“You’ve hurt my feelings.”


Arguing with people on-line, those whom you know are looking to stir the mud, is no different than trying to play chess with a pidgeon. They will dance around the board, knock over the pieces and crap on the board, not caring about how to play but feeling that, regardless, they have won.

1. Plan for your children. Love them.


When I was an explorer, new on the planet earth, I wanted to know everything. I was like a cat with a shiny bead.
I couldn’t stay out of things.
I took everything apart, even before I knew what a screwdriver was.
I never had an exit or follow up plan.
Most things, usually my toys, were taken apart, then lived in pieces under my bed, never to live in sunlight again.
My tool kit was comprised of anything I could remove a screw with.
Nail clippers.
Tweezers.
Butter knife.
Steak knife with a cloth to protect my fingers.
Yeah, not elaborate at all.
I always wanted to see the parts that made a thing work.
Preferably as they were inside of the thing, but I was aware that was not possible.
So, take it apart.

Here’s the back story.

2. Honor your children. Uplift them.


My father used to take me to bars and get the owner to let me in, never drinking alcohol. But we would sit with his friends, The Blue Line was one of these places in Seattle, no longer standing at 2nd Ave. and Denny Way, and as we were sitting, laughing and joking, I was the butt of his jokes. Hurtful jokes. He would make fun of me, my clothes, my haircut, bring up any music I liked, just a terrible experience, but he would do this again and again and I never stood up for myself. He stomped on anything that represented me in any way. I just couldn’t be mean back to him.

Cut your losses, quickly. A very short read.


If there is an issue with you and another person who is important to you and it appears that it will never get better, move on.

If it appears that they will never know what they mean to you or that they just don’t care or want to bother with it, dump it and get busy putting your energy into something more constructive and beneficial for all.

Don’t waste away in denial like I have been doing for 40 years.

There is something better you could be putting your energy into.

If do not dump it and move on, you are carrying a sign that says, “Sure, you can damage me and I won’t stop you.”

It isn’t easy to let go, certainly if you care about that person, but nurturing them in order to allow them to damage you just isn’t what healthy relationships are made of.

God? You actually know Him? I gotta hear this. Continue…..


When I was a kid, I wanted to know, “Where did I come from? Where did all of this stuff come from?” Science and astronomy immediately revealed that they would be where I would most likely find an answer to this question. They did provide an answer, eventually.

Are those prescription lenses or have you tinted them yourself?


When you look around at other people, whether it be on the internet, at the train station, in your home with friends, at the grocery store, at the gun shop, the voting place, actually anywhere one or more people congregate, there are people wearing glasses. Even if they are not physical glasses or contact lenses, people look through a tint they prefer. For everyone, whether they know it or agree, that tinted lens is the way they interpret other people’s ideas and attitudes. The philosophical, spiritual, sociological, democratic, republican, liberal, conservative, depressed, enlightened, non-thinking, arrogant, accepting lens they prefer to see everything through, every minute of every day they breathe air. Every minute, every second.

I wish you were here. Honestly, I would like nothing more.


There are moments in our lives when we know that there is someone in our lives with whom we could be so much closer to, in heart, in spirit, in love, but more than anything, in life, but we are limited by their choice to be distant. There are times when we just want to tell them, “This is not about who is right or wrong, it’s about dropping your wall and not only letting someone in, but also about you reaching out.” All of it. Of course, we all need space, but there are times when we can not bear to be alone.

With whom do you share your “Safe Zone?”


What you do in private, eventually effects others publicly. It may happen in ten minutes because you wanted it to, or it may take 50 years because you have hidden it. It may go to the grave with you, but it will affect others, now or later. It is inevitable. What you do now will affect others later. Say it to yourself. “What I do now will affect others later.”

Why keep notes on baggage you no longer carry?


Baggage is a part of life. Emotional, political, marital, familial, all forms. That which you store in a closet is not always physical. As a matter of fact the baggage you can’t see, that is being stored, stacks up and becomes stagnant much more readily than what you just got home from Wisconsin with. Much more readily and will, most likely, be a much bigger pile and need a huge closet.

The fabric of ‘family.’ Mend the rips and tears. The price you pay later will be costly.


Just letting go of family members because they refuse to give me answers seems quite counter productive. I know that we all have ‘skeletons in our closets,’ and with what I am doing with my attempt to get answers to my questions, undoubtedly, I am rattling those ‘skeletons,’

How to be homeless. Part 3. What you can learn if you pay attention.


The only good that can come from negativity is that it can inspire people to produce writings, art, emotions that expose it’s non ability to do any good for any reason other than to inspire change for good. If you use negativity to create good or knowledge from, you have defeated it. Using negativity to destroy negativity is the only good thing that can come from it. Don’t allow it to breed.

Toxic is toxic, regardless of the packaging.


Over the years, I have learned something many do not understand.
If you are sitting somewhere with someone who is a friend of any measure and you hear them say “I really need to rid my life of the selfish people I continually support,” and your first thought is, or even worse, you actually ask, “Am I one of those people?” Yes, you are one of those people. You are a selfish person. There is no way around it. You instantly thought of yourself before asking if there was a way you could help. I know a lot of people in the former state.

It’s only a piece of paper? No…..it isn’t ‘just paper.’


