"Behind"

I never hoped to be a sage or a seer
I'm just another singer reaching for a song
But I'm tired of asking the eternal questions
Not knowing if the answers that I think I know are wrong

Been looking out for something to believe in
But faith is hard to come by in these times
And I can't help but judge myself severely
Who can take the punishment and fit it to the crime?

I think I'm walking backwards
I don't trust in my own mind
I keep hoping it's the right thing
To leave these things behind

I've tried so hard to understand the meaning
Of some things I was never meant to know
All this time standing on the outside
Knowing I should leave but never knowing where to go

And what I know could fit inside a thimble
A drop of wine at the bottom of a glass
Frightened of the last breath I'll be breathing
There is no comfort now in knowing all things soon must pass

I think I'm walking backwards
I don't trust in my own mind
I keep hoping it's the right thing
To leave these things behind

So if I seem a prisoner of my own thoughts
If I sometimes mock reality
If my mind tends to slip into oblivion
Looking for the things I know are there but just can't see

I'll satisfy my mind with poet's nonsense
I'll be content with someone else's song
The melodies that keep me from believing
That all the things that I believed were vapors all along

I know I'm walking away from you
I know I've lost my mind
I'm wondering if it's too late
Now that I've left it all behind

Now that I've left it all behind
Now that I've left it all behind
Now that I've left it all behind
Now that I've left it all behind

A new song for post # 300...Yoohoo!

First of all, I'm proud to announce that this blog, with this entry, has reached a milestone of 300 Posts!!!
Proof positive that over the past few years I have had entirely too much time on my hands!

RED (center, w/Charlie at left and Watt on the right)

Anyhoo, I have a close friend named Red, whom I have blogged about in the past, quite some time ago. On his MySpace page, in his "Favorites" section, he lists me as his favorite songwriter. This is very flattering, and I'm sure he's sincere, but I'm afraid I haven't given him anything new in a long time to justify his high opinion. It's true that I haven't written nary a song in the last few years (if you're interested in some of the lyrics, they can be found, along with other poetry, at Bipolar Confessional).
So I've made a conscious decision, now that I have mucho time on my hands, to get back to the craft of songwriting, regardless of how primitive the results may turn out to be.
I've spared no time in executing this notion, and I would like to share this song, the first I've done in a long, long time, with my readers. It is currently untitled, but I think I'll eventually call it "Behind". I hope you like it.

I never hoped to be a sage or a seer
I'm just another singer reaching for a song
But I'm tired of asking the eternal questions
Not knowing if the answers that I think I've found are wrong

Been looking out for something to believe in
But faith is hard to come by in these times
And I can't help but judge myself severely
Who can take the punishment and fit it to the crime?

I think I'm walking backwards
I don't trust in my own mind
I keep hoping it's the right thing
To leave these things behind

I've tried so hard to understand the meaning
Of some things I was never meant to know
Standing on the inside looking outside
Knowing I should leave but never knowing where to go

And what I know could fit inside a thimble
A drop of wine at the bottom of a glass
Frightened of the last breath I'll be breathing
There is no comfort now in knowing all things, too, must pass

I think I'm walking backwards
I don't trust in my own mind
I keep hoping it's the right thing
To leave these things behind

So if I seem a prisoner of my own thoughts
If I sometimes mock reality
If my mind tends to slip into oblivion
Looking for the things I know are there but just can't see

I'll satisfy my mind with poet's nonsense
I'll be content with someone else's song
The melodies that keep me from believing
That all the things that I believed were vapors all along

And I don't want to walk away from you
You know I've lost my mind
I'm wondering if it's too late
Now that I've left it all behind

Now that I've left it all behind
Now that I've left it all behind
Now that I've left it all behind
Now that I've left it all behind

The correctness (and otherwise) of translations...etc..

