Lochloosa

It’s months after my last post, and I apologize for the delay. But I had an epiphany.

I found myself standing in front of a jukebox this weekend with a couple of my buds. We couldn’t figure out how the damn thing worked, and it was taunting us with records by Tom Petty, Nirvana, and Johnny Cash. The decision wasn’t mine to put a loonie into the machine, but if I had a loonie, I would have put in another.

So I got home later, and found myself staring at my old acoustic guitar. It was sitting there with its old haggard strings, begging me for a tune. So I grabbed the basterd and started playing. It was extremely out of tune, but I didn’t care.

I was rusty, making horrible sounds, and the strings made my fingers hurt. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d picked it up, and I couldn’t figure out why it’s been so long.

Johnny Cash was my go-to man. And then Kurt Cobain. I sang a Cobain composition at a Christmas concert back in my junior year of high school. I sang the whole song too far away from the mike, and nobody heard the words. They said the music was nice though.

But where was this going? Why did I suddenly bust into a jam at such a late hour?

To be honest, I wasn’t thinking. It was impulse, an old passion of mine. Music. How could I have neglected my guitar, and put it away for so long? It’s not that I didn’t have any spare time to play. There was simply no excuse.

My uncle once told me that everyone needs something they find solace in. He also told me to never quit doing what you love. No matter what anyone thinks.

It’s all about having those things where you can just feel it. You can feel something shining through, that takes you away from the world of problems, the world of worry. Somewhere you can go and get lost in, and it takes you back to that special place you can call your own. We don’t go there to escape reality. We go there to get to reality.

Photo by Sun Records 

Déjà vu

Seems like I’ve been here before, seems so familiar. What? Just one of those things. When it occurs that I just might have been here before, in this exact moment in time. No. That’s impossible. But why do I recognize everything, as it is, for some reason remembering I had experienced this sometime before. It happens just like that. A chill runs up your spine, your head starts to wobble, and you’re left with these damning questions. Was it a dream? Had I dreamed of this moment, somehow revealing my future in my deepest sleep? Do dreams exist? Is this a dream? Do we exist?

Yes of course we exist. I’ve read of mystics and myths where people can actually control their dreams, which they believe are premonitions of our future. Others believe we dream to practice life while we sleep. Some don’t dream at all. I know John Lennon was a dreamer. He wasn’t the only one.

Upon falling asleep, especially after a hard night of heavy drink, a dream. Running through jungles, flying over clouds, shooting guns in back alleys.  I’ll be driving at top speed in the old Grand Am, crashing through fields while flipping the bastard several times, hurtling through the windshield untouched. All the while lying there, slobbering on the pillow, helplessly unaware of the ignorance.

And every blue moon there’s a nightmare. Sixteen wild dogs chasing you down the mountains with your buddy Tee, watching as your friend Kohl gets ripped to shreds. The dogs of doom are at yours heels, ready to tear your jugular out. You try to scream, but you can’t breathe. You’re going to die, and you damn well want to scream before it happens, when it happens. A flash of darkness. (Lightness?) and you’re in your bed. The safest place of earth, warm and secure as it is. Those crazy dogs would never find me here. Not tonight.

So these dreams are real, in our minds, but completely false and fabricated. Or are they simply our brains way of keeping us entertained in the quiet hours? Surely I could never lay still for ten hours without some sort of amusement. But then again, maybe I could?

But I still wonder, in the small hours when I wake up after a dream. What was that? Where was I?

Picture by Alex Grey

Disposition

Things have never been so swell. It’s been just over a month now since the first day of college. I didn’t know what to expect, but then again,  do we ever? 

I used to live in a small prairie town called Portage. Not much went on there, but the people made the town pulse. With a population of about 13000, everyone knew each other, for the most part. I spent most of my evenings at a pizza joint called Bill’s Sticky Fingers, running food across town and cooking delicious Greek cuisine. The place wasn’t very big, the kitchen was just a single hallway. My boss was a hilarious Greek man named Bill with a mustache that made me so jealous. I could hardly ever understand what he was saying. It was a busy little place, packed on most weekends. Some people would come just to try Bill’s ribs.

