Therapy...

To thine own self be true…..”

Most of us are familiar with the above quote taking from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but how many of us know this verse:

“And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou can not then be false to any man.” Unless we can be true to ourselves first, we cannot be true to others.

To thine own self be true…..how profound. How many of us have a hard time being true to ourselves? Those of us that gave our life to another at the cost of loosing who we are in the process will have a hard time being true to ourselves. Allowing someone else to define who we are, we lose our ability to discover and grow inwardly. We no longer are able to discern a truth from a lie. For many of us, we have accepted lies for so long, that finding out what is true takes time. Having recently done this very thing, and hurting a lot of people along the way, I know how difficult the journey to self-discovery can be. Truth….truth is a word that brings out such negative reactions to many of us. You see truth is really an action word. You cannot accept truth without change. Accepting truth about ourselves is difficult, but truth does set one free if we will allow it to; in fact it is a crucial part of healing. It gives us the freedom to be who we are. We are able to come to terms with our weakness and appreciate our strength. Truth gives strength; it naturally builds healthy boundaries. Truth is open; it is honest even at the risk of being vulnerable again. Truth is light and brings forth life. When we walk in truth, we walk in light and when we walk in light we live a healthy life. Truth is also love. The greatest act of love towards another is living a life that is truthful. For those of us who find it difficult to love ourselves, we will find it will come more easily when we walk in truth about who we are. If we walk in truth, we walk in perfect love, and if we walk in perfect love, then we do not walk in fear because perfect love cast out fear. Because we have been honest with ourselves, we are able to love ourselves with all of our imperfections, knowing that we are in “process” and therefore need not have others approval.

This is freedom indeed.

The second part of this verse is a natural occurrence if we hold true to the first part of the verse. So, when in doubt as to our motives of not being truthful with someone….look inside, are we being less than truthful to ourselves?


”This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Thank You Dr. Irene...

Later...

Um...ok

So recently i have had this huge upheaval in my life...granted most of it has been by choice, but as a result i am discovering new things about myself....not all of it good....lol. It has started me thinking about my life path and my choices......When i was younger i was very submersed in art and music, but was not encouraged to follow that path....I was told many many times that i would never make a good living being an artist or a musician. So as i aged i abandoned my dreams and followed the path that was expected of me...as the song says: "They send me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical"....So I went to school, got a job, got married....and as i spent all this time and effort invested in trying to make a life i was told i was supposed to have, i never bothered to ask myself if i was happy? as it turns out i was not...not happy at all. I spent my time working for a company i couldn't stand, and slowly killing what was left of my soul and creative/expressive side, so that i could put food on the table and a roof over the heads of my family. Noble,....indeed we all compromise in life....but what if we didn't what if we refused to give in? I think that requires a strength that few of us ever seem to possess. I was always starting new projects and new hobbies....simply because i was looking for something...anything to pull me out of the hell i had created for myself. I hurt a lot of people along the way, people that i cared about and thought that i loved. As i get closer to 50 i have begun to realize that it is never too late to follow a dream....no matter how stupid or silly some people think it may be....I have also discovered that happiness is a state of mind, and like anything else worth having it takes hard work and devotion to affect change. If your reading this and wondering to yourself....My advice to you is simply do it...no matter what...just DO IT! you might just end up happy!

Life...

Been hiding and avoiding contact with the outside world.....wrapped up in my own little protective cocoon...

Yesterday was a good day...

Life has a funny way of knocking on the door even when you pretend your not at home...

later...

I'm Back!!!!

I know I have posted nothing on here since last year....

A LOT of shit has happened in that amount of time and it really seemed silly to write a bunch of stuff here when nobody is reading this shit anyway...

but once again i promise to try and keep this a bit more up to date (yeah right!)

anyway I'm still here and still breathing....much to the chagrin of many people I'm sure

What If's....?