The other day my son and I were at the Dollar Store and we passed by the section that had some Bibles. He looked at them and decided he wanted a large print edition. I didn't have the money at the time to buy him one, but I did have a large print NIV at home that I wasn't using. I had bought it several months ago when I was taking Zyrexa, which was causing my eyes to lose focus. I told him he could have it if he wanted it, since I had no trouble reading my regular print Bible now. He thought that was alright, so I gave it to him a couple of days later.
So he's been reading the gospel of Luke, and I think that's great. But just a few moments ago he said something that kinda made my heart sink.
He told me that the NIV version of the Bible had an incorrect translation of a few verses in one of the earlier chapters of Luke. I assume he's contrasting it with the King James (which is the gold standard at the church he and his mother attend) or the New King James Version (which he has read most of his life).
What made my heart sink, and really kind of made me mad, was that someone somewhere (I can only assume it was a Sunday school teacher or the like) has taken it upon themselves to teach kids who aren't even teenagers yet about the "differences" in translations, and likely (if I'm right about who is doing it and it does turn out to be someone from the church they go to) that one is better than the other, that one is "correct" while the other is "incorrect", and of course they are the ones to decide which is which.
It made my heart sink because a 12 year old who has taken the time to actually dig into the Bible needs to be concerned with the overall message, not quibbles concerning the right/wrong version. How can you explain to a youth how the NIV works with manuscripts that were discovered after the KJV translators did their job in the 17th century? Or that manuscript fragments were also used to keep things in check, while the KJV, I believe, was taken directly from the Latin Vulgate? Or that language is fluid, that it changes with time and that, frankly, the KJV is out-of-date where this is concerned (even the NKJV, in my opinion, doesn't clear this hurdle).
All I could say, as I only had a brief period of time before he and his mother left for Wednesday night services, was that each translation has it's strengths and weaknesses. This is something I very much believe. I'm certainly not knocking the KJV. It was good enough for my ancestors and it's good enough for me. It's language (though, as I said, outdated) is beautiful, a pleasure to read once one has an understanding of what's being said in this ornate idiom. But it's like the difference between Shakespeare and John Updike when it comes to the ability of the common individual to grasp and comprehend without much tedious study.
I have a friend who says he prefers the KJV over the NIV because it FORCES him to make sure he understands a verse, in and of itself throughly before preceeding. He, however, is not one of these "King James Only" types, and reads the NIV as well. I think this is an excellent way of reading it and I utilyze the method myself occasionally. But it must be said that such an approach tends to cause the reader to lose the flow of the narrative.
Yes, I see the strenghs and the weaknesse of all translations. Yes, it pisses me off that some people are so shallow as to think that some versions are inferior (speaking here only of the translations that have been sanctioned by the clergy, academia, Bible sholars, etc.), that there is a "right" and "wrong" angle to pursue.
What is the point of discussing all this with (or more likely teaching it to) a young person who hasn't even had the chance to read the Bivle completely in ANY translation?
I have a "hands-off" approach to the church that the wife and son attend. Suffice to say that I have serious issues with some of their doctrine. I have my reasons for this, but trust me, it is the only one that enables a peaceful household (in fact, I've learned to completely avoid discussion of religion, only answering direct questions my son might ask). So I'm not going to make an issue of this. Still, never let it be said that I ignored the situation, even if I didn't feel I could properly explain certain things, things that he's too young to fully understand.

As for my "spirituality"...I suppose I'm in the condition that the Baptist's call "Backslidden". I guess it's a good thing I haven't been attending the Baptist church in a long time, isn't it? :)
Then again, I haven't been attending ANY church. I feel that my faith is strong but I also have bipolar/schizoaffective disorder and I don't like to be among large groups of people (maybe that's a cop-out...we'll see). And I've become sick of the whole "Christian Subculture" thing, which needs no definition to anyone who has come out of it (and no description will be forthcoming on my part...sorry, I really don't have time now...just visit your nearest Mardel or Zondervan Family Bookstore and you should figure it out real quick).
The bottom line is that I believe. In my heart I know that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. As Peter the disciple figured out, there's really nowhere else to turn, because He has the words of eternal life.
One of the things that got me in trouble during the last 3 psychotic episodes I've had is an "obsession with religion". Being so deep in it had not done me good. So I hope that I have God's permission to back off a little bit. :) If that sounds facetious, I'm sorry. It's done me good to live my life without feeling as if I've failed just because I didn't read a certain amount of pages in my Bible, or didn't read through the whole thing in a year. I'm happy knowing that I can listen to whatever kind of music I want to, it doesn't have to be Christian music, because when it's all said and done, none of that matters. Not a few of my thoughts are prayers and most of them echo the cries found so often in the Psalms and throughout the Scriptures, "Lord have mercy". Without His mercy I will not stand on that day that is outside of time, the sunset that breaks upon the end of this life and the beginning of another. If there is no other, I'm fucked. But I believe that there IS another, and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Door, that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
If that's not enough, then it's not worth bothering with.

