More of the girls

A musical walk through a life

I love music. I think well written and well recorded music captures the mood of so many people, myself included.


Growing up, my parents loved country music. I remember BJ Thomas and Kenny Rogers alot. My mother loved Kenny Rogers. I still love Kenny Rogers, especially this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj_NjLBPotQ

Everyone remembers Michael Jackson's "Thriller" coming out. I, like everyone else, had a cassette tape of this album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En-cHBv7UpA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8

1983 or 1984, a school age friend of mine was recording a record and introduced me to Amy Grant's "Unguarded" album with its four different covers. I absolutely fell in love in Amy Grant's music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLEJ_WC2yQk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmW_JwJjaVg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-EGzskcdp0

Along with the new found love for Amy Grant's music, I found the idealist movement within the Contempary Christian Music, which I still love today. Here are some links to some different songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbPKaIozS-c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BRUsSztA44
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITYx4QhIEWs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbLXGW6JIgQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54RhlFUuRt8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuFvhjEO0Ao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJC5efHpcF4

1987, U2 releases "The Joshua Tree" album. Once I heard this album, I was hooked on U2's music. They still are my favorite band. I went back and got a copy of "The Unforgettable Fire" and got a copy of "Rattle and Hum" when it came out. I still have the video from "Rattle and Hum"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8SPeR60lRI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogN5gdbJwkA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVjTOHIkJgE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRKTm2lyVS0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k4ULln7IkU

1988 and Amy Grant records and releases "Lead Me On". Today, this album is still my favorite of all time. There is just not enough I can say about this album. From the opening guitar of "1974", the historical references in "Lead Me On", the temptation of "Faithless Heart", the honesty of "What about the love?" and "Say Once More", the hope in "Waiting on the Healing". It is just a great album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vbim0upW0A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGayAVrH0gQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfdqzPue2_4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR-GzNIPnpY

Of course, this was in the middle of the "Hair" bands of the late 1980s. I hated most of the hair bands, but a few songs I did enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq6OYpJjG0Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKTiwCez6Zs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf0rIV6j2H4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlN3oEjMpUQ

As my high school years were closing and my future was ahead of myself, it was time to recreate myself. I was very nerdy in school and didn't have many friends and I was determined not to make the same mistake in college. So over the summer between high school and college, a massive "reinvention" was developed. At the same time, a single man under the name of Nine Inch Nails recorded "Pretty Hate Machine". This mixture of techno and raw lyrics was great, something very different from the typical "hair band" crap that was out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTs5SoOteQQ

I remember listen to Rebel radio out of Oxford in my bedroom at night in New Albany, introducing me to the alternative music scene, which further deepened as I went to college. My taste in music is still alternative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZRxjpxccF0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5E9kJYI7SU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZEwrK6ziLk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq8hQ_lyMBs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42V8CqWw0xM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcHB060NKYo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6k4ZYjW-cA


Also, during the senior year of high school, I found the hippy movement music of the late 1960s and of course, the Beatles, especially "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and the "White Album"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WROmhkagEjQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDl0qPfkSRw
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7F9AD5226B62209A&search_query=beatles+white+album

Of course, as everything evolves, both personal and popular musical tastes changed, and the Grunge movement from Seattle took the world by storm. From that movement came a band called Pearl Jam. A song from them was titled "Black". Although I have a personal reason for this song being so special, this song is one of those that I think is almost the perfect song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X8Ic86Hx3w

And of course, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhqmFKv3ow8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBuGjGrQVTM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJCiJC2MM5Q

At Northeast Community College, I was introduced to some guys and we formed a very close friendship. One day we got together in a mall and just out of the blue started singing this song to the applauses of the bystanders. One of my favorite memories.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbg7YoXiKn0

And of course, I first heard the Violent Femmes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra8VTlXVqUQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpk2BEtSmnA

My musical taste continued to evolve as my life did...and finally we come to Ole Miss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2cDkFxpYrc

Two albums came out my first year of Ole Miss, U2's "Actune Baby" and Guns N Roses "Use your Illusions"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFWPeVfWB9o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwu7ixmQk0c

