Making time or Marking time

Life has been so busy. I am finding it very difficult to make time for the people and things I love. I need to make time. Life is short and I don't want to be marking time until I am gone.

I think a lot of people are feeling this way. We schedule out our weeks and before you know it a year or two goes by and you were supposed to hang out with that friend from the club or church and its now been so long..... well its just awkward. They probably think you don't care. They probably might be upset with you. I know these thoughts.

Where did the time go?, where did the years go?, why didn't we get together? I think I had a good day. week, month, year, life. It can be so overwhelming marking time instead of making time. and really you cannot literally "make" time. Its the only commodity that levels EVERYONE. You cannot get more, you can only use what you get as best you can.

Simply spending time writing this blog is a choice. Notice I haven't written in months.
too busy to take the time. and yet.. when I do I feel better. I connect to my heart. My true self. I can analyze my life and choices in a format which is very conducive to this.

so.... at the end of this post or the end of it all, we have to take the time to do what we love and be with whom we love. Of course we have obligations. Of course we have to work. But don't mark time because really time has you marked already.

People are people

..,Having a
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that is what it looks like when you clean your keyboard while it is plugged in and working. anywho

meeting with a formerly famous musician who is Australian but originally born in Amsterdam was a very pleasant and eye opening experience. Really a shared human experience. Not between the famous and the uknown, but between two men over 40 seeking what it means to be where we are and who we are and what lies ahead.

I was struck by the amount of things we had in common. This guy from a world away and a lifetime away in terms of fame and fortune. We both are looking to change our kids world for the better. We both are seeking optimum health. We both love music. CRAZY love music (both huge XTC fans in fact). We both have been with our wifes for over 25 years. We both feel we don't really know too many people in our little big music town. We both worry about things we can't control. We both have spent a lot of time in Holland. And on and on the list goes.

Whatever your pre-conceived notions are about ANYONE. Better get to know them even for 5 minutes before you write the book about them. Or write them off. And pray that people do that before they write us off to.

People are people and though we are living stones being fitted together into a temple for God, and often some stones just should not be next to each other, we gotta give other people a chance.

My day was brightened by a simple hour of chatting with another great human being. Yes, I know all of his bands songs and even liked a lot of them, but I wasn't there to meet a music personality. I was there to meet a man who happens to have done well with his talent and who is looking at life the same way I am. One day at a time.

I hope we get together again soon.

Who cares?

We use this phrase as a rhetorical jab of self protection when someone thinks we should be indignant or bothered or concerned about some news they just decided to drop on us. Why do people do that? Why do I that?

Why am I so inclined to say things to people to see how they will react? what is it in me? Anyway, coming back to "who cares?"

Really, "who does care?" and what do they care about? What do you care about? Can I truly identify my own real matrix of important underlying guidelines which determine what I do and do not care about? It is not easy to examine your own heart. and this is a heart issue.

Not a in intellectual caring, but an emotional connection. Is it selfish to be so absorbed in our own survival that we really don't care about much around us? Is it just human nature? Are we better people the more we allow ourselves to care? is it good for our overall well being and health to care?

Parents know full well what it means to care about your children. This brings a real two edged sword. when you care enough you can get really hurt by life and choices. ouch. not sure I want that side of the coin. But that side is unavoidable if you really do care.

You invest your heart with no promise you won't be hurt there. There isn't a lot you can do about it. you could stop caring, but frankly there seems to be quite a lot of that around at the moment. Doesn't seem to be making it any more pleasant to make our way through this life.

Its easy to disconnect here in the western world. so comfortable, so tailor made fine tuned personal existences, packaged up and easily affordable. If you care to.

When the going gets tough

Supposedly the tough get going when the going gets tough.

I am coming to think this is easily more true when you are under 40 years of age. It gets harder and harder the more hits you take after 40 to muster up the energy, guts and guile to just push through the hard times in life. Its a bit like a lot of video games where your character takes more and more punishment in whatever form and loses "life force" or points or whatever until he or she can no longer continue the game and is snuffed out.

