Free Bird...

Today is 8-31-13 and it was April 13th that I heard the news that Eric was gone. April, May, June, July, August it has been 5 months almost 6 now and I really don't know if things are any better.

I know I have said this before at least I think that I have. It isn't that I want to be depressed  and replay this thing over and over. Because I don't and there are moments when everything seems fine and honestly I have tricked myself into feeling fine and then I am driving my van home or as Eric always referred to it on Instagram "The Van" and I start thinking "what and why and how" and "WHY DON'T I JUST DRIVE MY VAN RIGHT OFF THE FUCKING ROAD BECAUSE WOULDN'T THAT BE A WHOLE LOT FUCKING SIMPLER THEM HAVING TO ALWAYS PROCESS THIS SHIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN." 

Now let me be clear before anybody freaks out. I am not going to be driving The Van off of the road. But if I do not acknowledge that these thoughts surface within me from time to time I find that I am far worse off. I can't pretend that I am not feeling these things and that everything is hunky dory and that I am feeling just fine. Because I am not and there really is no point in me lying about it. If my honestly bothers you then so be it and you have a couple of choices, One is to nod and smile and thank me for my authenticity the other is well stated best in this gif

Because while it may make you uncomfortable this is the truth and the reality of someone left behind and  I am positive that I am not the only one feeling this way. So either get your shit together and do everything you can to help that person not feel totally and completely  alone or jog the fuck on. Don't half ass it. There is no halfway with this. It is that important and those left behind need you. If you are unable to deal with the intensity of that then you really are not a friend even if you thought you were. What you thought was friendship all this time was not. It was some comfortable thing with no intimacy and no accountability and no truth. You were an acquaintance and when shit got real you couldn't handle it. Well too bad for you. But no one likes or wants to be left behind. No one wants to be the survivor that has to pick up the pieces of day to day life and trudge on like nothing has happened. Like your entire world wasn't blown totally up. You not being able to handle that is not the fault of the survivor. It is your fault for not being a good person. And fuck you if this upsets you. It should upset you. You are a bad person and should be ashamed of yourself.

I have to believe that healing will come. Otherwise, what is the point. But there are times when it seems so, so hard and I begin to wonder when, when will it come? I suppose that I should seek therapy or counseling, I have been told that I should go to group therapy and I always feel like yes I should. But when it comes down to actually making that call I think, "Ahh I am okay, I can squeeze these feelings off and write about them when they get to strong to handle."  I do not know why I am so resistant to this. I honestly don't. The idea of me being resistant to it makes no sense to me. I do not fear seeing a therapist and I do not fear being psycho-analyzed yet I can't seem to take that next step and I do not know why.

Thanks for listening folks I am going to go make myself a drink.

Sick and Tired of It

Hey folks, I have not written for awhile and that is mainly because I have been basically holed up in my lair for the last week or so because I have had a pretty nasty cough and it has seriously hindered my ability to get to the coffee shop which is where I do the majority of my writings. But I am feeling like I can do a little this evening.

REM - Cuyahoga

I am still looking for needful employment. I have enjoyed living this life of leisure but it has grown both tiresome and boring. I need to move on to the next thing and to put some money in the banks. As much as I love living in this new golden age of Socialism under Obama it still seems that I have to work and I am just not getting my fair share of things from other peoples labors. I honestly thought that things would be better for the enlightened ones like myself and as much as I enjoy my thrice daily White Russians all that vodka is not free.

Well that and what was the point of my nifty new haircut if I can't get a job. I may as well have continued to grow my glorious locks and my lovely sideburns in perpetuity. It was not easy to cultivate those sideburns let me tell you. I have to now shave at least twice if not three times a week to keep my face so baby soft and let me tell you friends that is just exhausting.

REM - Gardening At Night

On an emotional level things are still kind of up and down. I have good days and bad days and I am sleeping better I suppose but even that is sporadic at best. I still miss Eric and I suppose that I always shall which is a good thing. But there are times now when that missing him is tainted by some anger and I do not particularly enjoy feeling that way. I may have addressed this before and if I have I apologize but here it is. I do respect the autonomy of the individual and when it is in the theoretical it is very easy for me to say "sure, people should have the right to determine their own existence." But in the reality of the aftermath. In the midst of the chaos that has been left behind for his family and friends I am not so sure.

REM - Find The River

I tried 5 times to write something on his Facebook page yesterday about how I was missing him and honestly all that came out was anger and I stopped myself from writing anything. Anger will not bring him back. Nothing will and intellectually I know that but it feels like my emotions have now slid into that stage of things. Whatever that stage is on the scale of stages. All I know is that I do not like or enjoy feeling angry about Eric. He never made me angry. I always enjoyed being around him and often he left me smiling or laughing or thinking deeply. He left deep deep roots in my psyche. Good roots from good experiences and good conversations that are wrapped around my soul and I honestly am glad that they are their despite the pain it causes me to think about them. My life is for the better because he was in it. 

