Renegades of Funk

sunIts been a long strange week. Strange in that I cant quite figure out what is in that air but there is some Tomfoolery about. I think. Maybe. Sort of.

Its the feels like it is the Springtime of my lovin’ the second season I am to know oh oh oh…sorry Led Zeppelin moment there. Yes its like this each spring. Most complain that the only thing Florida lacks is clear delineated seasons. Most will claim we have two seasons down here. Hot and hot/wet and for the most part that is accurate, but to me I could always tell when it was spring. Not so much weather-wise but more a state of mind.

In my case springtime is a few short weeks before summer or what we call “the rest of the year.” I always know its spring when I travel up and down the roads in the interior parts of the state. You can smell the orange blossoms from the groves. I cant explain the smell or compare it to anything other then industrial mechanics hand cleaner but in the air all around you.

As it turns out every time I have found myself either in car, truck or Harley roaring down the roads enjoying this smell and experience in the spring, I was either on my way to be with, recalling happy times of it, or imaging in my head what the next experience of “love” may be.

Why these benign thoughts and moods of love happen in spring, with orange blossom smells in the air, and me on the open road in some mechanical fashion happen I cant explain. They’re nice thoughts however and I look forward to them. Its not to say I only feel such emotion a mere three weeks each year, but its a time of year where all the planets and chi and aura and whatever other whacky things enter my house of awesome and I think specifically about love and what may be in the future and don’t particularly get nauseous or pissed about failed love of the past.

The before mentioned Tomfoolery of it all this time is that I think I am changing my thoughts on the subject of love. As we get older and have experiences in life we find out what works and what doesn’t in regards to love. For some time now I thought I knew what true love is, and generally speaking I am sure I have to common bases covered but I am beginning to rethink what it truly means. I used to look for it. I stopped. I rationalized when I looked for it all that I found was something disguised as love but not love I was willing to spend the rest of my life with. I figured the love I wanted will just happen naturally. I still believe in this notion but as I am getting older I am starting to second guess myself. Are my eyes still open? Am I paying attention? Have I drawn such an opinion and picture of love in my head  that everything right in front of me is passing by? Have I priced myself out of the market? All questions and internal dialogue on the subject of love I battle and debate. In the end I wonder if I accept this or relax my opinion on that would love come along any faster, or better?  Eventually the soundtrack of my life gets a little louder, Pearl Jam’s Black gets fast forwarded to some Zeppelin, I smell the orange blossoms in the air, and turn the throttle back on the Harley some more and for a short time again I am at ease and in love. Love with myself and happy with who I am, one day I’ll share it again with a lucky woman who thinks the same of me as I do of her.

Thank God for Orange Blossoms and Spring.

Let ‘er rip, tater chips!

Cops. Come and try to snatch my crops!

EVTime Who you tryin’ to get crazy with ese? Don’t you know I’m loco?

Well it looks like Mr. Peabody has turned the way-back machine dials to 1993 this morning.

War was over
I was home from the Marines
Pearl Jam gave us Vs
Nirvana gave us In Utero and then suicide the following April
Cypress Hill broke us off some with Black Sunday

I catch myself in conversation and sometimes others catch me when referring to someone as old being like forty-five or fifty years of age. Then I, or someone else will go, “Old? Um, you realize we’re forty-something?” Opps! Then I immediately revise my statements to “Oh I mean old like really old, not our kind of old” in a pitiful attempt to not be old myself. Only walking away thinking to myself “Jesus, they’re right I am getting old too…..SHIT.”

Getting old isn’t so bad. Its just a number. You’re only as old as you feel you are. (insert any number of failing to make oneself feel better cliche type sayings here) I feel good. My health is good. My mind is good yeah well my mind is still there.

However sometimes I sit and think to myself. Is this where I am supposed to be? Was this all part of the plans I envisioned for myself? The only problem is, I can’t say with certainty what “the plan” really was for me. You have all the normal life’s goals of course. Do good, be happy, make money, support yourself, but past all that what was “my” plan?

