Patterns of behavior II: Change yourself; Be the person you want to be…
Okay, hopefully you have a fair idea of what a Pattern of Behavior is by now, but I’m going to nutshell it, one more time, anyway…
It is the habitual and automatic action, repeatedly chosen as the primary response to a single and relatively specific experience, the “trigger”. When the triggering experience manifests itself into our present, the Pattern of Behavior (PB), just like a computer program, will unconsciously unfold to deal with it.
It may be a positive action or negative. The subconscious doesn’t care. The very first time in your life that you experienced this trigger, your subconscious, having never experienced it before, had no pre-selected response and had to just grab one out of thin air and hope that you (and it) survived. If you did survive, then it filed that action away as the response to perform every time that particular trigger presented itself. From that time forward it remained exactly the same trigger/response, reinforcing its self and becoming stronger and more and more automatic, or second nature, with every successful encounter. The only way it will, or could, ever change will be by some unusual outside influence or your own efforts.
The reason our subconscious locks in these patterned responses is so that when a trigger occurs, it has an action already programmed to be pulled instantly out of the brain’s files, put into our mental VCR/DVD and run, as the response. We don’t even have to think about it. In fact, thinking about it at the moment of some potential crisis can get you killed. No, the automatic behavior is best. It also leaves your brain open to be thinking about something else at the same time. Very efficient.
But just surviving, important as it may be, is still not necessarily the best criteria by which we might select our best, or at least better, responses. Remember, when a trigger presents itself to us for the first time in our lives, it’s a new experience. The subconscious has never had to select a response for this one before and is decidedly rushed, even borderline panic. It doesn’t have time to come up with several possible actions, weigh the pros and cons of each and then pick one. It snags the first one that seems to have “survival” written all over it.
Should we indeed survive, it still has no reason or incentive to now take us back to that trigger and together, sub-conscious and high-conscious (awakened beta mind to mid-alpha), take all the time necessary to imagine several new and different creative responses, responses that might insure a more positive, even loving outcome to this pattern of behavior, as a whole. Since we’re not rushed at the moment, we can take the time to weigh the new responses, compare them, and pick one as THE new one that we would like to start applying first from now on, whenever this particular trigger presents itself.
This has absolutely no influence or appeal to the subconscious. It has already found a response that ended with SURVIVAL. Whether the higher consciousnesses like or dislike the manner or condition of their final survival couldn’t mean less to the subconscious. As far as it’s concerned, IT was the one that saved us all and if there were any concern on its part it would be more like, “…Where are my Kudos and accolades…?” In the world of the subconscious it has done quite enough for the entity, the body, “Thank you, very much”, and nothing more is necessary except to file the new trigger/response away as just another new Pattern of Behavior.
It has no incentive, but you do.
Think about this; you know those occasions that you find yourself alone for the moment, just after repeating an often repeated unpleasant scene in your life, one more time? (...Again?!!) You find yourself asking, “Why do I always do that?”
Or, you’re feeling like you owe somebody an apology for your doing or saying the wrong thing. But you remember plenty of other times when that exact same thing happened (the trigger) and you always wound up doing or saying the exact same thing (the response), but it was always so evil-mean-n-bad-n-nasty, you ended up pissed-off at yourself afterwards and crying your blues, “…Why do I always do that?!...”, one more time.
Well, now you know.
We are, all of us, walking collections of Patterns of Behavior. Everything we do, say or think was chosen as our response to each trigger. Oh, the dialogue may change, the place it occurs, the people involved may not matter, but the response, OUR response, stays the same (because we never ask the subconscious to help find us a more likable one). And this collective of all our PBs is what makes us who we are.
The good news is that we can change most of these PBs; make them more positive, more loving, or what ever we want. The method is actually pretty simple. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy, however.
It takes commitment, consistency and effort. For how long? Who knows? Each one is different. Some will change practically overnight, others could take weeks or months or longer.
Pick a PB that to you is important; a part of you that you really want to change, to improve. Whenever you perform some negative response to a trigger, perhaps an angry response, ask your self, afterwards, if you might have been capable of handling that differently, better, even perhaps in a more positive way. The answer is almost always, “Yes”.
Assuming it is, find a place and time, ASAP, while it’s still fresh in your mind, to sit or lie down in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and relax. Feel your body and your mind relaxing with each deep breath, over the next couple of minutes; inhale deeply and hold for a few seconds (comfortably), then exhale all the way, with a little extra push at the end, hold for a moment and start again. Do this for a dozen or so breaths while reminding your self to relax, deeper and deeper and imagining yourself doing so.
If you already meditate, that’s good, but not necessary. Understand that “Meditation”, when used actively to implement change within us, can also be a useful and powerful way to practice “Self Hypnosis”. These are just labels for much the same thing. Don’t get wrapped up in labels. All roads lead to Rome…and some will be of your own making.
When you feel reasonably relaxed, you can begin to breathe normally.
Now, talk to your subconscious in a way designed to recruit its assistance in the changing of yourself. Some see it as a “Higher Self”, or a deeper self, or simply another self, but most agree that it is a very powerful part of us and well worth cultivating a positive relationship with it.
If I believed that you, the present reader, were totally ready to immerse yourself into the world of this path, I would tell you to talk to it as a close friend. Eventually you’re going to learn the truth of this, anyway, so the sooner you accept it, the better you’ll be…for the time being, just suspend your disbeliefs and pretend all of this is true.
Remember, that from his (yes, yes; or her) perspective, he is the “one that has been making all the really important decisions for the two of you all these years, the ones that determined whether you (both) survived. And have you survived? Well, I daresay, you have! All because of MY decisions, that sure have seemed to go under appreciated for all that time, thank you, very much, indeed!...”, etc., etc.
It’s time you thank it, tell it how much it has indeed been appreciated, and apologize for not saying so more often…and because he is so great at all this, you would like to request that he assist you in improving the team effort even further.
(All of this may sound strange at first, but there are many other techniques available to accomplish the same ends, some perhaps even stranger. I and others have found this and what follows very useful. I hope you’ll give it a try for 90 days or so before you give it up.)
Assume that he has silently agreed and press ahead... Using your relaxed mind, tell him the Pattern of Behavior that you want to improve. Run a memory, just like putting in a DVD, and show him the trigger and the negative response that He had originally chosen for you; something like an outburst of unnecessary anger perhaps. Run it just like a movie that you are watching with him. Explain (to him) that even though the response he had chosen always ended in survival (and, “thank you for that”), you feel there must be other, more positive, responses that could have been used, that would also, not only, have resulted in survival , but could have contained more happiness, more love, perhaps even elegance . While you relax and quiet your mind, would he create three new positive responses that would be possible and, either tells or shows you the one he would pick as the best one of those three to try, right now, or allow it to manifest itself to you in your sleep later that night or during the following day. Thank it for the help you’re certain it will be showing you soon.
Now, just listen for it, as well as you can, for a minute or two. Often it will come to you now, a sudden awareness of a response that would fit the bill.
It would be very easy, right at that moment, to assume that whatever came to you was actually your idea, and pat yourself on the back for being so clever. This is what most of us usually do…Don’t. It is more in your own self interest to give the subconscious the benefit of the doubt and thank it, graciously.
You can start working with the new response right away or, if no message came through clearly enough, thank it again, and tell it you are confident that you will be receiving your answer soon.
Usually, when it comes, there’s no mistaking it. (It’s generally very clear, and kind of “forces” itself on you). If you haven’t received something that you feel is “clearly” that for which you have been waiting, within that first 24 hours, do it again. And do it with a smile on your face and love in your heart.
Still nothing? Do it again. Keep doing it, each time as positively as the first (…that’s one of your lessons, too…), until your subconscious takes you seriously enough to want to see what you’ll do with an answer and gives you one.
Understand this and it will save you a lot of frustration and disappointment: The Subconscious is reluctant to change.
It needs a really good reason. As far as it’s concerned, survival is a good enough response outcome. Why should it get fancy and clutter things up. It sees NO outcome as “better” than simple “survival”. YOU must show it the error of its ways, and that the number of better-than-just-plain-old-survival action responses are legion. It just doesn’t know these things. No one ever took the time to show it.
Persistence is one of the few ways by which you can be reasonably certain of success. You have to wear the subconscious down. So, each time you are beginning another PB improvement, make no deadlines. Adjust your expectations to “eventually”, and commit to “as long as it takes”, consistently repeating, at the same time each day, whatever routine currently required until you are successfully answered.
When and your subconscious have decided what you want the new response to be, start trying to implement it every time the trigger manifests itself into your life.
Lets’ say the trigger in this PB is when someone makes a good natured remark about your receding hairline, of which you are overly sensitive. The response is that you always take the remark as a personal insult and usually snap back at them with an angry insult of your own, usually escalating a negative situation
You’ll have your greatest difficulties now, at the beginning, when you’re trying to incorporate and use the new response with which you have had no experience, instead of the old one that has been experienced so many times that it has become reinforced into your psyche so deeply that it runs automatically, so as to require none of your attention at all.
You’ll be trying (and slowly learning) to focus your concentration every second that you can throughout the day, staying alert for the same old trigger as always, and being ready to perform the new response as soon as it appears.
You’ll learn to call this, “Practice”.
The old one will most likely beat you to it for a while. It’s been done so many times over so many years (and successfully as far as the subconscious cares), that its status quo in the Mind’s arena is pretty well assured. But, fortunately, not completely.
If you really want to change, all it takes is effort, unrelenting effort…for ever, if that’s what it takes. (It won’t. Isn’t that nice to know?) Commit to the effort.
Do your short meditative reminder about your current “effort” at the start of every day. Remind yourself of the exact trigger for which you are watching and the new response you will be trying to insert into your life’s path BEFORE the old unacceptable one has a chance to be activated. Get this as clearly in the forefront of your mind as you can. Remind your subconscious that it agreed to help you, or at least stay out of your way whenever it could.
