arrangement.
The song was intended to be directed at teens, but quickly became more universal, as we all, at least occasionally, need the reminder. It may not ease the pain of any particular moment, but it does help to know that you aren’t alone, being singled out for pain. This hit home for me personally this week, when we lost our beloved Yodette. Yodette was our dog, a Boston Terrier with such a sweet-though-sometimes-feisty disposition. She was almost fifteen years old. And she was much more than just a pet. She was family. And meant more to all of us than I could ever hope to write in this blog. Even though she was almost fifteen, and had a handful of ailments not uncommon to older dogs, she left us suddenly, in a whirlwind of what turned into a pretty miserable weekend, including multiple sad trips to a Pet ER (where she was kept in an oxygen unit next to a Boxer named Knuckles (who we never knew but hope is feeling better by now). It hurt so much to lose Yodette. At times, the pain feels almost unbearable. I say “feels” because it hasn’t gone away, yet. And probably never will, entirely. I talk to people every week on Psychic Tapestry who have a variety of gifts and skills, but the consensus among those guests and, I would imagine, almost everyone who listens to the show, is that we all go on. Pets, too. Of this, I have no doubt. So I know that this was not an ending. Yodette is not really gone. She’s healed of all her ailments, and is happy and playing and having her fill of wonderful treats. Her eyesight is completely restored, keener than it ever was. So is her hearing. And her agility. Even though I am absolutely positive about those things, I am still so very sad. She was a big part of my life, and maybe I didn’t realize just how big, but now the house is atypically quiet without her snorts and snores. Compounding this is the pain that my wife feels. She had Yodette for nearly fifteen years. She’s only had me nine-and-a-half. Yodette was her friend, her companion and her confidant. It’s a position I can’t fill, and a pain I can’t heal. As bad as I feel personally, I feel even worse, knowing how miserable and heartbroken my wife is, and knowing that there is nothing I can do to ease her pain. I can tell her that Yodette feels better now. And that she’s playing with other dogs, and being cared for by my wife’s great-grandmother. That won’t help her when she sees Yodette’s bowl, or one of her beds (strategically placed in the living room and in our bedroom). But as painful as this experience has been, and continues to be, for me, my wife and our family, I am comforted to know that we are not alone. There has been a wonderful outpouring from our friends and family, through emails and social media. So many sending thoughts, prayers and Reiki. And many sharing their own stories, commiserating because they, too, have been there, and know what it’s like to lose a beloved friend like Yodette. We all have moments when we suffer a loss, and feel that unbearable sorrow and grief. You can’t truly love someone without it. At times like this, many ask why there has to be suffering. And while I don’t pretend to know everything, or anything really, I think it’s so we can appreciate the joy. If everything was always good, I think we’d quickly take it for granted. We wouldn’t be grateful for the good days, the smiles, the joy. We wouldn’t even notice, because we’d have it every single day. It wouldn’t matter. Remember records? When a single came out, one side was the hit song that we loved. The other song was one that we usually didn’t know. We rarely listened to that other song. But it had to be there. You couldn’t have a one-sided record, after all. I think that’s why we have bad days, that’s why we have pain. So we can really appreciate the good days, and the love. We miss you so very much, Yodette. But we’re so very grateful for the years we had, and the many smiles we shared. Like these (including a watercolor painted by my very talented mother-in-law):
This is as good a reason as any to think about those in your life that you really treasure, to be grateful that you have them, and to make sure you let them know. Even if you think they already know. Actually, ESPECIALLY if you think they already know.
0 Comments
“Photographs and Memories” was on his third album, “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim”, which spent 93 weeks on the charts, longer than any of Jim’s other albums.
It’s nostalgic, and somewhat sad, but I find it a little hopeful, as well. It’s about a relationship that has ended, and it could be that the couple broke up or it could be that the other one passed away. Either way, Jim laments that the photos are all that he has left, as he bittersweetly recalls the days when they were together. I find it hopeful because I think it’s good to remember important parts of our past, the pleasant and, on occasion, the painful. Both have made us who we are today. But it’s also important to keep in mind that, while the past is a nice place to visit, you shouldn’t live there. And you shouldn’t use it as some kind of yardstick to measure where you are now. At the risk of putting that Disney song in your head, let it go. Allow yourself to remember those things, the good and the bad, just don't let them have power over you. Taking the title of Jim's song literally, I also wanted to share some photographs with you. The first pictures come from a recent Ghost Tour my wife and I went on at Balboa Park here in San Diego. I wasn’t really expecting anything. I just thought the way the lighting and sky looked, made this tower pretty spectacular. So I whipped out my phone and snapped a picture. Then I enlarged that photo because I thought I saw something. Or someone. Does it look to you like there’s a figure on the balcony?