REM - Oddfellows Local 151

All that being said. My life is not for the better without him in it. I muddle along trying to figure out what is next. I spend time with friends, I read and write and I listen to music and I meditate and I spend time with friends. But, the friend that I would like to spend time with is unavailable and always will be. Is that a metaphor for something bigger in life? I don't know and frankly I am not sure if I care right now. This is what happens when you write while you are all hopped up on the cold medicines. The synapses are firing on all cylinders baby!! You know you love it. You want a metaphor I have a metaphor for you.  

Who am I kidding I don't have a metaphor for you. No nuggets of wisdom to import. No moments of Zen to make your life worth living. Just the hope that you can keep on doing it day to day and knowing that I am here if you need someone to talk too. Because, I like to talk and for some strange reason people seem to like me. So catch you later folks. It's been real. Let me close with these thoughts from the film 'Pump up the Volume'

“Ok, this is really me now. No more hiding. Listen, we’re all worried, we’re all in pain. That just comes with having eyes and with having ears. But just remember one thing, it can’t get any worse, it can only get better. I mean High School is the bottom. Being a teenager sucks! But that’s the point, surviving it is the whole point! Quitting is not going to make you strong, living will. So just hang on and hang in there. You know, I know all about the hating and the sneering. I’m a member of the “why bother” generation myself. But why did I bother to come out here tonight, and why did you? I mean, It’s time. It’s begins with us, not with politicians, the experts or the teachers but with us. With you and with me. The ones who need it most. I gotta believe, with everything in me, the whole world is longing for healing. Even the trees, the earth itself are crying out for it. You can hear it everywhere. Same kinda healing I desperately needed and I finally feel has begun, with you.”
— Mark Hunter (Hard Harry)

We are all humans so lets keep loving each other okay and hey, give someone a hug tomorrow. Who knows it might just make a difference. 

Tuesday...

I am honestly not sure what to write about today. Lately I have been watching the first season of the HBO show "The Newsroom". The show was created by Aaron Sorkin and I find his work very interesting. It is hard for me to quantify it, because while I often find his public persona to be very smug and really just pretty annoying in general, his writing on his shows often touch a chord with me and often it is a very emotional chord. I really do love things that can have that affect on me. I honestly do not care if that effect is good or bad but there needs to be something, otherwise why bother with it. What is the point of watching a show or listening to music or reading a book if there is not some sort of visceral reaction to it?

Lou Reed - Perfect Day

Isn't that the point? Why spend the time with it if there is not some sort of connection? If I wanted to spend my time on something and not have nay kind of emotional response to what I am spending time with I would have a job. It is plenty easy to shut the emotions off and zombie your way through the work day, but honestly, that seems like no way to live and life is hard enough as far as I am concerned if I am going to go through it in a dull zombie state.

Devo - Gut Feeling

Some would argue that emotions are neither good nor bad that they just exist and that we have no control over them. I would agree with that to a point. But I think a life without emotion is no kind of life for me. Sure if the emotion that I am feeling is me walking around in a rage all of the time that is going to be a problem. But, that isn't the kind of emotion that I am talking about. To be sure there are times when I will watch something or read something and I am left angry or enraged though I do not feel rage all that often. I am more likely to feel sadly angry more then anything else as far as emotions in the anger spectrum go.

Brian Eno - Deep Blue Day

I know that there are people who fear feeling emotions because they feel like they are out of control but I think the quickest way to get back in control is to feel that emotion and to ride it through. It may be hard to do for some but to sit down and write it out can be so beneficial. I know that this blog is that for me, there are times as I am writing that I am taken to a pretty dark places but as I write I am walking through those places and I am emerging from that journey in a better place then I was when I started it. As far as I am concerned, if I had never started the journey I would have just sat in it and wallowed in that dark place. The only way for me to get through it is to face it head on and honestly and authentically experience it.

David Bowie - Fame

The reality is that while whatever event I am feeling emotional about is not going to change, I am going to change as I travel through that experience. It feels callous for me to say, but what's done is done and nothing I can do can change that. But what I can change is my response to that event for good or bad. That is the one thing that I may have some sort of control over. I am not claiming that it will be easy or pleasant because it will not be and odd are that it will not be short. I know that for me it has not been and I have no idea when this whole experience is going to be over. Or honestly if it will ever be.