Now, go start your day.
Practice watching for the trigger. You missed it?...Then another?...And still more?...Keep practicing.
Practice quickly inserting the preferred response first, whenever you do see the trigger. You’re not quick enough?...Make it not matter to you and try again. Need to get faster?... Keep practicing.
Every night when you’re getting ready for sleep, close your eyes and run a mental video of the day’s unfolding, looking to remember any opportunities that had occurred and that you had missed, having not recognized them at the time for what they were. Instead of mentally palm-slapping yourself in the forehead when you discover one (a negative), give yourself an “’atta-boy” pat on the back (a positive) and congratulate yourself for finding one that you would have otherwise completely missed, leaving you without the opportunity to go over it now, reviewing the video as much as you feel you need, so that the next time it is repeated you will be just a little more ready for it. And, even if you are still too slow the next time, you will mostly likely see that you are at least getting faster…each time getting faster…faster…
With your unrelenting practice of the “commitment to effort”, eventually you WILL get fast enough to win one; to perform that new and desired response ahead of the old long established one.
One is all it takes for it to begin to get noticeably easier.
Why? Because you have now given the subconscious a second response to the same trigger and were successful; you survived.
Remind your subconscious how much better, more positive, the outcome was for you, while still giving him everything he ever wanted out of that particular Pattern of Behavior.
From here on, the new will get stronger and stronger every time it is used, while the old will get weaker and weaker. With continued effort, the new will eventually get as reinforced as the old ever was.
The old trigger and the new response will become a whole new Pattern of Behavior, done as automatically as the original ever was and the old… well, it will just become a memory. Be kind and retire it with your heartfelt thanks for all the service it gave you for all its years and release it, with your love and gratitude, to go wherever it wishes.
This is based on the belief that everything has a spirit. Your subconscious will appreciate it even if you don’t, and it’s always a good idea to make as good a friend as you can out of your subconscious. Eventually he will get with the program and start actually helping you. This is called “Streamlining” and when it finally happens you will learn the real meaning of “Awesome”.
Peace,
Jerry
PS;
A note: Whenever you want to change something in your self, don’t try to get rid of it. Don’t try to stop doing whatever it is!!
Rather, pick out something you would do instead, and start practicing doing that until you do the new thing more than the old thing. Pretty soon you’ll have forgotten all about the original.
This is a short-hand version of the entire article above. As in, “…in other words…”
Want it shorter?...”Don’t stop a habit. Start another instead. Practice the second one.”
(…Go buy a song- @ cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott)
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Change Your Patterns of Behavior, Change Your Life
Everything you are, how you think, how and why you do the things that you do, are all one big collection of Patterns of Behavior [or, PB’s]. You began creating them the moment you were born, or maybe a bit earlier, as you began to become aware of things while still in the womb.
At this beginning, the mind is a blank, a clean slate upon which any thing may be written, not in words, but impressions. The Earthly conciousness, the Beta Mind, is emerging. Exposed to each new experience, this awakening human must react to each and every one. This has been referred to as Action/Reaction, Stimulus/Response, Trigger/Behavior, or any combination of these terms or others, and interchangeably, it seems.
That first response or reaction to any experience that occurs will probably be the same immediate response to which the mind will go first, and for a long time to come…
Example:
Little Mary has just left the only world she has ever known [the womb] and, with no small trauma, entered ours filled with bright lights and loud noises. She mentally ties these new experiences to the new emotions that her responses seem to bring with them, [fear and pieces of other negative emotions associated with it, etc.] and finds this can all be easily filed away in her, as yet, mostly untapped and empty memory banks, for future reference.
A few minutes pass and the birthing-room is much quieter now. The screaming, crying, laughing and Hoo-Raying is over. A nurse has cleaned up Mary, wrapped her warmly, turned down the lights and is quietly rocking her to a softly hummed lullaby…as an orderly hurrying by them, knocks over a metal stand with a tray full of metal utensils and bowls.
The resulting crashing/banging clatter mentally sling-shots Mary’s new mind scrambling for her newly acquired memory banks to see what it has in stock as the Number One response to loud noises. There is only one, of course, so it has to be the #1 response. It is to respond with Fear. “Well”, Mary’s mind concludes, “the last time I needed a response to this, I used Fear and I survived. There may be other responses that would work as well or even better, but a Fear response is the only one that I know for sure can help me survive.”
So, Mary reacts with an “I’m-terrified” fit. And every time she reacts to that particular trigger with exactly that same response, it strengthens the connection, it reinforces it, over and over, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, until eventually it becomes second nature. It requires no thinking. In fact, it becomes an unconscious act.
It becomes so ingrained in us, so much of a habit, that whenever that particular trigger presents itself for us to experience, an unconscious part of our mind just automatically takes over and MAKES us perform the one response that IT requires.
This Trigger/Response is now a Pattern of Behavior.
Every experience you have ever had occurred a first time some time in your life, usually early. That’s why your “Formative Years”, the ones that make you who you are, are in the first 5-6 years of your life.
Most of our Primary life experiences come to us during this time. And being a brand new experience [or trigger] means there is no pre-selected response, yet. We can now invent, on the spot, a totally new response to this new experience, or select and immediately use one of the other responses we have been using for all the other triggers we have run across up to now, and that we have been filing away on that clean slate with which we started, and to which we have been adding from day one.
Whatever we choose in that split second we have, the subconscious only wants to know if it brought us through the experience alive. Not well, not unscathed or bleeding, not even if it was a good response; just alive. To the subconscious, that’s all it takes to be a good response. It looks no further.
But you can.
All of your life you and your subconscious have collected primary responses to every thing that could happen to you. There are whole categories of experiences for which the subconscious has but a single response. Other categories have other solitary responses for their collective.
Every action you do has a corresponding reaction, already programmed by the subconscious to be instantly inserted and played out.
I, you, we are all living Robots, programmed by ourselves to react to every action in our lives in a particularly unique manner; our manner and only ours.
Frankly, we can make better choices for ourselves. The subconscious is only after survival and if a response accomplishes that, then it has no incentive to look for anything better. You can.
By the time a response has reached a Pattern of Behavior level it is now a habit, one that the subconscious has made unconsciously performable. You perform them without even having to think about them. In fact, you don’t. A PB has no middle for you to even be aware of. It’s like a mental video machine; A trigger is perceived, causing the response video to be started, and runs all the way to the end with no stopping or interrupting.
The best example I know of is shaking hands. The trigger is seeing someone present a hand to be shaken, the common response is to reach out and grasp the hand, shake it, and let go, retrieving your hand.
Try offering your hand to someone and when they bring their hand forward, put yours back by your side, leaving their hand just hanging there by itself. Don’t move or change your facial expression. Just wait and observe. Because a PB has no middle, if interrupted, the subconscious doesn’t know what to do. It becomes confused as to what other response might be used, but it has none listed as backup so it does nothing, eventually letting the hand return to the person’s side, possibly commenting that it was kind of weird…[Do it again to them. See how many times you can do it.]
Part II on PB’s will give you ways you can change these and select much better responses to a trigger. Yes, Mary, you can change your life for the better. All it takes is willingness to practice and a commitment to consistency.
See ya’ then,
Peace, Jerry
Please check out my music at cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
At this beginning, the mind is a blank, a clean slate upon which any thing may be written, not in words, but impressions. The Earthly conciousness, the Beta Mind, is emerging. Exposed to each new experience, this awakening human must react to each and every one. This has been referred to as Action/Reaction, Stimulus/Response, Trigger/Behavior, or any combination of these terms or others, and interchangeably, it seems.
That first response or reaction to any experience that occurs will probably be the same immediate response to which the mind will go first, and for a long time to come…
Example:
Little Mary has just left the only world she has ever known [the womb] and, with no small trauma, entered ours filled with bright lights and loud noises. She mentally ties these new experiences to the new emotions that her responses seem to bring with them, [fear and pieces of other negative emotions associated with it, etc.] and finds this can all be easily filed away in her, as yet, mostly untapped and empty memory banks, for future reference.
A few minutes pass and the birthing-room is much quieter now. The screaming, crying, laughing and Hoo-Raying is over. A nurse has cleaned up Mary, wrapped her warmly, turned down the lights and is quietly rocking her to a softly hummed lullaby…as an orderly hurrying by them, knocks over a metal stand with a tray full of metal utensils and bowls.
The resulting crashing/banging clatter mentally sling-shots Mary’s new mind scrambling for her newly acquired memory banks to see what it has in stock as the Number One response to loud noises. There is only one, of course, so it has to be the #1 response. It is to respond with Fear. “Well”, Mary’s mind concludes, “the last time I needed a response to this, I used Fear and I survived. There may be other responses that would work as well or even better, but a Fear response is the only one that I know for sure can help me survive.”
So, Mary reacts with an “I’m-terrified” fit. And every time she reacts to that particular trigger with exactly that same response, it strengthens the connection, it reinforces it, over and over, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, until eventually it becomes second nature. It requires no thinking. In fact, it becomes an unconscious act.
It becomes so ingrained in us, so much of a habit, that whenever that particular trigger presents itself for us to experience, an unconscious part of our mind just automatically takes over and MAKES us perform the one response that IT requires.
This Trigger/Response is now a Pattern of Behavior.
Every experience you have ever had occurred a first time some time in your life, usually early. That’s why your “Formative Years”, the ones that make you who you are, are in the first 5-6 years of your life.
Most of our Primary life experiences come to us during this time. And being a brand new experience [or trigger] means there is no pre-selected response, yet. We can now invent, on the spot, a totally new response to this new experience, or select and immediately use one of the other responses we have been using for all the other triggers we have run across up to now, and that we have been filing away on that clean slate with which we started, and to which we have been adding from day one.