A taste for Dickens and a "Nicholas Nickleby" story

Just finished reading Charles Dickens' "Nicholas Nickleby" a few days ago. That was immediately after reading "Barnaby Rudge". Looks like I'm on a Dickens kick that may last for a long, long time. Oh, I'd read several of his books over the years, but these days my attention level and comprehension appears to be a lot better than it was back then...no doubt some of that comes with quitting marijuana, but some I'd just read so long ago that I'd forgotten most of the details. That's the way it was with "Nickleby", which I hadn't read in over 20 years and even then I was so doped up on psychotropic medication that it's a wonder I could even understand the book, let alone retain anything about it through the years.
That turned out to be the case, as I found that I remembered practically nothing about it. But I'm glad I want back to the book, because I enjoyed it tremendously. I'm currently reading a biography of Dickens which is proving to be interesting, and after that I plan on tackling "A Tale of Two Cities". From then I it will be a Dickens book about after every seventh book that I read. He is my favorite author.
There is a little story that goes with the purchase of my copy of "Nicholas Nickleby":

As I told you I had a copy of the book a little over 20 years. As was my habit back then, I wrote my name on the front page of every book I read as soon as I completed it. Then I'd either put it in my "library" or sell/trade it at a book store called "The Book Rack" in Shawnee. For whatever reason, my "Nickelby" wound up getting traded for credit at the store. It was a nice paperback edition from Penguin books that I thought was pretty cool.
So, anyway, after reading and enjoying "Barnaby Rudge" I thought about that time so long ago when I'd attempted to wade through "Nickleby" and about how I could recall none of it. I made it my goal to get a copy as soon as I could.
It wasn't too long till I'd scraped up a little money and decided to go to Shawnee and try and find it. I didn't have high hopes of obtaining a copy, because it's just not a title you find unless you go to one of the bigger bookstores and the closest one of those was 60 miles away in Oklahoma City (I'd planned to go to OKC if I couldn't find it in Shawnee, but it would have to be another day).
I went to the mall's Waldenbooks first. All they had was "Great Expectations" and "A Tale of Two Cities". I figured then and there that I probably would not find the one I was coming for, so I bought a copy of "A Tale of Two Cities" (since the only other Dickens' book they stocked was "Great Expectations", and I'd already read that). I would read "Tale" if my goal of tracking down a "Nickleby" was thwarted.
Then I decided I'd go to the used bookstores, but I didn't have high hopes of finding it.
The first was the Book Barn, which usually has a nice selection. They only had "Great Expectations", but they had at least EIGHT copies of it!!!! That struck me kinda funny.
Then I went to the good old Book Rack, as I remembered that they had a fairly deep selection of the classics. But, alas, they did not have "Nickleby". The proprietor didn't even have to look for it to know it wasn't on the shelves.
Those two stores were the only used book stores I remembered. The lady at the Book Rack offered to call another store to see if they had a copy. I thought she was calling one of their branches in OKC or Stillater, Tulsa maybe. When she put down the phone she said they had one a Bibliotheque. Wow! That was a store not too far down the road, one that I'd completely forgotten about! For some reason I just don't do a lot of business there. Don't know why, as they always have a good selection. Maybe it's because I'm never in that part of the city (the old downtown area).
My hopes were renewed and, brimming with more excitement than anyone should have about buying a copy of "Nicholas Nickleby", I set off for Bibliotheque. I got to thinking on the way there that it sure would be cool if they had the same Penguin paperback edition that I'd traded so long ago,
I got there and told the lady behind the counter that I was the one who'd called about "Nicholas Nickleby". She said, "Oh, yes" and walked over to the classics section while I waited at the desk. When she pulled it out of the shelf I saw that, indeed, it WAS the Penguin edition that I wanted (but thought I'd never find)! I was pretty happy about that.
She took it up to the counter as I told her it was just like the copy I'd traded about 21 years ago. She said she'd bought it at a book sale some time ago.
Then she opened the book to look for the price, which they write on the front page.
That was when I saw, right next to the $3.00 price tag MY OWN NAME!!!
It was the exact same copy that I'd gotten rid of in 1986!!!
Wow! That copy had floated around for all those years and somehow made it right back to me!
I thought that was incredible.

New look, same old crap + I abscond from the band.