Many times I have heard, “Why do I need a piece of paper to show that I’m married?” I’m sorry, but that just sounds pathetically selfish. Being married means you consider your mate more important than yourself. If you don’t, then marriage is not for you and will be a complete failure for you if you enter into it. You must consider your spouse as important as you consider yourself. In my opinion, more important. I do mine.

Advice…..a buck four ninety per pound.


Over the years of coming up, growing up, determining what I wanted to do in life, I have looked around and tried to be somewhat like the best part of people whom I see. You know, that part of people whom help others in some way, that part that makes you think, “I wish I were like that.” The truth is that I love to help others. Today that isn’t as acceptable as it used to be. Now people won’t accept help unless they are offered a price to pay or the government gives it to them somehow. Help from an average person without cost or ‘strings’ attached? No thanks. They tell you to stay out of their business.

What do you want to come back as?


I don’t know about what you or anyone else believes, but I believe it’s over when it’s over. I’ll go where I go, others will be glad I’m gone, others will miss me, but it’s over when it’s over from this chair. I suppose those who ask such a question are rather dissatisfied with what they are or what has gotten them to the stool next to me while they ask me, “What do you want to come back as?” I’m not sure.

Don’t let time steal your promises.


Listen to me. If you have issues with your family that you can’t seem to resolve, let them go. They are in the past. If you can’t make peace, then you may have held on to the battlements for too long and there in no way back over them to your camp. You are stuck where you don’t want to be and the only resolution will be when someone passes on. That is no way to see a resolution. That is a game that was lost by both parties. Don’t let that happen. Smile and wave, move on, but don’t walk away.

Who really loses in the end?


If you have a friend, and you consider that friend a good enough friend that you follow what they do and hope to do things with them, don’t pressure them. If they are your friend, you don’t need to question that friendship. You just need to be a friend. If you are my friend, do what you like to do. Don’t worry about what I think of what you do. Hell, I’m your friend.

Just the facts.


“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” Regardless of how much I want to get a resolution to this, I have to refuse to go further with this cause. Some questions don’t get answered, some questions don’t need to be answered. Some questions never are heard. Either way, it is no longer important to me.

Auditions. Always use your own gear. Always.


In my life, I have played many auditions where I didn’t get the gig because I couldn’t adjust the throne to make the kit accessible. Many where the bass pedal was on its last audition. Kits that had heads on them and the screws that go into the lugs holding the heads had bottomed out in the lugs and the skins were still too loose. Cymbals that were cracked and had small holes drilled in the end of the crack to keep them from spreading.

“Good Times, Bad Times.” Nothing else to ask for.


My interest in music has always been a bit weird. I’m not fond of noisy music, but extremely fusion oriented music catches my attention. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, John McLaughlin, two artists that immediately come to my mind. Weird stuff like Aorta, King Crimson, Vanilla Fudge also were in the mix. I have never been fond of ‘girlfriend’ songs. I just don’t see a reason to whine about a failed relationship in a tune one writes. Maybe years down the road after you’ve become “The Next Big Thing,” but in the beginning, it seems to me, addressing issues that many identify with aside from their personal and private life and activities is the wise move.

Finally, it’s over.


This is my final entry concerning family issues. This is the end of my whining, it is also the last of my baggage. It has taken a full year and 12 days to sort this out. There’s just no more. Man, I am so thankful. I will relate that I know I have become a better person through writing these accounts without fear of retribution from anyone. If there is anyone who has a beef with me over these accounts, or otherwise, grow a pair and approach me. I am more willing to listen than you probably are to talk.

Breaking lifelong cycles that lead to failure.


Don’t accept what others have set up for you, or follow what you “feel is right,” without questioning everything. If people you look up to are failures in some part of their lives, following their lead will give you the results they accepted. Do better. Think for yourself. Realize what is right and leave the failing recipe behind. Do not allow destructive people or patterns to be a part of your life, regardless of your feelings. Ever.

My Musical Virus.


I think I was barely four years old when I discovered a machine. I could put thin black discs that had a hole in the center on a platform that spun. You could touch it and interrupt its function. There was a black arm, with a small sharp pin at the end, that could reach the black disc. There was a switch that you could push which started everything moving. Move the black arm to the black disc and set it down. A wondrous and beautiful sound came from this thing.

Hitting The Streets. Nearly 3,000 miles worth.


Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 This account of my life is in no way intended to insult, berate or denigrate anyone at all. It is an attempt by me to tell a story, to possibly resolve issues in my own life and lend a bit of inspiration to others who may have similar issues…

Finding The Ladder.


First of all, this story is not intended to denigrate or berate anyone, least of all, any of my family members. It is also not intended to elicit any sympathy for what I have been through. It is a way for me to, figuratively, put on paper an intention to understand the mechanisms in my…

The Little Boy Who Could.


A lot of things have happened through my life that will never see the surface of a piece of paper, things that certainly will never fall on another person’s ear. Things that are in no way constructive to anyone in any way. I will never reveal those events. Things that I will carry to the grave. Many things that were painful to endure and many that just do not need to be told. Some of the people who were involved in those activities no longer walk this earth, some do. Those whom still walk this earth will never witness an attempt by me to connect with them. They have left their mark and need to fade into the darkness.