Dead Mans Bones! My new Obsession!!

Dead Mans Bones....my new Music Obsession...check them out.!













































"Its Always Sunny in Philidelphia! " my new tv Obsession!!

I missed the first 3 seasons of this show....(Kicking myself now).. recently bought them...Im hooked!! Funniest show ever. and it has Danny Devito in it, amazing!!!

What tv show reminds you of your childhood?

Mine is definately The Wonder years.

Johnny Cash & Dad.

Has anybody reading this seen the video for Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt"?

I never really paid my attention to it, I mean, I love the song. But i'm talking about the soul stirring video and the thought provoking message in it. When I first saw it a few years ago, it reminded me of my dad right away. My Love of Old Country came from my dad, he loved Johnny Cash, George jones, Merle Haggard..all those great honky tonk trust tellers.

When I was a kid, i dreaded when he would have his buddies over and they would spend the night playing poker, getting drunk and listening to these Outlaws blaring at ear-drum shattering levels. At that age i was surely influenced more by my mothers angelic & church going ways. Which probably was'nt a bad thing at the time. My dad was a christian, he had a very special relationship between him and God. He wasnt the kind of mad who flat out said "I love you son" but his actions spoke volumes.

How when we would go fishing, he always let me use his pole .or If my brothers and i were figting he would seperate us and usually take me with him to his workshed and make me sit on the cement steps beside him as he worked on lawn mowers or one of our old bycycle chains. Every once in awhile glancing over to me and giving me a sly grin, letting me know...I was free to move about and help him, he would always keep cold root beet in a cooler inside his workspace, and sometimes he would go in and get us each one and he would open them with the bottle opener on his keys that hung on the side of his motor oil stained pants.

Most times it was just us sitting out there for hours at a time in the summer, not always for being in trouble, but just sitting there, enjoying the midday sun, or better yet..the sun goin down, gazing at the neighbors horses running up the hillside heading for the stable. My dad remind me so much of Johnny Cash & his music. I will always think of him each time a song comes on.

My Summer Guilty Pleasure. Big Brother!

The Real Literary Zeus :)

Wally Lamb is a Literary Zeus in my opinion, I've always loved books that i was unable to put down till the last chapter, and when i finished She's Come Undone( which i just finished reading and recommend highly, i wanted to start over and relish every word over again. It left me with so many questions about myself and how the world sees me, how I see myself, how I wanna live my life. that love comes from all around us, and sometimes we refuse to accept it, and just drink the milkshakes we are given:)

So I went on Amazon about a week ago and ordered his newest book and I'm hooked right away...I'm taking a break for the book just to write this entry...:). I love getting lost in his words, It's not often i find an Author I latch onto and have to find other works of theirs.

In his new novel, The Hour I First Believed, Lamb travels well beyond his earlier work and embodies in his fiction myth, psychology, family history stretching back many generations, and the questions of faith that lie at the heart of everyday life. The result is an extraordinary tour de force, at once a meditation on the human condition and an unflinching yet compassionate evocation of character.
When forty-seven-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife, Maureen, a school nurse, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, Connecticut, to be with his aunt who has just had a stroke. But Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed, as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated, murderous rampage. Miraculously she survives, but at a cost: she is unable to recover from the trauma. Caelum and Maureen flee Colorado and return to an illusion of safety at the Quirk family farm in Three Rivers. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues.
While Maureen fights to regain her sanity, Caelum discovers a cache of old diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings in an upstairs bedroom of his family's house. The colorful and intriguing story they recount spans five generations of Quirk family ancestors, from the Civil War era to Caelum's own troubled childhood. Piece by piece, Caelum reconstructs the lives of the women and men whose legacy he bears. Unimaginable secrets emerge; long-buried fear, anger, guilt, and grief rise to the surface.
As Caelum grapples with unexpected and confounding revelations from the past, he also struggles to fashion a future out of the ashes of tragedy. His personal quest for meaning and faith becomes a mythic journey that is at the same time quintessentially contemporary—and American.
The Hour I First Believed is a profound and heart-rending work of fiction. Wally Lamb proves himself a virtuoso storyteller, assembling a variety of voices and an ensemble of characters rich enough to evoke all of humanity.