In the real world it plays out similarly. Fortunately in games you just start over or get another life.. ..... Hmmm another life? Maybe that is what I need. Another life. A life different from the stressful, filled with poor habits, grinding life I have been trying to lead to purchase the old American dream.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want the new American Dream - a.k.a. Infamy at any cost to personal integrity. I've ranted about that enough in prior posts (check out Dreamsicles on youtube for a filmed version of this perversion). Nor, do I want a different life by walking out on my beloved spouse and children or my friends and starting over as some are known to do in a "mid-life crisis".

No, I need THE life I was meant to live. Caring for my body with the best foods and exersize. Not abusing alcohol to just get by the blues. Doing something meaningful for the family, community and world. THAT is the other life I need. I need it pretty desperately right now.

I believe we seek to numb ourselves and just fight through the tough times, while God would choose to wake us up to our true deepest desires and even dissappointments. We have to be in touch with our heart to find the life we were meant to live.

So now that the going has gotten as tough as I have ever had it. I to want to get going. going to the life I need. Another life. A new life.

SunTRUST bank? Scumtrust is a better name

For all of us who have had our "friendly" local bank take liberties with excessive fees by posting the biggest charges first on a daily basis to ensure that they can charge fees on the most items should you happen to go over on a day, I have an even more egregious action to share.

So I lay in the hospital recovering from a stress induced significant infection due to the extreme challenges my film company has faced (much due to the formerly "all to willing to take your deposits" bank shutting down our credit facilities). I go to look at my PERSONAL bank account held at the same branch, and I notice over $2100 has been taken out of the account for what was noted as a Commercial Loan Payment. Huh? I didnt' authorize anything of this sort.

I called my one ally at the branch who is shocked to find out that the commercial bank department simply decided to take my money for a COMPANY loan payment which was not even 30 days late. Apparently because I was a member of said company. I was not given notice that this was even possible, let alone a courtesy notice that this was going to occur if it was legal. To make matters worse, this money was earmarked for some utility payments to keep the lights on at the house for my family while I lay in the hospital!!

Further, my soon to be former business partner (long story) in this venture was also a signer on this loan and was not debited a red cent. Hmmmmm.

I have screamed bloody murder at the bank who's business bankers will not even return my calls. This is after the film company had put well over $3 million dollars through that bank in 4 years. I am shocked and livid that this can happen with no notification and no recourse.

Small business folk beware. Banks lure you in with all kinds of promises, then they proceed to steal from you and apparently can get away with it.

Scumtrust bank - beware.

Wait baby wait

I love that Huffamoose song btw.

Life is not going as planned. In fact, life is going absolutely badly. So badly that, despite the fact that I have spent too many years looking over my shoulder hoping God didn't hate me for my willful ways, I was starting to feel He really did hate me. Stupid of course - his love is immeasurable as hard as that is to comprehend. Anyway, life sucked big time.

No income, late on the mortgages for the first time as an adult, creditors calling every 30 minutes and then sick as dog on top of it. Very sick. The kind where you can't get out of bed (and shouldn't) for a week or so.

As you lay there, world crashing down around you financially, and you know you HAVE to get up and try to find some income or work or anything to put out the fires, you finally have to give up. You aren't going anywhere. Period. Not going to happen.

So you do give up. Your body and mind shut down and you finally sleep and begin to heal. That is what happened to me. And during that time I very distinctly was feeling a sense of "wait....wait.....wait"

So, I finally come around this week on tuesday which is my birthday. I'm not a big birthday guy for my own anyway, so it was fine that it was just the day I finally was able to almost function like a human (no booze and no solid food - what a birthday!). I looked around like a guy who woke up on a battlefield, not knowing how he got there and who seemed to be the last one alive. Financial and emotional fires and craters everywhere.