I met a woman at Ole Miss that changed my life. Increditably beautiful, remarkably intellegent with the soul and spirit of an angel and I was so in love. It took me six months to ask her out and I was so hooked by the end of the first date. Remarkable how someone can have that effect on another person. She and I had different musical tastes, but we grew to enjoy each other's music somewhat. She was the first person that I ever asked to marry me, but of course, she was wise enough to say NO. We had the remarkable relationship that just ended, and not a break up. I would be lying if I said that when she moved back home that my heart wasn't broken. I think that hurt was what I was healing as I through myself into paramedic school. That devotion to school today has made me one of the best paramedics in the state of MS. Years later, her and I, through the modern technology of Myspace and text messaging, have reconnected as friends. She still has the same angelic soul and spirit, still increditably beautiful and intellegent, though alittle older and wiser. Here are the songs that she liked or inspired my memory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMHGgnlXfSA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji-GONSfwnE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqDV77r8244
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWdG8NoFXY0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXxXj7rzZy4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6635Gym6IA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpo5fVUGNG0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdRJTr23gQo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odrZ6NtPR2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzCSb6OnkZA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzCSb6OnkZA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCYr8TWAGn0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPpkTgMbhRU


And here is a song that she absolutely hated. I use to harrass her to death with this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1cfTMdjkYM


Ok, I degressed alittle by watching a few of these videos over and over.

Then I met Alicia. We dated and eventually got married. Many years and 2 daughters later the marriage ended, but there were great memories of us together. I could write many pages on our lives together, but to put it simply, we are now better friends than we were husband and wife. Sometimes life is like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGmc3bmgaY

My daughters. I can't say enough about them. They are the love of my life, my proof of God's existence and grace and love. I was madly in love with both of them the first second they were born. They amaze me everyday with their outlook on life, and everyday they tell me that they love me, I know that they mean it. They so have their daddy wrapped around their finger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh8o8LZQbC4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HdGUNm6-qI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUk5SZ18WhY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcMX-tXntS0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr0Wv5DJhuk

Even though the pressures of life were destroying my marriage, my career was taken off. I love being a paramedic. I absolutely do. I think it is one of the hardest, most rewarding jobs out there. To be the calm voice in everyone's nightmare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEoEd0ef4_4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBoKorve6Cg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJGXC3AN6R4

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=39832674

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=49443678

These songs are dedicated to my friends Scott and Jay. Scott died of cancer. Still one of those deaths that I cannot understand. He was so full of life, truly one of those special people that we don't have enough of in our lives. Jay also worked with me and died the way he wanted to...on the side of a mountain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAMnjzU-6UQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jtpf8N5IDE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IA36liLghk

This is a short video that I made for a class on mass casualties. I put this in because this incident changed my friend forever and almost killed him. For awhile, his spirit and sould was broken by what he had to experience on the gulf coast. In listening to him talk about it and try to heal from his obviously moral wounds, I learned alot about trust and friendship and what is truly important in life. We can never forget what is truly important in life.

This song is dedicated to a dear friend of mine that is starting on a difficult transition in her life. Originally recorded by Amy Grant many many years ago, this song is a remake of that song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXORJ16Ipn8

Well, that is my musical walk through life. At least a half of a life. I end this with a couple of songs that I would like played at my funeral/wake/bonefire with my dead body burning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgYKXZz2oOQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g

Pimpin' Ain't Easy

Friend's Cask of Amontillado

I love the Egar Allen Poe story "Cast of Amontillado", his story of revenge. It remains one of my favorite short stories of all time.

This morning I am thinking of how people in our lives treat us like we are Fortunato, eager to please us and act like they are helping us, all the while leading us further and further down into the basement, chaining us up, and replacing the brick in front of us.

Just a random thought. Sleep well my friends. There are no bricks that I am hiding.

Yes, for the love of God!

A day in the life

"Turn off your mind. Relax and float downstream"

"I can't believe the news today. I can't close my eyes and make it go away. How long, How long must we sing this song."

