Gotta Pay Your Dues

If you wanna sing the blues.

                                                              It Don't Come Easy

It's 11:15 pm on Christmas Eve. I sit here alone, contemplating life. I don't mind being alone. I do mind simpletons who have an easy life. Everything falls their way, every roll of the dice and flip of the coin.

I've paid my dues and then some. Some folks get all the shit they want and some folks just get shit on and there is where I lie. Christmas is supposed to be the birth of Christ, a time of peace, love and joy. All I see in this world is hate, jealousy and greed. Everyone seems to have an agenda. How they can use someone or take advantage of someone.

I ask myself, what am I doing here? Why am I wasting my time in a place I really don't like. I don't like most people. I find them uninteresting and dull. I am sure they find me a dotard as well but I really could care less. I am trapped and there is no way out. Of course, it's mostly my fault. I don't have any interest in fitting in or being a follower or a pretender.

I especially hate winter. Cold weather is morbid. My one bit of solace in winter is playing hockey. When I'm on the ice I forget about everything else but the game. I suppose that is good. When the game is over, it's back to oblivion. I wonder if I could be like Walter Mitty and lead an imaginary exciting life. I guess my imagination isn't quite that terrific or maybe my depth of delusion hasn't got to that level, yet.

                                                                 The Harsh Truth

                                                               Of The Camera Eye

                              There always seems to be a Morrissey song for every occasion.

                                                 This one brutally applies to me also.

                                                    We celebrate being celibate.

To Winter

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.'
He hears me not, but o'er the yawning deep
Rides heavy; his storms are unchain'd, sheathиd
In ribbиd steel; I dare not lift mine eyes,
For he hath rear'd his sceptre o'er the world.

Lo! now the direful monster, whose 1000 skin clings
To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and in his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

He takes his seat upon the cliffs,--the mariner
Cries in vain. Poor little wretch, that deal'st
With storms!--till heaven smiles, and the monster
Is driv'n yelling to his caves beneath mount Hecla.

William Blake

                                                                                    Winter

Winter, I hate thee.

Enigma

The noblest name in Allegory's page, 
The hand that traced inexorable rage; 
A pleasing moralist whose page refined, 
Displays the deepest knowledge of the mind; 
A tender poet of a foreign tongue, 
(Indited in the language that he sung.) 
A bard of brilliant but unlicensed page 
At once the shame and glory of our age, 
The prince of harmony and stirling sense, 
The ancient dramatist of eminence, 
The bard that paints imagination's powers, 
And him whose song revives departed hours, 
Once more an ancient tragic bard recall, 
In boldness of design surpassing all. 
These names when rightly read, a name [make] known 
Which gathers all their glories in its own. 

Edgar Allan Poe

The Glue That Holds Me Together

As Morrissey's fall U. S. tour comes to a close, I want to thank Our Moz for playing one of my favorite songs, Glamorous Glue. This song brings back some very fond memories of a better time for me. I am not much into nostalgia but with an artist such as Morrissey, with a wonderful catalogue of songs to choose from it's is nice he is able to take songs from different eras and meld them into a vibrant concert. Music is meant to bring out emotions and make folks feel whatever that particular song means to them. Glamorous Glue takes me to a time when life was dynamic and full of possibilities. Each concert I am able to pull up the Youtube video of Mozza singing it gives me a 4:01 time frame that takes me away to a different place and time. It is much appreciated and I am very grateful.

                                                                     Glamorous Glue

The line of the song that has the most meaning to me is "I used to dream and I used to vow, I wouldn't dream of it now" has a special place. It may possibly be my favorite quote of all time. It tells me of someone who was once idealistic and non compromising, with the whole world in front of him, all possibilities on the table. And now one who has been beaten down by the world, maybe with some small sliver of idealism left, waiting for the inevitable end.

The Morrissey tour has come to a close with some very stormy seas. The tour opened with such excitement and spirit, with the new album and enthusiastic crowds. Good times! The good times never stay. The controversy with interviews and the last two concerts being cancelled have brought out the long knives. Our Moz has seen rough seas before and I'm sure he will navigate these troubling times and continue to be the amazing artist and poet of our generations.

                                                             All You Need Is Me

What concerns me most anytime I hear Morrissey is ill, is how bad is it? Our Moz has had some very serious health problems over the last several years. Anytime I hear he is sick, a little voice in my head says "Could this be the end". I hope not and I hope this is just the flu or a cold. I will miss Morrissey very badly when he is gone. My question is what will all the naysayers and haters do when he is gone? Why do people who hate him, spend so much of their valuable time degrading him? Why don't they find something they like and immerse themselves in that? It's a question I will never be able to answer.

The last date on the tour is the KROQ Almost Acoustic festival on December 10, where Our Moz is the headliner. There is some doubt at this point if the show will go on. I hope Mozza is able to be there, if nothing more to silence his vapid critics.  Regardless, the world will continue to staggeringly turn in the age of Trump and Roy Moore. People will be murdered in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. The future appears to be going from dim to black. Is there nothing or no one left to believe in?
Why do we continue to go on? Living daily meaningless lives devoted to nothing. One constant "glue" if you will in my life has been Our Moz, his words, his music and for that I am forever thankful.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow! 
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream; 
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone? 
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep! 
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp? 
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave? 
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream? 

Edgar Allan Poe