I was tempted to be smarmy and sarcastic with God and say "hey thanks for keeping me under your boot heel while my world collapsed and I couldn't save it". EXACTLY. I could not save it. And had I tried I very likely would have missed out on an incredible turn of events.

You see, the other day as I sat there finally almost healthy, but completely dazed by my circumstances, I got a call that someone was going to invest in a start up I have been working on for months. Not millions, not hundreds of thousands. But enough for me to get focused and caught up and begin to run the race again.

from where I am sitting, I have to believe I would have blown this and missed it in my fear and haste to "Make something happen". I for one am glad I didn't.

And I lost 15 pounds so hey, its a win win.

The medium makes the music?

I was thinking about all the music I have devoured and loved over the course of the first 46 years on this planet. I got to remembering the old record stores, (like the one I worked at in Daytona Beach when I was 18) the CD big box stores and the advent of Napster. I really see a correlation (a complete generalization mind you) between the medium the music was delivered on and the status of the music industry and very essence of the music creation machine itself.

Go with me if you will. In the late sixties and seventies we had vinyl. Black and rich with large canvases for musical works and graphics. The large space and dark rich texture of that medium seem to be infused into the creations of the times. Warm and dark recordings made in small places with history and tradition and devotion to the muse. Abbey Road, Hitsville, the Record Plant and others. Dark and deep and full of sounds and wonder. Think about the music we love from that time regardless of genre and maybe you can see what I mean.

Then came 8tracks and cassettes. The first ever truly portable music. For the first time we would only listen to something until WE were done doing something ELSE at the same time - driving somewhere. For the first time we did not allow the records to dictate our time spent with them, but we controlled them and set them to a backseat. I believe this changed how music was conceived and created.

When the hard and shiny plastic of CDs became the medium we got hard shiny plastic music. Calculated by some bean counter in a high rise to extract the most dollars out of consumers. Hard and cold and digital. So often, with no soul and no connection just like the new heads of labels who were no longer really music fans and record men, but accountants and lawyers.

Then came the Internet age and now we have bits. Digital pieces scattered all over the world which represents the exact state of the industry. Scattered all over the place, stylistically, economically and while completely accessible, no longer a collective social experience. Millions of songs made by millions of people, mostly available online. Some are great expressions of art like back in the glory days of vinyl and some are calculated and cold like the CD era. It's up to you to discover them and make your own mind up.

I don't long for the past at all. In fact I have found and enjoyed more new music in the last 8 years than in the previous 20. Not as formative or classic, but then again I am not a teenager or even under 30. It's o.k. We are were we are and in a lot of ways it is back to the very earliest days of recorded music, with little known about the future of distribution or monetary compensation. It's all about the music again I hope.

Some day some way

As the annual reminder of my chronology on this planet approaches I am remembering mostly the last several of them. Not so much my times as a child or adolescent or even young adult, thought they were fun. Probably most especially since my celebrations were in the heart of the summer and involved pool parties and beach fun in Florida.

No, I am thinking about how many years in the recent past I declared I would accomplish a weight loss goal or measureable health improvement before the big day. Hasn't happened yet in my 40s and this year I am taking a different approach (not all of my own accord mind you). I am simply looking at this birthday as another day I get to do the right thing to take a small step in the right direction. Takes a lot of pressure off.

It has been said that "small things done consistently produce large results, and great things done inconsistently produce little results" or something like that.

Its so very true of our natural life in this flesh. You cannot lose 40 pounds in a week. you cannot plant a seed 2 days before harvest and expect to get anything. If you have a year to dig a pool and wait to start 4 days before the deadline hoping to do incredible things you will fail. Period.

So... I am seeking to live in that place of small things, done daily to improve my health, my mind and my emotions.

the madness in the music

My day is sometimes steered by the music I wake up with in my head. That happens a lot by the way. Maybe I'm a touch OCD (of course I am).

