Soft Dream

 All I've ever really wanted is to be drinkin' that free Bubble Up and eatin' that rainbow stew.

Compared to Taylor Swift............................

I'm not doing so good.

Her net worth is estimated to be $1.1 billion. Mine is significantly less than that.

When she puts an album out, the buzz surrounding it dwarfs the reaction to any other world event, including William Shatner's 91st birthday.

When I sing, people spit at me.

Taylor Swift owns a Mercedes Maybach, an Audi R8, a Porsche 911 Turbo, a Ferrari 458 Italia, and about seven other cars.

I drive a 2020 Hyundai Elantra. Silver. It has 40,000 miles on it, and I have two or three more years of payments to go. A tree fell on it a couple of winters ago and it has been sad ever since.

Taylor Swift owns eight multimillion dollar homes in four states. I own one home in one state. I paid $165,000 for it. It's probably worth $140,000. But I do own it. No mortgage. So there's that. No fucking bank threatening me with execution if the mortgage falls behind.

Taylor Swift is 34 years old. I am 70. I'll be dead long before she is, and I will have tasted a lot less of life.

So I'm not doing so good compared to her.

BUT

I am doing measurably better compared to Previous Me.

Prevous Me was one sad dude. Unfulfilled, and unable to hide it (except in public, at work, with the family, with friends, with strangers, in restaurants, in bars - come to think of it, in every fucking situation except for being alone). I get props for being a world-class actor, but no $ to go along with that talent.

Lately I am buoyant. Got some pep in my step. And why not?

The universe has bestowed me with extraordinary gifts and my load has been lightened. I smile a lot, I laugh freely (instead of laughing the guilty laugh of the pretender).

One last frontier to cross.

Freedom. Still not retired. Still can't retire.

I have never committed myself to anything, so I became a red rubber ball bouncing from one thing to another, no rhyme, no reason. Because I think life as it is typically lived is a joke. Still do.

However the joke's on me. Life bites you if you don't bite it. Whaddya gonna do?

I start yet another menial job this weekend. Not because I have to, but because I am a lost soul, and because I feel I need to pad our bank account to protect us from the Evil Fuck who owns the property our house sits on. A Scumbag who raises HOA fees whenever the hell he feels like it, according to long term residents here.

I need peace of mind. I need to feel safe and secure. I am 70 fucking years old, for Christ sake.

So I'll do my part. Stay ahead of the greedy, heartless motherfucker financially, until a disgruntled renter chops his head off with a machete and displays it on a spike.

I know I am on the right track, though. I know I am, because I am making better decisions. I have Kit Kat mini frozen dairy dessert bars in the freezer, and Hostess Cupcakes in the cupboard. Do you really need more evidence than that?

It's a beautiful day. I don't have to work.

Think I'll enjoy myself.

Sunday

When I was a kid Sunday was a real thing.

Sunday had legs, it was its own day, it looked, felt, and sounded different than its six brothers. Many businesses were closed, banks were closed, there was no internet, no cell phones. Many people actually had weekends off.

On Saturday you would run around and take care of errands, all the annoying little things you needed to get done, to have, so you can live your life. Maybe go out on Friday night, Saturday night, lay your burdens down and pick your whiskey up. Get a little crazy.

On Sunday people chilled. You could really unplug from life because life was shut down to an appreciable extent.

You could feel it. It was a tangible exhalation of breath. Privacy. Peace. Rest. Quiet

Sunday dinner was a thing. Sunday dinner was a must in my house, quite ritualistic and I miss it, although I did not appreciate it at the time.  People visited, or they stayed home and read the paper with their feet up.

Then the world went 24/7 - everything, always, all the time. A lot less people have weekends off now, and it kind of doesn't really matter because the concept of a "weekend off" no longer exists. You gotta be on all the time.

There is no escape from life. People do not think of Sundays in the same way at all.

But I do. I still get a sense of peace on Sundays. It's in my head, but I still enjoy it. I feel like nothing can touch me on Sunday, I feel safe. I feel authorized to goof off. I love long, lazy Sundays.

I feel good today.

