Paying Your Dues

A much romanticized concept.

The central theme of so many blues songs.

Tell me - have you paid your dues if you have spent a lifetime in psychological warfare with your own mind? Does that count?

Or do you have to become a drug addict who loses control, loses everything including family, friends, job, home, self-respect - living on the street getting your ass kicked by wandering scumbags every day? Is that what it takes?

Who gets to define what pain is?

Who gets to decide when a person is broken?

Do you really need to see blood, broken bones and crawling in filth?

Or are hopeless eyes enough?

Flea

Craig's girlfriend Amanda loaned me Flea's autobiography.

If you don't know, Flea is a founding member and bass player for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. His real name, which I didn't know, is Michael Peter Balzary.

I started reading it this morning. I came at it with curiosity because biographies and autobiographies are wildly unpredictable. I have read a ton of them and will continue to do so during the next 40 years of my life.

The ones that read like a novel are the best. The ones that you can't wait to get up and read in the morning.

There is a Neil Young biography that I loved. Bruce Springsteen. Stevie Van Zandt. Warren Zevon. Dean Martin. Jackie Gleason. Katherine Hepburn. Dozens more.

But you never know. Pete Townshend's autobiography sucked. I couldn't believe it. John Cleese's autobiography was boring. Can you believe that? And yet, Eric Idle's autobiography was hilarious, as you would expect. 

Anyway............I picked up the book this morning and my heart and soul got zapped. Flea is a deeply emotional and sensitive man, and a fucking poet. The way he writes bipasses the brain and communicates directly to the soul.

This I was not prepared for; for this I am grateful. I am now guaranteed many enjoyable mornings.

Flea made a trip to Ethiopia in 2010. He listened to three elderly women sing in a church and described it this way, in part: "But those resounding voices reminded me of who I was, for what purpose I existed, and the beauty of it leveled me. Tears are not a sad or happy thing, they mean you care (my italics). I'm a wimp who cries too, so be it."

Describing himself: "I've often felt separate from other human beings....................My earliest memories are rooted in an underlying sense that something's wrong with me, that everyone else is clued into a group consciousness from which I'm excluded. Like something in me is broken. As time passes I become more comfortable with this strange sense of being apart, but it never leaves, and on occasion, I go through phases of intense and debilitating anxiety."

Flea's father left the family when Flea was very young. His mother took up with a bona fide hippy jazz musician junkie and alcoholic. The man played upright bass in a band. 

Flea: "He was just too much of a mess. I'd soon learn he was a drug addict and a drunk who'd never have it together enough to live his dreams, build his bridges, or connect his dots....................But he showed me what it was to turn pain into beauty..............True alchemy, letting go and letting anger articulate a divine vibration. If only he knew how to apply that energy to his everyday life...................He never processed what damaged him so he could get to the other side of it."

Enough quotes. Quoting is dangerous - they might not hit you the way they hit me.

My real point today is the joy I get when a book unexpectedly nourishes my soul. Boom. I pick up the book and right off the bat I know Flea's words, his story, will resonate with me deeply; they will make me feel, they will inspire empathy - they will make me feel alive.

Rescued from the grave once again.

Get It?

Part of my brain is saying: "Don't do anything stupid."

Another part of my brain is saying: "Man, you are genetically predisposed to doing stupid things."

Do you see why I drink?

Come On, Man - You're Killing Me

 "Do I doubt or do I trust, will I burn out or will I rust, should I run or should I rest, hard to tell which is best, all I want to do is the next right thing, the next right thing, all I need from you, love and understanding.

I got to move, no time to lose, gonna hurt somebody no matter what I do, do I please them, do I please you, can't please 'em all but I'm always trying to, am I lucky or am I good, feel like I'm lost in my own neighborhood, am I cursed or am I blessed, is this the worst it ever gets or the best.

All I want to do, the next right thing, the next right thing, all I need from you, love and understanding, love and understanding"

The Next Right Thing, by Tommy Castro

Are you kidding me? I heard this song the other day and my head exploded. This is exactly where I am at in my life. Right fucking now.

I have had moments in my life - big moments - when I had the opportunity to change. Crossroads that opened up when something ended and choice was right in front of me.

I blew every single one of them.

I am on the verge of making a big decision - a big change. Something I absolutely have to do if I want to continue living. Because of where we are in life the potential side effects are massive.

I gotta do the next right thing, make the next right move - and its gotta be right for me and right for Carol.

I am nervous. But it cannot wait. If I drift into 2022 with things as they are, fate will take a sledgehammer to the side of my head and it will all be over.

I cannot talk about it yet because spies are everywhere. You will know when it happens.

But I am using this weekend as the springboard. By the time Monday morning rolls around I will have a plan in place.

Let's consider the lyrics to this song.

"All I need from you, love and understanding" - I have that, thank god. Without it I would be lost. A lot of women would have kicked me out decades ago, saying "You did not deliver as advertised, motherfucker - bait and switch. Get the fuck out."

Not Carol. At some point she had to realize that I was never going to be the successful biz-i-ness man who would provide for her a secure retirement. Beyond that she had to have realized that I am a lost soul with no clue how to negotiate life. How that did not scare her away is beyond me.

She has hung in there for 43 years waiting for this flower to bloom. It is time for me to make a right decision.

"Will I burn out or will I rust" - I feel like I have been rusting for the past 45 years and it leaves me uncomfortable, to say the least. Neil Young put this thought into my head in 1979 - "It's better to burn out than fade away" - and its been gnawing at me ever since. Thanks, Neil.

"I got to move, no time to lose" - Self-explantory

"Is this the worst it ever gets or the best" - You cannot help but ask yourself this at the stage of life I am in. And I do. Which prompts consideration of the cliche "Your best years are behind you" - I hate the expression but it is true more often than not.

My only hope in that regard comes from a perverse perspective. I have spent a lifetime underachieving. I have a short way to fall but a long way to rise. One never knows.................

I am acutely aware of the magnitude of the decision I have to make. I know for a fact it is one of those decisions. Crossroads time, baby. Again.

Have I learned anything?

A Melancholy Day (It Better Go Away)

Not really. I just have a compulsion to rhyme.

The day after..........................

Thanksgiving and Christmas I sit back and reflect. Spending the holidays with our family is so powerful for me and Carol that the day after presents a dramatic contrast.

So quiet. Just us.

Yesterday the house was filled with laughter. Conversation. Intimacy. Lunacy. Food, booze and camaraderie.

Today it is eerily quiet. But that's OK. For one thing we have the memories of yesterday. Every time we get together we create memories. And good feelings, and powerful, grateful vibes.

The holidays reinforce the love and pride we have for our sons and their women. We feel good about these human beings that are not just a part of our life - they are our life.

I tend to have doubts about myself (have you noticed?), but being with my sons validates my existence.

When I'm down and feeling selfish I think if my only accomplishment in life is being a father to Keith and Craig, well, I could have accomplished so much more than that for me personally.

When I am lucid I realize that being a father to Keith and Craig is the best contribution I could ever have made to this world.

The Ultimate Connection

We got Patsy and Emmy Lou on September 13.

Today is November 26. Today is the first day since September 13 that I had a cat sleeping in my lap as I read.

It was Patsy.

I literally felt the connection between my heart and my soul become complete.

Tomorrow

 I don't have to take their shit.

Right?

I can fight back. I have to fight back.

You're doing a great job (let's fuck him up the ass).

Tomorrow will be confrontational.