But that was then.

I had a notion that I may be moving to Winnipeg for school, but it never really hit me until I got here. I can’t say that I would want it any other way, and for now I’m just happy I made it here. I was once going to move to London, Ontario to study political sciences, but politics can wait.

The toughest thing I’ve ever done was leave behind my friends to pursue this dream. The support I’ve gotten from my friends was amazing. They told me to do what has to be done. They’d be waiting for me when I got back. With whiskey, beer, and The Doors.

I miss my grandma Daisy. She was like my mentor, a wise woman who tells things how it is. Whenever I needed advice, or someone to talk to, she was there. Before I left, she gave me the best advice I’ve ever gotten. Keep your head up Jess, and fight for what you want or else you’ll never get it. I still talk to her whenever I can. I can always hear the excitement in her voice when I tell her about my journey. She tells me how proud she is.

All in all, everything’s been exactly what I wanted. This adventure keeps getting better, especially with such awesome classmates. The moment I walk into class, I feel so welcome, like when you walk into a music concert or something. Everyone is on the same page. I want to see all of these people succeed. I want to keep in touch with them for the rest of my life. Now it’s time to turn on the burners, settle in with a hot cup of coffee and enjoy the ride.

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Bill Hicks: Dark Poet

“I left in love, in laughter, and in truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.”

Everything is bigger in Texas. Bill Hicks knew this. He started doing stand-up comedy at the tender age of 15, and of all places, it was Sunday School. Johnny Carson inspired Bill, revealing to him that you CAN make a living making people laugh. And laugh they did.

“Good evening, my name is Bill Hicks. I’ve been on the road now doing comedy 12 years, so, uh, bear with me while I plaster on a fake smile and plow through this shit one more time. … I’m kinda tired of traveling, kinda tired of doing comedy, kinda tired of staring out at your blank faces looking back at me, wanting me to fill your empty lives with humor you couldn’t possibly think of yourselves.”

Bill always let his audience know what exactly was on his mind. He hated the rampant commercialism that was beginning to flourish all around him, especially in advertising and marketing. When fellow comedian Jay Leno starred in a Doritos commercial in the late 80’s, Bill took it personally, naming The Tonight Show a “cultural train wreck”.

“Do a commercial, you’re off the artistic roll call, every word you say is suspect, you’re a corporate whore and eh, end of story.”

But Bill wasn’t always just a satirist. He put forth his opinions on anything from marijuana decriminalization to world hunger. His views on religion, society, consumerism and politics were often controversial among the mainstream media, but he didn’t care. Bill cared about the Truth, and only spoke the Truth. His profound antics became popular in the after hour comical realm, and still live on today.

“I quit smoking. It’s very hard, but I’m glad I did. I’ll tell you, this war against drugs in the US is the reason I quit because I got too damn sick of being on the wrong side. The war against drugs, which actually is a war against civil rights, don’t ever be fooled again. If they cared about us they’d get rid of the number one drug which is cigarettes; kills more people than crack, coke, and heroin combined, times 100. Legal.”

Bill’s shows had no boundaries. He said whatever he wanted. Performing in nightclubs gave him the go ahead to speak his mind regardless of what anybody said. If somebody disagreed with him, he didn’t care. Bill realized that everything was just an opinion, and never took himself too seriously.

“I’m so sick of arming the world, then sending troops over to destroy the arms, you know what I mean? We keep arming these little countries, then we go and blow the shit out of them. We’re like the bullies of the world, y’know.”

May your relentless soul rest in peace, and your words carry on through the ages. Your message of peace and harmony reminds us that it is our duty to care for each other. We all share this planet together, and with compassion, benevolence, and goodwill we can achieve anything.