Anyway last week it was a strange Gordon Lightfoot morning which went from "Rainy Day People" through "If you could read my mind" and on and on ( he had a lot of songs which I could actually remember - probably my age). So my day was a very mellow northernly canadianish kind of day.
AND... I heard 2 of his songs on XM radio in the car that day! Coincidence?

What is it that you wake up with in your head and why? I remember one time I dreamed about the greatest song I had ever composed and my kids were all playing instruments with me. It was out of this world fantastic and cool and when I woke up I could not remember a single note!!! aaggghh why does that happen?

So I'm posing the question, does the music make your mood or your mood choose the music you sing in your head? or could it be both?

it only takes 1

after surviving the back 9 holes of a nice state park course yesterday in 90 degree weather and what felt like 100% humidity, I understand the need to hold on and try to finish strong. Its honestly so much more the mental game than the physical one and that is true of life I am finding.

I think it might be easier if you have accomplished something major earlier on. I mean, I totally believe in late bloomers and folks who may not have set the world on fire before age 50 still having as legitimate a shot as a 20 something, but....

I am seeing a pattern, at least in the media, and maybe that doesn't fit with real life, but the pattern is there. So many folks have had one success and they ride that thing for 10,20,40 years!!! One hit song, one hit show, one idea, one invention, one great or at least popular anything can be parlayed into a long term cash cow. Look at MC Hammer. My God the guy has new TV show and the only thing in the previews are one hit song from 30 years ago (WHICH WAS SOMEONE ELSES MUSIC NO LESS!!!!).

So do I want to be MC Hammer. God no. But I do take some small comfort in the fact that just one success have a very long tail.

I still believe

Did you ever hear that song by the Call? I remember when it came out how good it made me feel.

I was probably initially drawn to the lyric by the performance. I mean I love the passion with which Michael Been stated his belief and I did identify with the lyric primarily about standing for Christ when all others have faded.

But like all great art, the song began to transcend one level meaning and highlight and inform other areas of my heart and mind. And I came back to it today. I'm hearing it in my head as I type.

Why? I had a lunch today with someone of very great insight who looked me in the eye, when I had just gotten done renouncing myself and my talents (too old, not good enough etc.) and he said in essence "I still believe". He believes in me.

What that does to your soul cannot be overstated.

I left that table a renewed person. Find someone you know who needs to hear it and tell them
you still believe in them. Their callings, their gifts, their talent, their trustworthyness.

It will be good. Then sing the old Call song with me
" I'll march this road, I'll clime this hill
upon my knees if I have to
I'll take my place upon this stage"

yea.... believe

going down swinging

We've heard that metaphor before for business ventures and other ventures. In my case I like to take it a bit more literally.

Facing the collapse of a very heartbreaking business venture, I decided to go out and play golf for a couple of days and see how that feels. Not answering the partner calls, just out with friends trying to enjoy life for a couple of days to put the death struggle into perspective.

It certainly didn't bring a dime into the business (or my pocket), but I feel a little more relaxed and ready to face the brutal reality of running out of fuel for a business and all that entails. Not pretty or fun, which is why I guess I wanted to go down swinging.

The Inertia of bad decisions

Ok. We all make bad decisions. everyday. Its just that sometimes a bad decision maybe followed by another few can be costly for years and years. I'm not talking about something as heavy as a bad marriage necessarily. Could be an impulse purchase. Could be a choice of which way to drive home.

I've noticed something happens when you finally begin to accept you made a terrible decision.

Nothing.

What I'm saying is that there is a malaise and an indifference to getting off the couch that can set in when you begin to finally accept what a bad choice you made. You didn't HAVE to go into business with that person. You didn't HAVE to make that call or write that email. But, with or without consideration or counsel you did. And after the period of time (it could be years) when you have thrashed enough about trying to prove that you did NOT make a mistake, you give up a bit, for a while.

and that is so often when you find it difficult to move forward. The inability to push out of the rut. I suppose it could rightly be linked to depression, but even when you aren't clinically depressed, you feel stuck.

so you read the sports sites or gossip sites a lot longer than you need to. you play solitaire. it becomes like worry beads for you, except you really have checked your mind out also.