Whatever we choose in that split second we have, the subconscious only wants to know if it brought us through the experience alive. Not well, not unscathed or bleeding, not even if it was a good response; just alive. To the subconscious, that’s all it takes to be a good response. It looks no further.
But you can.
All of your life you and your subconscious have collected primary responses to every thing that could happen to you. There are whole categories of experiences for which the subconscious has but a single response. Other categories have other solitary responses for their collective.
Every action you do has a corresponding reaction, already programmed by the subconscious to be instantly inserted and played out.
I, you, we are all living Robots, programmed by ourselves to react to every action in our lives in a particularly unique manner; our manner and only ours.
Frankly, we can make better choices for ourselves. The subconscious is only after survival and if a response accomplishes that, then it has no incentive to look for anything better. You can.
By the time a response has reached a Pattern of Behavior level it is now a habit, one that the subconscious has made unconsciously performable. You perform them without even having to think about them. In fact, you don’t. A PB has no middle for you to even be aware of. It’s like a mental video machine; A trigger is perceived, causing the response video to be started, and runs all the way to the end with no stopping or interrupting.
The best example I know of is shaking hands. The trigger is seeing someone present a hand to be shaken, the common response is to reach out and grasp the hand, shake it, and let go, retrieving your hand.
Try offering your hand to someone and when they bring their hand forward, put yours back by your side, leaving their hand just hanging there by itself. Don’t move or change your facial expression. Just wait and observe. Because a PB has no middle, if interrupted, the subconscious doesn’t know what to do. It becomes confused as to what other response might be used, but it has none listed as backup so it does nothing, eventually letting the hand return to the person’s side, possibly commenting that it was kind of weird…[Do it again to them. See how many times you can do it.]
Part II on PB’s will give you ways you can change these and select much better responses to a trigger. Yes, Mary, you can change your life for the better. All it takes is willingness to practice and a commitment to consistency.
See ya’ then,
Peace, Jerry
Please check out my music at cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
Monday, September 28, 2009
Spiritual Metaphors
I find metaphors and their kind helpful to me when I’m pondering some spiritual [or other] point. A new perspective can allow me to see it from a completely different angle; the more angles, the greater the understanding, and the wiser the choices made and conclusions drawn…hopefully.
Fortunately, it has been my experience that this method works best, whether I’m trying to teach myself or others.
For example:
I find seeing Life as a book useful.
I am the Author. I wrote it, more or less, before I arrived here on School-House Earth, during that time between this life and the last one, when I wrote a completely different Life/Book that had many of the same players/souls, but as different characters with different parts to portray. The current life/book is always in a Final-Draft stage as I enter the Earth Plane and begin to read and experience what is written for each day. And each day, I choose whether to turn another page and go on to the next.
I am also my own Editor. I can choose to proceed with what’s on the page just as it’s written, or change any part or all of it. [Isn’t “Free will” great? Practically every religion or philosophy of higher powers advocates or acknowledges it somewhere in their writings, as your right to do anything, as long as you are willing to accept the consequences of your actions.]
So, as Author and Editor, I can change it any way I want, or erase, or even rip out the pages. But….the characters in the book have free will, also.
A life/book is created to help us learn those lessons that we have yet to master, some of which we may have been working on for many lifetimes. We write in the book what we can, while in the “in-between” many call the Astral. We write parts for souls with whom we have spent other lives, they helping us learn certain lessons, us helping them. We wait for them to return to the Astral, make agreements with them about the upcoming life; where our paths will cross, and how, in that life, and so on.
And through these arrangements and agreements, we enter a life with plans of certain opportunities to present themselves, throughout the length of the life, to learn those lessons that we came here to learn. You can’t learn your lessons if you don’t have the opportunities to practice, right? [A few of these lessons might be for Love, Compassion, Understanding, Acceptance, Universal Oneness, and many others.]
But, just as we can change our minds, so too, can all the others with whom you made arrangements, change theirs. Free will, remember?
Not to worry. The Universe [God] will provide, he just doesn’t say when. Sometimes, a soul with whom you have not reincarnated before, will have a similar Karmic configuration and be guided to cross your path in the same way you had needed of the other…and you're back on path.
Other times, you’re just going to have to wait until you’re back on the Astral again, and make new arrangements for the next life. You never run out of those and the Universe has unlimited time.
During daily life most of this is happening on an unconscious level, but we can become more conscious of it by learning to pay attention to what is going on around us at a deeper level. Just seeking to find the positive and loving in your experiences is a good start. Learning to ignore the negativity that you see will open up avenues to the positive. And simple meditation is very powerful. Join a group in your area and learn how. It’s easy and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how many things in your life begin to get better as you maintain daily practice.
Not enough books tell you this about meditation, so I want to make sure you hear it from me: The time that you spend in meditation is the time your body, mind, and spirit realign and retune themselves to the pulse, the heartbeat, of the Universe.
Consistent practice is most powerful. Fifteen minutes every day is much more useful than a one hour meditation every four days.
So, there you have my “Life is a Book” metaphor. I’ll be adding more, I’m sure.
I appreciate e-mail from any of you, commenting on what I’m writing.
If you would just like to hear one more person give their thoughts on any self-help area that is dear to you, ask away. The questions that get asked the most, get answered.
Love and Peace,
Jerry
Fortunately, it has been my experience that this method works best, whether I’m trying to teach myself or others.
For example:
I find seeing Life as a book useful.
I am the Author. I wrote it, more or less, before I arrived here on School-House Earth, during that time between this life and the last one, when I wrote a completely different Life/Book that had many of the same players/souls, but as different characters with different parts to portray. The current life/book is always in a Final-Draft stage as I enter the Earth Plane and begin to read and experience what is written for each day. And each day, I choose whether to turn another page and go on to the next.
I am also my own Editor. I can choose to proceed with what’s on the page just as it’s written, or change any part or all of it. [Isn’t “Free will” great? Practically every religion or philosophy of higher powers advocates or acknowledges it somewhere in their writings, as your right to do anything, as long as you are willing to accept the consequences of your actions.]
So, as Author and Editor, I can change it any way I want, or erase, or even rip out the pages. But….the characters in the book have free will, also.
A life/book is created to help us learn those lessons that we have yet to master, some of which we may have been working on for many lifetimes. We write in the book what we can, while in the “in-between” many call the Astral. We write parts for souls with whom we have spent other lives, they helping us learn certain lessons, us helping them. We wait for them to return to the Astral, make agreements with them about the upcoming life; where our paths will cross, and how, in that life, and so on.
And through these arrangements and agreements, we enter a life with plans of certain opportunities to present themselves, throughout the length of the life, to learn those lessons that we came here to learn. You can’t learn your lessons if you don’t have the opportunities to practice, right? [A few of these lessons might be for Love, Compassion, Understanding, Acceptance, Universal Oneness, and many others.]
But, just as we can change our minds, so too, can all the others with whom you made arrangements, change theirs. Free will, remember?
Not to worry. The Universe [God] will provide, he just doesn’t say when. Sometimes, a soul with whom you have not reincarnated before, will have a similar Karmic configuration and be guided to cross your path in the same way you had needed of the other…and you're back on path.
Other times, you’re just going to have to wait until you’re back on the Astral again, and make new arrangements for the next life. You never run out of those and the Universe has unlimited time.
During daily life most of this is happening on an unconscious level, but we can become more conscious of it by learning to pay attention to what is going on around us at a deeper level. Just seeking to find the positive and loving in your experiences is a good start. Learning to ignore the negativity that you see will open up avenues to the positive. And simple meditation is very powerful. Join a group in your area and learn how. It’s easy and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how many things in your life begin to get better as you maintain daily practice.
Not enough books tell you this about meditation, so I want to make sure you hear it from me: The time that you spend in meditation is the time your body, mind, and spirit realign and retune themselves to the pulse, the heartbeat, of the Universe.
Consistent practice is most powerful. Fifteen minutes every day is much more useful than a one hour meditation every four days.
So, there you have my “Life is a Book” metaphor. I’ll be adding more, I’m sure.
I appreciate e-mail from any of you, commenting on what I’m writing.
If you would just like to hear one more person give their thoughts on any self-help area that is dear to you, ask away. The questions that get asked the most, get answered.
Love and Peace,
Jerry
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Some Universal Truths
I spent most of my early years trying to find a religion, any religion, that would hold up to the scrutiny of an alert and logically questioning non-believer. Frankly, it was difficult.
I wasn’t trying to prove any of them wrong or wanting. Rather, I was playing a devil’s-advocate and hoped they had the answers for which I had been looking.
I would read their primary literature, either the words of their God’s or the teachings of their wisest sages. I would listen to their spiritual leaders in their temples and great halls. I would talk to the followers.
I found we all ask the same questions about life: Where did we come from?; Why are we here?; Where do we go when we die?; What happens when we get there?; among others.
The religions’ and wisemens’ books certainly had plenty of answers. And lots of people choose to accept the answers they find there as satisfactory enough, some times even seeing them as the end-all, beats-all. Either they accept them as true or Mum’n Dad will teach them the value of accepting what they [and others like them] tell them to accept, and they stopped asking questions about their God long ago and probably wouldn’t have a clue as what I am going on about, ‘cause you don’t question the word of God around here or we’ll kill you…been there, done that.
If that’s you I’m talking about, please move along…you’re probably not going to care for anything I have to say. It may be confusing and might even shake the faith of a few of the faithful.
That’s not what I’m about or after. If you have a faith that sees you and yours through the worst of times with strength, love, and great comfort, hang on to it. It does you well. It just isn’t entirely for me or a lot of people I know.
