majic's journal

This tormenting sick fucking life has me by the balls again and it feels so damn good.

As I listen to "Steve Vai - For The Love of God" I ponder my future and the inevitability of at least 6 months in Afghanistan. This is not necessarily a bad thing, more like an eye opener but a definite stepping stone to something bigger or at least the little guy on my left shoulder tells me so. Looks like this will transpire around the last week in January 2006. So time is of the essence, not a moment to waste, not a moment too soon...

So in the big picture what does this mean? Is it really worth it? I have no idea. Do I wanna go? Hell yeah... But what are my motives? I have no idea, Kinda crazy like that. I have no idea why I wanna go but something tells me that it's good and that it'll work out. I mean the money is awesome and if anyone knew they would not complain and would be asking "when do I ship out?"... But it's not all about the money, surely not. I mean I have a family that I'll be leaving after all...

So why do I do it? Why do I care? What is really holding me to this, I could back out at any time. The question is, would I rather work at McDonalds and go home every night to the possibility of poverty or would I rather sacrifice a little and give something back to my family that a normal job cannot provide. Clearly that is the reason, there is little in the civilian sector that I'd want to do, regular jobs don't interest me. I'd rather be working with the government doing stuff that at least somebody feels is worth it. I'm trying to remain at least a little neutral on politics and stuff.. =)

Edited - Geesh sometimes I amaze myself with my own arrogance and stupidity.

I'm sure I'll regret some part of this post in the morning

fading out listening to "ATB - Believe in Me" ...

This post was edited by majic on Dec 01, 2005.

So as per my conversation with harold_maude I have recorded 2 sessions of me playing the piano. I'm kinda proud of it because I had never really given it much thought until she said something. It was all done on an analog tape. I had some technical difficulties trying to get it into the computer so I could encode it to mp3 but I did manage to get the second session encoded will do the first one tomorrow. I think the first session is about an hour and the second session is 35 minutes. The wav file was 89 megabytes and I encoded it down to 64 kb then it was 16 megs so I went even futher all the way down to 16 kb and now it's 4 megabytes. It hasn't lost any real quality and still retains the shittiness of analog but it sounds pretty decent for being done with shitty equipment. I just found some stuff to work with and then went with it so it's as much a testament to my creativity more than anything else.

I'm still brainstorming on how to upload it to frankhale.org because my mother in law has a shit computer from the stone age with win98 and it cannot recognize my usb 2 hard drive. And since linux cannot recognize my winmodem in my Dell laptop I cannot connect to her dial up internet. So I'll try to scrape a couple brain cells together and figure something out.

So if your listening harold_maude gimme a little while so I can figure something out.

When I wanna get all sentimental and teary eyed about life and memories and all that mushy stuff... I put on some Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet, 1986... OMG, and the bad thing is, I got it when it came out that year... 11 years old, may GOD bless my soul, I was living in England on a US Air Force base at the time and I'd play that tape everynight to go to sleep by. Damn did that for years it'd seemed... That tape is highly ingrained into my brain. Haha... Damn and the music when I play it, it takes me back, fuck. No I am not drinking, unless Dr. Pepper counts. Just thought I'd clarify that.

Which reminds me, I need another Dr. Pepper...

Ok, where was I? Oh yeah, music and it's ability to take us back to places and times in our lives. The Bon Jovi memories are great, I was young, dumb, naive, still am, well not young, yeah fuck 30 is still young damnit. I had alot of fun, the kids there, the school dances and the memories of 5th and 6th grade.. Haha

Another cd that takes me back is Ian Van Dahl - Lost and Found. Pure female vocal trance goodness, takes me back to Hawaii 2004. Damn her voice, the beach, the warm air and that crystal clear water. The mountains that were 800 feet tall directly behind you as you stood on the beach thinking life cannot be this damn good. Yeah that's what it does, everytime I play a track. I can taste the air, feel the fight of those barracuda's pull my fishing line as I wade in the 3 foot surf at Kaneohe Bay... I can see Shelby running up and down the beach but scared to death of the waves. Yeah, that was fun and I can go back in an instant... the thoughts of the view after I climbed one of those 800 feet mountains and looked down on the island below, timeless, I definitely had to snap a pic of that.

Oh my, my heart is fluttering...

Not only music but photo's can do the same thing...

