I like Beck.

His cover of a Skip James song,
on the One Foot in the Grave, album (which has many jems)
is one of my favorite songs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jha4gEwG00g

Listen to Skip James version here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkjmjYrVL0g

The blues, moves me ... if I ever learn guitar
this is the first song I would want to learn.

m.

The Arctic Monkeys, from Sheffield, England

Best song on their second album (circa 2007),

...  a love song.  

enjoy,
m. 

505

I'm going back to 505
If it's a seven-hour flight or a 45-minute drive
In my imagination you're waiting lying on your side
With your hands between your thighs

Stop and wait a sec
When you look at me like that
My darling, what did you expect?
I probably still adore you
With your hands around my neck
Or I did last time I checked

I'm not shy of a spark
The knife twists at the thought that I should fall short of the mark
Frightened by the bite no it's no harsher than the bark
A middle of adventure, such a perfect place to start

I'm going back to 505
If it's a seven-hour flight or a 45-minute drive
In my imagination you're waiting lying on your side
With your hands between your thighs

But I crumble completely when you cry
It seems like once again you've had to greet me with goodbye
I'm always just about to go and spoil the surprise
Take my hands off of your eyes too soon

I'm going back to 505
If it's a seven-hour flight
Or a 45-minute drive
In my imagination you're waiting lying on your side
With your hands between your thighs
And a smile

 CLICK HERE to listen to last song on Album:   505.mp3 (7.73 mb)

or if you prefer, watch here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-g_o6e4EkA

Father,
I pray for courage as I begin this day,
for I understand there is work to be done,
burdens to be carried,
feelings to be shared and joys to be celebrated.

Grant me the courage
to be silent that I may hear Thy voice;
to persevere,
that I may share Thy victory;
and to remember,
lest I forget the way by which Thou has led me.

And when this day is done,
O Lord, may I have the courage to see
Thy guiding hand
in the friendships that have been made,
in the hurts that have been healed,
and in the strength that has been given.

Amen.

Saw posts about "The Power of Now",
some new age, transcendental,
esoteric, bullshit
written by some suicidal German vagrant,
hey "Good for him" ... he's got royalties to
lift him out of street life.
To take the pills out of his nightstand,
and the gun out of his mouth.

I shudder at the following of lost souls,
who glom onto this crap.
Trying to quiet their mind,
like this lunatic did,
"Hey it worked for him", right?
"I'm always at my wits end, too ..."

Hey, how about turning to the power of God?

Church, who needs church ?!?
I'm worshiping myself,
dammit.  Er, I mean privately.
My own self, I mean way.
Those other sheep,
they're deluded to go singing,
and chanting away and listening to
explanations of the Bible.
And giving money ... I don't have money.
And I don't have time for that,
I've got to experience the "Now".

Wow.  Rough.
I see it differently, I see it as God's wonders ...
I experience, "now"
and take time to look around,
at God's planets (not Eckhart Tolle's)
I realize that the forces of nature
that create from the cricket
to the Tom Brady as Quarterback
And I know, from the chirp, to the perfectly thrown pass ...
to marrying Gisel,
this didn't happen by accident

That God knew, before he was born
that Brady would struggle behind
inferior Quarterbacks at Michigan,
be fourth string at New England
and Win the superbowl his second season,
is something only God could know.
Brady was drafted 199th.

Oh, and Brady knew.  He was touched by the hand of God.
That this was his calling.
He's a team player, because of it.

The planet, didn't warm up after a volcano
melted complete ice, so little biological floaties
could evolve into humans
with minds that create computers,
and lasers

we've come a long way, is true,
through planning and purpose
and God's gentle hand
keeping us from
blowing up the planet with nuclear bombs
we created

it would be nice, if the Power of Now
helped us keep mankind
safe and sane

but it appears to be for the people
who can't get outside themselves
with love enough
to
make the difference

As soon as you would start to love,
and sacrifice for love,
you would be pulled back into
the demands of "Now" (translated: me / ego )

Jesus tought love.
Love your brother (neighbor)
as yourself.

You can't get there
with self quietness
with self examination
wotj selfish-ness

it takes effort
to buy candy for someone
or bring them a rose
takes planning,
thinking outside of now,
thinking ahead

to live outside yourself
takes self-lessness
not more selfish-ness
and self-examination

You can
analyze yourself to death,
or quiet your mind
until it stops
... and then what?