Dickey Betts

From your perspective, I'm sure my reaction will be way over the top.

If that is true, it tells me you have never had a band that played music that fed your soul, healed your broken heart, and made you forget about that fucking job you hate so much. A band that you could not live without. COULD NOT.

Dickey Betts died yesterday. He was 80 years old. He was one of six founding fathers of The Allman Brothers Band. Duane Allman, Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, Jaimoe (aka Jai Johanny Johanson, aka John Lee Johnson), Berry Oakley, and Dickey Betts.

Jaimoe is the only surviving member of the Original Six.

Dickey Betts and Duane Allman "pioneered a melodic twin guitar harmony and counterpoint which rewrote the rules for how two rock guitarists can work together, completely scrapping the traditional rhythm/lead roles to stand toe to toe."

Their playing was so unique and so exquisite it blew your mind.

Dickey was the personification of rock 'n roll. Even though he was a founding father, he was kicked out of the band in 2000 over a conflict regarding his continued alcohol and drug abuse. How fucking bad do you have to be for The Allman Brothers to kick you out of the band? Trust me, this was not a group of altar boys.

After 2000 Dickey never played with them again, nor did he appear with other former band members for reunions or side projects. What a fucking shame. What a loss for the music world.

Dickey wrote "Jessica", "Blue Sky", and "Rambling Man" among many other songs. Listen to those three songs. They alone will justify you laying flowers on his grave. They are beautiful.

I loved the way he played. Smooth. And I always said he danced when he played. Check out some videos. The way he moved when he was soloing it was like he was dancing with his guitar.

Dickey had a lot of rough edges. Getting himself kicked out of the band was a crime, although I'm not sure the judge and jury were exactly clear-eyed. But we all fuck up.

Ever the rebel, I saw him play solo in what was essentially a supper club many years ago. The kind of place where smoking was not allowed and rowdiness was frowned upon. At a time when musicans would take the stage with bottles of water.

His band took the stage, then Dickey walked out - with a cigarette between his lips, he sat a Budweiser on his amp, and went to town.     I          loved              it.

I don't like where I am in life.

On one hand, I do. I am 70, I am healthy, I got a new life, a grandson, my sons are healthy and happy and so are their women.

On the other hand, the people who inspired me when I was young are all dying. It breaks my heart. It forces me to face reality when I would much rather be dreaming.

Requiescat in pace, Dickey Betts.

You made my life so much better, so much more enjoyable, so much more bearable.

Thank you for that.

Love you, man.

I Am Older Now.....................

 "I am older now, I have more than what I wanted, but I wish that I had started long before I did.

And there's so much time to make up everywhere you turn, time we have wasted on the way, so much water moving underneath the bridge, let the water come and carry us away.

Look round you now, you must go for what you wanted, look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved.

So much love to make up everywhere you turn, love we have wasted on the way, so much water moving underneath the bridge, let the water come and carry us away."

From Wasted on the Way, by Graham Nash

Electric jolts of life, of change - have been rocking me for 6 and 1/2 months now. This is good. I could not avoid change if I wanted to. It's been like trying to take a nap in the back yard on a hot August day, while the neighbor intermittingly plays Black Sabbath, breaks for lunch, then Metallica, runs to the store, then Foo Fighters, studies the bible, then Led Zeppelin.

For Christ sake, my complacency has been shattered......................and circumstance is resurrecting my soul.

It has been relentless and consistent. Including cycle of life stuff - the birth of my grandson, the death of my cousin. It doesn't get any more real than that.

Prodding and pushing me while I try to make up for this and to atone for that. Redirecting me from the senseless road I have been on for decades, onto the road, my road, a road to deliver my soul to a peaceful place. The road that was laid out for me at birth, which I quickly veered off of like a drunk driver asleep at the wheel.

I feel very good. I embrace change enthusiastically because I have hungered for it over a lifetime. 

All I need now is enough time to make up for wasted time.

What Are Their Names

Monday night, late, I was watching and listening to a David Crosby and Graham Nash concert from 2011 recorded in Connecticut. Had a glass of whiskey by my hand, it was after midnight, I was sitting in the dark. That's how you do it right.

