bus stop

On Monday evening I took a jaunt to the Safeway at Broadway Station to get some kitty food and litter. I walked to the bus stop at Commercial & 14th and then waited for the no. 2o bus. while I waited I took these 5 pictures.



Then found LunaPic, an online photo editor. and so 5 simple pictures inspired the images below.

... a strange pain inside ... ?

imagine if, when you started your car each morning, it would either rev up really high, just racing, racing ... or not start at all. in each case, you'd find it impossible to use this car to transport yourself reliably to your destination, wouldn't you? such a car seems non-functional, really.

well, if you can imagine ... that's what bipolar feels like ~ no baseline, just red-lining it, or inert. confusion, and cloudiness, linger. can i really, objectively, analyze the workings of my own mind and its chemistry? there's the rub.

somehow creative genius and madness seem to hold hands, in some dark shadows of existence. does the force of creative genius create a strange pain inside ... leading the individual to madness? or maybe creative genius and madness exist as siamese twins, inseparable ... fused to one another?

	Nirvana - Lithium
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

lithium sunset songs
MP3 downloads | music downloads

manic depression songs
free Mp3 downloads | free Music downloads

concrete blonde - joey songs
free Mp3 downloads | free Music downloads

i wanna be sedated songs
Free songs | free Mp3s

holding on

	Steve Winwood - Holding On
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

i am 39 and holding.
holding? holding what?
... well ... everything.
and then ... slowly,
i begin realizing that
i cannot hold onto everything
forever.
children exist for a purpose
beyond the realm of their parents.
and, sometimes,
marriages dissolve.
i will turn 40 this year.
how did i get here, so soon?
and ...
did i ever imagine myself,
at 40,
prowling the dating scene?
i gasp, then sigh,
as i limp back
to my own forgotten base
like a damaged warplane.

Amazing Grace? .... Yes, Amazing.

Amazing Grace

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.

John New­ton, Ol­ney Hymns (Lon­don: W. Ol­i­ver, 1779)

~John Newton did not always have strong faith and belief in the Divine. In fact, he worked as a slave ship captain for many years, until one stormy night when he realized that, in his helplessness, on the Grace of God could save him. Watch the movie entitled Amazing Grace, and you will see the amazing grace which one man named Wilberforce possessed~

We All Live Downstream

they say there's a wreckage washing up
all along the coast
no-one seems to know too much
or who got hit the most
nothing has been spoken
there's not a lot to see
but something has been broken
that's how it feels to me

we had a harmony
I never meant to spoil
now it's lying in the water
like a slick of oil
the tide is running out to sea
under a darkening sky
the night is falling down on me

little seabird flying
he knows where he wants to go
guess I ought to pack my stuff
and do the thing I know
I turn around and head on back
along the old sea wall
I felt something give and crack
and now I'm sorry that's all

spinsters hanging in trees

the artist ~ a spoken word poet
sample some more of her stuff

jeanine deckers ~ seour sourire

remember this song?
take a listen ~ its from 1963
... lemme refresh your memory ...
"dominique, nique, nique..."




remember? perhaps you've seen the debbie reynolds movie, the singing nun? well, its about the lady, a dominican nun from belgium, who wrote and composed this song. mostly the details of her provided in the movie are sucra-coated - you know, fabricated. but, nonetheless, the song's interest lay just as much in the intrigue surrounding its composer and singer - a nun from a cloistered order prior to the second vatican council - as in its cute, catchy tune.

the song, of course, tells the story of dominique, founder of the dominican order, to which jeanine belonged. originally. she recorded the tape/album of some of her songs - including dominique - for her own personal use - for gift to family and friends. phillips, a record company, signed her up to a contract. the song dominique became an instant hit across europe. and on its release in america, sent that song 'louie, louie' into second spot on the billboard charts. jeanine appeared on the ed sullivan show, in a pre-taped segment. her growing fame and the publics fascination with this simple, pious nun from belgium, did not sit well with the mother superior of the convent ... nor with the church. the mother superior almost blocked jeanine's ed sullivan tape from airing. the convent/church did, however benefit from jeanine's success, given her obligation (vow of poverty which all religious must make) to give all her earnings to her order. the church even took the step of patenting the name 'seour sourire' -jeanine's stage name - making it impossible for her to use it after leaving the order. the church/convent failed, however, to pay any taxes on any of seour sourire's earnings. ever.



eventually jeanine gave up her musical career and fame. she never wanted fame ... never wanted to be a 'somebody' ... she only ever wrote and sang music and played her guitar (which she named soeur adele) as an expression of worship ... for g-d. she retreated back into her cloistered life to pursue her religious studies. in the late 60s, jeanine took a change of heart, no doubt influenced by the turmoil of change the second vatican council brought ... and also the increasing sexualization and rebeliousness of the 60s. she left the domincan convent, prior to making her final vows. soon after, the record company dropped her contract ... it seemed her status as a nun, and not so much her music, served as the magnet to draw interest toward her. she wrote a song in the 60s/70s praising the pill, and came out against the church's stance on the pill. she faded to obscurity ... never able to achieve the level of fame she reached with 'dominique.' and so she took to teaching autistic children, even opened a school with her lifelong friend annie pescher, also a former nun.

the two shared their post convent years together ... jeanine working on her art from time to time and even trying to revive her musical career in the late 70s/early 80s. her untimely and tragic demise occured as a result of the belgian government's demand that she pay $60,000 in back taxes for all her earlier earnings. she had no receipts to prove that she gave her earnings to the convent ... and so the government held her accountable for the heavy tax bill; they shut down her school, removing all hope and replacing it with only deep and heavy despair.

on march 29, 1985 the two women wrote their last letter together - a suicide note. and then they committed suicide by ingesting barbituates and alcohol. annie and jeanine begged g-d's mercy for taking their own lives; they had lost all hope and despair became too great for them both. g-d had seen them suffer, surely he would welcome them with open arms. they could not suffer anymore, simply could no longer endure. and so, they lost the light and succumbed to the despair. how anguishing must it have felt, for two deeply religious women to decide to take such an unimaginable action - take one's own life? how much struggle, torment, despair, and deep unrelenting suffering filled the lives of these ladies in the years that followed their departure from cloistered religious life? not to mention burdensome-ness of the obtuse rumors about their sexuality ... unfounded, as far as i can tell. and, at any rate, none of our fucking business (ha - excuse the pun).

so ... there's another tale in which the church just sucks the juices out of its individual prey ... and then tosses aside the remains. the financial part of this story just kills me ... really. along with the way in which we all make assumptions. along with the way the church just simply must squash absolutely every opposition that comes from within its own ranks. there's a word for that ... totalitarian comes to mind.

RIP ~ jeanine deckers ~ october 17.1933 to march 29, 1985

remember this one?