Until you get in touch with
God's plan,
and have it touch your heart
you'll have
no
peace
Until you feel the Holy Spirit move you,
you haven't felt power
You haven't felt direction, you haven't felt conviction

Tolle's "The Power of Now" is
another man-made trick, to substitute the word "spirituality"
for faith,
for believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and the teachings
of the book that matters,
the bible

It takes great strength, and guts
to have faith. 
It takes a lot to believe, outside yourself
your own man-God, made image (called your 'ego')

It takes nothing to claim to be spiritual,
I can light some incense and claim sprituality
claiming to be spiritual, in fact is just
oxygen to your ego
Look at me, I'm spiritual and hip
not sacrificing, and obedient to God
I'm obedient to me,
I define the rules

But to be Christian is to live out each day,
in a way that is pleasing to someone else (or at least try to)
putting faith in God
and knowning that
there is reward in Heaven
for your efforts, brings comfort
and peace

Non-believing. personal. Spirituality, on the other hand
leads to death, a grave and "the end".
And all the fears and anxieties you try to quiet,
can't overcome death ... and the fear of death,
and insignficance (ah, the ultimate ego shatterer ~ insignficance)

Jesus, did overcome death.  To teach you about life after death.
You can let go of that death-fear now, believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

God gives you significance,
just as he counts every day you are on this planet,
and every hair on your head.

Believe in the Power of God.

Believe that he made a planet the right distance
from the sun, to support oxygen
to breathe for his people.
Not martians, not other inter-stellar galaxy UFO's
not Venus, not Jupiter,
take your Google Eath and zoom as fast as you can onto your property address ...
God zooms in on you faster.

But god doesn't stop with the fuzzy picture of your property,
his zoom goes deeper, into your mind,
body and soul.
He knows your every thought, and everything you have done
and will do.
What do you think it costs him, a few terabytes of space?  No big woop,
for God is omnipresent.
You can't build a computer that powerful, or a disk drive that vast.

Believe in the implausibility, that if there is no God,
natural selection could not create a Grasshopper from
a tadpole or some other swiming micro-organism
became a dinasour, or man descended from apes

Man was created by God.  Woman, in the likeness of man.
Adam and Eve.  You know the story,
you glimpse heaven in Eden.
Hell on earth, you betcha boy ... try Afghanistan,
try inner Washington, D.C. ghettos ...
just don't listen to what God has to say ...
try New Orleans after Katrina ...
he gives you a glimpse of hell, right here on earth
Daily.
Mother Nature ... try Father in Heaven.

Believe in his son Jesus Christ,
who died for your sins

Or, don't.  Your choice,
you can continue believing in the Power of Now

and you'll still be swimming,
in your own head,
your own virtual God,
buying into books by German, suicidal vagrants

or swimming along with the microscopic life forms
(who for what you believe,
could be your ancestors)

m.

God, I've never been a patient man

obsessed with time, and succeeding and having a good time
and not wasting any
and keeping it
neat

and tidy

and free from clutter,
and things that will slow me down

from situations that annoy,
and those people who irk

keeping my life sorted in my mind
to the perfect alignment
and imaginary
order

that I created

Oh, to find out that I am wrong,
that my order doesn't matter
or even exist

that my way is that of the lonely,
the bothered
the irked

may I find the patience,
to wait

to listen, and see and feel
the way
you
want

for me

m.

my favorite cure album, is "Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me"

... a beautiful, eery, peek into Robert Smith ... slow and soulful.

Some upbeat tracks,

LIke: "why can't I be you"

well, let me tell you why ...   just be you,                  its enough. 

A common theme, like my first drug-me-into-the-Robert-Smith-lyrical-world .... "Jumpin' someone else's train"

had it recorded on an 8-track.  Yes, ladies and gents ... I played the cure, on a flippin eight track and was pretty freakin' proud

to have recorded it on an eight-track recorder, from a bootleg, of a radio station airing college tunes of the time ...

my friends were flabbergasted at this "shit" ... I thought it was the best friggin' music

Pretenders ("eh"),  Cars ("yuk"), ...    but I listened to the Cure and was hooked.

m.

"LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;

you have made my lot secure.

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

surely I have a delightful inheritance.

I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;

even at night my heart instructs me.