This is not good. you need to get up and go - just more carefully mabye. Maybe the slowdown is your mind's way of saying "hey, last time I let you do something, you screwed up!".

I don't know. I know I wrote this blog today so I could avoid working to solve my other problems, just for a little bit.

Frenemies

Its very weird when people who you have eaten with, drank with and suffered with on great victories for years suddenly turn on you. Divergent needs and perceptions can lead to such heartache and angst. It is like a bad diagnosis. You react with denial, anger, sadness and on and on. What a waste of energy!

These are people you laughed and cried with, and promised to take care of each others kids if anything happened.

Where is blame? "Didn't you promise to such and such?" "you agreed you wouldn't .....!"

Its one of those days where the human relationships seem not to be worth it. Give me a dog or cat today. They may be demanding, but not demeaning.

Help me understand, why this happens.

wisdom is proven by her children

sometimes you make a decision which you didn't want to have to make, but you finally were uncomfortable enough with the status quo to actually do something about it. Then you worry and fret and even whine to your friends and spouse and others that maybe this is a mistake. The pain you have come to accept is a comforting blanket which keeps you from having to deal with your destiny and what it will really take to get there.

So you start to bargain in your mind and then you feel foolish about that but you really can't see how such a drastic decision could be right. Maybe its not fair to the other parties it will affect? Maybe it will bring terrrible consequences? What if, what if, what if????

Then the very reason you had to finally make that decision does you a truly good favor and rears its foolish head in ways you probably didn't even consider when you made the decision to move on, or move forward or change things. Then wisdom prevails and you realize that yes, you did a wise thing by making the hard decision, because that person, place or thing which has caused so much harm will finally be out of your life and you will have the scars to help you remember and not make that same mistake again.

its extremely hard to trade the current, now comfortable pain for God knows what is coming. But once you start the process you will feel better. Trust me.

You give God a bad name

I was in the shower humming the ole Bon Jovi "classic" - ' you give love a bad name', when I was thinking about a particularly galling person who tends to invoke his relationship with God when it seems convenient or advantageous. I ended up singing, "You give GOD a bad name" which was very fun and funny to sing as I thought about this person who I really have a hard time taking seriously.

What wasn't funny, was when I was pretty convicted that I could so easily sing that about myself and my life. OUCH!

is 46 the new 33?

I feel so young still. I listen to louder and cooler music than any of my peers (Cactus's, Minus the Bear, Coheed and Cambria, Wilco etc. etc.) and still feel completely viable. I am so much wiser than I was when I was younger. Like Tullula Bankhead said she would not do anything different if she had to do it over, she would simply hope to make the mistakes sooner, I feel the same.
You learn so much from mistakes that you cannot from successes.

Anyway, I may not look 33, but I feel it, vital, potent and with a lot to share with the world still.

so from my perspective on the back nine of life... I feel like 46 is the new 33

When your off course late in the game

A funny thing happened to me this morning on my drive to play some golf with friends. Instead of just blasting tunes or talk radio, I decided to meditate quietly in the car in the early morning on this holiday. I was praying about how off course I was feeling in a couple of my latest business ventures when I glanced down at the GPS in the car and saw that my vehicle appeared several hundred feet off the the road I was actually on. It caught my attention because I am a pretty consistently OCD about the GPS tracker.

As I was glancing at this the system just suddenly self corrected and the icon representing my car was perfectly on track. Almost instantly I found myself realizing that with God, this can happen in our lives. We can be way off course and without actually having to do anything, but fix your will to hear and follow God your life path can be instantly reset and on course.

God doesn't have a plan A then B then C. All plans A to Z are in play at all times depending on where he wants to move you. I was greatly encouraged to realize its all going to be ok.