These next photos are from psychic and author Toni DeMaio (who co-hosts Psychic Tapestry’s Love Show with me on Fridays). She was just taking a couple pictures of a pretty sunset. The two pics below were taken just moments apart, and she didn’t see the streaking light that appears in the second one. A friend of hers said he thought it was Angelic Photobombing. What do you think?
Love to hear what you think about either of those pairs of photos. And to get back to the song, here’s a video someone uploaded to YouTube with a very rare concert performance by Jim Croce, and it begins with “Photographs and Memories”!
There certainly are some of those, but the ones that stick around tend to be the singers and bands who do the work, even when the success isn’t immediate.
In part, that’s one of the themes of this song. The fire grows higher when there’s a burning in your heart. We’ve all heard “Do what you love and the money will follow.” I’ve heard it so many times, the words have lost their meanings. And I think for a lot of us, myself certainly included, it’s difficult to keep doing what I love when the money doesn’t flow fast enough. We all second-guess ourselves. Maybe this isn’t what I’m supposed to do. Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe I’m just doing it wrong. You can drown in all those maybes. And you can give up your dream. Better to take a step back. Don’t give up. Take a breath. Look at your path. And if you can’t get to where you want to be TODAY, remember that you can still get there, perhaps tomorrow. The job you have at the moment, the place where you live, even the relationship you’re in, doesn’t have to be the end of your story. Only you can make that decision. Likewise, you’re the only one that can abandon your dream. Where you are today isn’t forever. It may just be “for now” until you’re ready for the next step, the next phase, the next adventure. Take care of yourself, and make plans for whatever is going to come next. And if you aren’t quite ready for that, just make plans to make plans. The other part of this song that I really like is the title. You are a tourist. In the song, it suggests that if you feel like a tourist in the city where you were born, it’s time to go. And that’s definitely something to consider. If your house is not your home, you need to remedy that, one way or another. But I take it a different way. We all get so tied down to material things. Our homes, our cars, our stuff. We get into ruts where our daily routine consists of work and errands and to-do lists, period. One weekday bleeds into the next, until we’re finally so glad it’s Friday! Then we collapse and the weekend whizzes by, and it’s back to the grind. And that’s only if you don’t work on the weekend. Or if those two days of supposed respite are instead filled with more of the mundane tasks you couldn’t finish during the week. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, America leads the world in vacation-days-not-taken. So there are plenty of us who have the opportunity to take that time for ourselves, and we choose to stay in our ruts. I suggest you take your cues from the song’s title, and, even if you can’t go on a vacation, be a tourist. Right there, where you live. Do something, every week, that’s just for you. It doesn’t have to cost money. Go to the beach, the lake, the woods, the park, a museum. See the sites. Your town’s sites. Everybody’s town has something to see, but since we live there, sometimes we forget. Or just take it for granted. You don’t have to buy anything. You don’t need to be on a schedule. Just be a tourist. One last thing, and while it’s a best technical, I hope you get a little inspiration it. On April 5, 2011, Death Cab For Cutie streamed a live performance of the music video for "You Are a Tourist". The video, directed by Tim Nackashi, was accomplished in one take, using multiple cameras, and no edits or re-takes. The production employed dancers, actors, and projected images. According to the band, "You Are a Tourist" was the first ever live, scripted, one-take music video shoot. Think about that for a moment. Bands have been making videos for a while now. The Beatles did a bunch of them back in the 1960’s. Plenty of other singers and bands followed, and then it all exploded in the 1980’s with MTV. But no other band has ever done what Death Cab For Cutie did with the video for this song. You can still blaze your trail, and reach your dream, no matter how many have come before. No one else is you. And you are a tourist.
In the early days of U2’s concerts, they used to play this song twice - once early in the show, and then again during the encore. Not because it was such a big hit, but because they just didn’t have that much material, yet.