I should be on drugs...but I don't want them! Thanks family for giving me your craziness!

"It always scares me when people say, 'I love you.' I've never been able to say that to anyone without feeling a little bit like a liar. That's horrible to say, but it's true. Whenever I say, 'I love you' to anyone, a little piece of me inside says, 'no, you don't, you don't love anyone, not even yourself.' " From the book Prayers for Bobby..I feel this way sometimes...I'm just tired...and having to put on a smile and act like everything is ok! EVERYTHING IS NOT OK!!!

But I can't say that, I can only smile when asked how are you? and say ok...:) A old friend once said to me "you always say the same thing, 'Ok' " Because, I can't say anything else...my family was never really good with expressing their feelings...but we are great at pushing them deep down and forgetting about them....letting them eat away at our insides...

God this sounds so depressing..LOL Please don't worry about me! I will be fine....I go thru these spells from time to time but I always come out of them...I am strong and I know I will be fine...:)Thursday night I went to a seminar about my new job. ...I have always wanted to work in sales.... They were looking for 2-5 people.but id allready interviewed and been hired, but decided to go anyways...and the room was packed...and the biggest thing they were looking for was customer service! I know I can be really mean to my customers, or well i have in the past...but I am a very caring person....and could deal with a job involving people....I can't afford to not work for months.(like some people i know). So, after sitting thru most of the seminar I decided to leave....

They need programs to help individuals like myself to go back to school....I would love to go back and I could take night classes but I can't afford to do it...I could try and get a loan but that would just put me in more debt....I know these services are great for people that take them serious...but it also makes me slightly mad when I hear people say they will get all there tax money back plus some because they have children....or they get to go to school for free and take all these classes because they did something bad and the courts are helping them do good for themselves...Do I need to go out and get into drugs? Go to court? have some babies? and ask the govt. / state for help? If I try to go now and ask for help they say No you make too much we can't help you! HAHAHA I make shit! I made only about 20,000.00 this past year! I don't know....it just sucks...life sucks...but yet I keep on keeping on! I get up every morning even when I am sick and have to force every ounce of energy to get out of bed because I know that if I don't I don't have a job and if I don't have a job I don't have a place, car, phone, etc. but I am also tired....so tired....and i joke alot but sometimes I would love to be able to just sleep.....sleep....sleep....sleep forever....When I am sleeping I can dream and relax and feel good....my bed is the most valuable thing to me....my sleep is what I look foward too.....When I get done work I take a nap and I feel ten times better afterwards....

Oh well.....I know things will get better...and I do need to work on myself and my self esteem....God it's sad when I am told I am handsome or the time when I was in a club and this girl came up to me and said, "You're sexy!" And yet I felt so ugly that I didn't believe her and said, "yeah right!" And walked away! No wonder people feel they can't approach me...I come off as such an ass...when in all reality I am not...

and my peers people I grew up with, classmates....are starting familys...having kids....going places....starting fun and intersting jobs...and even though I should be happy for the hard work I have put in throughout my life......all I see is me working at a dead end job.

Let me finish this with more from the book prayers for bobby..."I think God must get a certain amount of self-satisfaction watching people deal with the obstacles he throws in their path...I hate God sometimes for this and for my shitty existence...He must have seen the large tractor trailer approaching from under the Couch Street overpass and timed the jump. Bobby executed a sudden and effortless back flip and disappeared over the railing. The driver tried to swerve, but there was no time...He had descended twenty-five feet directly into the path of the trailer, which tossed his body fourteen feet under the overpass...the impact had ripped away most of his clothes and strewn them on the highway. Beneath his body paramedics found a two-dollar bill and seventy-seven cents in change...the medical examiner said later that Robert Warren Griffith, age twenty years and two months, had died instantly of massive internal injuries..." (Prayers for Bobby)