Still…there were plenty that had an open mind, and so did some of the literature. What was interesting was the gradual unfolding of the realization that most of the best, the most worth retaining for me, were for the most part, repeated through out the centuries, and all over the world….in other words;
-A Positive and Loving Universal Truth is a Positive and Loving Universal Truth.-
It doesn’t make any difference where you find it, whether you wind up discovering it for yourself from some ancient tome you’re translating at 3 in the morning, or a billboard that just flashed by your window on the Super-Train, or that really, really old guy in the back corner booth at the Rhino Bar & Grill, that you didn’t notice in the dark, for the whole 10 minutes you were arguing with HER, until she leaves screaming and the dark-in-the-corner says, evenly, “If you adopt the philosophy of “Shit Happens…” to your life, nothing else will change, but your life will be more peaceful.”
You just never know. You know?...
Love and Peace,
Jerry
I wasn’t trying to prove any of them wrong or wanting. Rather, I was playing a devil’s-advocate and hoped they had the answers for which I had been looking.
I would read their primary literature, either the words of their God’s or the teachings of their wisest sages. I would listen to their spiritual leaders in their temples and great halls. I would talk to the followers.
I found we all ask the same questions about life: Where did we come from?; Why are we here?; Where do we go when we die?; What happens when we get there?; among others.
The religions’ and wisemens’ books certainly had plenty of answers. And lots of people choose to accept the answers they find there as satisfactory enough, some times even seeing them as the end-all, beats-all. Either they accept them as true or Mum’n Dad will teach them the value of accepting what they [and others like them] tell them to accept, and they stopped asking questions about their God long ago and probably wouldn’t have a clue as what I am going on about, ‘cause you don’t question the word of God around here or we’ll kill you…been there, done that.
If that’s you I’m talking about, please move along…you’re probably not going to care for anything I have to say. It may be confusing and might even shake the faith of a few of the faithful.
That’s not what I’m about or after. If you have a faith that sees you and yours through the worst of times with strength, love, and great comfort, hang on to it. It does you well. It just isn’t entirely for me or a lot of people I know.
Still…there were plenty that had an open mind, and so did some of the literature. What was interesting was the gradual unfolding of the realization that most of the best, the most worth retaining for me, were for the most part, repeated through out the centuries, and all over the world….in other words;
-A Positive and Loving Universal Truth is a Positive and Loving Universal Truth.-
It doesn’t make any difference where you find it, whether you wind up discovering it for yourself from some ancient tome you’re translating at 3 in the morning, or a billboard that just flashed by your window on the Super-Train, or that really, really old guy in the back corner booth at the Rhino Bar & Grill, that you didn’t notice in the dark, for the whole 10 minutes you were arguing with HER, until she leaves screaming and the dark-in-the-corner says, evenly, “If you adopt the philosophy of “Shit Happens…” to your life, nothing else will change, but your life will be more peaceful.”
You just never know. You know?...
Love and Peace,
Jerry
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Learning some spiritualness helps us learn some spiritualness, of course...
I was kind of driven [?], I’d guess you’d call it, from an early age to a life-long spiritual quest.
By six or so, I was starting to ask those unanswerable questions to which the grown-ups around me could only reply with tired old phrases they had memorized from their Sunday School days and beyond. They had asked the same questions back then, but had accepted as true, these same clichés they gave to us, long ago, and hadn’t questioned them since.
But, “…God moves in mysterious ways” and, “…Only the Lord knows”, and others answers like them, gave me little satisfaction.
And no one suggested that I look into other religions, because in the 40’s and 50’s there were plenty of areas in which you could grow up completely and never know that there was any thing besides Christianity that you might care to study, so that you might exercise your right of freedom of religion, supposedly guaranteed by our Constitution .
I’ll bet there still are area like that.. But, not many. We’ve learned a lot in 50 years. Now, we know that a very believable case can be made for a spiritual practice to include using the power of the mind to create, practice and perfect a “religion” of your own, whether it be completely new or incorporating and combining various “Universal” truths that seem to keep popping up in one religion after another, or some variation of any of these.
I prefer the combining/mixing method. I read, I talk, I observe and listen…If I run across something interesting, that appears may bring something positive to my life, might make my life better in some way, I look deeper into it.
I can “try it on like an old suit of clothes”, picturing it added to my life and seeing how it may change my life, positively or otherwise. This is usually easier in a meditation, but is not always required.
If I can see positive actions resulting from a short time with it, I will begin to add it to my life on a daily basis to learn the lesson[s] that I had it bring to me, in the hopes that I would learn it in this lifetime.
But this is just practicing with it. It doesn’t mean Mastery of it, the full adaptation of it into my life. That may take years…or only a few days. You just never know. I have a number of them that I’ll probably be working on for a few more lifetimes, having worked on them for more than a few lifetimes already. But, that’s the nice thing about eternity…it has all the time you need to learn all the Universal lessons that you came here to School-House Earth to learn, having made arrangements, before you ever got here, for this life to unfold in such a way as to present you with the opportunities by which you will learn them.....
[…continued soon]
please check out: cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
By six or so, I was starting to ask those unanswerable questions to which the grown-ups around me could only reply with tired old phrases they had memorized from their Sunday School days and beyond. They had asked the same questions back then, but had accepted as true, these same clichés they gave to us, long ago, and hadn’t questioned them since.
But, “…God moves in mysterious ways” and, “…Only the Lord knows”, and others answers like them, gave me little satisfaction.
And no one suggested that I look into other religions, because in the 40’s and 50’s there were plenty of areas in which you could grow up completely and never know that there was any thing besides Christianity that you might care to study, so that you might exercise your right of freedom of religion, supposedly guaranteed by our Constitution .
I’ll bet there still are area like that.. But, not many. We’ve learned a lot in 50 years. Now, we know that a very believable case can be made for a spiritual practice to include using the power of the mind to create, practice and perfect a “religion” of your own, whether it be completely new or incorporating and combining various “Universal” truths that seem to keep popping up in one religion after another, or some variation of any of these.
I prefer the combining/mixing method. I read, I talk, I observe and listen…If I run across something interesting, that appears may bring something positive to my life, might make my life better in some way, I look deeper into it.
I can “try it on like an old suit of clothes”, picturing it added to my life and seeing how it may change my life, positively or otherwise. This is usually easier in a meditation, but is not always required.
If I can see positive actions resulting from a short time with it, I will begin to add it to my life on a daily basis to learn the lesson[s] that I had it bring to me, in the hopes that I would learn it in this lifetime.
But this is just practicing with it. It doesn’t mean Mastery of it, the full adaptation of it into my life. That may take years…or only a few days. You just never know. I have a number of them that I’ll probably be working on for a few more lifetimes, having worked on them for more than a few lifetimes already. But, that’s the nice thing about eternity…it has all the time you need to learn all the Universal lessons that you came here to School-House Earth to learn, having made arrangements, before you ever got here, for this life to unfold in such a way as to present you with the opportunities by which you will learn them.....
[…continued soon]
please check out: cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Self-help,Spiritual Awareness,Metaphysics, New Age,Psychic phenomena, and more; if it can make your life better in a positive and loving way, good.
…If it can make your life “Better” in a positive, joyful, more loving way…I’m all for it !
Yay, I’m back. But, only for a bit; surgery’s on Tuesday. [Thanks, in advance, for any and all well-wishes…”Thanks”.] [See, told ya’so]. And then I’ll be back for more. So, were off…
For over half a century, I’ve been studying, learning, picking out items that I considered especially worthwhile to me. Most anything that might help me gain insight or advancement of a part of my ever-growing spiritual awareness could do. I might stumble onto some pearl while mind-rummaging in the most unexpected places.
I would try applying these various items, techniques, [just a clue, here and there, really] to my life and practicing them as best I could, in hopes of mastering them just enough to see if they held anything positive for me; more loving, a tad more happiness, perhaps; …did they make my life better in some way?, If so, then I would continue to practice those particular ones. Maybe they would lead me closer to the answers to the big questions in life. Some did, others didn’t.
With some of these, a reasonable mastery, and incorporation into my life, was fairly easy. Just learning of them was often all that was necessary. [ I liked calling them “Ah-ha”s.]
I’m still working on others, some for many years now. Some I’ll probably be working on through many more lifetimes.
But, mastered or still practicing, all have changed me. And the longer I practice, the more they change me. In positive ways. If not, I search elsewhere.
Call me crazy [they have and I’m certain, will continue to do so], but I’m all for anything that:
Makes it easier to give and receive Love to and from all those around me;
Helps me be aware of all the positive things that I have to enjoy in my life,
rather than being disappointed about what I don’t…;
And brings to my life, what I like to call, “Betterment”.
You know, sometimes just knowing some particular thing seems to make your life work better. Maybe it’s a piece of wisdom you overheard, standing in line, or perhaps some affirmation that you have just come to truly understand for the first time. You may be able to put your finger on exactly why it does, or you may not have the slightest clue. But, you know that life, yours, even others around you, from now on, is better somehow…that’s Betterment. If you practice watching for it, you begin to see it pop up in surprising places, most every day. And, like most anything we want to learn, we get better, the more we practice.
That’s how most of the better learnings I have gleaned over the years have come to me; slowly, in growing bits and pieces like those in some cosmic puzzle. Eventually, they can lead me to enough greater understanding of myself and the world around me, to allow me to be able to see the higher-ways, to which this path that I have chosen will best take me.
I have chosen many paths to get here and practiced many lessons. Many helped me very little or not at all. I have pushed past those. Many were helpful, but had flaws or negatives too great to overcome at the time. I pushed past most of those, also.
But, some were exactly what I was looking for, right then, right there; positive, loving, honest, logical, believable, and more. Plus they were easy to practice and showed positive results in my life in a relatively short time.
And THOSE are the ones I want to share. I’ve been doing much of it eye-ball to eye-ball, one at a time, waiting for others to ask, but that’s just too slow.
The only way I know that will let me reach a lot of people, all at once is right here.
So, I’m going to start sharing. These are my “Secrets of the Universe”. I don’t expect any of them to be perfect for any one else.