"To think of my task is chilling. To know that I was carefully building a mask I was wearing for 2 years swearing I was taking it off"

"Sing once again with me our strange duet"

"Though you turn from me to glance behind"

"I will be walking one day down a street far away and see a face in the crowd and smile. Knowing how you made me laugh and hearing sweet echoes of you from the past"

"Freedom was a song"

"Waiting for the train, labeled with the golden star. Heavy hearted boarding, whispers in the dark. Where are we going, is it very far? Bitter cold terain. Echos of a slamming door. Chambers made for sleeping forever. Voices like thunder in a mighty war"

"but I am caught in between the now and the not yet"

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"

"What the world needs know is a new Frank Sanitra, so I can get you in bed"

"Sorry I never told you all that I wanted to say"

"it was just another story printed on the second page, printed under the tiger's football score"

"See you at the crossroads so you wont be lonely"

"But the waves are calling out my name and laughing at me. Reminding me of all the times before that I failed."

"All of us neos fanning ourselves, damp with the sweat of regret"

"I don't know if Im ready to be the man that I have to be."

'They laugh, they laughed and said Behold your King"

"She started to apologize for all the things she had done wrong. She said I would have loved you better if I had only known. He said you were the perfect wife. Promise you will go on with your life. She said the boys won't understand. He said tell them daddy loves his men. BE STRONG"

"Surpressed by all of my childish fears"

"These wounds won't seem to heal"

"I wish that I could cry. Fall upon my knees. Find a way to lie"

"Even heros have the right to bleed. Even heros have the right to dream"

"So, do you think we can change. Everybody that hates before its too late. So proud to be free but who can we blame"

"I won't be home tonight. My generation has got to make it right"

"Well the war took his baby, killed his lady and left him with one eye. While the tears were falling he was recalling answers he never found?

'Highway run into the midnight sun. wheels go round and round in my mind. Restless hearts, sleep alone tonight. Sending my love down the wire tonight"

"From the table in the corner they could see a world reborn. And they rose with voices ringing. And I can here them now the very words they sung became their last communion on a lonely baracade at dawn. My friends forgive that I live you are gone. Oh my friends my friends don't ask me what your sacrifice was for."

"I thought what I felt was simple."

"I dont need no one to tell me about heaven. I look at my daughter and I believe"

"Some days I pray for silence. Some days I pray for soul. Some days I pray to the god of sex, drums, and rock n roll. Maybe Im just lonely. Thats all a pile of fat could be."

"Maybe she is looking for a Romeo in black jeans"

"We said our goodbyes before our hellos"

"hearts have been harden. Hands have been clinched into fists too long"

"I know you will have a beautiful life. I know you will be the sun in someone else's sky, but why not mine"

The Good Stuff

The torture of our own minds

The craziness of life. Its funny how the life that we work so hard to build is destroyed by our own creations. Maybe funny isn't the correct word. Maybe sad, maybe ironic. Irony can be so ironic sometimes.

In our current social situations, trust is fragile item, a paper thin comforter that we try to cover up with when the cold winds and rain of life hit upon us, when we take off our masks and stop the masquerade, when we put down our swords and wait for the healing.

In the quest for reasoning and Truth in a world designed to confuse, when is it enough? Do you completely trust the person laying beside you at night, the one you confess love to? Is love possible without trust, are the two things seperate?

Another life, another world

Standing strong in front of her, my legs feel like that are going to buckle. I feel so child-like, so mentally unprepared for this. I still cannot comprehend any reasoning on why this beautiful creature, this unique creation from the Almighty, is entrusting me with her friendship and her soul and spirit. There are so many more so much more intellegent and attractive than I.

Maybe in a different world, a world where our walls have fallen and only the spirits of ourselves are shown would I be considered attractive. Maybe in a different life, a different body for a shell would I be considered cool and exciting; without the confinement of my our insecuries. A world and a life where those that dislike me entrust me and those that do profess me as a friend are trueful. Maybe a world and a life in which love is everlasting, is unconditional.