Keith Richards, clumsy fingers and the challenge to make something gracefully beautiful

There's something about Keith Richards. Something that makes you question your taste in music and if you should give certain songs a chance and if you have been hasty to ignore a genre of music. I've never really been a Stones fan at first yet with all our Legends leaving us I can not help to listen to the Stones without any sense of loss or melancholy as I would with Bowie or Freddy. 

Yet my ears have been tweaked because of music. My son introduced me to the guitar some 3 or 4 years ago and I've been playing close to three years now. I'm not good or what I would consider good. Mind you this is my standard and not only have a heard a unison of eye rolls at the moment I am going to offer some ground to say I'm not one to see myself in a favorable light. So I'm not as good as I think I can be, but I see enough potential to keep chasing it.

Well, despite how I see myself I see music as one of the last challenges I'm willing to partake that actually makes me want to push myself through. Much like martial arts or the sciences, I find a joy that most people would get while playing games that are not meant to coddle you. It's a challenge and much after so much work I see the improvements enough to keep on while the challenge continual. It's a beautiful struggle that I am more then happy to partake.

But, Kieth Richards, right? Well, ever since taking up guitar I've been changing my sense of music. and what I consider good and fun. It's kind of sadistic trying to play a song you like. Knowing you're going to take something magnificently perfect and even attached to memories that I'm going to guess have meaning to you and tear that song apart. Analyze and break down every bit of the song to realize what progresses it, what makes it magnificent and what makes you undertake the task of attempting to replay a piece with your own hands only to see it mauled by clumsy fingers and frustrated hope.

I've gained a love for punk songs and their simplicity of two or even three chords with enough speed to make it sound chaotic and rhythmic. How rock songs pull from blues and how blues pull from the pain in your soul only to make you wallow in it. How some artists make a simplistic motion complicated and how a simply song can have depth. It's all so addictive and even challenging. 

So when Richards shared the story of his grandfather and the guitar that sat upon the mantle and how if he was able to touch it he'd finally be able to play it. How the drive for something forbidden and even mysterious caused him to reach and touch and even dream. How once in his hands his grandfather simply taught him one piece of music, just a sliver really only to cause him to train his fingers and drive his new fostered thirst for more. That song is the Malaguna (still wondering how many different ways to write it or are they different songs) and it's divine. 

So starting up learning power chords, full chords and straining with C's, F's, and B's I've was creating something that sounded like noise from beaten birds. Talented fingers trained to puncture, grip, and stab now are being trained to dance on strings of metal in grace and beauty. Something I'm not used to. I can say I'm in now way beautiful, but playing this piece makes me feel joy and grace. Things I've never had much of. Even my martial arts experience is brutal, effective and blunt.

Yet I feel.....free? Happy? Meditative? It's a piece that has driven me to actually do something I am not used to doing or saying, "Let me see if I can try it." I honestly say that I'm not one to try something because fear of instilled failure that I still now wrestle with. Even though I am able to correct and be corrected in science and math, creatively I've been if not stunted, but maimed. There was a memory of who I was that was killed off to nothing. It's hard to explain, but when you see someone attempt something and you see then on the verge of mastering it or even understanding it and you come at that point of time and tell that person that their attempts are stupid, worthless, and not even needed you kill that. Despite if they were inclined to it or bad at it, it dies. It's why I'm so guarded and even more abrasive when someone wishes to correct anyone in that manner near me. 

I play in almost secret. I play with trust that people who hear me will not throw stones and/or bitterness. I play and even become entranced. I strive and attempt to make things better without fear of ridicule, but drive to see if I can. I can say now I regret not having this. Even believing that I would never have been good. I don't think I'll ever make a record, go on tour, or even play in public for tips, but it makes me happy. Few things do that these days. It almost completes me. It offers me hope and grace.

How much of change?