Have you ever had that moment in your life where you pause and ask yourself the question what if? I personally have a lot of regrets in life....I have walked away from many people and many situations in life...simply because i didn't know what else to do, or i was simply too chickenshit to deal with my life at that given moment. I recently connected with somebody that I used to know 20 some odd years ago....and discovered their life has not been a very good one, from most accepted points of view...and it got me asking that question to myself...what if? Would this person have had a better life if i hadn't walked out of it? Would my life or theirs be worse if i had stayed? You can drive yourself crazy with this circular pattern.....I'm a firm believer that things happen they way they happen for a reason....we may never know exactly what that reason is....but i believe it none the less...

Yea i know it has been months since i have posted here....even after i promised to try and keep this blog up to date, but i felt this warranted a new post...

I say now that if you get the chance to set a past situation to rights i urge you to do it....and don't kill yourself wondering what if....and deal with life in the here and now and worry about the future...but you must also learn from the past or be doomed to repeat/re-live it...

just my .02

2nd Show

Well, here we are at it again......played our second show close to home this time...

we still didn't have a decent P.A. but we made it work and we only flubbed up once, and only because we couldn't really hear each other...

We are going to play the same venue next weekend with a couple of killer bands...

wish us luck, and hopefully we can actually make some moment this time...lol

on a personal note, the grand brat banged his head but good the other night (he is crawling and trying to stand and walk) had to make a trip to the emergency room to make sure he was OK.....gonna have a big bruise....poor little fella.....

Later...

Doom(ed) Set!

Ok so we played a festival at a local bar the other night....this show was doomed from the start i fear....story goes like this....promoter saw us play at another gig wanted us to open his festival...we say ok after looking at the line up (which at the time was quite diverse).....forward two weeks later...i get an e-mail from the lead singer of the headlining band telling me the promoter pulled out, but he was taking over the show and wanted to know if we would still play....i say sure.....another week goes by 17 bands has gone down to 7.....ok so we get a longer set and more money (less to divide up win win) so the day of the show comes (keep in mind we have plastered flyers everywhere in our area as the venue is 2 hours away) we get there a little early but not too early and no sound guy and no P.A. about a half hour before we are supposed to go onstage the lead singer of the headlining band shows up with a brand new P.A. he bought that day and tells us the sound guy bailed on them the night before in favor of a D.J. Gig....oh and the divierse line up is now all hardcore thrash metal bands (and we play stoner!) doomed i say....so we set up, mic everything and do a quick sound check and away we go.....during our second song, the monitors start acting really weird, by our fith song we are disgusted because what we are hearing on stage is complete crap so after 40 minutes we quit....during tear down we discover that the drummer from the other band had our guitards amp and one of the power amps plugged into the same outlet strip and it was starving both the power amp and the guitards amp hence the weird sound. The strip was melted on the bottom side....and naturally every band after us sounded great! It wasn't all bad though as we discovered what the audience heard was not what we heard....got invited to host our own show at the venue, i know no pic didn't happen right?.....it was mostly a sausage fest, but check out the lead singer of one of the other bands that played after us...

www.myspace.com/splattafish

well on to the next one...

First Show!

Stoked

We are playing our first show in East Texas

Come out and support local music !

Freedom

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence anyway knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags. Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him,and poverty was his reward.Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer,Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt. Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste, for more than a year he lived in forestsand caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished...

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. The Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games.

Remember: freedom is never free!

Heaven and Hell (aka Black Sabbath)

Well they may be in their 60's....

but they still manage to kick ass...

Buying this record made my day on Tuesday...Gezzer Butler is the reason i first wanted to play a bass guitar....so for all you old guys like me, as well as you young pups...go buy this!

Later...