What could make someone do this? What a poor poor young man to have thought death was his only way out of the hurt....he allowed himself to be overcome with hate, depression, whatever and ended it! So sad....I could never understand how someone could do this....Even when I am going thru the darkest of days....I always know there is going to be light eventually...and I can just chock it up to more life lessons learned and know that I will be a better person to have lived thru it...If you get the chance to read the book I suggest it....it's so much better then the movie as the movie can't get you as the reader deep into the story.....so check it out "Prayers for Bobby by Leroy Aarons" Feeling better to have written this down and gotten it off my chest...I can now breath a bit easier...and go to my bed and dream...until I am forced to start all over again at the beep beep of the alarm clock at Yay me! LOL Seriously....I am fine this blog just gives me a way to let things out...my own form of therapy....:)

Lately I have been feeling like I may never get over this.I think a lot of it is because a huge part of me doesn't want to.Some days I feel a little better about it; I fantasize about my future. I think about living the life i want.. being in other relationships, getting married.But most days, it just consumes me.

I wonder if this was my chance at love. I wonder if I will ever find someone so amazing ever again. It scares me to think I may end up alone forever while I watch all my other friends flourish in their relationships.I don't regret falling in love. Because you can't have regrets, and for a while there I was happy. Yet, sometimes I wonder if I would be better off if none of it had happened

.I feel so stupid letting it control me the way it does. I guess its just that when you care about one person so much, so much that when you look at them your heart skips a beat, so much that you just like being in the same room as them because with them you feel safe, so much that everything is different and not as beautiful without them, so much that you physically hurt without them, that its impossible to let go.Its nights like this that I wish we could just talk like we used to.

I've been trying to focus on other things to get through it, but its no use. I just can't fully get into anything. Because without love what's the point really?

Sometimes there aren’t words to put everything you feel into some sort of perspective. like you could lay them down on paper and see a shadow of all that you want to express, but can never fully obtain.

the stories we read or watch, or the scenery observed moves us.
but how did it move those who wrote it or created it?
if it brings us to tears, what turmoil or joy did it disturb in their hearts?
human beings hold a mystery far beyond what we give them credit for.
through love or hate, we are a torrent of undiscovered things.

some people say there is no God.
that what we are and what we do means close to nothing.
but I have yet to comprehend how with a world full of so deep a recess as one human soul, we can agree to a theory of there being no reason for it.
sure there is pain. and we throw so much into the category of wondering if there really is a God and He really is love then how can there be so much pain…

but we let the pain drown out the beauties that constantly surround us.
we take a glance from our minimal point of view and comprehension and say God must have no justifiable reasons for doing what He does.
we take circumstance and make it truth.
we take time and make it eternity.
we take God and make Him like us.
when maybe we should be asking ourselves are we like Him?
and that maybe, just maybe we have strayed far from something greater than ourselves and even beyond what our own two eyes can gaze upon.

i wonder if some of us will wake up to see we've been dining at a table we didn't know we were invited to and all along have been insulting the host by stealing his food and screwing his wife. Yet we call out,
"you are a wretched being and i have never had anything to do with you, if there exists such a thing as you..."

what we claim to know and what we actually know rarely coincide.
and i speak with ownership of that last phrase.
but out of all the things beyond my comprehension i am assured of one thing.

that circumstances are not Truth.
they may be true, but will never last.

but to trust in something beyond what we see, to trust in something beyond circumstances, to trust in something beyond time, that seem more in line with the way things work. and to search for it out of a pure heart to find it and not just find an answer that solves the text books and settle the mind of reason, but to find truth and truth itself would mean abandoning the ideals that govern the senses, and stepping out into something unknown, or something the christians call faith.

a confidence or trust in something you don't have to fully understand to follow.

when we chase after love we don't let sense or reason guide our every move, otherwise we would never really obtain the thing we were chasing. we would end up with a compartment for every feeling and only let it live under lock and key.

but those who find love abandon reason and let something beyond comprehension take hold. its scary, exhilarating and sometimes painful. but yet love is a confidence or trust in something not yet understood.

so this God we don’t understand or don’t believe in has laid out words for us to see. He has written a shadow of the real Truths He wanted to express all around us. we watch them in movies, read them in books, and live them out in actual time.

