Time Toilets

I know, I know. I haven’t been posting all that often. I realize it and I’ve been thinking about it. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s not on purpose, these lapses in proclivity. It’s simply because I have been much involved in other things.

I’ve been taking the time to figure out how to be a good dad to three beautiful daughters who aren’t so little anymore. I’ve been teaching Bible teachers about teaching the Bible. I’ve been doing little things (sometimes very little) to try and be a better friend and brother. I’ve been exercising (go figure). I’ve been driving a campaign to raise funds to help my church get into a building. I’ve been helping out at my kid’s school. I’ve been doing some technical reading for work. All of this besides the normal, everyday doings.

I like to be productive. I have a kind of farmer mentality when it comes to that. So I’ve been shifting my priorities a bit to try and be more productive while, at the same time, trying to reduce the insanity in my life. This is very hard to do. You think?

It’s odd what becomes important to us so quickly. Things that didn’t even exist a few decades ago, and yet we think we can’t live without them. Time toilets.

The newest thing is “apps.” Everyone is talking about “apps.” To me, “apps” are this abstract thing that, in general, exist to steal your life away. Why do I think that? Because I see it happening to people all around me. Time is burned, very fast, very hot. Facebook has already done this. Computers have certainly done this for a long time now. All of these “time saving” devices are killing our time. And once it’s dead, it’s gone. Long gone. Shwoooosh.

Have you been pulled too far into the big empty of Angry Birds or Words with Friends or Youtube or Facebook? Not to mention video games and, of course, blogging? You've gotta watch out for that blogging.

The word “addicted” is being used more and more commonly to describe our use of this stuff. Do you remember when the idea of an addiction was always considered a negative thing? Now people say it and laugh. “I’m so addicted to World of Warcraft! Ha ha hardy har har. That’s, like, funny, right?” But the laugh has a nervous twitter in it that says: “Out of control here,” and the eyes suggest that there is doubt about something.

My kids doctor told me about how he’d just seen his first case of carpal tunnel syndrome in a pre teen. 11 years old, I think it was. All from texting and such. She will probably need surgery.

11.



Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Mr. Blue Eyes

Once, in my high school years, I was at a friend's house to work on some music. While I was there, another guy came in with some other people I didn’t know. With them came a bag of cocaine. They cleared the table and laid out some lines and they all started snorting. I was invited to share. I refused. It wasn’t my style.

The guy with the cocaine was like a sun and the other people were like planets, circling around him, pulled in by his gravity. He was all smiles. He was a good looking guy with deep blue eyes that kind of glowed in a way, and the girls liked him. He had on expensive clothes. He was a very likable person. A bright personality. He laughed easy and he seemed happy.

He tried again to talk me into having a hit, but I wasn’t going to do it. I can’t say I wasn’t curious but, for me, it was over the line. In my heart of hearts it seemed idiotic. It still does. And fake. Happy happy smile smile, all while dying inside.

I asked my friend how Mr. Blue Eyes had the money to buy the stuff and give it out to people like that. He said the guy was dealing the drugs so he was able to get it wholesale. They were all very impressed with this. One of the other guys who was there was talking to him about how he could get into dealing. I went into the living room to watch MTV, waiting for them all to clear out, and they did before too long. Places to go, people to see.

Fast forward around 15 years.

I was driving down the road in an area where there were no houses, just businesses and warehouses. As I was driving, I passed a guy walking on the side of the road. It was a little odd to see someone walking in that area because there were no houses or retail stores. I looked at him as I passed, curious but not, seeing his face. It happened really fast, but as I passed, I thought I knew the guy. Maybe. Not for sure. And I just kept driving. It didn’t seem important. But his face was stuck in my minds eye and, as the day went on, I kept trying to remember who he was until, finally, it dawned on me: it was the guy with the cocaine, Mr. Blue Eyes.

He’d been hard to recognize because he looked like an old man. He was, I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but he was kind of disheveled. From head to toe. His clothes were filthy, his face was covered with dirt, but out of that dirty face, those blue eyes stared at the ground while he shambled forward. I think that’s what made me remember. You couldn’t miss those eyes. It made me wish I had stopped, but it didn’t cross my mind in the moment. It was just a guy walking down the road. No big deal.

I’m guessing he’s dead now. I hope not. But that’s how it goes.


Proverbs 14:12
Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2010

Adventures With Rockabilly

Long time ago I was playing in a band, doing drums and vocals. It was a Rockabilly band and it was kind of fun. The success of the Stray Cats had made this stuff marketable again. I sang Little Sister by Elvis and a few other things and it was easy money. We never rehearsed. It was show up and play. We had a guitarist from New York who would have fascinated Mr. Spock, and a bass player who could have been in the Stray Cats.

Then there was the leader of the band. He was a nice guy, in his way, but he was a drunk. And I think it was all due to depression. He thought he was going to be a rock star, like so many other people, and it didn’t work out, which made him sad. You can crush my heart, baby, but don’t you crush my dreams.

One day this guy asked me if I would drive him around to take care of some business. He didn’t just book our band, he was also a booking agent, but he’d lost his driver’s license. So I said “yes,” thinking I could learn a little bit about the business side of music. And let me just say, I don’t recommend you go out of your way to do that. It is a dark and fearful place.

Anyway. We hit the road and, as we moved through the day, he drank more and more, becoming increasingly incoherent. Still, I was able to see him make deals, not only for our band, but for several pretty big name acts. He was trying to work something out for David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, but it wasn’t floating. He did set up a gig for Mitch Ryder at a large club. Weeks later, I drove him to that gig and met Mitch Ryder and his band. The drummer was called “Johnny.” He was on most of the early Mitch Ryder stuff. He said he also played drums on Edgar Winter’s Free Ride, which I thought was Chuck Ruff, and he played on Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare, which makes sense since Alice is a Michigan guy like Mitch Ryder. Johnny was (is?) a very good drummer.

But, I digress. Back to the road trip.

This guy I was driving with progressively anesthetized himself with whiskey while I began to pity him and be angry with him at the same time. He was the kind of drunk/addict who would constantly take advantage of you in whatever ways he could get away with. But it didn’t bother me much. I’d been around a lot of people like that.

This guy had a minor brush with the big time. He’d been in a band that was famous in the late 60's, early 70's, but he wasn’t with them until the early 80's, doing a reunion tour thing, taking the place of someone who didn’t want to do it. He idolized Paul McCartney, and these guys knew Paul McCartney. They’d had a hit with a McCartney song in the early 70's. They were “friends” with Paul and the guy I was riding with had been in a band with them for a tour. It was almost like having met Paul himself, right?

Yes. I know it’s confusing, but that’s how it goes. And that was his brush with fame, which left him craving, like the addict he was, for . . . more. He wanted more.

I wonder about this guy sometimes. I wonder what happened to him. We talked a lot that day. We talked about life and spiritual things, but he made it clear he wasn’t really interested. He already knew what he wanted.

He was practically unconscious by the time I got him home. He mumbled something I couldn’t understand as he climbed out of the car and stumbled across his lawn, into his front door to an unfortunate wife and kids. And he still crosses my mind. I’d have no idea how to get hold of him, and he probably wouldn’t even know who I was if I did, but I wonder if he ever came out of that sadness. I wonder if he ever learned to be happy with who he was. Did he find peace, or did he die with his eyes on the wrong things?

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do for people.



Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2010