Category Archives: LIVE

beastmix05


weeeeee… more cathartic personal projects…. voila – another CD.

Worked on this set mostly over the Spring … and then… sat on it…

I’ve pulled blogging back to a trickle… if you’re just here for the download link – it’s at the bottom of the page.   The following is a bunch of personal crap that I used to be so comfortable sharing but anymore is a real chore. The act actually kicks off a freaky fear response and makes me want to calm up.

Despite this – historically – I *always* feel better when I can write stuff down.

Nutshell wrap up in case you’d been following journal posts in the olden days of Livejournal:

  1.  Decade-old triad relationship destabilized combined with the death of my father left me in an emotionally vulnerable state.
  2. In swooped an outsider, an emotional and sexual predator, nabbing up my heart and prying me from the situation.
    I was head over heals in love and thoroughly blinded – willing to do anything for this flame….
    and I did.
  3. My sacrificial offerings  included disenfranchising my 10-year partners, estranging myself from my friends and moving out and living on my own for the better part of 2011… and then there was the cash offerings, iphones, service plans, gas, food, – the list goes on.
  4. Nearing the end of 2011 what my gut knew all along but I refused to listen to finally broke through with the devastating realization (acceptance of more like it) that this love I sacrificed everything for was at the most innocent: false and one-sided….
    at the most sinister: a front for parasitic extortion.Incidentally what IS Happiness
  5. Broken hearted and broke financially … I couldn’t continue paying top dollar for my exile apartment… I had to move back to “The Ranch” (late father’s and childhood home) where I’d moved Kevin and Chad prior to getting the apartment. (Elise’s Ex / father of my god son has been renting the mid-mod in Crestwood).

Hat in hand, tail between legs… embarrassed… humiliated… hurt… The guys were gracious and supportive in allowing me to come back and live with them as a roommate.

The biggest casualty through this has been Chad with whom I’d never lost my connection. I forfeited our relationship to Kevin rationalizing that he’ll be o.k. and that this was all for the best… I couldn’t have been more myopic, insensitive and downright wrong.

While I was busy fighting my gut instincts and stubbornly trying to force my square will  through the round hole of reality – Chad hurt…  bad… He would work through it – and there with the support and love of Kevin get through it and find a new relationship between the two of them…

He moved on… I moved in.

The following months would be awkward and difficult as I come to terms with this.

The first six of seven stages of grief had their way with me:

1. Shock
2. Denial
3. Anger
4. Bargaining
5. Guilt
6. Depression

At the behest of doc I went onto an antidepressant and into a therapist. I’d start living at the gym… and thinking… a lot.

After a few sessions of reviewing my predicament and feelings – the therapist would helplessly shrug and in so many words tell me: “You’re doing everything you need to do – you’re simply grieving.”

My theory about therapy was proven… You want a therapist to say something to make the pain go away… to give you “the answer”… but answers come from within. The therapist is just there to coach you along with digging around in your own head.

Eventually the weight would start to lift… the haze clear…

The 7th and final stage of grief began:  “Acceptance and Hope”.

I’d remember my past life’s precepts that had served me so well before yet somehow forgot: “focus on what you have and be grateful – not on what you don’t have or what is lost.”

So what do I have… What, after all this, am I left with?

1) A shit ton of life lessons.
2) Two very special men who I call family… My best friends… who mean the world to me.
3) and I increased my bench press by about 40lbs. ;-P

In the end, “Grief is Good Medicine”.

This work is dedicated to Chad.

track list:

01: Linus & Lucy
02: Believe in your Best Levels
03: Leveled Without You
04: Running Without You
05:  Africa
06: Leave Me to Love
07: Here is the House
08: Oh L’Amour
09: Let You Go
10: Love Overload / (lockdown)
11: Fade Into Someone Like You
12: Who Knew Someone Like You

download the file

CREDITS:
dedication: Chad Grimm
series inspiration: Ken “Beast” Colina
the hard stuff: MixMeister v. 7.0.9

sharon west


Sharon West : November 17, 1945 – April 13, 2012

Kevin’s mother and I met when we flew to Ohio for Chirstmas in 1999.

She was the mother of my at that time new serious boyfriend.
I was the guy her son decided to put roots down in Saint Louis for.

This relation would keep us at a respectful arm’s length from each other for the rest of her life.

Mothers and the spouses of their baby boys, (I suspect gay ones especially), enjoy a certain respectful resentment. (With possibly the only exception being my porn-star ex who I think *still* exchanges Christmas cards with my mom).

Sharon and I were no different. Our opinions about one another, no matter how scathing, would never break the surface of what could be called a genuine, caring civility.

The woman could make one mean lasagna – still to date – the best I’d ever had.

Meaner still would be our gossiping when I’d slip off to the kitchen over holidays to chat with her as she’d whip up family favorites. Birds of a feather… Both scorpios… I reckon she knew she had a neutral, sympathetic, yet darkly sardonic ear to chew.

Our secret bitch sessions would be punctuated by culinary secrets and pointers:

“Campbell’s Chicken Gumbo”… she’d say… “that’s the secret ingredient to my Sloppy Joes”

I understand now that our distance was our closeness… It couldn’t have been any other way…

Happy journey ya old bird… It was a neither a pleasure… nor a burden to know you… But certainly an acquaintance I’ll never forget and will always be grateful for.

peace

Mortimer Pye


Mortimer Pye (a.k.a. BiL Sherman)… Illustrator, musician, urban mountain man… A mixed bag of tricks… the kind in which you’d find a pack of Marlboro Reds, a mummified monkey’s paw, a couple of teeth, a tube of Mane ‘n Tail and a collection of cocktail napkins with sketches of male naughty parts on them.

After a few years of sporadic online flirting and a few rounds of Photoshop Tennis, opportunity would rear its head and land him on my doorstep for a visit.

Don’t let the serial killer exterior fool ya… he’s a big softy… *and has earned a special place in my curio case of cherished, eccentric, oddball buddies.