Have we ever stopped to wonder that maybe the reason we don’t see them as we ought is because we are so immersed in them we can’t bare to see the forest for the trees? That what we eat, sleep and repeat is a world or shadow written down on an earthen canvas for all to read. In our flesh lies the handy work of a God who left His mark or image.

We stare at a marred image in a mirror and imagine a marred God.
When we should be retracing the lines to see where our paths have separated, and searching for how they can be united once again.

The problem isn’t trusting in a flawed idea of God, it’s trusting in flawed human beings.

My day at the Laundry Mat.

I knew the day wasnt gonna go all that well, when i realized my Washer went on the fritz.. but what can you do? So i decided to look on the bright side of things. afterall it was a beautiful day, so I decided to just go to the laudry mat, I usually dont like going there, but I called Sears and it they wont be able to come out to look at my washer till next wednesday, so needless to say, I need clean clothes and bedding...so off I go right?

I havent really been to the laundry mat in ages....but it was kind of nice actually, it wasnt crowded and I took my Ipod and a book, stopped and got an iced coffee and made the best of it. It kind of made me glad to be an American in a weird way, im sure i cant explain properly..but it did. the sun was shining. atleast 80 degrees, the laundry mat door was propped open and a refreshing breeze zoomed in and the smell of fresh cut grass enveloped the space around me, wish they made fabric softeners of that smell....*sigh*.. only 2 other ppl came in the whole 2 hours i was there..an older couple who didnt know how to work the washer ( which i kindly assisted) and a mother with her little boy, couldnt have been more than 2 or 3....who strangely behaved very very well...shocking i know. But anyways, i just sat and ppl watched and took pics with my phone, and just enjoyed being out, being free to breath in

thefresh air, I thanked god as I saw people around me going about their everday tasks, thankful i could see, thankful i had the ability to walk, to not have any limits on me. God is so good!

If dreams were real, and reality was a dream, would you be happier?
What if you couldnt remember reality like you forget your dreams, would you be happier?
If you had a choice, would you live in one, just one, of your dreams forever, or live out your life as it is?
If the answer is yes, you need to learn to accept whats around you and live in the moment. So many beautiful wonderful things happen in this world that nobody realizes or pays attention to, and they get lost in the past, forgotten, or never known. You must enjoy every moment you have with any person, or animal, or thing, or place, because they become lost among the millions of things pouring into your senses all at once. Take a moment to remember somebodys name, to enjoy a piece of art, no matter how shitty, to surround yourself in music, to play cards with your family, to hug the people you love, to find complete happiness in a smile, to be overwhelmed in the innocence of a child, to teach the ignorant, not criticize them, to forgive, to cherish, to disregard the petty arguments, to love the imperfect, to be imperfect, to accept yourself, as well as others, to love, and to be loved. Life is amazing, good and bad its amazing.

The message of the day is cry, if you feel bad then cry. I have a hard time with this believe it or not, but i think its a wonderful thing, its the ultimate sorrow, its the ultimate happiness, I almost feel left out. Cry if you want to, its only the truth, the worst thing you could ever do is lie to yourself.
Ill leave it at that.

Im glad He's in my corner

After the night I had last night, drinking and doing things im sure i would regret this morning, (which i do)But, thats another blog alltogether. I was laying on the couch this morning feeling sicker than a dog, so i was just watching tv when my eyes could focus. You know that feeling you get the morning after where it feels like there is a little tiny angry person pushing on the backs of your eyeballs?, well he was pissed this morning.

So I was just laying there in my misery and flipping through channels. I found an old episode of Gunsmoke. you know, the tv show about the small town sheriff or whatever? its like from the old days....hah! Well, It was about a safecracker who had just been released from jail and was trying to start a new life. He was determined to win the hand of the woman he had dissapointed by his crimes. Unfortunately, the safecrackers old cronies came around, lookin for his secrets to opening safes. The more he resisted them, the more they pressured him. until he once again found himself on the verge of crime. At one point I found myself saying " dont do it man! Dont listen to them, as if he could hear me from 30 years in the future...eh? I said, Do the right thing this time!!!!! I desperately wanted the show to end happily and felt relieved when it did.