People who pay attention to this kind of thing claim that, after their Unforgettable Fire tour in 1985, the song has only been performed live 12 times. It wasn’t a hit. And not just in the U.S. “11 O’Clock Tick Tock” didn’t make the charts anywhere. In fact, it would be another six months before a U2 song showed up in the charts. That was their fourth single, “I Will Follow”, which made it to #34 in New Zealand and #71 in Australia. So there’s a good reason that you might not know it. My favorite line from the song is this: “We thought that we have the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.” I think it’s a great song, especially if you love rock, or at least, CLASSIC rock. And this is U2 before iTunes, before the activism, before the stadium tours. Just a four-piece rock band, putting their heart and soul into one of their first, original releases. For those who know the song, it probably evokes memories of the early 1980’s, listening to your favorite station and eagerly devouring what you hoped would be the next big thing, before anyone else found out about it. For others, it might be a memory of those big tours in the 1980’s, as U2 went back and forth across the globe alongside Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen. It’s MTV and vinyl records. It’s the shift from punk to alternative. It’s only one brand of Coke. It can also be a song about responsibility. 11 O’Clock and time to go home. And that “Tick Tock” might mean that it’s getting later, later than you think. Or it could be about believing in yourself, and continuing to follow your dreams, even when they don’t seem to be panning out. Or hitting the charts. And there’s that number “11”. In numerology, 11 carries a vibrational frequency of balance. In Angel Numbers, at least according to Doreen Virtue, 11 means to stay positive, focusing only on the good within yourself, others and the situation. And it could be a million other things. That’s the thing about music. It’s so subjective. This song could mean something to you that has nothing to do with the lyrics, the band or the 1980’s. It could mean something completely unique to you and only you. Something only you would know. Something only you would understand. Something only you would care about. And, personally, I find that pretty darn cool. That’s one of the things I love about music. It can mean so many different things to each of us, even if we’re all listening to the very same song. This song isn’t the inspiration for it, but it’s as good an example of any as to why I started posting the 11:11 Songs. For those who don’t know, I’ve started posting on Facebook, at 11:11am and 11:11pm, a link back to this website, to a page that contains 11 YouTube videos of 11 different songs. Since music can mean so many things to each of us, it’s my goal that this can become a daily source for all to find some hope and healing, advice and answers, motivation and inspiration, or just nostalgia and comfort. You can find the most recent collection of 11:11 Songs if you just click up at the top right, where it says 11:11 Songs. You can also just click RIGHT HERE. You may not know all these songs. But I’m pretty sure you will find something there every day that will resonate in some way. In the meantime, here’s U2 from the 1983 concert film U2 Live At Red Rocks…
“Dream On” was the second single released by Aerosmith (“Mama Kin” was the first). Both came from their debut album, back in 1973. “Dream On” was the only one that hit the charts, and just barely at that. It did well locally, in their hometown of Boston, but wasn’t doing much on the national scene.
They kept at it. And two albums later, on the heels of their first top 40 hit (“Sweet Emotion”), their label re-released “Dream On”. In 1976, it climbed all the way to #6! The same thing happened about a year later, when they re-issued the single “Walk This Way”, which became their second top ten hit. The re-release of “Walk This Way” was their 15th single. So after fifteen tries, they had two giant hits. Smooth sailing from there on out, right? Hardly. It would take another ten years, along with personnel changes, battles with drugs and alcohol, and plenty of other problems, before they really launched into the stratosphere. That next big hit was 1987’s “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)”. Their 29th. This isn’t to say that the only measure of their success was commercial single sales. They did very well on rock radio, sold plenty of albums over the years. Their 1987 album, “Permanent Vacation”, was their 7th platinum LP. Platinum is a million copies sold, and six of those seven were multi-platinum (and that’s just in the U.S.). The point isn’t that Aerosmith has done very well for themselves. The point is about holding onto your dreams. For some reason, some people seem to enjoy putting others down, mocking their dreams. They may tell you that you can’t do it, you aren’t good enough, or that your dream is just dumb. Don’t fall for that. You matter, and so do your dreams. Want to write? Want to paint? Want to be a rock star? Want to be President? Want to visit every Denny’s in America? You may not be able to reach them today, or tomorrow. Or next week, next month or even next year. But you should always hang onto them. Keep that hope alive. And never listen to anyone that tries to get you to give up on them. Dream until your dreams come true.
The band is probably equally well-known for this song and for their lead singer, Eddi Reader (who went on to have a successful solo career in the 1990’s and into the 2000’s).