Hope you like the new look of the blog. New look, new title, new enthuisiasm for contributing to it. Maybe even a new direction.
Allow me to explain.
Just as I've done several times in the past, I started a different blog that was meant to be an outlet for all the personal stuff I didn't really want to get into here...As usual I planned to write it anonymously (using a pseudonym), so that I would be free to let it all hang out. I felt that I couldn't do that here because I know that a few people read it (even if not too many) and this was stuff that I wanted to share but only on the condition that noone knew where it was coming from.
I promised myself I wouldn't delete it if things got to the point where I just couldn't stand the stuff I'd just as soon sweep under the rug.
But it got to that point, and rather quickly. I'll not go into detail as to what it eventually turned into, suffice to say that it was something I shouldn't have attempted and it brought to light aspects of my life and personality that I need to grow away from instead of drudging up to post on a blog, even if the intentions seemed honorable (and liberating) at the time.
So I broke my promise. I deleted it. I need to make a vow, as well, to not attempt such an endeavour again, as it turns out to be counterproductive to the goal I'd like to achieve with the thing.
The last 3 posts here were originally done for that blog. They were the only ones I felt I could transfer to this blog, which has always been my main blog since 2004. I like 'em pretty well and I think they hold their own with the other stuff I've done here (not that I think I'm really much of a writer, but I do like to go back and read the old stuff now and again).
I'm hoping that I can open up and free myself to be a little bit more personal here...I'm not going to wallow in the mire of certain vices I let get out of control under cover of anonymity...but I do think that I can let this thing be a little more "journalistic". When I initially started this thing I tried, for the most part, to veer away from that kind of stuff. But now I'm thinking, What the hell? Why not? If it gets me to posting more, gives me more pleasure in writing and helps me have a better time online then I probably need to start right now.
That's what I'm going to do. Along with it I've changed my template to something that's a little more streamlined, easier on the eyes (IMO), less cluttered...Taking advantage of Blogger's new template editing functions I have been able to accomplish in a short time what took me hours to set up on the old template. Not that there aren't some things from the old one that I wish I could have brought over here, but certain sacrifices must be made. It was a momentous occasion when I clicked on the "Change Template" button, because I really had invested hours upon hours upon hours in constructing what I considered a top notch blog page. All the band links are gone. The scrolling photos of the artists/bands is gone. The thing that broke my heart the most to lose was the "Albums I Like" slideshow. I tried to insert it into the current template, but I had no luck whatsoever. I still have the code, though, and if I can ever figure out where to put it (if it's even possible) I guarantee you I will. I miss it already. :(





The only big news around here is that I've left Jubal Modine & the Love Handles, the band I've played with for the last four months (you may remember the MySpace blog posts I copied to this one several entries ago).
As I told them when I broke the news, it wasn't something that I'd planned on or even wanted to do. There were several reasons that I quit, several of which I do not want to go into here. But the most relevant reasons were the following:

1. Sleep patterns disrupted. The hours we kept on weekends, not getting home until 2:30-3:30AM, were killing me. My biological clock is set to get me up at around 8:00 in the morning. I take Ambien every night to combat insomnia and usually I'm in bed by 10:00 or 11:00PM so that I can get more than 8 hours. Sometimes I'd get home at 3:30AM, take my Ambien, fall asleep close to 4:00 then get up at 8:00. 4 hours just doesn't cut it. I could stand no more of that.
2. My hearing. I've already got a pretty bad case of tinnitus and some of the small stages we had to play on just kicked it up a notch or three. Even wearing earplugs, as I did towards the end, didn't seem to help. I have just spent too much time over the years standing in front of drum sets with no hearing protection, basking in the glorious sound of live music with no thought of the damage it was causing. It's done now, so I'm moving on, hoping that the ringing will subside a little bit in time.
3. Travel. I realize that I didn't have to travel all that far or all that much to participate in this band. But it was on such a regular basis that I really got bored with it in no time. At present my car stereo is shut down...who knows but that some music would have made it more tolerable. Alas, it was "the sound of silence" every mile of the way. Before too long I was talking to myself to relieve the boredom. Crazy.

The wild thing about the whole broo-haha is that I quit on a Saturday night after a show, and the other guys were back playing another gig with a new bassist the following Saturday!
So it's not as if they actually needed me.
That makes me feel a little better about what I had to do.

VH1 Rock Honors: Gretchen Wilson steals the show.