When I listen to Crosby and Nash I am tapped into a direct pipeline to God. They harmonize exquisitely, and the lyrics slap you in the face. You could call them throwbacks to hippy times but they are not throwbacks - the lyrics are even more meaningful today in this fucked up, cold-hearted, backwards, hate-filled world.

David Crosby died on January 18, 2023 and I cried.

Dig the lyrics to the song What Are Their Names:

"I wonder who they are, the men who really run this land, and I wonder why they run it with such a thoughtless hand, what are their names and on what streets do they live? I'd like to ride right over this afternoon and give them a piece of my mind about peace for mankind, peace is not an awful lot to ask."

I want to drive to D.C. and punch every politician I run into in the face. republicans AND democrats. These fucking corrupt, brainless, cold-hearted money puppets who care more about their wallets and power than they do about the lives of the people they supposedly "represent."

They are supposed to protect us and improve the quality of our lives. Instead they steal from us and destroy the quality of our lives.

Thank god we have music like that of David Crosby and Graham Nash to soothe our souls, even temporarily, from the evils of those we ironically call "leaders."

Between Heaven and Hell

 "Somewhere between Heaven and Hell a soul knows where it's been, I want to feel my spirit lifted up and catch my breath again."

From Lay Me Down, by James Raymond.

James Raymond is David Crosby's son. Crosby gave him up for adoption in 1962 - Crosby was 21 at the time. Raymond was adopted by the Raymond family as a newborn and had a happy childhood. He had no idea who his birth father was. Interestingly enough, Raymond ended up pursuing a career in music. 

He started looking for his birth father when he was in his late 20's, saw the name David Crosby on his birth certificate but did not think it was the David Crosby.

They finally met in 1994 and ultimately ended up playing, writing, and recording music together. They even started a band with Jeff Pevar called Crosby, Pevar, and Raymond - CPR.

Is that not an amazing story?

Anyway, I love the lyric because to me it implies hope - if you are between Heaven and Hell it means you have not reached the destination yet. Your soul knows where it's been. The good and the bad. There is still time to change your ultimate fate.

March 22, 2024

A spectacular day. My grandson was born.

Jackson Joseph Testa.

Why have I waited so long to talk about it? Because of how fucked up the world is today. As if going public with this magic was the wrong thing to do.

I can no longer keep this love and pride to myself.

He is a miracle. He is beautiful, precious, a unique and brand new human being who is relying on his parents to protect and inspire and teach him until he is capable of living his own life.

He's got the right parents. My son Craig, my daughter-in-law Amanda. Two loving and sensitive people. Two intelligent human beings with fine-tuned senses of humor. Two people who are tough enough to handle the world and tough enough to handle taking care of a precious new life.

He is 4 and 1/2 weeks old. I am 70 years old. This gives me a new and unexpected perspective.

Life is very different now. My life has been rocked and rejuvenated by Jackson's life.

When I hold him in my arms my heart overflows with the purest of love and my soul soars. I feel so alive.

I reflect on what I have done with my life and wonder what Jackson will do with his. What will his personality be like, what will he be into, will he be an athlete or a musician or both? Will he be an academic or a race car driver? What will his sense of humor be like? Will he regard me with respect and appreciation? Will he have the guts to be honest with me about who I am, what I say, what I do? Call me out on my bullshit? I believe we will have an honest and open and natural relationship.

Here is what I think. First of all I think he will have a great sense of humor, because Craig and Amanda are naturally funny - it's in his DNA. I think he will be smart. I think he will be his own man. I think he will be interesting, never, ever boring. I think he will take charge of his life and do what he wants with it. He doesn't have to be a famous athlete or a successful musician or any other fantasy you can name - but he will live his own life, and that is the ultimate success for any human.

I think he will make people around him happy. I think people will want to be around him.

I think he will love me, but not as much as I love him. That's the way it works. He needs 70 years under his belt to feel love for me the way I feel it for him. That's ok. That's natural. His love will continue to make my soul soar forever.

Welcome to the world, Jackson. Welcome to your parents, you are lucky to have them.

