It Was Twenty Years Ago Today By Billy Shears
Part the Second
Nowhere Man
This odyssey is bringing me to a sort of renaissance of music, at least in lyrics. I just made the post of the first part. While doing that I looked on line to some other Beatles lyrics. I mentioned at an earlier time my love for the Beatles, but to tell you the truth, over the last twenty years, I have not visited my friends that much. Not to say that I have not purchased or received albums. Over the last year I have listened to more of their work than I have in a long time, but there are places I do not go too often. I read the lyrics to Strawberry Fields Forever, just a minute ago. Then I read Nowhere Man. Both of these songs had a profound effect on me when I was a kid. The first was an epitome for me. It was the first song to literally change my life. People say that, but I mean it. I see it now and I smile at that part that is still me, deep inside, the spirit that lives as an heirloom to what I am attempting to fathom. These words, “Always, know sometimes, think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream/I think I know I mean ah Yes but it's all wrong, that is I think I disagree”, set me off for a number of hours. I understood it completely and still do. Do you? Have you felt that faraway removal?
I have starting reading a book that my wife recommended me to read. Opinions may vary, but I like it. It’s called Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. There is a premise in the beginning of the book. Something to the affect of waking up and feeling like you have been lied to your entire life; that what we encompass is a big lie. If you have ever shared a drink with me in the last twenty years, you have heard me go on about the big lie. Find the book and check it out, but I will proceed. Even more so over the years, the essay that I also wanted to write was called John Lennon Looks At Sixty. I thought about how he might reflect upon that song. When he sings, “but you know I know and it’s a dream” (which is what I hear), to stop and guess or to even realize is a presence that is God. The thing that happened to me, that upsets me most I think, is how I had to deny that part of me. I am not saying that I didn’t feel it or act it, I did, but at a cost. I don’t yet know how to portray this, but the caliber of what I had envisioned for myself graduated from feeling I could do it, to just feeling it.
I was summoned to create and be a singular force. I was engaged to resist the highest temptations. I had my finger on the button. The cold sweat reminder has punished me ever since. Sure that is easy to say and harder to believe if you do not know the maze of my life. The important part is that you understand it, because I believe as well, we have all felt these things. This is why moments reach up and speak to us. We rally for some greater good and apostolate. So I reminisce and dig into my belly button for answers, the shared allusion should have a purpose.
I am going to sleep on these thoughts and come back soon.
Yesterday was John Lennon’s 65th birthday. I spent the day driving the California coast listening to a jazz station that was interrupted on occasion by another community radio station that was playing all of John’s songs. I couldn’t find it on the dial, but did catch the last part of it, ironically driving over the San Andreas Fault on my way back to the hotel. As well, today or yesterday is the day I got out of the situation I am writing about.
I’ll get back to the business at hand. I started to talk about how I changed from feeling I could do [it], to just feeling [it]. What was It I wanted? I don’t really remember and that sort of saddens me. I recall bits and pieces of what It was, but it’s hazy and dim, buried in boxes and under dust covers, beneath the pages of books that I read. It had a simple feeling, a place I was looking for. It would be easy to describe in the song lyrics I listened to, I don’t want it to be cliché. I want it to have meaning for you as well as me. I say that bearing on my friends who may read this.
In those days on those Saturday afternoons spinning away in my bedroom I walked with ideas of something greater than myself. I yearned for a happiness. I can quote you some of my favorite lines about that, I think I will. Zorba said, that all that one needs to know that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart. I mention this because I believe I possessed that back in my early days of stepping out of the shadows. I can say this because of a defining moment. Without getting into the gory details, I realized that I had human parents. I saw that they were unhappy. Not unhappy with each other, but somehow realizing that they had other plans and dreams as well. Not that they didn’t want to have children and live in the suburbs, because I believe they wanted that. No, it was more along the likeness of finding out that the choices made turned the tide on a lifetime of work. A reckless disregard for our own welfare, drifting away as ambers float to the sky and all we can do is take a deep breath and hope we learn from our mistakes. We all have that potential of waking up and finding that in our cup of coffee. I detailed this in my sentimental story of the Personals.
This had a profound affect, as I before mentioned. I took it to heart. Everywhere I went I looked for that in folks. I looked at my friends, teachers, and other adults and to see if I was on that track myself. I thought that I was. That was a big problem to me. A cascade of events transpired, from self medication to exuberant behavior and at times violent actions. I became depressed. Now, something led up to all of this, no doubt, but we are not here for a $100 a session discussion. This motored into a frontier. This was the gauntlet being thrown down by myself to myself. Live free or die. Don’t let it happen to you Captain, don’t you let it happen.
Eh.