I am at the old or young age of forty-two still unsure what my plan for life really is. Can I invent something that will save the world, or destroy it? Sure I could, but what is it? Can I paint or create the next artistic master piece? Sure I could, but what is it? Can I inspire millions of people, or just one person? Sure I could, but who?

There are so many variables that plot out and or influence either directly or indirectly in our lives to figure out ones place in the world. What do you believe in? What do you have faith in? Do you chase the plan down, does it come to you like a vision while scratching your ass in line at the grocery store? Do you just carry on believing it will find you? I have no clue. I guess I am still in the camp of not knowing what I want to be when I grow up. I am still waiting to see.

I am waiting to see. I have my eyes open. That wasn’t always the case though and at times I still need to remind myself to slow down and look around. Society pushes us in directions which we mistakenly think is normal and “the way we should go”. I used to believe and subscribe to this idea. Go to school, get a job, make lots of money, get married, have lots of kids, go in debt, curse the kids, curse the wife, lose the job, die. I used to believe all this too. Now, not so much. I watched my peers, family, friends do these things and I even did some of these things.

No, now I plot and follow a much simpler course. Do good, be happy, be me and wait and see. Oh, and of course second guess myself at every turn on this wait and see path wondering what it is I am supposed to see. If there is one thing worse then living by simple and sound advice its hoping the shit was right and it all works out. I am ready, willing and able for life, and I know theres more for me, but what? I am in no rush honestly although my age tells a voice in my head “well what the fuck lets get this thing on”.

In the end I cant complain. I am already rich and I am happy. I’m rich simply based on the friends and family I have and the work I do. I am happy with me. I got here honestly and while the road here took many turns, hills and valleys in the end I know I wound up here on my own and with clarity. I know I missed some opportunities on this path, and at times regretted them, but I know now, what I thought I wanted or needed really wasn’t for me. My eyes were closed in those times. Now my eyes are open and I wait and see.

Let ‘er rip, tater chip!

I see the words on a rocking horse of time.


I see the birds in the rain.

Today in 1991 Pearl Jam’s debut studio album Ten was released. I have pretty much followed this bands success from that moment on. Say what you will about Mookie Blaylock’s (bands original name) politics with Ticket Master, MTV videos, commercial success and there is one thing that remains. Their music has stood the test of time and as one of the last continuously standing “Northwest Seattle Grunge” bands still performing and making music to this day, that says something. Nirvana? Alice in Chains? Sound Garden? (ok Sound Garden is semi out of retirement but you see the trend)

Does anyone remember 1991 musically? I do. We were on edge of the abyss with makeup and hair metal staring into the dark void of what we would call pop music by a bunch of tween Mickey Mouse Club kids. Lets not forget the boy bands who banked on choreographed dance moves and lip syncing to account for the fact their voices hadn’t dropped with the onset of puberty.

Did grunge save music in the early 90’s? No. What it did do is give a few of us generation x’ers a horse to attach our wagons to. We got the hell out of the 90’s musically in a car that may have looked like shit but she was running on a tuned and supped up V-8 with a decent stereo. That engine today is still running she’s got some miles on her but she is still firing on all eight cylinders. The stereo fades in and out and sometimes plays political ads no one really cares about, but if you listen past the static and the creaking suspension, that music blaring about lost love with hands cradling broken glass and momentarily everything going to Black, in the end we’re all still Alive.

I have seen Pearl Jam live every time they have been to Florida in the last twenty years. I have stood on line for tickets I have stood on line to get to the front of the stage at venues. After all these years and their politics aside, when a band can sell out 15,000-20,000 seat outdoor arena’s every night and watch 20,000 people on their feet with hands in air sing every single verse to every single song the band has ever recorded, and in some way that music somehow touches your life, thats a pretty good F’ing horse to have hooked your wagon to.

Thank you Pearl Jam.

<insert Yellow Ledbetter here>