I love you with all the love I have in me. A love that is ferocious and real and honest and intense, amplified through 70 years of life.

I love you Jackson.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

May you never doubt that.

Being 70

 "I didn't want to leave. I wanted to be decades younger. I wanted to be everything except what I was. Unfortunately, at a certain age, wanting something you can't be or wanting what you can't have can become a way of life."

From The New Iberia Blues, by James Lee Burke

No Way To Think

My cousin Mary Ann died over the weekend.

I believe she was 81. Carol and I hadn't seen her in decades, but we reconnected a few years ago and it was so nice. We enjoyed dinner at her condo a few times, had great conversations. We emailed each other, shared phone calls. Carol had a great and extended conversation with her just last week.

Her death was unexpected.

Since we moved to the new house I was not in as regular contact with her as I had been previously. I was distracted. Kept telling myself "I should email Mary Ann." I didn't. Then she died.

I feel deep regret.

My friend Nelson died last year. Very unexpectedly. I went to high school with him. Over the years I only saw him sporadically. Always through my brother Ed, who had a closer relationship with Nelson. But when I was with Nelson.............I laughed. I was never bored. When he died I deeply regretted not actively pursuing our friendship.

Carol has a cool aunt named Paula. The love of Paula's life was Bill. Bill was peculiar in a good way. He took conversations down twisted paths. He was fun and unique and never boring. He was sick a few years back. He called us, had a conversation with Carol, but I never picked up the phone. He died shortly thereafter. I deeply regret not talking to him one last time.

That is just three people. I am sad to say that many more of my family members have died, and some friends. I can feel sadly regretful about each one of those deaths. It's not hard to do.

That's no way to think.

The last few years with Mary Ann were magnificent. Great, peaceful gatherings. Honest, emotional, meaningful. Nelson and Bill were gifts - two men who were powerfully unique, who kept me off balance and made me smile as they did it.

There is no room in life for regret.

There is a great deal of room for gratitude.

Buddy Guy - Aura

Saw Buddy Guy Friday night.

Buddy Guy is God. King of Wild & Crazy Blues. Buddy Guy is 87 years old.

His opener was Bobby Rush. Bobby is 90 years old. He's lost a step or two, but he still brings it. A little more energy than Buddy. But seeing them together on the same stage was mind-blowing. You wanna talk about history? Blues history? It was all right there, baby.

Towards the end of the concert Buddy brought his son on stage - Greg Guy - also an accomplished blues guitar player (surprisingly enough). It was fitting to see father and son on stage together doing what they do; it was emotional considering the fact that Buddy is giving up touring after this tour.

I have seen Buddy a few times over the years and he was always larger than life. Whipping his guitar into a frenzy that broke strings and showed up other guitar players. Wailing and flying, playing the blues like rock 'n roll. Loud and fast.

Of course he played slow blues beautifully too - rip your heart out.

Powerful voice, powerful presence.

Last night he walked around the stage like Joe Biden. Buddy was sick last year - this concert was scheduled for 2023 but was re-scheduled because he was sick. He's lost a lot of weight. Lost some energy. He handed off most of the guitar solos to his guitar player. He talked a lot. But he still brought it in his own unique way.

Hard to watch from a health or aging perspective but......................he is still Buddy fucking Guy.

Because he has an aura. 

When you age you gotta have an aura or you will just disappear. Your body is gonna break down, your mind is gonna slow down, you will project a sense of frailty - there will be a sign around your neck that says "I am vulnerable." It fucking sucks but it's inevitable.

Aura is your weapon and your shield.

Your personality, your achievements, the way you lived your life - whatever it is about you that makes you you - that's got to be front and center as your body betrays you.

Or you will be overlooked, as if you are already dead.

It broke my heart to see Buddy looking vulnerable. But do you think, if I got a chance to talk to him that night, I would have said "Buddy I'm so sorry to see you this way, to see you handing off guitar solos to someone else, shuffling around the stage uncertainly?"

Fuck no.

I would have said "Buddy, I love you man. Thanks for a great show and a great career."

Because he has an aura.

He is Buddy fucking Guy.

