The Warrior

There's nothing that compares to the feeling of playing a great show.  I can only get better from here.  I just want to play more.  I sound like a child.  It was a good crowd last night, a fun crowd.

The world is changing, all around me.  I feel like I can't keep up.  Each day my shallow beliefs are challenged and compromised, and the paradigm shifts again.  Stability is evasive in an unstable world.  Most unfortunate is the notion that we live in the end times, that life could not possibly go on much longer for a race plagued by selfishness, disease, death.  Look around.  It's everywhere.  Last week, I came home from work twenty minutes after a man had been shot and killed just outside my door.  I have to get out of this town.

Once upon a time, I had dreams of family, of fatherhood.  I used to look back on good times I had with my old man, when he would grill steaks for dinner and have a catch with my brother and me.  It was the American dream for our family, warm and blue-skied, with the smell of charcoal and the giddy sounds of kids laughing.  My childhood was filled with bike-rides, baseball games, and even ice-cream trucks.  And that reality has faded into the grey matter of my mind, a collage of memories that's so overlapped, I can hardly tell one from the other.  

Now, the American dream is decorated with credit cards and cell-phones, with sexual promiscuity, with divorce settlements and child support payments.  On every corner is a lost soul begging for food, behind every other door is a single mother without health-care for herself or her children, or a man whose ambition drove him over an edge into loneliness and isolation, desperation to meet some standard of success.  It's a Dark Age for us, I believe.  I'm really bumming myself out.

I'm spinning wheels here, but I know this:  if we are indeed living in the final days of humanity, then every hour is a unique opportunity to love others, and I will not leave this world a coward, but a warrior. 

The 2009

I feel it just that I'm beginning the new year in Austin.  My aspirations and goals are more real than ever.  This is just where I belong.  With each day I grow more and more emotionally distant from Dallas.

I think every day should be treated as the first day of a new year.  I have so much more resolve, so much determination right now.  I've not felt such drive in a long time.

The Happy Ending

Some people believe in happy endings, others don't.  It's very arrogant.  I happen to not believe in endings at all, personally.  It seems to me that there's no real conclusion to life, but only continuation.  Sure, things and people come and go, but who are we to assume that things that have already passed us by once will never return to haunt us again?  We have only a little control over our time; there is always some chaos, some fate, some predestination that governs us.  Like Kansas sang:  "All we are is dust in the wind."  And the wind, if not here, will always blow somewhere else, and find its way back to where we have temporarily and inevitably settled.  It unifies us, and at the same time, it makes us feel alone.

Merry Christmas, Mom (I know you're the only one who reads this).  See you in a few.

The Two of Me

I think there's a very metaphysical duplicity to who we are.  You know, what you see versus what you don't see.  Not to say that these two sides of me are always at conflict.  In fact, I think living life with both sides in continuous perspective is what keeps both sides at peace and balance.  But there is only worldly credibility to the physical side of who I am.  The things I do and say in this life are but consumption of air and space, and when I am gone, they will slowly fade with my rotting corpse.  And then I see only the spirit of who I am, the angel, the demon, the aura, living on in a universe much more vast than what we know in terrestrial existence.  As far as I can tell, when I move on I will have little concern for whatever took place in this lifetime.  Now is the only time that I can even consider the purpose for my earthly presence.  And because the conscious seems to be connected to the sub-conscious, I have to believe that what I choose in this life will have permanent repercussions on the next, whether good or bad.

I'm done.  Maybe more later.

The Hermit

Maybe my mother's right.  Maybe I'm just taking my time.  I need to use this opportunity to explore life.  Nothing is tying me down, nothing is holding me back, aside from myself.  It's time to break some cycles.  And if I don't get to Austin by next summer, it's okay; so long as I don't take what I have for granted.  I just need to get out.

Me, a hermit?  It just doesn't fit.  I don't know what I've been thinking.

The Opportunity

I hope we all understand what a huge opportunity we have here.  The President-elect is calling upon us to throw aside more than partisanship in the government; Mr. Obama is calling upon us as a nation to disregard our differences as people and work together to rebuild a prosperous country.  I appreciate hearing people that voted for McCain say: "I will support my President although I did not vote for him."  It is a testament to the power of the hope that our new President-elect has spoken about time and time again.

He's not perfect.  But I don't believe that he is corrupt.  I believe the darkest and brightest times are on the horizon, and he will be a trust-worthy and dedicated usher through the next 4, or perhaps 8, years.

One thing is certain:  we cannot allow an opportunity to be united pass us by.  Pay attention, keep a keen eye and an open mind, and make yourself available to serve your nation.  These are the things we need to do to support our new leader.

The 44th

Just my thoughts.

I'm trying to figure out why so many people are still terrified of this man.  I have so many close friends and family that are so afraid of the change this democratic government is going to bring.  Just because you have some moral value that doesn't line up with what legislation may be put forth in the coming months, you assume this is the beginning of the end.  But the America that I remembered studying in grade school was always called the "land of the free."  

This guy is classic, poised, sophisticated, well-spoken, loyal.  He loves his family more than anything in the world.  He promised his little girls a puppy in the White House.  His acceptance speech was delivered not with pride and zeal, but humility and grace and thankfulness.  His eyes are already focused on the future, and he will assuredly work very hard to do what he sees as best for the nation.  He promised sincerely to listen, and I believe him.

As for me, I am again proud of my nation, proud to be an American.  I think underlying everything this administration will stand for will be the genuine hope in the goodness of people.  And, if called upon, I would be proud to serve in the military under this administration, for the record.

And even still, we should all be proud to be part of such a great moment in history.  He's been handed a nation in distress, and it's the great presidents that have before faced such hard times and persevered.

Congratulations to Barack Obama, President-elect of the United States.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you as you turn yours to challenging road ahead.

On a different note, I played a really lame open-mic tonight (tore it up, by the way), and the guy that announced my name called me "Jose;"  I just went with it.  I might keep it as a stage name.