One thing led to another. Incomplete dreams, false friends, immaturity and the onslaught of the time that waits. The jester. Yeah, baby, the jester. I read the news today, O boy! Ouch, it hurt, it stung, and it was all about growing up. But it was too late to put it down. It was too impossible to ask the people who were there for your guidance for help because they too did not know. All I ever wanted was to wake up and not know what I knew then. Of course some people will say that they tried to save you from yourself. Really. What that means you can roll up and smoke and have a headache. Save yourself, Jesus was a Capricorn. I realized that I didn’t exist. That I, Captain Jack, was a manifest of my own imagination, I was on some surreal boat ride and sooner or later I would wind up somewhere. I would hopefully be alive and without any cannibalistic tendencies that had any statistical asterisk with my name becoming a new catch phrase.
I come to find out, that I am perplexed at this point by the song Nowhere Man. At the bottom of that barrel, let me tell you, no place to be in that condition. I couldn’t circumvent it. I had stalled. I was stalled for a multitude of reasons, but mostly by some of my own missteps. Rationalizing this, I decided that I done screwed it up and it was too late to change my course. That’s the fun of non existence because it becomes reinforced as you mosie along the trail picking up crawdads. Crawdads by the way, if you have ever attempted to pick one up swim backwards, just like a lobster, although not as tasty. Nowhere Man, Can’t you see the world is at your command? Oh what a drag, man let me tell you, just an ass kicking time. Do you see where this is going? Good, because if I have to explain it, well, forget about it.
Shooting crawdads in a barrel, stuck in a momentum that only irony can laugh about, I got confused to say the least. What was the lie? It was me telling myself what I had been conditioned to understand. That this was the best it was going to be and I was on my own. Yeah baby, I was the liar. I took myself at my word too. Some folks tried to tell me I was wrong by telling me I was right. I can wrap my head around that because others are comfortable when they see you wasting your potential. It was not until later that I realized most of this, but for the time being let’s not keep that in mind.
I became another fond freshwater creature, the well known Catfish. A bottom feeder, I accepted what floated down to the bottom, found it to be the best of what I was offered. No one has to apologize or give considerations to those folks. It is like being a prisoner or any other type of derogatory reference as you will. This is when it all began. So we will wrap this part up with two critical motions of emphasis. I was the center of the lie. I began to accept the role of the wounded lord living by the sea. This is critical because the question underneath it all is what difference did all of this make? Correct? Did what happen to me twenty years ago have such a devastating effect that I had permanent damage or did I just rationalize something old into something new? This is where it is supposed to go.
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
Nowhere Man
This odyssey is bringing me to a sort of renaissance of music, at least in lyrics. I just made the post of the first part. While doing that I looked on line to some other Beatles lyrics. I mentioned at an earlier time my love for the Beatles, but to tell you the truth, over the last twenty years, I have not visited my friends that much. Not to say that I have not purchased or received albums. Over the last year I have listened to more of their work than I have in a long time, but there are places I do not go too often. I read the lyrics to Strawberry Fields Forever, just a minute ago. Then I read Nowhere Man. Both of these songs had a profound effect on me when I was a kid. The first was an epitome for me. It was the first song to literally change my life. People say that, but I mean it. I see it now and I smile at that part that is still me, deep inside, the spirit that lives as an heirloom to what I am attempting to fathom. These words, “Always, know sometimes, think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream/I think I know I mean ah Yes but it's all wrong, that is I think I disagree”, set me off for a number of hours. I understood it completely and still do. Do you? Have you felt that faraway removal?
I have starting reading a book that my wife recommended me to read. Opinions may vary, but I like it. It’s called Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. There is a premise in the beginning of the book. Something to the affect of waking up and feeling like you have been lied to your entire life; that what we encompass is a big lie. If you have ever shared a drink with me in the last twenty years, you have heard me go on about the big lie. Find the book and check it out, but I will proceed. Even more so over the years, the essay that I also wanted to write was called John Lennon Looks At Sixty. I thought about how he might reflect upon that song. When he sings, “but you know I know and it’s a dream” (which is what I hear), to stop and guess or to even realize is a presence that is God. The thing that happened to me, that upsets me most I think, is how I had to deny that part of me. I am not saying that I didn’t feel it or act it, I did, but at a cost. I don’t yet know how to portray this, but the caliber of what I had envisioned for myself graduated from feeling I could do it, to just feeling it.
I was summoned to create and be a singular force. I was engaged to resist the highest temptations. I had my finger on the button. The cold sweat reminder has punished me ever since. Sure that is easy to say and harder to believe if you do not know the maze of my life. The important part is that you understand it, because I believe as well, we have all felt these things. This is why moments reach up and speak to us. We rally for some greater good and apostolate. So I reminisce and dig into my belly button for answers, the shared allusion should have a purpose.
I am going to sleep on these thoughts and come back soon.