Words Most Cannot Speak

 Dialogue from the movie Blackthorn:

Eduardo: "You'd be rich now, instead of being here with me."

Butch Cassidy: "Rich? I've been my own man. There's nothing richer than that."

If.............

 If the intricate neural pathways of your brain were interwoven with delicate, pure gold strands of insanity, would you even know it?

Or would you assume that everyone you meet thinks like you?

John Cazale

Played Fredo Corleone in The Godfather and The Godfather Part Two.

He also acted in Dog Day Afternoon, The Conversation, and The Deerhunter.

Five blockbuster films in seven years. All five were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture - Godfather, Godfather Two, and The Deerhunter won the award.

That impressive run began for Cazale in 1972 with The Godfather and ended in 1978 with The Deerhunter.

That is amazing stuff. The sad part comes in a diagnosis of lung cancer in 1977 while Cazale was working on The Deer Hunter. The diagnosis was terminal - Cazale chose to keep working on the film. He died on March 13, 1978 at the age of 42. The Deer Hunter was released on February 23, 1979.

I am not 100% sure what fascinates me about John Cazale's life but it blows me away on an emotional level. He was revered in the acting community - close friend to Al Pacino, romantic partner of Meryl Streep, lauded on Broadway where he got his start.

I could go where I always go - "Look at this man's extraordinary life; amazingly successful and tragically short. Compare it to mine and yours - tragically long, marginally successful, as long as you consider survival a success."

Can't do that though. John Cazale's life was extraordinary. One in a million. He was talented and loved. And his life was disappointingly short, which puts an exclamation point on "you never know."

Comparison's are disingenuous.

The rest of us should get comfortable with Jim Valvano's guidelines for a good life:

 "To me, there are three things we all should do every day.......................Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think, you should spend some time in thought. And number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears. Could be happiness or joy, but think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."

When you're young, shoot for the moon.

If the moon proves to be beyond your reach, and, especially as you get older, you are wise to take comfort in laughing, thinking, and crying.

Choices

 "Morality is doing what's right regardless of what you're told. Obedience is doing what your told regardless of what's right."

H. L. Mencken

200 Years After

Doing a little light reading this morning.

A sentence read: "We are still talking about him 200 years after he died."

That hit me strangely for some reason.

When I die I will be in the memories of lots of people. For a while.

Some will think "I loved Joe. My heart is broken."

Some will think: "Joe was a good friend. We had some laughs. I miss him already."

Some will think: "I am so glad that son of a bitch is dead. It's about time. He contributed nothing to this world, and was a complete waste of space and any time I was forced to spend with him."

But in 200 years? There will be absolutely no footprint. It will be as if I never existed. How strange is that? No one will know anything about me, no one will be looking me up, I will not be in anyone's thoughts or memories.

Unless Jackson comes through. I'm giving him a minimum of 100 years. So theoretically I could exist until 2124. Probably longer. In Jackson's world he will probably live for 150 years. So maybe I make it to 2174. And if he has kids............................, but I'm not sure about the impact of that. I would be their great-grandfather. I have no clue who my great-grandfather was.

I hope Jackson keeps things rolling for 500 years. But even if he does, at some point I will disappear. I will just fucking disappear like a puff of smoke.

When you die you are gone. That in itself is so strange. We have all lost loved ones. One day they are here, the next day they are gone and you will never see them again. Just like that.

Memories persist. For a while. But they become smoky, then a footnote, and ultimately not even that.

It's tough enough to think about me being dead. But recognizing that all traces of my life will eventually disappear, leaving absolutely nothing where I once was, kind of bothers me.

Maybe that's why serial killers do their thing.

Marc Maron - Quotable Quotes

"No matter how open my mind is, or what I let into it, I still land in a familiar place..................I mean, I can learn new things and integrate new ideas and enjoy new things but that doesn't mean I return to them. They have some effect, they inform my ongoing intellectual narrative, but it's sort of amazing what's dug in, wired.........................I know there's a whole world out there and I do take it in. Despite that I somehow land back in myself."

Marc Maron is my twin.