I have set the LORD always before me.

Because he is at my right hand,

I will not be shaken."

Psalm 16:5-8

Life is bigger

It's bigger than you

And you are not me

The lengths that I will go to

The distance in your eyes

Oh no I've said too much

I set it up

That's me in the corner

That's me in the spotlight

Losing my religion

Trying to keep up with you

And I don't know if I can do it

Oh no I've said too much

I haven't said enough

I thought that I heard you laughing

I thought that I heard you sing

I think I thought I saw you try

Every whisper

Of every waking hour I'm

Choosing my confessions

Trying to keep an eye on you

Like a hurt lost and blinded fool

Oh no I've said too much

I set it up

Consider this

The hint of the century

Consider this

The slip that brought me

To my knees failed

What if all these fantasies

Come flailing around

Now I've said too much

I thought that I heard you laughing

I thought that I heard you sing

I think I thought I saw you try

But that was just a dream

That was just a dream

m.

A virtue?
or myth.
The unattainable perfection?

Do Presidents have it?
Vice-presidents?
Corporate Execs?
Preachers?
Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers ...
The "Grinch"  (well he did in the end)

(So, well ... excuse yourself, if you lack some then, at times.  You're o.k., I'm o.k.)

I've heard (or read) that
Integrity is
what you do,
when no one is watching.

By that standard, I've lacked integrity my whole life ...
living by the lyrics of the group Electronic,  from the eighties
"Getting away with it, all my life ..."

the dude, the studly macho man, ... the big guy.
I've been all that, yet fallen so many times
in the process.

The idea, since Adam and Eve, that we can
get away with something belies the idea of omnipresence. 
Watch your kids, how they know you
aren't omnipresent and can't be ...
God is.

We're shackled by the imperfections and
knowledge that itegrity can be, often, lacking,
so we "do the best we can"
we strive ... we feel freer in our good works and integrous
actions ... and then, like Adam (well mostly Eve, but Adam too) 
we fall from grace.

Reminds me of a James' lyric, from "Blue Pasture"

"Just when I thought I was free, I get dragged in again
once you're in, you're in."
...
and, also
"I don't see why I"m obliged to just carry on,
when everything I touch turns out wrong.
I've feel like I've commited a crime, but I don't know what I've done.
Someday life just wins.
Someday life just wins."

I've felt free to be integrous, and yet in all parts of your makeup
it is perhaps the most difficult feat to accomplish.
Where does self-love and respect vere off into self-indulgence,
when does virtue turn into overbearing
kind words into screaming
love into punishment

Speaking of punishment:
Why does every good deed, never go unpunished !?!?

Why is every business with the word "Integrity" in their name,
full of the worse snakes and rip-off artists you can find.

Integrity conspiracy?  I think not.
if you call attention to your integrity, you're not being integrous ...
the perverbial lead by example coming into play.

Recently, I've had an occasion to hire a talented guy,
to work on my roof.  Patch repair, and remove the moss.
A big job, really, and he bid it very fairly.

He had a limp handshake.  The kind of mealy swollen hand
that said he's working too hard, or drinking too much.
And he smoked cigarettes.
Not and indictment, an observation.

He hit me up, to pay him early.  I did, and he was doing such
a good job, I tacked on $50 more.

He's not finishing the job.  He should finish the job.
Have some integrity, man.
Do it, or I'll rant and I'll rave, and I'll spew and I'll sue ...
I'll breath down your neck like Satan's fire from hell, boy,
just don't get me started ...

Integrity.

But instead I'll just write, and ponder the lesson
... and I bear witness to his problems, I observe
and it isn't mine to own it.
I bought it, but I don't own it.

Hearing his excuses of his daughters flip flop,
getting caught in her spokes,
and his broken pressure washer,
the non-responses now it gets frustrating,
... to be duped.

the man is clearly not intending to come back
out to finish the job,
a character flaw, perhaps,
a life lesson on witholding final payment, maybe ...

What it does give rise to is how fascinating the "observer role"
we all can play, as we journey through life. Observations like:

If he's so good, why isn't he apparently successful?
Why is his handshake limp?
Why does he ask for payment ahead of completion?
Why is his daughter with him on the jobsite?
What causes him to not return calls or emails?
Why does he smoke?  (an observation, not an indictment)

The observer, allows us to realize we don't "do" anything
and nothing is "done" to us.
In this world of yin and yang, we are merely observers
of the truthes.