Yesterday was John Lennon’s 65th birthday. I spent the day driving the California coast listening to a jazz station that was interrupted on occasion by another community radio station that was playing all of John’s songs. I couldn’t find it on the dial, but did catch the last part of it, ironically driving over the San Andreas Fault on my way back to the hotel. As well, today or yesterday is the day I got out of the situation I am writing about.
I’ll get back to the business at hand. I started to talk about how I changed from feeling I could do [it], to just feeling [it]. What was It I wanted? I don’t really remember and that sort of saddens me. I recall bits and pieces of what It was, but it’s hazy and dim, buried in boxes and under dust covers, beneath the pages of books that I read. It had a simple feeling, a place I was looking for. It would be easy to describe in the song lyrics I listened to, I don’t want it to be cliché. I want it to have meaning for you as well as me. I say that bearing on my friends who may read this.
In those days on those Saturday afternoons spinning away in my bedroom I walked with ideas of something greater than myself. I yearned for a happiness. I can quote you some of my favorite lines about that, I think I will. Zorba said, that all that one needs to know that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart. I mention this because I believe I possessed that back in my early days of stepping out of the shadows. I can say this because of a defining moment. Without getting into the gory details, I realized that I had human parents. I saw that they were unhappy. Not unhappy with each other, but somehow realizing that they had other plans and dreams as well. Not that they didn’t want to have children and live in the suburbs, because I believe they wanted that. No, it was more along the likeness of finding out that the choices made turned the tide on a lifetime of work. A reckless disregard for our own welfare, drifting away as ambers float to the sky and all we can do is take a deep breath and hope we learn from our mistakes. We all have that potential of waking up and finding that in our cup of coffee. I detailed this in my sentimental story of the Personals.
This had a profound affect, as I before mentioned. I took it to heart. Everywhere I went I looked for that in folks. I looked at my friends, teachers, and other adults and to see if I was on that track myself. I thought that I was. That was a big problem to me. A cascade of events transpired, from self medication to exuberant behavior and at times violent actions. I became depressed. Now, something led up to all of this, no doubt, but we are not here for a $100 a session discussion. This motored into a frontier. This was the gauntlet being thrown down by myself to myself. Live free or die. Don’t let it happen to you Captain, don’t you let it happen.
Eh.
One thing led to another. Incomplete dreams, false friends, immaturity and the onslaught of the time that waits. The jester. Yeah, baby, the jester. I read the news today, O boy! Ouch, it hurt, it stung, and it was all about growing up. But it was too late to put it down. It was too impossible to ask the people who were there for your guidance for help because they too did not know. All I ever wanted was to wake up and not know what I knew then. Of course some people will say that they tried to save you from yourself. Really. What that means you can roll up and smoke and have a headache. Save yourself, Jesus was a Capricorn. I realized that I didn’t exist. That I, Captain Jack, was a manifest of my own imagination, I was on some surreal boat ride and sooner or later I would wind up somewhere. I would hopefully be alive and without any cannibalistic tendencies that had any statistical asterisk with my name becoming a new catch phrase.
I come to find out, that I am perplexed at this point by the song Nowhere Man. At the bottom of that barrel, let me tell you, no place to be in that condition. I couldn’t circumvent it. I had stalled. I was stalled for a multitude of reasons, but mostly by some of my own missteps. Rationalizing this, I decided that I done screwed it up and it was too late to change my course. That’s the fun of non existence because it becomes reinforced as you mosie along the trail picking up crawdads. Crawdads by the way, if you have ever attempted to pick one up swim backwards, just like a lobster, although not as tasty. Nowhere Man, Can’t you see the world is at your command? Oh what a drag, man let me tell you, just an ass kicking time. Do you see where this is going? Good, because if I have to explain it, well, forget about it.
Shooting crawdads in a barrel, stuck in a momentum that only irony can laugh about, I got confused to say the least. What was the lie? It was me telling myself what I had been conditioned to understand. That this was the best it was going to be and I was on my own. Yeah baby, I was the liar. I took myself at my word too. Some folks tried to tell me I was wrong by telling me I was right. I can wrap my head around that because others are comfortable when they see you wasting your potential. It was not until later that I realized most of this, but for the time being let’s not keep that in mind.
I became another fond freshwater creature, the well known Catfish. A bottom feeder, I accepted what floated down to the bottom, found it to be the best of what I was offered. No one has to apologize or give considerations to those folks. It is like being a prisoner or any other type of derogatory reference as you will. This is when it all began. So we will wrap this part up with two critical motions of emphasis. I was the center of the lie. I began to accept the role of the wounded lord living by the sea. This is critical because the question underneath it all is what difference did all of this make? Correct? Did what happen to me twenty years ago have such a devastating effect that I had permanent damage or did I just rationalize something old into something new? This is where it is supposed to go.
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
posted by Sisyphus at 1:28 AM
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