David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes

And part of that process is for me to sit and stare off into space as I try desperately to put the words together on the page to make some sort of sense out of what I am feeling. Or why I am feeling what I am feeling when the SORROW overtakes me. There often seems to be no rhyme or reason for when it happens. Oh sure, there is always the original reason. But there are times when I am not even thinking about the original reason when it happens. Last week I was driving to a friends house for a birthday event and the tears and near panic started to flow. I settled down by the time I had arrived at my location but near as I could tell there was nothing that had triggered the initial emotional response.

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground

In some ways that is the most frustrating thing for me. I find it frustrating because I have always been so in touch with my emotions and to not know exactly why I am weeping or what caused the weeping is extremely annoying and my response has now shifted somewhat to a near panic attack at times and that is a brand new experience for me. So I can find it almost fascinating as I sit outside my body as some sort of glorious third person Buddha and watch myself experience these things. It isn't a pleasant experience at all. But it is also my reality right now and I am not going to deny it or to deny myself this experience. I just can't.

Folk Metal Monday

There are many, many words used to describe some of the music that I listen to and enjoy and sometimes those words are not very nice.It turns out that people can be pretty mean when it comes to their taste in music. But that is okay with me. It doesn't bother me because I am confident that my taste in music is far, far better then anyone else in the entire world. I AM TRULY THE BEST AND SMARTEST MUSICAL LISTENER EVER IN THE HISTORY OF ALL MUSICAL LISTENERS IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND EVER. I REIGN SUPREME! 

That being said, today I bring you a band that I have really been enjoying lately. They are from Argentina and they specialize in Folk-Metal and are called Skiltron

I ask you, is it really possible to look any more epic and full of the power of metal then these gentleman? I do not think it is. So put on your headphones and start rocking!!

Gathering The Clans

Coming From The West

Bagpipes of War

Awaiting Your Confession

There you go folks. I hope you enjoyed rocking out with me today.

Allow Me To Respond . . .

I have a calendar reminder set up on my cell phone and often on Sundays it reminds me to write a blog post called "Allow Me To Respond . . ." but often I am just not interested in working up the indignation and anger that I need to write an effective post under that title or at least as effective as I think it needs to be. It isn't that I do not have opinions on things. Because I totally do. But I just would rather not feel angry about stuff. There are issues that I do find important to me and I do care deeply about things. But more and more I feel like it is not going to be beneficial to me to get myself all worked up about an issue or issues that I can do nothing about.

One issue for example is an artist named Ted Nugent. He was a seriously hard , dirtbag rocker whose musical career started in 1958 but he really didn't start to get well known until the mid sixties when he was playing with 'The Amboy Dukes' (A band that I know nothing about),

'Journey to the Center of the Mind" - Amboy Dukes

Nugent always denied that he knew anything about this song being about drug use. I personally find that hard to believe. But that doesn't really matter and I do enjoy the song. I actually find it very listenable and enjoyable. It pretty much totally espouses the hippy ethic of using mind expanding drugs to achieve enlightenment.

I can feel myself getting more and more aggravated as I am reading about him for this. The hypocrisy of his life and the way that he lives it now as some sort of poster boy for conservatives and the pro gun lobby just makes me sick to my stomach. It isn't his positions and thoughts on gun control, he is welcome to think what he wants to think. But it confuses me that a man could go from basically dodging the draft, if you follow the link you can see how muddled the record is on that. But it is perfectly clear that he did all he could do to get out of going to war. Which is very odd given that he seems to be so in favor of gun use and military action now.

There has also always been a certain sleaziness of character around him. My favorite story is of the 17 yr old girl that he got involved with, since she was to young for him to be legally involved with Ted got her parents to get the courts to allow him to become her legal guardian. That just blows my mind. I realized that things were a little different back in the 70's but seriously? I can even imagine in anyway that this would be appropriate at all.

All those things aside I am still able to enjoy his music. But for me the problem has come in with some of his comments about the whole Trayvon Martin case. Now the jury has ruled and I am not going to argue the case. That is really not my problem. My problem is the insensitivity that he is presenting about the death of a young man who did not need to die.

I am just going to stop there. Because if I go on I am no better then he is. The only thing that I can really say is that if I was a member of my neighborhood watch and the 911 and I had this conversation

"Dispatcher: Are you following him? Zimmerman: Yeah Dispatcher: Ok, we don't need you to do that. Zimmerman: Ok " 

I would have stopped following him. That would have been all that I needed to hear. Zimmerman did not do that and because of that Trayvon Martin is dead or it could have gone the other way and Zimmerman could have been killed. The bottom line is that if Zimmerman had just listened to the 911 dispatcher and stayed in the car then none of this mess would have even happened. That is a fact and there is no way around that fact. What happened after he left the vehicle is one thing and I understand that. But for me the problem starts when Zimmerman takes it upon himself to leave his vehicle despite being told that he did not need to do that. Zimmerman killed Martin and had he stayed in his vehicle Martin would still be alive and we would not be having this stupid conversation and Ted Nugent would not be flapping his sleazy, draft dodging yap. 