I think God feels about me the way i felt about the reformed criminal. He doesnt want to catch me in a crime. Rather, he is cheering me on. hoping i will do the "right " thing. When im tempted i can almost hear him saying " dont go there", turn around. Ill help you , if you just turn around. God is on my side! Having someone to believe in me is often all i need to find strength.

Bottom 3 Anoop Desai, Lil Rounds & Matt Giraud.

Anoop safe

between Lil and Matt.

Lil Safe

Matt sings for this stay on Idol.

Kills it

Gets saved

2 go next week.

on we go.

One Faith, One Love

I was sitting on the couch this evening flipping through the 500 channels my cable company thinks I obsiously need to choose from, half of which i never even watch!...but I digress. As I was casually flipping, my remote suddenly quit working, odd? I guess it could be from my everloving habit of procrastinating. But anyways it quit up in the 200 mark of the channels, on TBN ( Trinity Broadcasting network) for those who dont know what that is.,..its a chritian network, alot of loud biblethumping evangelist, who like to hear themselves talk..IMO. But having said that, Ive watched it a few times.

It was some sort of sit-down talk show where a pastor of some sort, was interviewing the actor Jim Caviezel. He played Jesus Christ in the movie..."Passion of the christ" which i own, and love. He's definately a talented actor and a pardon the pun.." a passionate christian' So many times in life we are ashamed of our faith, and its refreshing to see a actor from Hollywood embrace it and shout it from mountaintops, or rather a worldwide christian network...lol. :)

I couldnt help but be impressed and touched by his words and the awesome way he talked about our savior. He spoke so effortlessly and forthright about the words of our lord. I guess It would seem kinda hypocritical had he not been raised christian and took on this role, but i like to think it wouldnt matter, if he was being moved to do so to spread gods love and his journey to give his own lifeblood.. I guess the message and the lost souls it found would be the true gift.

How great a priveledge it must of been for him to use his craft in such a way to life up our creators name for all to see, to carry the cross to millions who sought our the neverending love of jesus..

It absolutely amazes me how many people only pray for large subjects, ( world peace, money, getting ahead in life) and allthough these things are impotant, why overlook the daily little things that god blesses us with everyday? the touch of a friends hug, breathing normally, not being sick...I do take these things for granted as well, but i always give thanks for little things in life. for when little things go wrong, nothing seems right. I hope each of you remember the sacrifice that was made for this easter as you sit around the table or have family near, just say a little prayer from you to god...." thanks for the little things...and the enormous gift you've given me.

Have a blessed easter everyone!!! D-man

A grandmother is a remarkable woman.She's a wonderful combination ofwarmth and kindness, laughter and love.She overlooks our faults, encourages our dreams,and praises our every success.
A grandmother has the wisdom of a teacher,the sincerity of a true friend,and the tenderness of a mother.She's someone we admire, respect andlove very much.
A grandmother will always have a cherishedplace in our memories and in our hearts.She's someone for whom we want every happiness in return for the joy she always brings.
A grandmother is all the dear and precious things in life.

The Bang Bang Club

I received this book for my birthday on the 4th of this month from a good friend of mine, i picked it up a few times to read it, then casually laid it back down, hoping to read it soon. I picked it up once again 3 days ago, and couldnt put it down...weather it be from the horrific nature of the content or my heart breaking after each chapter and having to continue on in hopes it would end. But i finished it, I truly dont think I will be the same again. This to me, is one of my big eye-opening moments in my life. to live to be 29 years old and never hear of such savagry, I couldnt quite put my thoughts into words for this blog...but heres a little summary of it , I found online.

Four young photographers, dodging bullets and risking life and limb to get "you are there" views of violence in South Africa do it so well that they earn a nickname. They became known as "The Bang Bang Club" (bang they're in, they get the photo, bang they're out).

