Life is Fun. Live it.
There are times when people make snide remarks to me like who do you think you are? There are others who think that my interest in certain topics is a reason to make fun of me. Some marvel at the range of things I do – ‘how do you find the time?’ they ask. It has been like that all my life and when I was younger, the unkind words hurt and wounded me. Even now, there are times when I realize that whatever it is inside of me that drives me, it often puts me counter to mass thinking, fashion or ideas. But sometime around 20 or so years ago, something clicked. It was this. It is my life. I have one shot. Whatever is going on around me,
Read More »Beware Activist Investor Groups
Many will not know that there are now groups of activist investors using your pension money as leverage to force companies to do things they think should be done. Things like ending meat consumption, ending fossil fuels, ending your ability to take plane flights for vacations and much more. These ‘well meaning’ billionaires who feel guilty about their environmentally unsound life styles hogging resources are using their wealth to force the rest of us to overcompensate whether we like it or not. Here there is no discussion of science or facts, just their opinions and wealth. To me, it is unconscionable behavior and ought to be outlawed. It won’t be though as the mega rich always get richer. So I believe they are doing this not from guilt and not
Read More »We Are All Idiots
Last week, I was defending humanity against those who seem to feel guilty about living and want everyone else to feel the same. This week, I’m wavering. You see, I always want to believe that humanity is a reflection of the above. That everyone here is here to learn and that they, being human, have the right to make mistakes. When it comes to Mother Earth, I do not see Her as a small furry kitten the neighbors abused needing my care but rather as a duality of good and (from our perspective anyway) bad. Like the two sides of the Moon, Mother Earth can give on one hand of Her bounty and yet strike you down the next with some affliction. As I said in a previous article, She
Read More »Time by Degrees
This morning, the mail lady passed me a large and stiff envelope. I knew immediately what it was and this was confirmed by the University of Strathclyde lettering. It was a replacement certificate for one I lost when I moved to Europe. I opened it with a slight thrill to be honest because that small oblong piece of paper was three years of my life. A different era. A different Universe. A different persona. The year was 1984 and I had spent virtually 6-months painstakingly creating a book. Hundreds of pages long, the book was hand typed and the top copy still has the white tippex blotches marking mistakes. Each diagram was hand drawn in ink and lettering stenciled on. Each photo was hand developed and printed by me
Read More »Success is Elusive?
There are people who do something once and bang…. they find fame, fortune and success of that type. There are others who work diligently yet never gain any recognition. I have often wondered what drives this? What is the secret to finding commercial success? Yes, I wouldn’t mind a bit of it as I approach my retirement years. Actually, I have a had a lot of career success but a couple of major failed relationships have left me with very little and so, from time to time, I wish one of my hobbies might take off a bit and provide me with more income. But what is success? I tend to think of success initially in materialistic terms. It made me money, gained me some fame or notoriety and so
Read More »Jammin’
My oldest son visited a week ago from Austin. We had a great time and it was so good to see him and see what a fine young man he is. Paul was always an amazing guitarist and so one night we got talking guitar. He ended up overlaying one of my songs with his guitar work – the result is out on Spotify today and all other music outlets. It’s a real rocker. It’s Out There is one of my favorite songs (of mine) and his guitar work just elevates it another level. Give it a listen… For good measure, I asked my daughter to add to the backing vocals too so its a family effort.
Read More »Social Media’s Mirror
One of Franz Bardon’s exercises is to spend a month writing down as many personal faults as you can think of and then a month writing down all of the positive traits you can think of. He calls this a mirror and it is known as Bardon’s Mirror. In fact, if you follow Bardon through, the next step is to assign an element to each fault and virtue (Fire, Earth, Water, Air) and see which element dominates and which is weak so you can work on addressing an elemental balance within yourself. It is actually a very hard thing to do. I have tried several times and never been truly happy with the results because plainly, I’m blind to my traits. I did ask a few close friends but despite
Read More »It’s My Life
One of my more popular songs is a rock anthem called It’s My Life. It was one of those songs that as a writer, it is in your head and drives you nuts. You play around on the guitar trying to actualize something in your head with increasing frustration because you can’t quite get there. And then -POW – you got it and in a few minutes of recording frenzy… its done….. and bugger it – I want this song played full volume at my funeral. A few days ago, a FB friend sent me a private message…. he basically said I was brave to tell it like it was. He agreed with me but if he said as much, he’d be in trouble and lose his job. The
Read More »Let Go!
The last time I visited Whitby Abbey I was a boy. I recall little of it. Just that I was bored. Of course, I have been to Whitby many times since, often with my father who had business there. He would leave me for an hour or so to wander and once I recall taking my oil paints to paint the harbor. I was last there just a few years ago with my parents, ex-partner and daughter. I do like Whitby! I must say that the abbey ruins are fairly impressive but I felt no atmosphere or energies. It seemed a dead ruin to me. A stark reminder of other times. As we pondered aspects of the Abbey in the context of the spiritual prompts of the weekend, my sense
Read More »Videos to Promote Music
So I also made some videos to promote my music…. again – limited success but also rather variable. Far Away Deni and I had a fun weekend making this with my iPhone – it was only at edit time we realized that we took it in the wrong mode so the image is small…. but we had fun… Just 46 views! Anatomy of Love Made to promote the new album – well at 33 views I’d say – fail… Crazy Wow – more than 100 views. Could they ALL be me? Fire 111 views so far – so who knows? Girl on the Phone Over 2000 views! A hit? I made several others and ten discovered the record company makes them too…. So now I don’t bother.. They
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