I've grown the fingernails of my right hand long enough to pick strings now. I've painted them black so that I can stop focusing on their unsightly appearance and even painted the rest to not seem odd. I carry picks with me and my guitar at times to play in certain places where even in public I can find some amount of solace while fighting my paranoia of someone running up and telling me I suck. I like this and I regret not having it younger. If I had this younger I think I would have never learned to fight......an odd thought, but I can dream.

So this piece is.....gorgeous. It's delicate and precise. Not thrashing, but it stands alone. I can play this to show mastery, potential and even advancement. Mind you it's not like playing Where is my mind where as you're the only one who knows how good it is without accompaniment. It stands alone. It sounds magnificent without someone filling in the holes where you leave. You can play this anywhere and have people go wow. And it's hard. It's patterns, rhythms, and flare. It's fancy, almost even pretty in the way people put lace on things. 

It's not me, basically. And watching people see me slaughter it or what I think slaughtering is almost make people go, "damn, it's almost there. I wish I can hear this better." Now they can hear it as "hey, I know what that is and that's not bad."

I know it's stupid, but I just paid myself a compliments. Feel so dirty.

Yet, it's so much fun to do. It's hard but in a month of playing it I have more of the parts set and just need to order it and add polish. I've improved now to the point I can finger-pick it all. With a pick I'm graceful. Without it I'm a bit wobbly with less wobble as I get better. I might even play it one day. For people. And not fear of....well......jackals.

So now I pull out Hope, a $50 guitar with plastic frets and heavy strings and punish my fingers until I can not feel them or when they start to bleed. I work my hands as I would have punching stone or wood. I practice and I offer myself some motivation and kindness while they strings cut in and create deeper calluses that will remain with me. I pound at it with Hope until she sings. Until I can make her hard cheap body sound gorgeous, even with stray hums of and clanks. That's when I pull my son's guitar, a $150 wood body with lighter strings and see if I can make it sing it's aria.

One day, I'll get something worth to play. something around $2000 and gloriously magnificent. until then I visit guitar stores, tune them to key and then see how my fingers can make such a work of art sing with rosewood, maple, and mahogany. I borrow and play and yearn. One day, I'll make something beautiful. I'll show others what I think I can create and make them see me not as a thing or monster.

So yea.......it's even making me look at Donovan's Atlantis and Classical Gas. Maybe I can train my fingers to be delicate, graceful and pretty. And then be thrashing, vicious, and blurring when I get into metal. Or insightful and longing when hitting the blues. 

huh....imagine that. My hands learning to create beauty after decades of destroying and dominating.

This will be good for me.

yay me.

yay. 

Thanks, Keith Richards. Thank you very much.

Me, Myself, and I: When you can't trust anyone else.

There has been a large amount of time that had past since my last regular writing, years really. To being to explain or even offer a view of the past would be too much to relive and hard to even being. So the easiest thing to do is simply start from here and state what is needed with added insights here and there to offer some chance to fill in gaps.

I've started therapy in January after starting family therapy with my two adult children in the Summer. I've been going for at least three months now with some days missing due to illness and bouts of chaos. I've made some progress and even improved a bit as a human being, yet I'm quite daunted by it as the same way someone finds comfort in their shoes while staring up at a a high mountain to be climbed. It offers some peace of mind in the right context, yet starring at the difficulty ahead can less any effect.

To cut to the bone, I'm going to shoot out some things that was touched and perhaps attempt to explore it all while making any progress or insight. Please forgive the bullets, it helps if only to place it all at one place.

