there forever, comforted in the bosom of my sin. But sin is only fun for a season, and then the harvest.

Without warning, my mother jerked the hat from my head. There was rustling of whispers. I leaned out and looked up. Everyone seated in the pew in front of us was turned, their faces staring down at me. I slowly sunk back beneath the seat, but my mother halted my retreat; she grabbed me up and sat me beside her.

I have no recollection of my dad's reaction at all; although, my mother always said he got quite the chuckle out of the entire event. When the church service finally ended, I vaguely recall my mother giving the hat back to the man to whom it belonged. He grinned at first, but than a snarl came across his face when he realized his hat was bent out of shape.

Hunger

Highway lines escape me. Hot chrome mufflers burn. Faces blur, jump out of no where. Crowds coming from the field, laughing. They are us, but we lost them. Sailing down the slops of slow death. Tasting the dagger of delight. Flesh feeds off flesh, tirelessly hunting. Hair hidden revealed brings madness. It never sleeps. Devours. Hunger.

A Natural High

I’d almost walked to the end of our road today when the snow starting falling. I had to back track about a mile to get home. I was bundled up good, wearing insulated long johns, two shirts, a jacket, coat, and a toboggan, so the snow didn’t bother me. The wind wasn’t blowing and the soft flakes drifted slowly like feathers floating to the ground. I felt as if I were in a dream and was glad it didn’t start snowing before I left the house, else I might’ve missed this trip.

Used to, when I smoked pot, I always lit up when the snow started falling. Nowadays, whenever I watch the snowfall, I feel like I’m getting high. Obviously, I trained my mind to let the endorphins flow down into my body as the flakes fall to the ground. I feel sorry for those stringent, anti-drug obsessed people who never knew what it was like to get stoned and watch the snow. I’m sure they’d chide me for my past, but that’s only because they don’t know what they’re missing. If they had indulged as much as I did, then they too might enjoy a free contact buzz when the snowfalls. But more than likely, they’re worried about how fast they can get back home, or how much it’s going to snow, or if they need to stock up at the grocery store for the coming inclement weather. Me, on the other hand, I’m just enjoying walking home in the snow: nothing much better than a natural high.