Another cd that does this to me is Kenny Chesney - When The Sun Goes Down... still takes me back to Hawaii but this time it reminds me of a friend I met there named Gary. We were driving in his Ford Expidition around the island and I popped in this cd and he instantly fell in love with it. I can hear him humming the words to "There Goes My Life"... Is there a door around here? Is there a way to travel in time... I wanna go back, just for an instant... I promise. Oh, life would be nothing without our memories and the things that'll take us back.

...

Blessid Union of Souls - Ooh Virginia - takes me back to Virginia where I became a man, playing around in the country, fishing, living life and growing up.

Sara Evans - No Place That Far - Christmas 1998, Virginia, family, doin what families do...

Brad Paisley - Who Needs Pictures - 1999, Fayetteville, North Carolina, he gave a free concert at a little park and we all sat on the lawn and listened to this budding country star, how little did we know how big he'd become!

Candlebox - Sometimes - Oct, 1998, death of my best friend Kurt... My last memory of him was from August of the same year, we were in the Rappahannock river, wading (it's very shallow where we were) fishing, his fishing reel fucked up, screws came out and I helped him fix it... We talked about life stuff, he had just joined the Air Force and I was a PFC in the US Army... He had been to Airborne school (jumping from airplanes).. I promised him I'd do the same thing, I actually lived up to that promise. This song takes me back, puts me back in that same fishing hole, having fun, laughing, telling jokes.

breathing deep sighs! Shit.

Counting Crows - A Murder of One, Round Here - 1994 - 1995, back to Virginia I go, hanging out with Tim and Kenny. Doing all the normal friend shit, playing video games, basketball and pissing away all our money on music and other shit...

"In between the moon and you, angels get a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right"

White Lion - When the Children Cry - 1995, reminds me of my girlfriend (who'd become my wife December of the next year) and the fragile times when you start a new relationship, yeah they were delicate but I had kid gloves and it all worked out. This song is with me, I play this one the piano almost everytime I sit down and play and escape to a musical world where pain does not reside...

Robert Miles - Children - My love of trance came to fruition during my year in Seoul, South Korea from Sept 2003 - Sept 2004... DJ Tiesto, Paul Oakenfold and Robert Miles come to immediate mind when I think about that time... It's like I'm right there again talking to my roommate about what ho's he's pimping... Damn he could play the game, he'd make any man jealous. He had new ho's like I changed my socks. He'd fuck'em and dump'em and move on. What a crazy d00d he was. *smiles* He loved Robert Miles - Children, only black d00d I ever met that listend to trance. God I love him! Haha.

You know it's not as bad as the title makes it sound. There is some niceness about sitting alone for a change. You can focus more and when you don't want to speak to your friends you just close your instant messenger. Haha.. Funny stuff..

Anyway, so I spent like an hour and a half chatting with harold_maude on IM. What can I say, only good stuff. Talked about art stuff and music and life and other stuff. Kind of refreshing, gotta get a little perspective every now and then to keep you honest.

I spend the bulk of my online time talking to boring techy guys on IRC. You know the kind of people who don't know what the word "emotion" is, nor have they experienced anything remotely close to passion. Unless it's defined by compiling the latest patch level of the Linux kernel or by how 'Zen' Gnome is. Yeah the teck shit is becoming real boring for me these days.

So harold_maude and I got to talking about playing the piano and how much we loved it and our style of playing. Seems we both just sit down and play, don't need any steenking sheet music, nor do we spend time sight reading. Nah, that's for the birds. These fingers need to play, the sounds need to make love with each other and resonate into a blissful ephiphany of music. Yeah, kinda like getting high on music. Haha. So she said she'd like to hear some of my stuff and that got me thinking, damn I need to record some stuff. I'll try to do that over Thanksgiving at my mother-in-laws in her music studio. I can go there and have total peace and quiet and get down to business. I can't promise any awesome work but I can play some notes and record them to a tape then digitize it to mp3. Infact I wanna do this right now but I'm 850 miles from the in-laws at the moment...

After she left IM I decided to open up a blank editor and write down some thoughts, just shit that came to my mind while thinking of being far away from friends. What I came up with is this cheesy piece:

I wanna share myself tonight
give you each piece of me
we could lay them out on the floor
one by one
we could count them or just look
maybe pick one up and shake it around
I'm sure it would make a weird sound
I even think there are some soft ones too
a little squishy and fun
hey what's this? It's a smile
not squishy... doesn't make a sound when I shake it
weird... I think it likes you...
there are some pieces shaped like circles
and squares and a few triangles too
not sure what they mean
I'm sure they helped me fail geometry class in high school
there are some that have memories
and others emotions
and a few with passions
and another set with music
I even think there are some there with your name on it
yeah, lets go search for them...