• I have PTSD. Nothing too grave as some returning vets, but it's quite active. It's not as potent as in I blank out, but it's seeing something in regular life and shaking my head, sometimes literally, to get my thoughts back. Sometimes they're horrible. Other times saddening reminder of a time lost. I never understood what it was I was dealing with until I asked a few people. So, yea....that.
• I've had trauma since I was young. After a point I've joined a cult until 21 when my marriage crumbled and I was pushed out for a lack of term. I've recovered and even went on to recollect my life, yet I have always suffered a bit of chaos and hell at least until 2013 when I contemplated taking my life.
• I have an odd way of looking at the world, I know that now. Most of it comes from lack of trust and believing that I have no one to trust or even confide. Some of it is simply a wave of doubt and emotion. Most of it comes from experiences, losing people, meeting people who'd take advantage of me and simply living in a world where most people had never had a bad day while I crawled out of the cracks that most human being refuse to acknowledge. 
• I don't have a sense of healthy boundaries. I don't know how to tell someone not to tear me apart or even consider mistreatment something wrong. I'm patient and I endure much, yet I place myself in bad experiences, sometimes extending myself to help someone else. I don't know if this was to appease the cult or just a mechanism I developed while young.
• I don't have a healthy view of myself. I know this because I been told by people who witnessed me tolerating hell that would make anyone furious. I do not have a sense of worth that is not based on what I can do verses who I am. I have a constant fear of being "worthless" because it's when you are a target and you can not defend yourself.
• I don't know what I look like. I'm not sure how to even explain this, but I have no concept of what I am or what I look like. From what I can tell I am scary looking for most part and sometimes attractive to people who are attracted to force and power. I've been fetishized as something rough or dangerous, but in truth I see myself as something small. Maybe even fragile, even though I have a great ability to instill fear. Defensive mechanism, maybe? I don't think I'm attractive. I don't think I'm anything but a waiting action. I don't know if that makes any sense. I don't like looking into the mirror most of the time.
• I think at least 7 steps ahead of anything. I analyze what can go wrong, may go wrong, and what to do if it ever goes wrong. A price of living in  a state of chaos. While most people fall into shock or horror at the worst moments of life, I thrive in them. I know how to start over, pull people out of the end, and even help them move on. I know Damage Control all to well. I'm a survivor, but I do not know how to live. 

I'm sure there's more. This just stands out right now.

Since I've been working with someone I've realized that I need to let go. I need to realize that I'm not the one on the front line by myself, but I have people around me. Sadly, I have issues asking friends for help, much less taking it. I've had a few of them attempt and even offer assistance that would amaze more, yet I can't. Or I'm not able. At least not yet. 

The one thing that sticks in my head is that my therapist hit this one point where I felt he knew everything. He knew my fatigue. My lack of effort from being "on" for so long. That lack of desire to take any chances or even attempt to make life better for myself. For others, I'd do anything, but for myself I'm more then willing to not exist.

To fade away. To simply not be. 

This is what I fight. This is my Secret War. This is my attempt to make something of an existence which I have in any way any idea of. I don't know what's going to happen and I have not idea if I'm going to make it. Or even exist past this. I just know I need to document this and try every day. Some days are good, others are bad, some I curl up in a ball, and few I feel I left it behind me as I run towards.....anywhere.

Above it all, I wonder if I'm alone. Am I? Do I just believe it? Can I trust others to have the same effort I would give them? Can I trust Warn Jets humming at a distance or is it always going to be me dragging myself along, ignoring the jokes of how long it may take me or why I'm not doing this or that. Above all I know I drag something heavy behind me. I know I have people declaring their aid. I know I won't trust it because I had people leave when needed most and even ......yea....even that....

I'm going to try. I'm going to go against 40 years of instinct and "TRY", even if it gets me nothing but ruin. I'm going to ignore everything and just try.

I'm writing this for me. I think it's ok if you see too. 

I'm strong, but I'm tired. And it's only getting worse.I won't give up, but I don't know how much longer I can endure. I'm going to try.

I will try.

Please have patience with me. I don't know what I'm doing like a fish walking towards a bike.

I will try.

Maybe by the time this publishes I will feel different. Then I can read this and understand what 's going on....maybe not. I don't know. 

If you'll excuse me I'm going to try to make something to eat. Because I need to, I guess. Don't mind the Black Dog.

Do robots dream other then electric sheep?

I have trust issues.

I mean I have them. Seriously have them. How bad?

