All Things Are New Again.

It's amusing to think that my life began as a songwriter. I remember once asking my brother why he had never read any of my screenplays, to which he replied that his earliest memory was of me playing him a "stupid" (his words) song I had written when he was around five years old.

This means that I've been writing for more than fifty-six years now. It's quite a long time!

I often share the story of how I met my partner, and we went to the Post Office to collect royalty checks for my earlier songs. When she found out, she suggested that instead of writing short rhyming songs, I should write longer stories without the need to rhyme and cast her in them. This led me to become a screenwriter.

Although I now write short stories again, I no longer feel the need to make them rhyme. Thanks to the internet, I can easily share my stories with the world.

My Blood is Boiling

 I love my brain. 

I love hacking my brain.

My mentor describes the brain as having three parts. A robot, a monkey, and the controlling center.

Now the controlling center thinks it is in control, but it isn't.

The robot is the habitual part of the brain. It controls all the mechanical parts. Blood, breathing, repair. Studies have shown that the brain is more active when you are asleep than awake and it is precisely this part that explains why. 

My partner is taking a class right now and she said this morning that she doesn't want to miss a class because she doesn't want to forget all she is learning.

I told her she DOES want to forget everything. Really what she should do is work on it so often that the robot takes over and she doesn't actively have to remember any part of it. Remember learning to drive anyone? Same thing. Now we drive for a large part of the day and don't even think about it.

Think about this. Most people on the road are driving by robot also.

Now the monkey part. That is the emotional part. The ADD. Oh look some thing shiny, some thing fun. It will take you down rabbit holes all day long if you let it. 

You think you are in control but it is really like you are a rider on a elephant and the elephant is going to go where it wants to go. 

Everything you do is by emotion. You just rationalize it to think you have some control in your life.

The best we can hope for is making a game out of our tasks so our monkey brain doesn't get bored and wonder what it's missing on social media.

Now for a game. 

Ina moment close your eyes and think of a lemon.

Smell it. Look at the color. Imagine the weight. 

Now take a big bit out of it. In your mind.

Is your mouth watering? Is your face puckering?

Are you having a physical response to a totally imagined thought?

Now what if you could hack your brain for other responses? 

That is what happened to me today. A totally unreal, thought made me upset and got my blood to boil. In the end though it did cause me to write new blog. 

The Jesus Revolution.

I went to see the Jesus Revolution the day it was released. I thought it was awesome. It reminded me

of the times I was able to work services for Chuck Smith and Greg Laurie. Fine people.

It also reminded me of my little part of the story.

Let's go back to when I was seven years old. My babysitter let me stay up to watch Don Kirchner's

Rock Concert one night. Alice Cooper was on. I thought he was really weird, but his guitar players were

so cool. That started a cycle of asking for a guitar for Chirstmas, then my Eighth Birthday. Then for

Christmas. Then my Ninth Birthday. Then For Christmas again. 

I am sure I wasn't the most pleasant of children by then because my brother, who by the way, didn't

even want a guitar got an electric guitar and amp, and I received a cheap plastic acoustic with plastic

strings. We both got 32-page Mel Bay beginning books and I got a book of twelve Christmas Songs.

On a side note by 5:00 PM that night I had learned all 32 pages and I held a, I'm sure crappy, concert

of the 12 songs. 

I was so happy with that little guitar. There were a couple of Nuns at the school I went to that played.

They would teach me different picking patterns. I remember them asking me if I wanted to join them to

play at nursing homes, soup kitchens, and orphanages after school during the week. 

My Dad at the time was converting Latin Masses to any one of the dozen or so languages he spoke.

I often stayed at school from 8:00 AM till 9:00 PM.

This went on for years. In Seventh Grade, as I was told, The Roman Catholic Church wanted to develop

a Guitar Mass in response to this thing called the Jesus Movement. I remember hearing that a lot of

High School and College students were leaving the church and joining it.

They asked a Nun who was staying at the convent to perform the Mass. Her name was Sister

Bernadette and there had been a movie about her called The Singing Nun about her 1963 hit called

Dominique. I remember her saying that she had enough popularity but there was a group at the

convent that performed all over town and that she was sure we would do a fine job.

Well after, I'm sure, weeks of practice the day came. We were to do three Masses. The morning mass,

a specials performance after school for the parents, and the big show, The Evening Mass. Like people

from Rome and from all over the world were going to be there. 

The morning Mass went perfectly. I thought we did a fine job. I remember being nervous but not as

nervous as the Sisters I was playing with.

The afternoon performance for the parent was a different thing. 

I couldn't tune my guitar. I kept trying and trying but it went out of tune on each song. After the third or

fourth song my Seventh-grade teacher. I will not state her name here even though I know she is long

dead, came up to me and started yelling that I was an embarrassment to the Church, an

embarrassment to my family, an embarrassment to my school, my friends, and to GOD!

I still remember looking at the faces of the parents. I can still see her face yelling at me. 

She said there was no place for a guitar in church.

I did what any twelve-year-old would do. I threw my guitar down and ran crying out of the building.

Outside of the school, there was a pavilion and then a parking lot up a hill. At the top of the hill you

could go left to soccer and baseball fields or to the left to a cemetery.

The cemetery had a giant Crucifix and on days that I was having to stay late, I would go there. I always

wondered about a Crucifix but a dove would fly over and circle three times and land on my right side

and I would talk to it. To my young brain that was the Holy Spirit and I knew he was real.

That day I threw myself on the ground and cried out to God. "Why am I alive?" "I am such a waste of

breath." A waste of time." "An embarrassment." "Lower than a worm."

About thirty minutes passed and one of the Nuns found me. She said the whole school was looking for

me. She said that my teacher should have never said those things. That there were a group of people

that didn't want things to change. She also told me that when they looked at my guitar they could see

where someone stepped on the neck and cracked it. There was no way it would hold a tune, but if I

wanted to play that night I could borrow her guitar.

Now the funniest part happened about thirty years later. 

I was driving down a road and I saw a church with a sign that said Catholic Evangelical and I thought,

that’s a contradiction of terms. I noticed that the start time was in about five minutes so I quickly parked

and went in. 

The service was the same as I remembered. Lots of standing and kneeling at certain times. Call and

response. They did have guitars playing music. There was a man and three women and only three

guitars.

After the service, I approached the group and spoke to the man. I asked about the instrumentation.

He explained that three women and one man with three guitars was the preferred tradition for a guitar

Mass. 

No, I didn’t tell him why it was the tradition. I am still amazed it became one.

In the movie they stated that the Jesus movement lasted from 1966 till 1972. The year I played that

guitar Mass. But I don't think that it has stopped yet.

Oh, I still talk to doves.