So, as an observer, I feel empathy and pray for the man,
as myself.

and how he must be in some ways defeated,
to show his face ... the way I sometimes am.

"I don't see why I"m obliged to just carry on,
when everything I touch turns out wrong.
I've feel like I've commited a crime, but I don't know what I've done.
Someday life just wins.
Someday life just wins."

peace be with you, roofer dude.

Joe and I will get the pressure washer out
and finish the job.

m.

I remember summers, in Wyoming, my home town
and in Warsaw, NY

The smell of summer was indescribable,
it was different and permeated my soul.

I remember T-Shirt baseball,
Firemen's Picnics and Town Fairs,
trips to Darien Lake state park,
Picnics and swimming

Fairs with Raw clams, clam bakes
corn on the cob, beer tents and good ole boys
and girls my age,
in training bras
strutting their stuff, just out of reach and
snobbing their way around town

Blue moon ice cream on sugar cones
muggy weather
and coppertone (the only sunscreen)

Grass and hay, baled and stacked
late night sunsets, and harvest moons
tents and flashlights and too hot sleeping bags
and Playboys snuck under the pillow

I remember the 70's
and Three dog night,
Disco and Saturday Night Fever
and Gallon jugs of Gallo,
Rose

Summer, was ...
special and broke the years up nicely.
From Winter, getting-ready-for-winter (fall)
getting-over-winter(spring)
and then ... summer
We had four seasons, but I reduced them to two.

Catching Fireflies, and june bugs
smacking mesquitos bulging with your blood,
and getting welts from black fly bites.
Wasps, hornets, bees, bumble bees,
burdock stuck to your socks
and hoe-ing the garden.

Catching possums in traps,
racoons, shooting 'em and burying the varmits
to save the vegetables.

Tons of squirrels and occasional skunk smells ...

Eating Fresh tomatoes with salt,
tomato sandwiches, on white bread with Miracle Whip
fresh cucumbers
and lawn mower exhaust

The smell of gas, as you poured it, got it on your hands
muddy sneakers, summer rainstorms, lightning and thunder and
b-b-guns and mini-bikes

Hunting for and selling night crawlers by flashlight,
storing them in a clawfoot tub we sunk in the ground,
with a plywood cover

Sitting at the swap meet.
Unloading the van, newspaper
and antique crap,
collections for me and the girls:
I collected ashtrays

Auctions and picking blackcaps on State Land,
weeping willows,
and Grandma's Toro self-propelled mower
with electric start

4-H fairs, animals and apple pies,
my buddies working farms, cows and cow smell
caning chairs
and painting houses

Hiking the woods, up and down the hills and valleys
and forging the creeks in knee high rubber boots,
turning rocks for crawdaddies
and skipping rocks

Moonlight fishing for catfish, at the creek
with needle nose pliers, in case you buried the hook
and a coleman lantern and wire stringer

Crusin' girls, Plymouth Dusters,
Kevin Gehman, and "Bad Company"
on the 8-Track ... Miller Splits (6 oz) and
instant upchuck, blaring ... on the Sparkomatics
"Feel like making love" ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOFwfPL54aY

Girls, girls and more girls ... and dreaming of having one,
boobies and mini-shorts, shot down and making moves
lip gloss
and Wild Cherry, Play that funky music, White boy

Seger, "Working on the night moves".
And Di Salvo's Pizza and Sub shop,
swallowing goldfish,
won out of blue colored water
at the ping pong ball toss

looking for it later, when I tossed my cookies ...
hanging with the boys,
The Boys are back in town,  and Thin Lizzy ...

Summer in New York, after battling the winter and endless spring funky rain and mud ...
was such a joy, to be in a t-shirt, or no shirt
enjoying youth and finding the fun ... before fall.

Ah yes, I remember (and miss) the summers in NY,
but moreso ... the youth and
freshness of each experience
that accompanied those summers

The more I get older,
the more I experience, rationalize, categorize and file away

The more I miss the aloof, non-caring, non-filing
spirit of youth

The thrill of the mystery, more important than the answer
the older generation, and their non-helpful non-answers
the pent up frustration, coupled with the infinite possiblities.

I miss the unknown,
comfortably, familiar and
predictibly safe feeling
of youth.