I dreamed last night I was in love with a robot. What kind? Think of the big clunky one you might have gotten as a toy and smoked if you added oil and maybe even sparked. It had no gender. It was a robot. It even had the most robotest voice imaginable.

But why?

It let me be the little spoon. It was programmed to know that I had a drop in temperature and it would bring me a blanket and even heat the room. It would play white noise while I slept and kept on guard to keep all the chaos from getting me. It gently woke me up and even went outside to get groceries, take out the trash and walk the dog with me. It even had an espresso machine and gave me books out of the blue.

Sex?

No.

Right? I mean it never came up nor I wanted it really. It was just there, taking care of me, tending to my needs and saving my world for once. We had intellectual conversation with citations, it helped me cook with recipes, and even launched missiles at anyone who looked at me funny.

Best of all......when I wanted to be alone, it let me. It went into sleep mode and woke when I called it. I mean....wow.

It didn't threaten me, cheat on me, pull a knife on me, tried to sexually take advantage of me or even call me out of my name. It was a robot and it actually cared. And I cared back. It was......blissful, even if it was in no way sexual. Oddly enough I almost felt it wasn't needed.

I know....weird.

How weird?

When I woke up this morning I missed my robot. I honestly felt bad about waking up before Sunday brunch without them and felt sad. I mean......sad that I was living in this reality and not one where I was taken care of by a robot. I always said I could love anyone despite of what they have or don't have physically. I just never realized that it went this far.

I missed my robot, especially when I realized that I needed to wake up and save the world and hope it didn't stab me in the back in return.

Yea......just yea........my dreams are something.

Existing with PTSD or how to prepare against everything that can happen to you at any point possible.

Yea.....little overwhelmed.

I mean, if I am to believe what I've been told I've been living like this all my life. It's almost as if you question fish on how they deal with water. I mean, it's what I know. It's my existence. It's the air I breathe and as close as heartbeats.

I don't know anything else.

I do not know anything else and what I can get from most people in my position they either learned to get out, they've been killed, or they've taken their own lives.

Kinda daunting, no?

It explains why I was planning my exit some years ago, my trust issues, feeling run down and losing my urge to fight. From what I've been told it explains my rash acts when younger and my meticulous actions against any risks and chance of losing anything slowly gained. It's hard thinking 7 steps ahead and it's what I do. It's hard to not calculate every contingency and worse case in my head because when shit happens I know that those few seconds matter the most.

It's living in a continual state of chaos. It's knowing that the few moments I can close my eyes and ......stop......will cost me something and are too far apart. It's why I stick to the shadows, work without having people notice, and leave before thanks are given. I take weeks to recover for moments of great charisma and social grace. I fight moments where I'm force to stand out and rather turn away anyone who blatantly seek me out for their own good rather than my own awkwardness.

I honestly do not know anything else. T.S Eliot called me, and others like me, The Hollow Men. I see myself more as Christophe from The Serpent and the Rainbow, constantly holding watch for those who are buried alive and forgotten. Connected by those with haunted looks paid by prices too costly and annoyed by privileged kinder who have no idea of horror.

This is my element. Like it or not, this is where I was conceived in the abyss of chaos. This is all I know, even if it reduces my life. I'm not like you all and my farce to mimic you have left me questioning what side of the abyss I belong on and why I must pretend to be one of you. My greatest achievement has been limiting my insanity from you all, even though it does spill out. And now, I'm supposed to look at all this and believe that I can exist out side. I can be....one of you. I can be....people.

I don't know. I don't believe. It's as if you told me I didn't need to breathe to exist. I don't know if I can do this.

And tomorrow, I go and see if it's possible of simply something to stagger off to before I can place my marker on one of the three categories previously mentioned.

I have not hope, really. I do not know the definition. All I have is a stubborn streak and a desire to die right. SO I'll stagger in a direction as I always have and see how I will end.

This is horror to you. This is life to me.

