my careless contagion

Van Halen's Jump. What images does this bring to mind? David Lee Roth doing the splits in spandex? Lots of jumping? Eddie Van Halen (who is no longer with us) rocking on his guitar? Big hair? Yeah, it was the 80s. Here is another song that has a deeper meaning when you actually look at the lyrics. When I was a kid I thought it was just a fun song about jumping around. Hey, I wasn't too bright. The synthesizer, though. That’s a big sound.  David Lee Roth is the only singer of Van Halen I will consider, but they had some really epic songs over the years. I read David Lee Roth's autobiography many years ago. He had quite a life. A lot of what he dealt with was how to maintain balance and stability during all the rock and roll fame. He would go to an island somewhere and get lost. I get that.  This song was released in late 1983. (By contrast, Bad Religion released their first album in 1982. The band formed in 1979.) I was six years old. This was Van Halen's most popular si...

Sorry I haven't written much lately. I've been doing hot-girl shit. What is hot-girl shit? I'm glad you asked. Because I also have no idea. I think it might be how someone takes care of a horse: they comb the hair and bathe it, paying special attention to the hooves (nails?) and teeth . Maybe hot girls are like horses because horses don't do jack all day but stand around and look pretty and maybe make faces at other horses. Yeah, I'm definitely not doing that. What are dumb old donkeys doing? Trudging up a mountain with a heavy pack on their back while someone kicks them for being slow and careful and trying not to fall off the edge? I'm probably doing that. Anyway. I wrote some stuff. It may or may not be important. Okay, it isn't. It may or may not be jocular. It may or may not be an exaggeration. And I may or may not care what you think either way. Expect another post in a day or two. Or not. Whatever.  *** Sometimes we are confronted by uncomfortable tru...

  I should have known when I liked Hey Jealousy by the Gin Blossoms in high school it had a wickedly sad backstory. You can read some of that here , if you'd like (it involves alcoholism, just as the term gin blossoms also refers to alcoholism, oh, and suicide). Instead of delving into that, like I did a few years ago, let's just post the lyrics and say something like, "This is how I feel about a particular girl and the intervening years wasted without her." There, long post is now short. And then here are the lyrics. (Yeah, this is another unscheduled post. Can't plan everything, right?) Permit me a moment of nostalgia. I don't do this often (ha). But wasn't the music in the 90s a lot richer and varied? Maybe I just had a lot more time on my hands. The music industry, though never perfect, seemed a lot healthier then. But that was before Napster and all of that. Still, the 2000s (or, if you prefer, aughts) was like a polar opposite with the packaged bubbl...

This would be accurate if I had friends. Or a friend. I've begun to see myself as a rescue dog. Bear with me. This actually makes sense. No, I'm not an actual dog, but I do bear a lot of the same scars and history as an abused dog that finds a new home (which I haven't yet, but I'm trying). Add to that some of my behaviors and vulnerabilities, and it's really the same challenges a rescue dog has. Apparently, trauma translates well across species. Normally, I wouldn't joke about suicide, so I won't. I'm not joking. It's been something I've wanted to do most of my life, say, 35 years. People always gang up on those who take their own lives, saying they're not thinking of those they leave behind. You're absolutely right; they're not thinking of anyone but themselves. Imagine pain so intense, pervasive, and constant the only plausible solution is taking one's life. You cannot see beyond that kind of pain to anyone else's po...

Alex Honnold after his death-defying, 3,000 ft. free solo climb of El Capitan in 2017. Death is terrifying. It's like walking through a door you can't ever reopen. It is the most final thing we can do. It's not that our lives are so short, though some of them are. It's that we're dead for so long.  So many millions and billions have died before me. I should be assured it is nothing but common to die. Yet, I have not died, therefore, it is an uncommon experience for me.  I'm not concerned about myself, as I trust my eternity to God. I did nothing to be brought into this world, He has gotten me through my life thus far, and my eternity is entirely up to Him, as well. However, what about those left behind?  I've contemplated suicide many times, for years, really. Most of my life. I remember being in the back of the family car (station wagon, Suburban, I don't remember which) and wishing with all of my might to die. I was banished yet again to the...

Written in 1987 and released in 1990, the song Ball and Chain is found on Social Distortion's self-titled album. Some of the timeless themes this song deals with are addiction, hopelessness, heartbreak, poverty, failure, and suicide — all themes I am intimately familiar with — and all made life feel like a ball and chain and not worth living. I know what it's like to think, "I can't take any more pain." This is a song I know by heart but heard yesterday on the radio, which isn't entirely strange, except I'm not sure how many people are familiar with Social Distortion in South Dakota or how many of them are listening to the radio on a Sunday afternoon. That's okay; we don't have to know what we're listening to in order to enjoy it, right? Well, except Social Distortion sings a lot of "hard luck" songs, which are an acquired taste. As Social Distortion's singer, Mike Ness, has been known to say, "We don't sing no happ...

Everything okay? If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide,  the Lifeline is here to help: call 1–800–273–8255 If you are experiencing any other type of crisis, consider chatting confidentially with a volunteer trained in crisis intervention at www.imalive.org ,  or anonymously with a trained active listener from 7 Cups of Tea . And, if you could use some inspiration and comfort in your dashboard,  you should consider following the Lifeline on Tumblr . View search results   This is the message I got from Tumblr this morning when I searched for "pain." Thank you, Tumblr, for your concern. This is how much humanity is in Tumblr compared to other social media platforms. Where the goal in a lot of platforms is to make you feel rotten (the same for a lot of advertising), Tumblr wants to make sure you're okay   People who feel rotten look for ways to feel better. Our society loves when people feel rotten, as it can m...

My white bears (hastily scrawled): 1) End up alone 2) Angry 3) Defeated 4) Paralyzed 5) Drinking 6) Twisted up (whatever that means) 7) Suicide I read an article a few months ago about facing your white bears, which are unwanted thoughts (a bit more:  http://www.apa.org/monitor/ 2011/10/unwanted-thoughts.aspx ), often worst-case scenarios. The idea of writing them down is thought to be helpful because once you put these things in front of you, you can take them apart. By taking them apart, you realize these are things you've either previously dealt with or are figureoutable. Once you say them or write them down, you realize these are common problems and you already have the tools to deal with them. In essence, they become smaller on paper than in your mind.  When I got divorced, I was faced with a variety of fears and uncertainties. I wrote down the seven scariest. I've already experienced the top four. Number six, I suppose, means that my inside...