This song is about looking for that love that has to be perfect. On the surface, I think that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Don’t you want that in all areas of your life? Not just love, but in your career, with your family, at your home? We want it all to be perfect. And sometimes, maybe even a lot of the time, it isn’t. And we get discouraged. I think we set our sights unrealistically high. Maybe it’s because of what we see on TV or in the movies. Maybe it’s the books we read. Maybe it’s songs like this one. Of course, it’s always easier if we can blame someone or something else. Our parents. Society. Pop culture. Even this band. But I think it’s just human nature to want the best of everything. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting the best. The problem is that a lot of us will do without instead of getting the best we can, as opposed to the best there is. We spend a lot of time waiting for things to be perfect. We avoid having friends or family over, because the house isn’t clean enough. Sometimes, we won’t even get together at all, until we’ve lost a few more pounds. And sometimes, it’s almost like we’re looking for the tiniest imperfection in order to dismiss something, or someone. Like this compilation of clips from Seinfeld…
While that’s funny as those characters really take it to the extreme (and beyond), there probably is something there you can connect with.
The truth is none of us are perfect. And we shouldn’t expect each other to be. I’m not suggesting that you settle for something or someone you don’t really like or want. You are worthy of love, and all the finest the world has to offer. But if you wait for everything, and everyone, to be perfect, you could miss your whole life, waiting. This song takes the idea of finding someone perfect to a point where many of us are eager to go. Eddi sings that too many people settle for second best, but that she won’t settle for anything less than perfect. It’s a trap that’s easy to fall into, especially if you’ve been hurt. The trick is to learn whatever you can from your past mistakes, without insulating yourself with such unattainable expectations that you find yourself spending the rest of your life for everything to be perfect. There is a world of difference between “perfect” and “perfect for you”. Maybe the real trick is keeping that in mind when you hear or use that word. And maybe that’s really what Eddi is singing about, after all.
The song carries a message I thought was worth repeating and sharing. I Got Everything I Need Almost I Got Everything I Need Almost But I Don’t Have You And You’re The Thing I Need The Most To me, this is a simple reminder about priorities. Today, many of us get caught up in that “whoever-dies-with-the-most-toys-wins” mantra that we easily lose sight of what really matters. Think about it for a moment. When you’re life is winding down, and you’re ready to wring down the final curtain and join the choir invisible, what will you reflect on? What in your life will have mattered all the way to the end? Your Netflix queue? Reading and responding to every message on Facebook? That perfect pair of shoes (the ones that went with almost everything), that you always regretted passing up? Will you be sorry you didn’t work harder? Or for more hours? Or will you think about those you love? Most of us already know it will be the latter. The thing you need the most. Love. This isn’t limited to romantic love. It also includes your closest and dearest family members, and your friends, those that make up your family of choice. Regular listeners to Psychic Tapestry have heard many messages from loved ones that have passed on. And there has never been a message that included remorse over a purchase that was left unbought, or a regret over a workday left incomplete. The messages are always about love. We’re all human. And we can’t help getting distracted by shiny things. This is just a reminder to try, at least occasionally, to keep it all in perspective. Because the truth is that all the china and crystal, all the cars and real estate, and all the channels you get on your Roku won’t ever equal a smile, a laugh and a hug from someone you love. And that’s the thing you need the most.
To me, it’s a song about short cuts. We all want that expressway, whether it’s to someone’s heart, or it’s to something else we want. And the truth is, there just aren’t any short cuts. Sure, we all hear about some “overnight success”, but the real ones are little more than a fluke. Yet, somehow, so many of us look at them and try to figure out how to emulate whatever it is they did to try and get the same results. And it doesn’t work that way. There was a story recently about a man who stopped in at a convenient store to break a big bill, so he bought a couple lottery tickets and won ten million dollars. I’m pretty sure, without even checking, that when that story broke, a lot of people went and did the same thing. There weren’t any follow-up stories about the same thing happening again. It’s just not a good business plan. The other thing is, without standing in someone’s shoes, you don’t know what it really took for them to become an “overnight success”. People like to site some writers in the same way as that guy who lucked out with the lottery. Stephen King, John Grisham and J.K Rowling are usually on that kind of list, almost as though they’re undeserving of their success. But all three worked for years at difficult jobs. Years. And somehow, around those difficult jobs, and other challenges the Universe threw at them, they managed to pursue that goal of writing to eventually find that expressway and become that “overnight success”. Never mind that Stephen King lived with his family in a trailer while he taught high school English and struggled to make ends meet. Or that John Grisham had a job watering bushes for a dollar an hour. Or that J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book on scraps of paper on the commuter train to and from a job that barely kept her out of poverty. Instead, though, we see the successes they’ve achieved, and feel like we deserve it, too. And maybe we do. But we have to be willing to put in the work for it, and that’s where it falls apart for many of us. We let ourselves become so consumed with the negative that we often can’t see a way out. Or we put our energies into trying to find that short cut, and then wallowing in our disappointment when our YouTube video only gets 3 views. It doesn’t help when we also expend so much energy on things way beyond our control. We may not even realize we’re doing it, but we can’t help thinking about everything that could go wrong that it can become paralyzing. Sadly, although appropriately, there’s no simple fix for any of this. It requires a change in attitude. At minimum, an adjustment, at maximum, a complete make-over. And the truth is, whatever it is you want to do or achieve, it will mean so much more if you actually did earn it, putting in the blood, sweat and tears to make it happen, rather than waking up one day to find you have whatever you want with no effort at all. The effort makes it good, makes it valuable. And the path to get there is different for each one of us. Besides, like the song says, the expressway is too crowded.