It's why we are never meant to live. Survive, yes. Live? No.

So....yea.....that.

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us-if at all-not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

T.S. Eliot~The Hollow Men

Shower Epiphany: I am a creature of doubt.

There are moments in which for many a heart beat may pass and a quick shuttered eye closing off to the world if only a moment where I doubt myself in any and every way and method possible. I question motives, actions, desires, ramification and multiple chain reactions that most would not dare to utter. I self analyze and expose all, including myself in a quick rational calculative biopsy that often leave me silent for those moments that hang heavy. How a thought in the wrong chain, an uncorrectable action, a misplaced breath can the razor's edge between greatness and utter misery.

I am hard on myself since I know no one can ever be so on me. I am my worst critic, my greatest opposition, my loudest detractor. I search for pin holed weaknesses that can be used to ridicule, disarm and render my action mute. I repeat thoughts in different magnifications in order to know unintended innuendos, blasphemies and taboos are cross out of calculated risk rather than haughty blindness. I review minutes lost to time and rebuild the wreckage of failed attempts, Freudian slips, and bovine compliments. I throw myself against thought and wit as athletes would ram themselves against oppressive opposition and angst antagonistic antimatter.

My greatest fear is not having language and meaningful vernacular leave me speechless and impotent in the only method I am able to convey intent, attraction and passion which other well catered phenotypes are able to simply strike opulent poses to declare beauty and magnificence. I have to become dependent on a silver tongue of a cunning linguist, golden flash of nimble fingers and a sharpened mind to compensate my lack of physical woo.

My greatest fear is arriving at convincing and gaining the open trust of anyone willing to entertain and indulge my barker like spell that in the wrong hands would exchange ownership for fraudulent stock in fallen fortune 500's, bridges, and moments where a quick and nimble tongue, much like a brown fox, would bound over lazy dogs of thought. At best, my voice may rally Henry's Chrispin soldiers, inspire the museless and woo those who value a well placed word and promise.

My greatest fear is believing in my own ability.

Then....and only then will what magic I can conjure with picture's worth of effort be diminished and any edge will become dull and harmless.

No.....I must not trust my ability in order to continue to hone and sharpen it.

It's the only way enchantment may exist in my analytical existence.

Some moment I rue the day I learned was not physically appealing. Other days I mock fully morn those who are.

Look what the me dragged in.....

Yea......I'm back.

So sorry.

So much to share.

Promise to be blunt and graphic....so forgive me?

Shower Epiphany: We are all going to die. Sorry, spoilers

Shower Epiphany: We are all going to die. Sorry, spoilers.

You might want to get something to drink or whatnot. This one is going to be long.

There comes a time where we are forced to really take in our mortality. If it's me, that's at least once a week. More if I don't have adult supervision. I contemplate things that I do not have the answer for not because I find comfort or that I get some sort of moral understanding on how the Universe/Gia/god/Karma is supposed to be. In fact, I would have to say I'm a little bummed about it not because I have to leave, but because my experience here is going to be limited.

Life is the greatest theme park in the world.

Let that sink in.

It's the greatest place in the world where everything is always getting better as well as always breaking down. I'm a child of Entropy (how I miss my real name, fuck you FACEBOOK) so I understand how things change, fall apart, become ordered and then fall apart once more. I get it. And yet, this most amazing theme park we are not allowed to get on all the rides even if we were given fast passes at dawn and dragged away kicking and screaming at closing time. Old events will go away and new ones will take their place. The rides will get better until we get so old we have to sit on benches and watch smaller versions of our genome run and scream without us. We sit there until we have to go for what ever reason.  It's not fair. We leave too early. Some times we choose to leave when we do not find what we want or are taken away by forces we can not control (me at Knott's when I ate that candy apple at 9 years old).

But that's how it is. We don't get all the experiences either. There are moments that are frightening for some and enjoyable for others. Some have more monetary worth than others and have bistro meals while we share the churro. It happens. All of this can suck and dampen your joy.