But, they were, and are, for ME. And, I think that any of them COULD be helpful to a few, at least. I just can’t see them being of no good to any one at all, you know?
I’m figuring, if just one of my “secrets” helps even one person, then I should be writing this for them to see, think about, and then cast it out, like I have done to so many over the years, or… see promise in it for themselves and begin practicing it in their own lives to see if they are right, to try to make their lives work just a little bit, or a lotta bit, Better.
I’ve been on this search for over 50 years. Some time I’ll go into what drove me to start searching at age 5, but why is not important, now. No, most aren’t mine and I am standing on many giants backs to bring you what they have given to the world. But, some are my own conclusions. With all of them, pick only what interests you.
All of these have helped me, and usually others, in the past. I hope they bring to you what you need most, whether or not you know what that is. I'll be laying down the best I have. It will be up to you to pick any of it up. If you're already looking in a variety of places for help in your life of the non-tangible type; for more Love, Joy, Happiness, Peace, serenity, centeredness, confidence, energy, and overall aliveness... Well, here's a new place to come check out, to maybe find some of that Betterment that I have found in these. May you find as much and more.
…To be continued…
cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
Yay, I’m back. But, only for a bit; surgery’s on Tuesday. [Thanks, in advance, for any and all well-wishes…”Thanks”.] [See, told ya’so]. And then I’ll be back for more. So, were off…
For over half a century, I’ve been studying, learning, picking out items that I considered especially worthwhile to me. Most anything that might help me gain insight or advancement of a part of my ever-growing spiritual awareness could do. I might stumble onto some pearl while mind-rummaging in the most unexpected places.
I would try applying these various items, techniques, [just a clue, here and there, really] to my life and practicing them as best I could, in hopes of mastering them just enough to see if they held anything positive for me; more loving, a tad more happiness, perhaps; …did they make my life better in some way?, If so, then I would continue to practice those particular ones. Maybe they would lead me closer to the answers to the big questions in life. Some did, others didn’t.
With some of these, a reasonable mastery, and incorporation into my life, was fairly easy. Just learning of them was often all that was necessary. [ I liked calling them “Ah-ha”s.]
I’m still working on others, some for many years now. Some I’ll probably be working on through many more lifetimes.
But, mastered or still practicing, all have changed me. And the longer I practice, the more they change me. In positive ways. If not, I search elsewhere.
Call me crazy [they have and I’m certain, will continue to do so], but I’m all for anything that:
Makes it easier to give and receive Love to and from all those around me;
Helps me be aware of all the positive things that I have to enjoy in my life,
rather than being disappointed about what I don’t…;
And brings to my life, what I like to call, “Betterment”.
You know, sometimes just knowing some particular thing seems to make your life work better. Maybe it’s a piece of wisdom you overheard, standing in line, or perhaps some affirmation that you have just come to truly understand for the first time. You may be able to put your finger on exactly why it does, or you may not have the slightest clue. But, you know that life, yours, even others around you, from now on, is better somehow…that’s Betterment. If you practice watching for it, you begin to see it pop up in surprising places, most every day. And, like most anything we want to learn, we get better, the more we practice.
That’s how most of the better learnings I have gleaned over the years have come to me; slowly, in growing bits and pieces like those in some cosmic puzzle. Eventually, they can lead me to enough greater understanding of myself and the world around me, to allow me to be able to see the higher-ways, to which this path that I have chosen will best take me.
I have chosen many paths to get here and practiced many lessons. Many helped me very little or not at all. I have pushed past those. Many were helpful, but had flaws or negatives too great to overcome at the time. I pushed past most of those, also.
But, some were exactly what I was looking for, right then, right there; positive, loving, honest, logical, believable, and more. Plus they were easy to practice and showed positive results in my life in a relatively short time.
And THOSE are the ones I want to share. I’ve been doing much of it eye-ball to eye-ball, one at a time, waiting for others to ask, but that’s just too slow.
The only way I know that will let me reach a lot of people, all at once is right here.
So, I’m going to start sharing. These are my “Secrets of the Universe”. I don’t expect any of them to be perfect for any one else.
But, they were, and are, for ME. And, I think that any of them COULD be helpful to a few, at least. I just can’t see them being of no good to any one at all, you know?
I’m figuring, if just one of my “secrets” helps even one person, then I should be writing this for them to see, think about, and then cast it out, like I have done to so many over the years, or… see promise in it for themselves and begin practicing it in their own lives to see if they are right, to try to make their lives work just a little bit, or a lotta bit, Better.
I’ve been on this search for over 50 years. Some time I’ll go into what drove me to start searching at age 5, but why is not important, now. No, most aren’t mine and I am standing on many giants backs to bring you what they have given to the world. But, some are my own conclusions. With all of them, pick only what interests you.
All of these have helped me, and usually others, in the past. I hope they bring to you what you need most, whether or not you know what that is. I'll be laying down the best I have. It will be up to you to pick any of it up. If you're already looking in a variety of places for help in your life of the non-tangible type; for more Love, Joy, Happiness, Peace, serenity, centeredness, confidence, energy, and overall aliveness... Well, here's a new place to come check out, to maybe find some of that Betterment that I have found in these. May you find as much and more.
…To be continued…
cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
Sunday, June 21, 2009
G'bye. See ya soon.
Sorry, Blog postponed
Isn’t that how it goes; you no sooner get rolling and something breaks or happens to knock you off track some how.
With me, it’s deteriorating health. It’s causing me to move to other facilities, so it’ll be a while before I’ll be regrouped, hooked-up, and finally going again; I figure a couple of weeks, maybe a bit more…
In any event, I do want to thank all of you that have sent me kind wishes and your questions regarding my answers about life and the Universe. Aarron, my primary guide, was also impressed. It gives me a great deal to choose from, to answer, when I get back.
Let me leave you with this to consider;
There is no death, no accidents, no coincidences.
Everything happens for a reason and the Universe is unfolding exactly as it should.
You are here to learn the lessons you require to rise above all your fears, and what you call “Problems” are the “Challenges” you asked for and that the Universe provided, as ways to grow, raising your spirit’s cosmic frequency higher, little by little, so that your inner strengths will now allow you to learn those lessons that all learn eventually, no matter how many lifetimes it takes.
And, all others are loving souls, just like you, doing the BEST that they can do, not necessarily the best they know how to do. Remember that of them when they stray from the path.
Well, Bye for now. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Feel free to e-mail me any questions you may be pondering. Thanks.
Jerry Lott on CD Baby
Isn’t that how it goes; you no sooner get rolling and something breaks or happens to knock you off track some how.
With me, it’s deteriorating health. It’s causing me to move to other facilities, so it’ll be a while before I’ll be regrouped, hooked-up, and finally going again; I figure a couple of weeks, maybe a bit more…
In any event, I do want to thank all of you that have sent me kind wishes and your questions regarding my answers about life and the Universe. Aarron, my primary guide, was also impressed. It gives me a great deal to choose from, to answer, when I get back.
Let me leave you with this to consider;
There is no death, no accidents, no coincidences.
Everything happens for a reason and the Universe is unfolding exactly as it should.
You are here to learn the lessons you require to rise above all your fears, and what you call “Problems” are the “Challenges” you asked for and that the Universe provided, as ways to grow, raising your spirit’s cosmic frequency higher, little by little, so that your inner strengths will now allow you to learn those lessons that all learn eventually, no matter how many lifetimes it takes.
And, all others are loving souls, just like you, doing the BEST that they can do, not necessarily the best they know how to do. Remember that of them when they stray from the path.
Well, Bye for now. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Feel free to e-mail me any questions you may be pondering. Thanks.
Jerry Lott on CD Baby
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Songs of "All My Own Stuff" by Jerry Lott
CDBaby.com/CD/JerryLott
Since they don’t go into much about the individual songs, the following is a comment or two about them, in the order they appear on the album, just so you have a bit of background to which you can come for a little help with your choices:
1. “I’d like to hear from you” ; Creative writing instructors will tell you to “…write about what you know.” That was apparently so with this one. It’s a piece of my own history that many people identified with, and many found emotionally touching [so they’ve told me]. It’s been one of my most requested songs.
2. “Femme Fatale”; This was a fun stroll through a darker side of whimsy.
3. “Whisper in the Wind”; I had the lyrics and tune for this one long before I had the guitar parts worked out. I think it leans toward “Country”…What do you think? It was one of my favorite pieces to perform.
4. “Another You”; Love found, then lost…
5. “Heartfelt”; I had been working on the guitar lines for this one for about two years, exploring a novel tuning, a full dropped “D” tuning, requiring new runs and their placement, and even entirely new chords. It was excitingly strange, but very beautiful in which to play. My son announced his engagement about this time and I found myself considering writing a song for his wedding; Could I…?,Should I…?, etc.. While playing this piece one day, two entire lines of lyrics popped into my head. As a writer of songs, one does not ignore these things and I quickly wrote them down, which prompted another line, then another…and it just kept going until, about 45 minutes later, I had the whole song, more or less. A few more minutes of refining touch-ups and it was completed. I’m still undecided as to whether to deem it my “Master Piece” or just my most inspired. [ Okay, I’ll tell you; it was a hit at my son’s wedding.]
6. “Movin’”; Yeah, yeah, I know this one’s not very “P.C.” these days, but don’t take it too seriously. I don’t always share the philosophies of the characters in my songs. I found my self unreasonably depressed with how my life was going at the time and needed a song that would [or could] pick up my spirits when I played it. I have enjoyed it and happily played it, now, for many years. [It’s a joke, ladies, a joke…]
7. “That’s all over, now”; Another love’s lost…Alright, so I’m a borderline hopeless romantic.
8. “Baby’s Pissed at Me Blues”; Ha!...Love NOT lost, but his lady is not real happy with him right now [or even lately]. […Been there, thanks]. This one usually got a laugh or two, as intended.