My friends and I got so much joy out of this song, which is really just Ray’s take on Glenn Miller’s “In The Mood”, jazzed up a bit and modernized for 1980.
You may be thinking, “Ray Anthony? Glenn Miller? Jazz? What teenagers would be interested in that?” To which I will simply join countless teenagers (past, present and future) and simply say, “You don’t know us at all.” This was the morning deejay playing something for us, sharing something with us, that he thought was cool and fun. And if any other adult had suggested it was cool and fun, they would have gotten an eye roll, at the very least. But this was the guy who was always introducing us to cool and fun new music, our music. He was the one who first shared “Cadillac Ranch” with us. And “Back In Black”. And “Once In A Lifetime”. And he broke the news to us that John Lennon had been killed. We loved music when we were teenagers. It became an important part of who we were, especially since we were discovering a lot of it, and it was all so different than what our parents, or even our older siblings, listened to. And, yes, back then, “discovering” music came mostly from listening to the radio. It doesn’t really matter where we found it, or where we find music today. Music has power. It really connects us all, even if some only refer to it because they don’t like it. Or, at least, don’t like what you’re listening to. It makes us feel. Music is probably the only form of art that elicits an emotional response so quickly. You love it. You hate it. You quickly hit the back button to replay that song you love (or you Shazam it so you can get a copy of your own later). Or you quickly hit “skip” or change the station when that song you don’t like comes on. It can make us laugh or just feel good, in a fast three minutes. Or it can makes us melancholy in the same speedy amount of time. And music is a time machine. Nothing captures the essence of a particular period of time like music. You can instantly be transported back to a concert you attended in your early twenties, or vividly recall that first record or CD your parents gave you when you were just a kid. And while couples may have memorable romantic dates at the movies or restaurants, or even Disneyland, more of them have one particular piece of music that they each recognize as Their Song. The same song can have so many different meanings and memories attached to it, for each one of us. And they don’t always have to be momentous occasions. Some may bring back memories of family trips. Some may remind you of a friend or family member. Some might take you back to a certain job or school. And some may just take you back to when you were in high school and you were getting excited about the weekend.
I know I caught myself doing this, and I fought it as best I could. I didn’t want to miss Christmas while I was too busy getting ready for it, only to pause to catch my breath the day after, realizing I’d missed it. Again. I know some who spend so much time getting ready for it, that when Christmas finally arrives, they’re worn out, and the next day (and for days after), they have almost a post-partum depression. And this doesn’t only apply to Christmas. I think we all spend so much of our time preparing and planning for the next big thing, that we miss out. We’re so focused on getting to tomorrow that we miss today. And then we feel bad, or guilty, about missing so many today’s that we don’t enjoy the tomorrow we were striving for. I wish I had an answer to give you, some one-size-fits-all solution. But we’re all different, and our circumstances our different, and what works for me may not even apply to you. I can tell you what I’m going to do today, and maybe you can use it or alter it for yourself. I’m going to slow down. I’m going to turn off this laptop, the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’m going to enjoy our tree, and listen to Elvis. I’m going to go out later with my wife, drive through Starbucks for hot chocolate, and ride around looking at the lights. The Twelve Days of Christmas actually come AFTER Christmas, so it isn’t too late. You haven’t missed it. It isn’t too late. You haven’t missed your life, either. I hope you have, and continue to have, a very Merry Christmas, and the Happiest of New Years! |
AuthorKen Kessler has always been interested in psychic phenomena, and like Mulder on the X-Files, wants to believe. But like most, he tends to look for, and accept, rational explanations. (More) Archives
April 2018
Categories |