We were talking about distances between people and how frustrating it is when you find good friends and can only chat with them on the internet because they live at least 1500 miles from you (minimum). Something about Murphy's Law or something, goddamnit. Anyway, I'll bleed on these keys as I hear the ambulance pass by on the street.

So, where was I? Ah listening to Quicksand Jesus by Skid Row, thinking about the good times and the times yet to be had. Oh...

This has been another installment in 'total shit by majic', stay tuned tomorrow when he talks about how he's finally coming out of the closet. What are these high heals doing in my suit case? 0_o

This journal entry is void in Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico... Read it while supplies last. Subject to change without notice at anytime. Not responsible for lost or stolen property. No shirt, no shoes, no service. Peace and hair grease and all that bubble gum jaz.

Ok enough, more later.

Don't hate the game, hate the playaz and remember to always love me... =)

This post was edited by majic on Nov 23, 2005.

I'm naive and scared... I sometimes don't know how to act around people. I stutter my words, get excited and get very shy. Yes this happens to me on occasion. I absolutely cannot speak to beautiful people, yes low self esteem probably. This happens to me on occasion. I'm human, I fail, I try but more often than not fail. I can't help it, I pick my big feet up one by one and continue to trip over myself like an uncoordinated little boy. I really try. I really do. I still fail...

I've seen the love, yes there has been a few... Nobody really knows, I don't even think they understand. I am more inside and I don't know if they know. They know my name, my age, my favorite color (maybe) but yet they do not know, how wrong they are, they could not pick me out of a line up if a crime had been committed. There is so much more, yet time is not on my side.

There is a deeper meaning to what's inside me, something I've been coming to understand day after day, year after year. I am an epiphany that they have not yet realized. I am me, a person they know only by name, not by what's really there.

This life is so fucking goddamn complicated, not enough fucking time, things going 50 fucking million miles an hour into oblivion. I can't even understand the news as fast as it is. The world, the fucking world in its fucking fast paced demise. Society in an eternal fucking downward spiral, all I got to say is FUCK YOU. I don't care, I am so fucking desensitized to all this fucking senseless violence, this needless death, killing and torture, I don't care, leave me alone, fuck I can't take this, wipe the tears from my eyes you fucking bastards, I hate this. I am more, yet I am shadowed by this goddamn clock, this fucking shit... The hands on this clock they do not cry out my name, they are oblivious to the fact that I am here and I need to be loved.

I don't know, my eyes can't see through the fog in this world, I don't understand, pinch me this fucking has to be a dream. I scream at the top of my lungs yet nobody can hear...

Sometimes I don't even know if I know myself. I'm a contradiction of epic proportions. Oh well... I'll think about this and see if I can elaborate later...

This post was edited by majic on Nov 20, 2005.

So, tonight I tried, tried to write when I am home. There is little tragedy in my life at the current moment to draw inspiration from. It's hard to write when one is in good emotional spirits. I wrote 3 free verse poems and this is one of them...

let me chase the thoughts tonight
let me travel in this place
a couple minutes until eternity
this place is where I want to be

give me a hand
just a stable push
I wanna see your smile
see the world within your eyes

can I do this
am I good enough
do you believe in me
I believe in you

another, please another
special look
on the horizons of the mind
a twinkle in the sun
a sparkle in the moon
the wind blows and chills
as goose bumps raise
on my skin

seasons come and seasons go
time passes as rivers flow
people moving like they do
from one side of my heart
to the other
and back again

quickly take my hand
do you feel what I feel
do you see this buzz
this fleeting sense
of something more

there was an earthquake inside me
today and everyday
larger than the largest
more than the time before
casualties mount
the death toll is staggering
I have survived
as I always do
as if protected
by you

let me show you the way
inside this sacred city
the streets lined with gold
light posts beacons of the sun
it's never dark here
never a dull moment

I live up on the corner
away from the bustling crowd
a quaint little dwelling
to which I'm proud

let's run, nobody will know
nobody cares anyway
smile again
let me see the world within your eyes
let me dream of that sweet surprise