9. “The Reaper’s Comin’”; My only good-old-fashioned Protest Song. I guess, one day I just got tired of seeing the same old totally useless and unnecessary crap happening, seemingly everywhere in the world, that you and I and every other decent person sees handed down to us from “The Powers That Be”, every single day with no end in sight…Whew!...I still get wound up whenever I dwell on it! Don’t you? When the lyrics came, they flowed thru me so fast it was like Automatic Writing. I just let go and watched my hand write it. It didn’t stop until they were finished. I suspected that they were coming, after the music and guitar parts came streaming out of me the day before in the same way. [My songs often write themselves like this, kind of like from another Plane, you know?] […40 years of meditation may have something to do with it, also.]
10. “Grounded”or “Teener Blues”; A fun little ditty that came popping out of my pen after a nostalgic visit with my brother. We started reminiscing about our own teen-age years and comparing them to the same years in our own kids’ lives, long grown up by this time. Seems like, generation after generation, things are just the same, only different, right?...Maybe it will remind you of someone you know.
11. “Sit up and eat your vegetables”; Very popular among all ages, but definitely the most popular among the elementary kids, at the school concerts I did from time to time. I gave copies of my album to family members, and my cousin said she couldn’t get her husband to stop singing it around the house for weeks. Get this one for the kids as a gift and I’ll bet they not only thank you for it, but they’ll be the ONLY ones at school to have it in their collection. [Please, tell them where the other kids can get their own copy.]
This would also be a good time to mention a word about artistic piracy. The world is losing artists every day to this insidious act, not to mention that it’s illegal. Please, when someone says, “Here, I burned you a copy of this new CD I bought.”, just say “No, thanks, but, if you thought I’d like it, where can I buy it?” I hope you agree.
12. “Jimmy the Ape”; Based on a true incident I witnessed [repeatedly] at the San Diego Zoo, back in the early nineteen-fifties. My older brother and I were in our “ ’round-tens”, and we thought that it was the funniest thing we had ever seen at that time of our young lives. Many years later, I discovered that similar scenarios were not uncommon at other zoos, apparently worldwide. You’ve probably guessed what the subject of the song is, by now, but I’ll let you find out for yourself. When ever I was performing this piece, I could almost guarantee that the audience would be singing along with me by the second chorus and practically screaming it by the last, great fun for any performer. [Barely PG-13].
13. “Comin’ Along”; Instrumental
14. “Desert Rendezvous”; Instrumental
15. “Due Home”; Instrumental
To me, instrumentals are just musical pieces that never lent themselves to use as a springboard for any lyrics that may have presented themselves at that time or since… […sometimes I find the lyrics, sometimes they find me. No, I don’t completely understand it yet, either, but then, I’m not finished working on that…]…but some were still fun enough to just play that I didn’t care. CDBaby.com/CD/JerryLott
Since they don’t go into much about the individual songs, the following is a comment or two about them, in the order they appear on the album, just so you have a bit of background to which you can come for a little help with your choices:
1. “I’d like to hear from you” ; Creative writing instructors will tell you to “…write about what you know.” That was apparently so with this one. It’s a piece of my own history that many people identified with, and many found emotionally touching [so they’ve told me]. It’s been one of my most requested songs.
2. “Femme Fatale”; This was a fun stroll through a darker side of whimsy.
3. “Whisper in the Wind”; I had the lyrics and tune for this one long before I had the guitar parts worked out. I think it leans toward “Country”…What do you think? It was one of my favorite pieces to perform.
4. “Another You”; Love found, then lost…
5. “Heartfelt”; I had been working on the guitar lines for this one for about two years, exploring a novel tuning, a full dropped “D” tuning, requiring new runs and their placement, and even entirely new chords. It was excitingly strange, but very beautiful in which to play. My son announced his engagement about this time and I found myself considering writing a song for his wedding; Could I…?,Should I…?, etc.. While playing this piece one day, two entire lines of lyrics popped into my head. As a writer of songs, one does not ignore these things and I quickly wrote them down, which prompted another line, then another…and it just kept going until, about 45 minutes later, I had the whole song, more or less. A few more minutes of refining touch-ups and it was completed. I’m still undecided as to whether to deem it my “Master Piece” or just my most inspired. [ Okay, I’ll tell you; it was a hit at my son’s wedding.]
6. “Movin’”; Yeah, yeah, I know this one’s not very “P.C.” these days, but don’t take it too seriously. I don’t always share the philosophies of the characters in my songs. I found my self unreasonably depressed with how my life was going at the time and needed a song that would [or could] pick up my spirits when I played it. I have enjoyed it and happily played it, now, for many years. [It’s a joke, ladies, a joke…]
7. “That’s all over, now”; Another love’s lost…Alright, so I’m a borderline hopeless romantic.
8. “Baby’s Pissed at Me Blues”; Ha!...Love NOT lost, but his lady is not real happy with him right now [or even lately]. […Been there, thanks]. This one usually got a laugh or two, as intended.
9. “The Reaper’s Comin’”; My only good-old-fashioned Protest Song. I guess, one day I just got tired of seeing the same old totally useless and unnecessary crap happening, seemingly everywhere in the world, that you and I and every other decent person sees handed down to us from “The Powers That Be”, every single day with no end in sight…Whew!...I still get wound up whenever I dwell on it! Don’t you? When the lyrics came, they flowed thru me so fast it was like Automatic Writing. I just let go and watched my hand write it. It didn’t stop until they were finished. I suspected that they were coming, after the music and guitar parts came streaming out of me the day before in the same way. [My songs often write themselves like this, kind of like from another Plane, you know?] […40 years of meditation may have something to do with it, also.]
10. “Grounded”or “Teener Blues”; A fun little ditty that came popping out of my pen after a nostalgic visit with my brother. We started reminiscing about our own teen-age years and comparing them to the same years in our own kids’ lives, long grown up by this time. Seems like, generation after generation, things are just the same, only different, right?...Maybe it will remind you of someone you know.
11. “Sit up and eat your vegetables”; Very popular among all ages, but definitely the most popular among the elementary kids, at the school concerts I did from time to time. I gave copies of my album to family members, and my cousin said she couldn’t get her husband to stop singing it around the house for weeks. Get this one for the kids as a gift and I’ll bet they not only thank you for it, but they’ll be the ONLY ones at school to have it in their collection. [Please, tell them where the other kids can get their own copy.]
This would also be a good time to mention a word about artistic piracy. The world is losing artists every day to this insidious act, not to mention that it’s illegal. Please, when someone says, “Here, I burned you a copy of this new CD I bought.”, just say “No, thanks, but, if you thought I’d like it, where can I buy it?” I hope you agree.
12. “Jimmy the Ape”; Based on a true incident I witnessed [repeatedly] at the San Diego Zoo, back in the early nineteen-fifties. My older brother and I were in our “ ’round-tens”, and we thought that it was the funniest thing we had ever seen at that time of our young lives. Many years later, I discovered that similar scenarios were not uncommon at other zoos, apparently worldwide. You’ve probably guessed what the subject of the song is, by now, but I’ll let you find out for yourself. When ever I was performing this piece, I could almost guarantee that the audience would be singing along with me by the second chorus and practically screaming it by the last, great fun for any performer. [Barely PG-13].
13. “Comin’ Along”; Instrumental
14. “Desert Rendezvous”; Instrumental
15. “Due Home”; Instrumental
To me, instrumentals are just musical pieces that never lent themselves to use as a springboard for any lyrics that may have presented themselves at that time or since… […sometimes I find the lyrics, sometimes they find me. No, I don’t completely understand it yet, either, but then, I’m not finished working on that…]…but some were still fun enough to just play that I didn’t care. CDBaby.com/CD/JerryLott
Jerry Lott's First Blog; First Day
Hello, Jerry Lott here.
I guess that’s as good a way to start my first day of blogging as any, you think?
I have much to say that I have wanted to bring to people for a long time. And also, many of my friends have told me I should. It looks like I’ll finally be able to do so. It took long enough…
My main obstacle has been my deteriorating health, which allows me less and less time each day to do those things that require me to remain upright, with my feet on the ground; you know; laundry, shopping, Doctor and therapy appts., and, yep, writing in the blog, now.
[My first day…this is very exciting].
Fortunately, I have some much younger friends who will be helping to bring me into the 21st century, through the computer, [of which I have been woefully ignorant for too long].
I will be filling you in on my life’s history eventually. It’s generally considered to be a bit strange, but you can decide for yourself.
My life in the present is this: I’m a 64 year old, physically disabled musician/songwriter. I am also a teacher of self-help through avenues ranging from the meta-physical and so-called “New Age” type practices, meditations, past-life regression therapies, and include paranormal, psychological and any other methods that I find positive and workable in both my life and/or others’ lives. If it brings more loving happiness, joy and peace into one’s life, I’m all for it.
I’ll be writing about these and many interests I have that I hope to be of interest to others.
First on my list must be my music. First, because…well, I can’t make an income doing regular jobs anymore. My disabilities don’t let me be reliably “on time”, since I never know if I’m going to be able to even leave the house on any given day, until I wake up and assess my situation. So, selling some of my songs seems to the best alternate I can come up with to help me survive in these tough times.
I was forced to take my social security rather early and, with only that coming in and what little savings I had, I lasted as long as I could; ten years or so. But now I’m only a few months away from homeless on the street, and this is a last effort to try to help myself out of this hole I’m in, instead of relying completely on government programs or the like. And, rather than begging on the street for spare change, I thought maybe I could find enough people that like a song or two of mine to generate just enough income to cover my medications, rent, food, and the basic necessities. I don’t need to be rich.
Best of all, if it will, it will also allow me to bring help to a lot more people than just the one-at-a-time help that I’ve been limited to in the past. This is the reason my friends have been pushing their help on me…to help me share with many others, those things I have discovered on my own life-long personal quest, and use to help all I can, to squeeze a little more happiness out of their lives. You’ll understand much better as I start writing about that, later. But, I have to take care of the bills first…
If you listen to, and/or buy, Independent songs on the web, I’m just asking that you listen to some of mine.