This club made its name during the painful last days of Apartheid. However, the images expand beyond that to images taken among the violence of the Sudan and the former Yugoslavia. Blood is still running as photos are snapped--in fact two of the photographers are shot while covering a firefight outside Johannesburg. Joao Silva is torn between pulling his comrades, Greg Marinovich and Ken Oosterbroek to safety and his desire to capture the images on film. Oosterbroek had been fatally injured.

The book is written by the two surviving members of the Bang Bang Club. Oosterbroek was fatally shot outside Johannesburg; Kevin Carter committed suicide when Oosterbroek was killed. The shooting occured just after Carter won a Pulitzer and he was celebratig that Pulitzer when his comrades were shot.

The book is an excellent first hand account from these photographers about their experiences in getting photos in dangerous situations. I guess it takes someone suicidal or something to do such a job. While I won't pursue such a career, and will likely dissuade any children from doing such work, the experiences were fascinating. It may be debated whether their photos helped speed the end of Apartheid. But their book certainly gives a glimpse into the operations of a group bringing vivid images to the world.

Soon to be released is a movie based upon this book starring Ryan Philipe

As Many of you may know I have taken a little break from blogging. its not that I dont wanna share my life and experiences with you all..I do, I just got fed up with 360 eating my words daily. but once again Im gonna try to start blogging as long as my patience holds out...so bear with me as we once again go down the turbulent and sometimes mundance exsistance that its my life...As I was sitting here this moring with my coffee..I got to think that as a boy, I love to discover things for myself...I tramped through the woods with my brothers like we were Daniel Boone and his Merry clan...We Loved Nature and never took a minute of out outside time for granted..I guess that one of the perks of growing up in the country...I wish every kid could grow up that way. Well we would always pretend to look for a lost civilazation or a hidden cave somewhere...the imagination was so great then. I remember we would pack lunches and sometimes on weekend spend the whole day in the woods, just bein kids...Never did my parents set out in search for us or be worried...cause well, thats just how it was in those days.I sometimes wonder where that adventure went inside my soul...do you lose it after a certain age..and why do we have to lose it? Alas we know that age must dull ones sense of security, but why I ask? why? I have a feeling down inside my heart that ive missed some great tresures because my eyes were distracted by my mind-numbing routine and complacency.Who knows what god has planned for me to find today? A visitor from the past maybe? A great book I can get lost in and take me a 4000 miles away to another land.? I think if i slow down a little bit I will be surprised by god, and a feeling of childhood adventure will return....This is my hope, atleast. Do you think Im silly by thinking this way? why do you think we lose that wide-eyed childhood zest for the unknown as we age? Im curious to hear your opinions and would love to hear from you...I will in turn reply back.....thank you!! PEACE! ~D-man~

How Hot Is Drew? Wow!!

Brandon

My Favorite week on Idol

American Idol's going country Tuesday! Yup, you'll get to see the likes of Anoop Desai, Adam Lambert, Megan Joy Corkrey and Danny Gokey pull on their cowboy boots and tie on bandanas for Grand Old Opry night -- as Randy Travis serves as the first guest mentor and sings with Carrie Underwood, and some guy named Brad Paisley performs too.

I think Megan and Danny will do especially well with the theme, along with Michael Sarver and Alexis Grace. Don't think it'll much affect Allison Iraheta (she can sing anything) or Lil Rounds (ditto) or Adam (he can perform anything) or Kris Allen (he can charm his way through anything).
I do think it's just plain bad luck for struggling Scott MacIntyre (how many country songs feature the piano?) and my favorite Matt Giraud

But I'm gonna play contrarian and say despite what a lot of other bloggers seem to think, that Anoop Desai is gonna do well this week.
After all, he grew up in the South, knows the music and culture, and doesn't take himself too seriously (a key requirement, I think, for singing songs about losing your gun, girl and dog the same day and being most upset about the dog).

Should be Interesting this week for sure!!!!!