Tuesday, November 30, 2010

What do you want to see?

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Seriously.

I know she was wrong, but seriously, she had to go.
Seriously, is this the way we're supposed to act?
Is this the way we're supposed to react?

It says to take care of them
To be kind, and care
Yet your reaction to action
seriously makes me question

Friday, November 19, 2010

Si o No

Do you enjoy this game?
I think I do.
No one's been up to the chase.
Until now.

Thanks for letting me in.
Thanks for showing me out.

'A pretty face
A pretty face
A pretty face would one day do me in.

You and I were always closest friends.
...and I went numb.
So I'm not dead if what you did don't hurt.'

Less Than Three

What is less than three?
Can there be two?
Can there be one?
Can the sun reflect in more ways than one?

When I wrote to you
Indeed I knew
that two is a crowd
But one is too loud

i'M lOCKED uP
tHE dAYS oF oLD
aRE yET uNTOLD

aND yET, yOU aRE sTILL hERE
oN tHE tHIRD aND tHE fIFTH
aT tEN aNTE
mERIDIEM

Oh how the sun proves
the Shadows
or do the Shadows prove the sun(shine)?
or perhaps reflections
Are only one and out

Less than three.
Is between Hope and Faith.
Is between the sky and the Hell
Is between you and me
YOU are
Less than three.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

An Orchestra of Infinity

With you, life is true
There are no shades of gray
La clouds are ever forming
Underneath a closing hand

Characters on white
Used in so many different ways
Construction of a bella house
Deconstruction of a life

I am the fish that you caught
Hey there one in a million
Who am I, and why me?
Why vita, and beta?

Time to lay it down
to see what you're made of

Why do you do what I don't want you to?
Why is your life such a struggle?
I think that he knows how it goes
How to play first fiddle in an orchestra of infinity

What beauty! What grace!
It's a shame that karma is part of the equation!
'John Perkins said it right
Love is the final fight'

Monday, November 15, 2010

I'm 12 years old today!

Today is my 12th birthday. On 11.15.98 I was born again. In a movie theater. Watching the "Final Exit."
'Nuff said.
: ]

Friday, November 12, 2010

Fishing and Ethics - not the most common dilemma...

So yesterday was Veterans Day, and my bro and I took off for the San Luis Reservoir area to do some legit fishing. We found a sweet spot by the Delta-Mendota, but a sign saying otherwise was posted, and we deemed it necessary to go across the highway, seeing another legit spot. After we check out the spot, he sees the same exact sign, but this one had fallen off. Technically, we could have said that we "hadn't seen it," but yeah, we decided against it.

So we go to another stretch, and after getting minimal bites, we move on to another section of the Delta-Mendota. I caught a sweet Striper, but after measuring, was only 17.35496 inches...after finding this we were def. tempted to take it since it was so close to the required 18 inches, but let him go. There were certainly times when we wanted to take that baby home, as that was the only real potential keeper that we got. Oh well...there will be plenty of fish out there in the years to come, and it's not worth the fine to cheat even a little bit...
: ]

Thursday, November 11, 2010

TWLOHA - Jamie Tworkowski


This is the article that started an awesome organization called To Write Love On Her Arms. I totally support their efforts and urge you to check out their website: http://twloha.com 


TWLOHA - J. Tworkowski

TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS by Jamie Tworkowski

Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.

Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.

On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Friday, November 5, 2010

1 year on YouTube!!!

   "Hey guys, it's Kenneth!"

   This is how I start out pretty much every single video that I make on YouTube, and today, November 5th, 2010, is a special day for me in regards to YouTube. Today is my 1-year-anniversary for the creation of my 1st YouTube account http://www.youtube.com/akintomeatloaf.
   It has been an eventful year. Beginning back in 2009 feels like a long time ago...when I look back at those videos I can see how "bad" they were in terms of long introductions, asking [pleading, even, (in Snagglepuss's voice of course)] for 5 stars (that feels a long time ago as well...), ettica. I feel like I've improved in quality of presentation, I've transitioned to editing in Windows Movie Maker, which makes my covers so much better in terms of audio quality.
    All in all, it's been a fun year, and I hope to have many more years making videos, "meeting" new people, often from other countries, and helping others learn their favorite songs. Thanks for reading and watching!!!

Monday, November 1, 2010

THE GIANTS WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOV. 1st, 2010

WOOOOOOOOOHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    I just got back from Auntie Alice and Uncle Jesse's house, and man, was that an awesome game. The San Francisco Giants win the World Series by a final score of 3-1. Tim Lincecum beat Cliff Lee for the SECOND time in the World Series, giving up only 1 run in 8 innings with 10 K's. Brian Wilson came in in the 9th and shut the Rangers DOWN.
    Edgar Renteria is the WS MVP, hitting the game-winning 3-run BOMB in the top of the 7th off of Cliff Lee on a 2-0 count. It was up, and I think on a 2-0 count. 1st base was open, as Cody Ross and Juan Uribe had singled, Aubrey Huff laid down his FIRST SACRIFICE BUNT of his career. Pat "the Bat" Burrell struck out, but Edgar Renteria came up and gave the Giants their 1st World Series Championship since coming to San Francisco.
    Now 'tis time to spend some serious dough on SF Giants W.S. gear. As my father says, "This only comes around once in a lifetime...it's something you can tell your grand kids about."
GO GIANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Here are some pics courtesy of Yahoo! Sports:

                                                 













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