"I've always been aware of most of the similarities but there's poetry to the expressions of a senile mind. It's concise and to the point." 

That is a beautiful and heart-aching sentence. That's Marc talking about his Dad, who is dealing with dementia. The similarities he's talking about are the traits he and his Dad share.

"I also talked to an old friend who I grew up with. We are around the same age and both hyper-aware of where we are in our lives. We were able to reflect on it a bit but also express the surprise of it in a way. We both knew it was coming but now it's here and who are we now. It's kind of mind-blowing. It didn't happen all of a sudden but somehow it feels like it snuck up on us slowly and pounced."

I feel the same way. Strangely, I am not afraid of being 70. Leading up to it, I was in a bit of a panic, but now that it's here there is a strange calm about me. But it definitely pounced. I cannot believe I am 70.

"Time is racing by. It seems to go faster when you get older. I'm not complaining. I'm just trying to get a sense of what's real, what's fantasy and what's delusion in relation to who I think I am. Getting right-sized is what they call it in the recovery racket."

Getting right-sized. I like the sound of that. Negotiating the confusion between real, fantasy, and delusion takes up a lot of my time. I often experience the wrong perspective at the wrong time.

"I'm trying to make decisons about what I want to do and who I want to be as an old man. Definitive choices. What do I want as a life and an environment? What do I even really like to do? It's strange how the brain, at least my brain, doesn't know the difference between practicality and desire and ridiculous fantasy..................................I don't have time for fantasies that ruin my brain into believing they are possibilities. I need a self-induced ego contraction. The humbling is coming for all of us. I should get a jump on it."

I am already 70. Who will I be at 80? I suspect I will be only a shadow of my former self. If I am even alive. The humbling hits me on two levels. On one level I interpret it as the falling away of self-delusion into the humble truth of who I really am. Could be comforting. Could be horrifying. On another level I interpret it as death.

Here's hoping humble truth comes first.

143 Days

Sold a house. Bought a house. Moved from the end of the world to the center of the world. Took 2 and 1/2 months off from work. Got a job. Quit that job 30 days later.

My grandson was born.

This series of events essentially began on October 31, 2023 and culminated in divine deliverance on March 22, 2024.

143 days. 

Holy shit. I would be hard pressed to identify a more intense emotional roller coaster than these 143 days in any other period of my life. And I have been around for a hundred years.

2/12/1978. 5/03/1980. 10/23/1983. Those were emotional explosions, massive shifts in my life that created ripple effects that will last for the rest of my life. Happiness extraordinaire.

But shit, man - I flew close to the sun for 143 straight days. A little bit of bad mixed in there, some fucked up stuff, but mostly good, good stuff. And the beeswax in my wings has not melted.

How does one compare? You don't.  HST said: "No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride............and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well... maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten."

In the space that I occupy right now, "get beaten" does not apply. I have been beaten - many, many times in my life. But the beatings were self-orchestrated.

I bought the ticket - despite the fact that I did not believe in marriage, or kids, or fucking jobs - in anything predictable, anything expected or "normal", anything that could impose obligations on me, anything that could distract me from fully realizing the potential that my soul made available to me. Anything that remotely resembled the life my parents lived. 

And I ended up with an amazing wife, who I worship, two sons, who I worship, a grandson who I worship - Jesus fucking Christ - I ended up with human beings in my life who I would die for. That's how much I love them.

So I took the ride. The destination was improbable but glorious.

Now I am experiencing forced consciousness expansion. At the age of 70.

I sold a house I considered a piece of shit. And made out like a fucking bandit. That opened my eyes.

You know the rest of the story. I went on a happiness jag for a while there and you were forced to read about it. Or not, depending on your level of interest.

Other than my grandson being born - which is a high I will ride for the rest of my life - things have evened out, things have settled down a bit. Still, the newness of it all is exquisite.

I am in a new place. I am thinking new thoughts. Even since 10/31/23 I have learned stuff.

I feel different inside but I can't explain it to you.

It doesn't matter. All that matters is the road ahead.

All I need now is a little bit of luck, a few more years of life than maybe I deserve, to smooth things out for me and everyone I love.