PoM 340
Thirty years ago I had started the first Rock’n’Roll school in America…The Atlanta School of Rock.
We taught guitar, vocals, bass, drums, keyboards, trumpet, saxophone and flute in the styles of Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Classic Rock, Heavy Metal and New Music.
Another company across town had started selling Pro Tools, the brand-new digital recording software.
I visited them one day and the founder snubbed me. I have had a resentment against ProTools ever since…
Now does that sound like a mature man?
As an amends, I bought a monthly subscription to Pro Tools yesterday.
“Resentment is the number one offender”…and I want to stay abstinent, chaste and getting up very early.
To that guy I just want to say…”I am sorry”.
PoM 341
Expeditious religion:
Last Monday I had to be admitted as an emergency dental patient for a root canal consultation. It was 2:59 and I really needed PrayerCall.
I took a cursory glance at my student dentist and surmised she was probably from the Middle East.
So I told a “stretcher”, as Mark Twain would say: “I am a Muslim and I pray for 15 minutes five times a day”.
She quietly and respectfully withdrew.
I got sane in 15 minutes and she got her job done.
If I took your name in vain Allah, please forgive me…“Allahu akbar” …”Allah is merciful”.
PoM 342
Studying the digital audio program Pro Tools reminds me of three things:
In 8th grade I had a good-looking young science teacher who was gay when that was still felonious behavior in the ultra conservative state of Virginia in the late 1960’s.
He was bursting at the seams attracted to me, but he held it perfectly in check.
But, I had no aptitude for science back then and the hate just roared out of my young, budding alcoholic mouth.
Learning this is nothing but talentless pain.
Secondly, studying Pro Tools reminds me of a woman I dated and loved 12 years ago.
Pro Tools has the coolest, sexiest editing platform imaginable.
My old girlfriend, who was so hot she made me look like Santa Claus, physically, had absolutely no limits on what she was interested in, or would do, sexually…but as an ongoing human concern she was a basket case.
Pro Tools crashes and burns like paper mache in Northern California Forest Fire.
Very alluring…but very painful.
Finally, my own ACA stuff comes up.
As an adult child, when faced with a problem, I often see only two solutions…Mommy’s or Daddy’s.
After practicing Step 11 unceremoniously on my belly for a while, a recovered solution was “nudged” to me: Why don’t you keep Pro Tools but keep Logic Pro (Pro Tools only real competitor), too? Duh…
PoM 343
I feel a lot of love and high self-esteem this morning.
I wrote 57 Offices this week and instead of presenting “God’s Daily Newspaper” (as Jo likes to call our new daily work) new offices were presented three times a day, at 6:00am, noon and 9:00pm.
I have to give credit where credit is due: My old friend MJ was burning the candle at both ends doing the chastity thing and I felt rather inspired.
It prompted me to do some more chastity, myself.
One day, my mama took me into the woods, near “still waters”, and dropped a pebble in.
She instructed me to watch the ever-widening ripples and said “ When you do good…it spreads…like the water”.
God bless you Mommy…may your soul Rest In Peace.
Amen
PoM 344
I could see my narcissism in a new way today.
I felt frustrated and angry twice today. Once with BB and once with Gummy.
They were holding up my workflow… How dare they!
It didn’t take long, with the 11th step, to remember that these people are more important to me than Beethoven, Hendrix or Coltrane.
I prayed step six and seven I was restored to some semblance of sanity…Thank God.
PoM 345
“We constantly search the inner recesses of our hearts”.
Gandhi
What is it about me that feels desperate and frantic when a file is unlinked or an internal clock goes haywire while using a software program?
In my mind I tell myself it is because I am being thwarted from trying create something beautiful .
But, the desperation tells me that there is a need not getting met. Instead of for “fun or creativity”, I am searching for contentment within myself because I have created something beautiful.
But why would I need that?
Ellen Bass says that it’s because, as survivors, we believe that we are fundamentally bad. We believe that the abuse was really, deep down, our fault and we need to somehow even the score from the deficit place we constantly live in.
I have enough recovery to be just fine without amateur art, or professional art, or any type of art. I am fine either way.
Still don’t like it…when files and clocks go coo-coo.