Life and My little Man

Ain't he cute? already grabbing his junk....lol. Yea I was very upset to learn he was on the way, but now that he is here I can't imagine a life without him. Aside from a few bright moments here and there life still sucks. Our guitar player quit for reasons that i won't go into as they aren't worth the waste of space. But it left a hole...and made me remember why i got out of the scene years ago. However after he left i wrote a new song that everybody seems to really like and the remaining members and i are working on putting it down so everyone can hear it. The hunt is on for a new guitard....but perhaps we may just re-work the songs so that we don't need one. I have even decided to order a custom built pedal that emulates a guitar so i can carry the rhythm myself on bass. Essentially i will split my signal one cabinet will get the nasty distorted guitar sound, the other my clean bass.....It means i may have to dumb down a few of my riffs in some places, and pump them up in others. It is an adventure that I'm looking forward to tackling....hell I may fall on my face but what the hell right....I'm not a spring chicken anymore....it's all or nothing. Tyler has continued to show a penchant for the drums....and Having George "My Drummer" around has really opened up his spectrum. He has been rocking the electronic kit for weeks now. I hope he decides to stick with it...and i intend to encourage him instead of telling him that it is a waste of time like my dad did.

check you guys Later...

Happy Birthday My Ass!

Well Today is my 40th fucking Birthday.....I not sure what exactly is supposed to be so happy about it. My hair is thinner and much more grey...as is my goatee. My back hurts, my hip hurts, my dick doesn't work like it used to, my waistline is bigger, and everyone expects you to act a certain way...and then gets all bent out of shape when you don't. Getting older sucks....the only things i look forward to anymore are taking a nap and sleeping in. On the band front,...we took some news pics and are currently working on new material. We expect to start playing out in public in May or June. Things are quiet on the home front...not sure exactly where i stand...When i came in this morning i found a few new shirts, a pair of new jeans, a small cake, some dark chocolate (my favorite) and a card from Niki and Tyler Langdon. The one thing about getting older is my head is full of 40 years worth of shit, and some of it is actually useful...lol. I say Fuck em all i have earned the right to try a few new things even if they are just new versions of old tricks....we're and handsome bunch no? all of us are between 37 and 40.....lol

Later...

I'm Back

OK well all promises aside I just can't seem to keep up with this blog....anyway.....Ashley has moved out....she has decided that trying to hang on to her looser boyfriend is more important than her family....oh well shit happens. We still see the baby as Niki goes and gets him every morning that she is off work. We added another guitar Player, as well as changed our Name to Darqsyde.....long story but basically it came from a discussion about of all things....cookies.....

We still don't get along for shit...everything I say and or do is the wrong thing....we are still working different shifts and pass each other constantly. I am very hyper critical of all things liberal as of late....can you blame me....this country is headed down the road to socialism....and apparently everyone but me is OK with it...she thinks i going through some sort of mid life crisis...and maybe I am....but by making jokes and giving me a hard time about playing in a band again is not the way to win my heart......so we continue to occupy the same space and tolerate each other. I let little Langdon go with his sister today and apparently that was the wrong thing to do as well.....

Really hooked on a band called the Sword at the moment can't seem to get enough of them. Music has become my only saving grace in life at the moment.....and i intend to overdose

later...

Catching Up

Well we had a pretty god Yule Celebration....The baby had his first official holiday at a few weeks old. My main present was out of stock and got back-ordered. Mr. Langdon got a new Stereo, as well as a new Telescope. We got Ashley a new phone...and the wife and I got new phones as well...A Crackberry for Her, and a Pantech Duo Slider for me. The Band has been practicing and we have a few songs nailed down fairly well, but have decided we need another guitar player. I found this fairly cool site that allows you to basically have your own personal radio station tailored just for your personal listening habits. Here check mine out: http://www.pandora.com/people/herneofthehunt

Later...

My Crushes...

From time to time i get what my wife calls a Crush....when in reality i simply find women that to me are worthy of my notice. Recently I came across a band called "Die So Fluid". Their lead singer and bass player calls herself Grog. She is a talented musician, that writes produces and generally runs the show, it doesn't hurt that she is a little easy on the eyes either....lol. If you like alternative/punk/Metal music i highly suggest you run out and pick up a copy of their most recent disk "Not Everyone Gets a Happy Ending" or hit their website www.diesofluid.net or their myspace page

www.myspace.com/diesofluid

Later...

If You Build it They Will Come...