For better than 30 years friends have told me repeatedly that I should be selling my songs. They liked the lyrics and the guitar pieces, and I wrote a little from many different musical genres; ballads, country, blues, humor, children’s and others. Only in recent years have I finally been able to get them recorded, thanks to a supportive and encouraging friend in town, who had opened his own studio, and personally engineered my recording sessions, with just me and my acoustic guitar. […He did a great job, I might add].
My health had been deteriorating and I knew the time I had to finish the project was limited when I started losing the feeling in the fingers of my left hand. As it turned out, I was right about the timing and completed this work, my last guitar work, just in time. I was forced to give up the guitar within months of the project’s completion so, this will not only be my first recording, it will also be my last. That took a little adjusting, but I was thankful that I had had better than 45 years of playing; longer than many others. And I still have harmonica and autoharp, for a while yet.
One of the greatest things about launching this recording is that finally, I will actually find out, once and for all, before I leave this planet, if the general public thinks that my songs have any value to them; do the people, complete strangers, like my music? Yes, my friends say they like it, but do they really mean that or are they just saying that to make me feel good? I think that’s something about which a lot of creative artists think. We can be a bit crazy in that area, sometimes. And please, if you have comments, suggestions, or criticisms, e-mail me. Even though I’m unable to answer, they will not go unread.
These are the best of my songs. The last few years of reasonably good health, I performed them many times in small dinner clubs and restaurant lounges in California’s “Mother Lode Gold Rush” area of the Sierra Mountains, where I was living at the time.
And with the help of my friend at the recording studio, I think that most, if not all of them, are the best performances I’ve ever done. I’m hoping you’ll feel the same way, too, and will be able to find one or two that you’ll be able to enjoy again and again.
Thanks for checking them out. Click on the following link and ask for “All My Own Stuff”, by Jerry Lott. They’ll give you a 30-second cut to listen to each of them. If you like any of them, you can download them at a buck each or $12.95 for the whole album of fifteen songs. Please go to : http://cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
Since they don’t go into much about the individual songs, the following is a comment or two about them, in the order they appear on the album, just so you have a bit of background to which you can come for a little help with your choices:
1. “I’d like to hear from you” ; Creative writing instructors will tell you to “…write about what you know.” That was apparently so with this one. It’s a piece of my own history that many people identified with, and many found emotionally touching [so they’ve told me]. It’s been one of my most requested songs.
2. “Femme Fatale”; This was a fun stroll through a darker side of whimsy.
3. “Whisper in the Wind”; I had the lyrics and tune for this one long before I had the guitar parts worked out. I think it leans toward “Country”…What do you think? It was one of my favorite pieces to perform.
4. “Another You”; Love found, then lost…
5. “Heartfelt”; I had been working on the guitar lines for this one for about two years, exploring a novel tuning, a full dropped “D” tuning, requiring new runs and their placement, and even entirely new chords. It was excitingly strange, but very beautiful in which to play. My son announced his engagement about this time and I found myself considering writing a song for his wedding; Could I…?,Should I…?, etc.. While playing this piece one day, two entire lines of lyrics popped into my head. As a writer of songs, one does not ignore these things and I quickly wrote them down, which prompted another line, then another…and it just kept going until, about 45 minutes later, I had the whole song, more or less. A few more minutes of refining touch-ups and it was completed. I’m still undecided as to whether to deem it my “Master Piece” or just my most inspired. [ Okay, I’ll tell you; it was a hit at my son’s wedding.]
6. “Movin’”; Yeah, yeah, I know this one’s not very “P.C.” these days, but don’t take it too seriously. I don’t always share the philosophies of the characters in my songs. I found my self unreasonably depressed with how my life was going at the time and needed a song that would [or could] pick up my spirits when I played it. I have enjoyed it and happily played it, now, for many years. [It’s a joke, ladies, a joke…]
7. “That’s all over, now”; Another love’s lost…Alright, so I’m a borderline hopeless romantic.
8. “Baby’s Pissed at Me Blues”; Ha!...Love NOT lost, but his lady is not real happy with him right now [or even lately]. […Been there, thanks]. This one usually got a laugh or two, as intended.
9. “The Reaper’s Comin’”; My only good-old-fashioned Protest Song. I guess, one day I just got tired of seeing the same old totally useless and unnecessary crap happening, seemingly everywhere in the world, that you and I and every other decent person sees handed down to us from “The Powers That Be”, every single day with no end in sight…Whew!...I still get wound up whenever I dwell on it! Don’t you? When the lyrics came, they flowed thru me so fast it was like Automatic Writing. I just let go and watched my hand write it. It didn’t stop until they were finished. I suspected that they were coming, after the music and guitar parts came streaming out of me the day before in the same way. [My songs often write themselves like this, kind of like from another Plane, you know?] […40 years of meditation may have something to do with it, also.]
10. “Grounded”or “Teener Blues”; A fun little ditty that came popping out of my pen after a nostalgic visit with my brother. We started reminiscing about our own teen-age years and comparing them to the same years in our own kids’ lives, long grown up by this time. Seems like, generation after generation, things are just the same, only different, right?...Maybe it will remind you of someone you know.
11. “Sit up and eat your vegetables”; Very popular among all ages, but definitely the most popular among the elementary kids, at the school concerts I did from time to time. I gave copies of my album to family members, and my cousin said she couldn’t get her husband to stop singing it around the house for weeks. Get this one for the kids as a gift and I’ll bet they not only thank you for it, but they’ll be the ONLY ones at school to have it in their collection. [Please, tell them where the other kids can get their own copy.]
This would also be a good time to mention a word about artistic piracy. The world is losing artists every day to this insidious act, not to mention that it’s illegal. Please, when someone says, “Here, I burned you a copy of this new CD I bought.”, just say “No, thanks, but, if you thought I’d like it, where can I buy it?” I hope you agree.
12. “Jimmy the Ape”; Based on a true incident I witnessed [repeatedly] at the San Diego Zoo, back in the early nineteen-fifties. My older brother and I were in our “ ’round-tens”, and we thought that it was the funniest thing we had ever seen at that time of our young lives. Many years later, I discovered that similar scenarios were not uncommon at other zoos, apparently worldwide. You’ve probably guessed what the subject of the song is, by now, but I’ll let you find out for yourself. When ever I was performing this piece, I could almost guarantee that the audience would be singing along with me by the second chorus and practically screaming it by the last, great fun for any performer. [Barely PG-13].
13. “Comin’ Along”; Instrumental
14. “Desert Rendezvous”; Instrumental
15. “Due Home”; Instrumental
To me, instrumentals are just musical pieces that never lent themselves to use as a springboard for any lyrics that may have presented themselves at that time or since… […sometimes I find the lyrics, sometimes they find me. No, I don’t completely understand it yet, either, but then, I’m not finished working on that…]…but some were still fun enough to just play that I didn’t care.
Well, assuming you have read my song comments and maybe listened to one or two, that’s my album. I hope you go explore my music a bit. Feel free to e-mail me with any comments, criticisms, or questions. However, I will apologize to all, now: I can’t reply to any of them. Sorry, I just don’t have the time each day for remaining in an upright position. It really limits my time to do the things I want, and need to do. I will be taking time to respond to some of them, right in the blog. Please understand, what you see written here so far, has taken me almost two weeks, working a bit each day, but I’m hoping to get better as I proceed.
This is actually very good therapy for me, and not the lowest of reasons on the list for pushing my self to continue. It’s already helping me to regulate the amount of time I can and/or should take with those needed and important things in my life. I feel a bit freer in ways I had not fully expected and already growing more in that direction. It’s very uplifting and more than I had actually hoped. And, of course, positive reinforcement through the focusing of my daily meditations and visualizations towards this always helps.
I have so much to tell you all and now I’m seeing that this is going to work out well. My writings are not that of great writers, I know, but I will do my best to get my ideas and suggestions across. And, with the help and support of all my old friends, and, hopefully, a whole lot of new ones [nudge, nudge], I can keep this thing rolling.
And, very important, I will finally know exactly what all of you think of my music, not just friends and relatives telling me positive things about it that may be true or may be just well-wishing compliments to make me feel good.
Come back and see me soon, regardless of your opinion of my music. I have other subjects planned for here. The next one coming up; the one I’ll be starting very shortly, is all about…ME! Hey, big surprise, right? Yep, my history, and how and why a seven year old, terminally ill boy, would seek spiritual answers to his questions about life and death, finding few answers that satisfied him or gave him any feelings of peace, and leading him on a life-long quest.
See you soon.
Peace, Love
Jerry
http://cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
I guess that’s as good a way to start my first day of blogging as any, you think?
I have much to say that I have wanted to bring to people for a long time. And also, many of my friends have told me I should. It looks like I’ll finally be able to do so. It took long enough…
My main obstacle has been my deteriorating health, which allows me less and less time each day to do those things that require me to remain upright, with my feet on the ground; you know; laundry, shopping, Doctor and therapy appts., and, yep, writing in the blog, now.
[My first day…this is very exciting].
Fortunately, I have some much younger friends who will be helping to bring me into the 21st century, through the computer, [of which I have been woefully ignorant for too long].
I will be filling you in on my life’s history eventually. It’s generally considered to be a bit strange, but you can decide for yourself.
My life in the present is this: I’m a 64 year old, physically disabled musician/songwriter. I am also a teacher of self-help through avenues ranging from the meta-physical and so-called “New Age” type practices, meditations, past-life regression therapies, and include paranormal, psychological and any other methods that I find positive and workable in both my life and/or others’ lives. If it brings more loving happiness, joy and peace into one’s life, I’m all for it.