Fantastic Friday...

Is it really fantastic, Lance, is it? Well you don't have to be like that about it. I mean it is Friday after all. I suppose I could have called it "Freaky Friday" but it isn't that either. Can't you just be happy that I wrote something at all and gave you some fun music to listen to, isn't that enough for you? 

It Takes a Woman's Love - Kansas

This is a nice deeper cut of Kansas and for sure is a song that you are not going to hear very often on the radio. That is if you even listen to the radio at all. I suspect that my regular readers do not listen much to the radio. I try to make a point of listening to it now and then. But I really do not do it very much at all. I like discovering my own music or asking friends what they like to listen too.

Black Death 1349 - The Middle East

This is a band from Queensland, Australia and I really do like them. They just have a sound that I can just kind of sink my teeth into.

Open up and Bleed - Iggy and the Stooges

This is classic Iggy and the Stooges. So good. I really have to be in the right mood for me to fully enjoy this music. But when I am in the mood I just love it. I love that he had such a close friendship with David Bowie and that he has such an odd presence in popular culture.

The Magic Flute (Queen of the Night aria) - Niobeth

Here is a classical Mozart piece but done in metal style. Just sit back and feel your mind get blown at its power and majesty.

I know that most of you were just not mentally equipped enough to handle the power of that musical piece. Maybe the next one will be more to your liking but I doubt it. Because nobody rocks as hard as Big Lance!! NOBODY!!

Lightening Strikes twice - Iron Maiden

Yes, yes, yes. There is nothing better then Iron Maiden at their finest and while this isn't their finest it is still pretty good.

Holiday - Bee Gees

There we go. Lets end things on a nice mellow note with a classic Bee Gees song. These guys were so much more then the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. It is unfortunate that the popularity of that film and soundtrack kind of overshadowed the entire musical catalogue of this band.

I hope you enjoyed todays music.

Musical Wanderings

I was really not sure what I wanted to listen and to share with you today. So lets put the musical machine on random and see what pops up shall we...

But before we get to that, it is a grey morning and if I didn't know any better I would think it was Nov, the only difference is that it is to warm for that. I am hoping that it will burn off and while I do not like it super hot I do like it when there are some blue skies and some sunshine out there. So heres to hoping.

Laird Baird - Charlie Parker

Oh this is kind of nice. Opening things up with a little bit of jazz this morning and some jazz from one of the masters. I have grown to like jazz more and more in the last few years. I am not sure if that is a sign of maturity or if my tastes have just gotten better. Either way I am enjoying listening to some of the greats.

Queen Anne's Revenge - Flogging Molly

This is one of my favorite bands and they have been a part of some great memories for me. One of which is seeing them with the Maestro and Eric and I will always remember and hold on to that as one of my favorite musical memories in a long line of amazing musical memories. I miss you Eric.

Hold On To What You Believe - Mumford and Sons

Well things seem to have taken a somber turn, but that is okay with me because today seems kind of like a somber day all things considered. I do enjoy this song and this band a lot and I honestly do not care if they wear vests all of the time or are to hipster for some. I just plain enjoy the sound of their music and if I sound defensive about it then so be. If you don't like it then jog on. pfffffft

Let Me Put My Love Into You - AC/DC

I love it. Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face then when some classic AC/DC pops up. I have lots of them in the player but I rarely pick them to listen to. I am not sure why that is. Because whenever they pop up on random I am thrilled by it. The very first air band I was in was in grade school and we did an AC/DC song. "Back in Black" I believe was the song and we rocked it so hard. I remember cutting out a guitar outline or tracing it from a Sears catalogue so that I could have a cardboard cut out to play for the show.

Insert Supertramp song here that I was unable to find a video for. No big loss and we are just going to move on.

Hard As A Rock - ACDC

Oh my we are doublin down on the AC/DC this morning but sadly this song is no where near as cool as the earlier one. As the band as gotten older the voice of the lead singer has gotten worse and worse and it really was not all that good to begin with. Now the chugging guitar and the drums and the antic of Angus Young are still just fine. But the vocals are pretty rough. It might be time to pull a Judas Priest and bring on a new younger singer. Hmmmm I wonder if Justin Bieber would be interested?

Underground - Men At Work

Nice back to back from the Aussies. I really do like Men At Work and this is a nice treat for me to hear as well. I may need to do some more listening to them today. I also like that this is a deeper cut from the album.

That is it for now folks. You guys have a great day if possible and keep on rockin!