OK well if you have been following my blog....I got back into playing roughly about a year ago, and i have been steadily building my rig. So here it is and although it is NOT my dream rig, it has the power to get the job done. I also managed to find a couple of guys to make some noise with...lol....currently we are calling ourselves...Fragments of Faith and playing what most people refer to as Stoner/Sludge music....and I'm having the time of my life. I have since changed up my pedal board since this picture was taken, I running in Stereo so my 4x10 on top is running dirty pushing all my high gain pedals and distortion, while the 1x15 on bottom is running fairly clean with an SVT emulation running. Playing in a three piece outfit i have to cover a lot of sonic space during the guitards solo's. I also recently discovered Traben basses. They are a new company but IMHO make on hell of a product, I have never played a bass that has so much resonance or sustain....

We are in the Process of trying to put together a decent set so that we can play out in Public, hopefully we will be ready just after the first of the year...

I will keep you all posted as we progress...

Later...

The Goddess is Gone....

I remember the first time i ever saw Bettie Page....I was a teenage boy standing in a comic book shop in Downtown Sacramento California. I was scanning the comics on the wall looking for something obscure, when i can across a magazine called the Bettie Pages. I was absolutely dumbfounded....I'm still not sure to this day exactly what it was about Bettie that captivated me so much. Sure she is Sultry, sure she is attractive...but it's more than that...I think Bonnie Burton said it best when she said..."I'm a Bettie fan for the mere and simple fact that she's gorgeous. No other model has been photographed more than her, and for good reason: She's the best there is. I love Bettie because she sort of brought innocence back to sex. When you mention pinup models and men's magazines to most people, they think you're talking about porn or smut. With Bettie, you aren't embarrassed to appreciate looking at her, whether she's being spanked, trying on stockings, or playing in the buff on the beach. She makes sex seem okay instead of a sin. I think a lot of older fans left over from the 1950s appreciated that quality in her when she was in magazines like Playboy. She made you feel at ease with your sexuality, and most of all, she had fun with it.".... yep that says it all. She is gone now passed away on December 11th after having a heart attack. She was my first great crush, and the yardstick by which i measured all the women i have ever met. Even though she was in her 80's it was sort of comforting to know that she was still out there. There will never be another like her, they broke the mold when she was made....and she will be missed by many...

Later...

Im a Feaking GrandFather

It is hard to believe that i have not posted to my own blog in almost 4 months....Life just seems to whiz by..

A lot has happened since the last time i posted. I have built two basses and sold them, gotten rid of all the gear i purchased last year and replaced it with all new and better stuff, as well as built my own Bass cabinets, and i managed to put together a new band (but more on all of that later.

Tonight I just wanted to tell the world that despite all my best efforts to keep it from happening i am officially and Grandfather at age 40. Here is a picture of the little fella just minutes old. Its a done deal can't stuff him back in...all i can do now is love the little fella and be here for my daughter

later all...

Built One!!

Well she isn't exactly the most beautiful piece of hardware on the planet, but i did build her...lol This is the first in what i hope is a long line of basses built by me. It is a standard P bass style, but with the electronics set up in a P/J combo...it is solid black including all hardware. I did discover i have a lot more to learn when it comes to painting and finishing....but it is done and it was a good learning experience.....and she sounds great!

Im Back!!!

OK well as you can see it has been quite some time since (roughly three months) since i have posted to my own blog........there are many many reasons for this.....first the wife and I have been having a really really rough time.....after her father dies she simply shut down. Our 16 year old daughter came home pregnant, and we have been working opposite schedules......all of it made us simply drift away from each other and spend too much time apart, not doing anything together but arguing.....I actually moved out and in with a friend from work because i simply could not deal with being here on a daily basis.......I know! I know! you hear all the time that separation's never work, but in this case it may actually have done some good! It made us both realize as bad as things actually were, we did in fact love each other and were better together than apart. We actually started to talk to each other again....in fact I am learning to fall in love with my wife all over again.....We are actually looking at buying a house in town and starting over.........I realize now that some things in life are worth taking a risk for and sometimes you simply have to let go and trust....wish me/us luck and I'll keep you updated.......