I’ll be writing about these and many interests I have that I hope to be of interest to others.
First on my list must be my music. First, because…well, I can’t make an income doing regular jobs anymore. My disabilities don’t let me be reliably “on time”, since I never know if I’m going to be able to even leave the house on any given day, until I wake up and assess my situation. So, selling some of my songs seems to the best alternate I can come up with to help me survive in these tough times.
I was forced to take my social security rather early and, with only that coming in and what little savings I had, I lasted as long as I could; ten years or so. But now I’m only a few months away from homeless on the street, and this is a last effort to try to help myself out of this hole I’m in, instead of relying completely on government programs or the like. And, rather than begging on the street for spare change, I thought maybe I could find enough people that like a song or two of mine to generate just enough income to cover my medications, rent, food, and the basic necessities. I don’t need to be rich.
Best of all, if it will, it will also allow me to bring help to a lot more people than just the one-at-a-time help that I’ve been limited to in the past. This is the reason my friends have been pushing their help on me…to help me share with many others, those things I have discovered on my own life-long personal quest, and use to help all I can, to squeeze a little more happiness out of their lives. You’ll understand much better as I start writing about that, later. But, I have to take care of the bills first…
If you listen to, and/or buy, Independent songs on the web, I’m just asking that you listen to some of mine.
For better than 30 years friends have told me repeatedly that I should be selling my songs. They liked the lyrics and the guitar pieces, and I wrote a little from many different musical genres; ballads, country, blues, humor, children’s and others. Only in recent years have I finally been able to get them recorded, thanks to a supportive and encouraging friend in town, who had opened his own studio, and personally engineered my recording sessions, with just me and my acoustic guitar. […He did a great job, I might add].
My health had been deteriorating and I knew the time I had to finish the project was limited when I started losing the feeling in the fingers of my left hand. As it turned out, I was right about the timing and completed this work, my last guitar work, just in time. I was forced to give up the guitar within months of the project’s completion so, this will not only be my first recording, it will also be my last. That took a little adjusting, but I was thankful that I had had better than 45 years of playing; longer than many others. And I still have harmonica and autoharp, for a while yet.
One of the greatest things about launching this recording is that finally, I will actually find out, once and for all, before I leave this planet, if the general public thinks that my songs have any value to them; do the people, complete strangers, like my music? Yes, my friends say they like it, but do they really mean that or are they just saying that to make me feel good? I think that’s something about which a lot of creative artists think. We can be a bit crazy in that area, sometimes. And please, if you have comments, suggestions, or criticisms, e-mail me. Even though I’m unable to answer, they will not go unread.
These are the best of my songs. The last few years of reasonably good health, I performed them many times in small dinner clubs and restaurant lounges in California’s “Mother Lode Gold Rush” area of the Sierra Mountains, where I was living at the time.
And with the help of my friend at the recording studio, I think that most, if not all of them, are the best performances I’ve ever done. I’m hoping you’ll feel the same way, too, and will be able to find one or two that you’ll be able to enjoy again and again.
Thanks for checking them out. Click on the following link and ask for “All My Own Stuff”, by Jerry Lott. They’ll give you a 30-second cut to listen to each of them. If you like any of them, you can download them at a buck each or $12.95 for the whole album of fifteen songs. Please go to : http://cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
Since they don’t go into much about the individual songs, the following is a comment or two about them, in the order they appear on the album, just so you have a bit of background to which you can come for a little help with your choices:
1. “I’d like to hear from you” ; Creative writing instructors will tell you to “…write about what you know.” That was apparently so with this one. It’s a piece of my own history that many people identified with, and many found emotionally touching [so they’ve told me]. It’s been one of my most requested songs.
2. “Femme Fatale”; This was a fun stroll through a darker side of whimsy.
3. “Whisper in the Wind”; I had the lyrics and tune for this one long before I had the guitar parts worked out. I think it leans toward “Country”…What do you think? It was one of my favorite pieces to perform.
4. “Another You”; Love found, then lost…
5. “Heartfelt”; I had been working on the guitar lines for this one for about two years, exploring a novel tuning, a full dropped “D” tuning, requiring new runs and their placement, and even entirely new chords. It was excitingly strange, but very beautiful in which to play. My son announced his engagement about this time and I found myself considering writing a song for his wedding; Could I…?,Should I…?, etc.. While playing this piece one day, two entire lines of lyrics popped into my head. As a writer of songs, one does not ignore these things and I quickly wrote them down, which prompted another line, then another…and it just kept going until, about 45 minutes later, I had the whole song, more or less. A few more minutes of refining touch-ups and it was completed. I’m still undecided as to whether to deem it my “Master Piece” or just my most inspired. [ Okay, I’ll tell you; it was a hit at my son’s wedding.]
6. “Movin’”; Yeah, yeah, I know this one’s not very “P.C.” these days, but don’t take it too seriously. I don’t always share the philosophies of the characters in my songs. I found my self unreasonably depressed with how my life was going at the time and needed a song that would [or could] pick up my spirits when I played it. I have enjoyed it and happily played it, now, for many years. [It’s a joke, ladies, a joke…]
7. “That’s all over, now”; Another love’s lost…Alright, so I’m a borderline hopeless romantic.
8. “Baby’s Pissed at Me Blues”; Ha!...Love NOT lost, but his lady is not real happy with him right now [or even lately]. […Been there, thanks]. This one usually got a laugh or two, as intended.
9. “The Reaper’s Comin’”; My only good-old-fashioned Protest Song. I guess, one day I just got tired of seeing the same old totally useless and unnecessary crap happening, seemingly everywhere in the world, that you and I and every other decent person sees handed down to us from “The Powers That Be”, every single day with no end in sight…Whew!...I still get wound up whenever I dwell on it! Don’t you? When the lyrics came, they flowed thru me so fast it was like Automatic Writing. I just let go and watched my hand write it. It didn’t stop until they were finished. I suspected that they were coming, after the music and guitar parts came streaming out of me the day before in the same way. [My songs often write themselves like this, kind of like from another Plane, you know?] […40 years of meditation may have something to do with it, also.]
10. “Grounded”or “Teener Blues”; A fun little ditty that came popping out of my pen after a nostalgic visit with my brother. We started reminiscing about our own teen-age years and comparing them to the same years in our own kids’ lives, long grown up by this time. Seems like, generation after generation, things are just the same, only different, right?...Maybe it will remind you of someone you know.
11. “Sit up and eat your vegetables”; Very popular among all ages, but definitely the most popular among the elementary kids, at the school concerts I did from time to time. I gave copies of my album to family members, and my cousin said she couldn’t get her husband to stop singing it around the house for weeks. Get this one for the kids as a gift and I’ll bet they not only thank you for it, but they’ll be the ONLY ones at school to have it in their collection. [Please, tell them where the other kids can get their own copy.]
This would also be a good time to mention a word about artistic piracy. The world is losing artists every day to this insidious act, not to mention that it’s illegal. Please, when someone says, “Here, I burned you a copy of this new CD I bought.”, just say “No, thanks, but, if you thought I’d like it, where can I buy it?” I hope you agree.
12. “Jimmy the Ape”; Based on a true incident I witnessed [repeatedly] at the San Diego Zoo, back in the early nineteen-fifties. My older brother and I were in our “ ’round-tens”, and we thought that it was the funniest thing we had ever seen at that time of our young lives. Many years later, I discovered that similar scenarios were not uncommon at other zoos, apparently worldwide. You’ve probably guessed what the subject of the song is, by now, but I’ll let you find out for yourself. When ever I was performing this piece, I could almost guarantee that the audience would be singing along with me by the second chorus and practically screaming it by the last, great fun for any performer. [Barely PG-13].
13. “Comin’ Along”; Instrumental
14. “Desert Rendezvous”; Instrumental
15. “Due Home”; Instrumental
To me, instrumentals are just musical pieces that never lent themselves to use as a springboard for any lyrics that may have presented themselves at that time or since… […sometimes I find the lyrics, sometimes they find me. No, I don’t completely understand it yet, either, but then, I’m not finished working on that…]…but some were still fun enough to just play that I didn’t care.
Well, assuming you have read my song comments and maybe listened to one or two, that’s my album. I hope you go explore my music a bit. Feel free to e-mail me with any comments, criticisms, or questions. However, I will apologize to all, now: I can’t reply to any of them. Sorry, I just don’t have the time each day for remaining in an upright position. It really limits my time to do the things I want, and need to do. I will be taking time to respond to some of them, right in the blog. Please understand, what you see written here so far, has taken me almost two weeks, working a bit each day, but I’m hoping to get better as I proceed.
This is actually very good therapy for me, and not the lowest of reasons on the list for pushing my self to continue. It’s already helping me to regulate the amount of time I can and/or should take with those needed and important things in my life. I feel a bit freer in ways I had not fully expected and already growing more in that direction. It’s very uplifting and more than I had actually hoped. And, of course, positive reinforcement through the focusing of my daily meditations and visualizations towards this always helps.
I have so much to tell you all and now I’m seeing that this is going to work out well. My writings are not that of great writers, I know, but I will do my best to get my ideas and suggestions across. And, with the help and support of all my old friends, and, hopefully, a whole lot of new ones [nudge, nudge], I can keep this thing rolling.
And, very important, I will finally know exactly what all of you think of my music, not just friends and relatives telling me positive things about it that may be true or may be just well-wishing compliments to make me feel good.
Come back and see me soon, regardless of your opinion of my music. I have other subjects planned for here. The next one coming up; the one I’ll be starting very shortly, is all about…ME! Hey, big surprise, right? Yep, my history, and how and why a seven year old, terminally ill boy, would seek spiritual answers to his questions about life and death, finding few answers that satisfied him or gave him any feelings of peace, and leading him on a life-long quest.
See you soon.
Peace, Love
Jerry
http://cdbaby.com/cd/jerrylott
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