A couple of days ago I taped the initial airing of "VH1 Rock Honors" and watched on the following day. Generally I detest VH1 because it, like MTV, has gravitated towards meaningless so-called "reality" shows and away from music. The "Rock Honors" joins a short list of programs the network offers that are music-oriented (not counting the music videos they play at a time when most people are sleeping, getting ready for work or watching the early morning news).
I initially tuned in because I wanted to see the Genesis reunion, which was only a reunion of the second-to-last incarnation, without Peter Gabriel or Steve Hackett on board (the latter of which, sadly, not even a single mention was made). That segment turned out to be pretty good, with the exception of British band, Keane, doing a weak version of "That's All" (my brother, for a while, quite wanted me to listen to Keane...if this performance was any indication of what they're all about, I'm glad I declined).
But Collins, Banks & Rutherford were in fine form, doing excellent renditions of "Turn It On Again" and "No Son of Mine", the latter of which was exceptionally stirring. Simply a great choice of songs that covered their earlier days as a 3 piece as well as a song representitive of their last album together.
As for the rest of the show...well, I'm not too keen on ZZ Top. Oh, they're okay and I don't hate their music. But you gotta admit they're some of the goofiest looking motherfuckers in all of rock and roll (with the exception of Beard, who loses points simply by gigging with these clowns).
And I've got nothing against Ozzy Osbourne. After all, he was the original voice of Black Sabbath, a band that I acknowledge as one of the genre's keystone acts. Much of his earlier solo work is pretty good as well. The whole thing began to nosedive when he put out that ballad with Lita Ford. I suppose a song like "Changes" (on Black Sabbath's "Volume 4" album) could be considered a sort of ballad. But it was nothing like the treacly collaboration w/Ford. Junk like "Mama I'm Coming Home" didn't help. To add insult to injury was the Osbourne family's reality show on MTV, which shows Ozzy to be a buffoon with a scant few brain cells surviving the drug/alcohol onslaught he perpetrated on himself during his heyday.
The long and short of it is that by this time my interest level in everything Ozzy (not including Black Sabbath) has waned to the point where I didn't even watch the portion of the show that featured him.
But the reason I'm writing all this is to chronicle one of the most incredible pairings of two disparate artists as I have ever seen, a bizarre teaming, but one in which the results turned out to be quite simply amazing.
It all happened during the portion of the program that "honored" Heart. I like Heart fairly well. But it's kinda like this: if Heart had been on the program but Genesis had not, I wouldn't have bothered to watch it. As it was, though, I was reminded of their early output, with some damn fine songs like "Crazy On You" and "Barracuda". So what if they, like Ozzy, disintegrated in their later years with pap like "What About Love?" and the only slightly less yawn-inducing "These Dreams"? So what if Ann Wilson eventually shared more with Carnie Wilson than just a last name? They had their day, and it was a fine one.
But I digress.
This whole diatribe is nothing more than an excuse to praise Nashville's current big shot female vocalist Gretchen Wilson and to hail some of Seattle's finest, the surviving members of Alice In Chains. Who in their right mind would have thought to have Wilson front AIC for a tribute to Heart? And who would have thought that Gretchen could belt out "Barracuda" with just as much passion and power as the original Wilson, the lovely BBW Ann?
Yet it happened! It was! She did! They rocked! She rocked right along with them! It was such a far cry from the kind of fare she's known for (with at least one song sounding just like Patsy Cline) that you can only stare in amazement at how she commands the stage and listen, surprised at how she effortlessly hits those high notes and basically sings the song almost note-for-note like the original. AIC, as well, played the music with the crunch of Led Zeppelin, whose "Immigrant Song" is fairly obviously the source for the riffage in "Barracuda". Nancy Wilson even came out to play with the crew, but as far as I'm concerned her presence was completely overshadowed by Gretchen Wilson's jaw-dropping performance. She did, however, blend seamlessly in with the more rough-edged Alice In Chains.
Hard to follow that up, and the two songs the original Wilson sisters played next were such that I can't even remember which ones they were.
So basically the whole "VH1 Rock Honors" came down to the stunning performance by Gretchen Wilson w/Alice In Chains and the Genesis reunion. All in all, even with the ZZ Top & Ozzy stuff, it was a decent two hours for the network. I'm sure they're glad that's out of the way so they can show more crap like "Flava of Love", "Charm School". "I Love New York" and "The Biggest Loser" (I didn't mention "Hogan Knows Best" cuz I like it, but it's got nothing to do with music, either).

In which 2 new beverages are tested.

We picked up something at Wal-Mart that we'd never tried before. It was a 9-pack of Jones Pure Cane Sugar Green Apple soda. I drank one this morning and, boy oh boy was it GOOD! Tasted exactly like a green apple (which, I guess, is what it's supposed to do, but sometimes that's not the case, for instance, grapefruit soda tastes nothing like grapefruit). I reccomend it very highly and look forward to trying thei other pure cane sugar flavours.
Last time we were at Wally-World we bought something else we hadn't tried (actually it was just me who wanted it...my wife insisted it wasn't worth the money and that I wouldn't like it). It was a Mexican chocolate drink called Abuelita. When I got it opened up I was appalled by the nasty smell of the stuff. I tried to make up a batch, but dumb me, I didn't have the part of the blender that screws on (with the blades on one side) affixed properly and when I turned it on the whole thing sprayed Abuelita all over the place. It REEKED. I never tried to fix another batch, repelled by the stench, and threw away the rest of the package (proving, once again, that my wife knows best. I DIDN'T like it and it WAS a waste of money).