Or you can not let it.

I see life this way. I would have to say that I lived a good amount so far and seen thing that most will never and won't see. I won't see and witness things either. They can be horrifying like the taking of life or beautiful such as cresting the galaxy on a space ship into a new world. So, yea. I'm bummed. As of now I will tell you what I know:

I will not get the full value of my E ticket. Just because race, gender, sexuality, class, fear in others and physics do not permit me to. Sucks, but hey, I guess I just have to share stories with others....ever wonder why I know so many? Got to make them all.

All the cool stuff I want to do will be limited to me due to time, ability, wealth and mind frame. Unless I get the right mind frame then all that other shit can fuck itself.

I'm only as old as I allow myself to be. I call it my Batman theory. Batman is an old fucker and I'm getting there if the fairies allow me......fucking killer fairies....so as long as I build my body I can enjoy it all. I will learn to parkour, play guitar like a god, sculpt my form as I see fit and avoid the wheel chair for as long as possible and if not I'm converting that bitch into a rot rod because fuck you.

No, I'm not all me and chances are I'll never get to be. I'm broken. So the fuck what. I like me and my broken ass is going to have some fun!

I was never allowed to do many things. Then again I never asked for permission, advice, pardon, excuse, or blessings. Watch me or get the fuck out of my way.

Fuck Orangutans. They know what they did! If I hit 50 I'm going to punch the fuck out of one. I figure I'll give it a handicap and not punch one out now......fucking orange shitballs....

Everyone else is having more sex than me. Since I started early I can say that we're going to be even in the end unless I start up on that again. Then, sorry. I gave you 6 years to catch up, you unmotivated bastards.

I almost felt bad for doing what I do best. I almost fell for it, but hell I do it so well and I've seen the new generation. They can't EVEN reach where I dropped the bar much less where I'm going to place it. Sorry, Freddie taught me well. You place that bitch high so that even the Greats of Today have to look up and realize they pale in any greatness of before. Sorry, that's just how it is. Heed the call or be someone's bitch.

The greatest wisdom was given to me by my French Fry girl as a huge wave slammed her silly ass into the beach without any time to brace or run. She looked up and screamed, "I DIE COOL" as it hit her as if she was declaring to the world she was going to be Queen of the Pirates. That ingrained in me. Don't worry, just die cool.

I look good in scars. I just do. Hell, they just look damn good on me. I would say they look good in me too!

I don't see myself besides anything but Brujah. I read like I drink and I fight like I woo; With no fucking restraint. I don't think I'm going to change much in the next decades or so, so yea. That's my lot. Just have to keep doing what I do unless I become someone's bitch and we already know that is not going to happen. Some of you are just going to bitchless. Nice try, but no.
I realize something. I came in on my own. I grew up on my own. I did things on my own. I go away on my own. I'm probably going the same way, so.....yea......I'm fine with that. As much as I love you guys, I probably won't tell you when or where if I have a choice and in the end it will most likely be my choice. I will just go away and that is that. My death. My way. 

On how you should grieve, I still recommended my way. Huge gathering, music, booze, food, booze, gorgeous women.....who will bring booze and maybe some gorgeous guys too. (Just note, if you bring me booze you are gorgeous just by association to booze. That's how it works so no more getting me drunk and handsy) Celebrate my death as you would my life and you would any great celebration until you forget why you are celebrating and keep celebrating. Oh, but sober up to get to the waiting taxis outside. You have to do that much. And no pukies! Have some fucking restraint even if I never needed it!

You....you could be mean. And I... I drink all the time. Cause we're lovers and that is a fact. We're lovers and that is that. (I wanted to share with you the most awesome Bowie lyric ever. Your welcome)

Lastly, Peace and Love.

That's it.

Go be inspired as fuck and move onwards!

Me?

Gonna figure out how to mine for parkour and how I can be King of the Pirates. It's my world.

You just live in it.