ThiS iS hOw wE HAve To coMmuniCAte riGht NOW

   As a freelance writer, composer, and musician, I don't have to "believe my own press," which is to say that neither commercial success (number of units sold), number of social media followers, nor endorsements or press coverage dictate any indication of success commensurate to the level of validation needed to continue on with my work. Those things do not and cannot validate or effectively reject my work, and the following are the reasons why. 1. If the point of a venture or project is communicating to the public higher values and principles such as freedom of speech, then popularity and/or monetary success of the spokesperson or title is hardly the concern. 2. Documented popularity is not always equal to quality, prestige, or even success. 3. I may define "success" however I want to. 4. Sales (commerical success) is/are not equal to quality, prestige, or success necessarily (or the effectiveness of an outreach). 5. To the extent that people don't re

    I wanted to give a heartfelt post about myself for the reason that I feel like I do not get to often speak with anybody who actually has the true account of personal history and "accomplishments" (if you will), and my track record anywhere. It's really sad, but it probably is the case that we are in a cultural climate where people do not really seek to understand anything all that well with each other, and many may judge by mere appearances. From others not really understanding who I was and what I did before, I find that no one ever really actually talks to me in a way that's understanding of that. In this case, people seem afraid (for no reason) of what is actually both true and good, and all of it does no one any good.     Take for example, this picture of some of my friends and some family from my high school graduation party in 1996. This should give my readers a genuine feel for how people were with each other back then. It has the feeling of being very fre

   Since I don't have "legalism" as I explained in the previous post on the blog, it begs the idea that I could perhaps write a whole adventure novel with embedded Christian symbolism. The novel could be a coming-of-age story with colorful characters and an "Indiana Jones style" rock 'em sock 'em quest for a sacred relic. Guess what? I have already written such a novel. It is called Playing Saint Ditch and it is available on Amazon in paperback and kindle. The embedded symbolism in the novel has much to do with God's promises of provision, protection, security, and deliverance. I try to not be my own higher critic, so I will leave it at that. It suffices to say that the 2014 version is greatly "cleaned up" from the original which was written in the 90's. I acknowledge that it has some crass language and so some have not liked it for that reason. People who don't like kind of thing don't have to read it.    I could have made it

    Many of you probably noticed that I have referred to secular songs multiple times in my posts. The reason why I can be a professing Christian and listen to and/or refer to secular songs is because I do not have the heresy of legalism. Others who adhere to legalism have been trying to say (wrongfully so) that believers in Christ are not ever allowed to listen to any “secular music.” That would be incorrect as speaking too simply and drawing a hard and fast boundary line for everyone where no hard and fast boundary exists.    If you want to know what legalism is, I am providing a few links here to explain it-  https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-Christian-legalism.html     https://carm.org/what-is-legalism   Legalism (when it occurs in the church) is basically (typically) the erroneous belief system which states that a person’s salvation depends on the continual adherence to rules of conduct and behavior (either to attain or maintain salvation). Such a belief system entails an im

    Many might wonder why some people, especially men, who are not actually gay sometimes end up seeming gay. I have compiled a short list, because the elements are seem fairly obvious to me without much further research. This is not the result of a sociological study. It is my opinion. People have to be aware that the folkways and norms of society are in no way in their best interests. Also, the many factors involved in this list easily play into one another in terms of the capacity to pile on top of specific people. 1. The Jail and Prison Systems    Our incarceration systems group men together in close quarters. To add to many concerns, there's a known link between poverty and falling into incarceration.  https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/income.html   As I've opined elsewhere, the prison system is unnecessary and harmful. The system could be reformed to do away with it in such a capacity that people are only jailed a short time. I've given my full opinion in the on

   Someone had the audacity to bring up the bible verse 1 Corinthians 13:11 to me recently in a conversation, out of context from the discussion completely... (Read the rest at the link here)- The AB/DL Treasure Chest Blog: 1 Corinthians 13:11 and Those Who Are Adult Babies... :  

     It would definitely look like I am doing something wrong in posts here were it not the fact that we have a United States Constitution which is "the supreme law of the land," (see Article VI of the U.S. Constitution) in which the First Amendment (part of what is also known as the "Bill of Rights) expressly outlines basic freedoms of U.S. citizens that are not to be violated by the government. Citizens' right of "political speech" has long been understood as a bullet-proof component of First Amendment rights, and so therefore is sometimes listed in "exclusions" to behavior that can be prosecuted under penal code. The Supreme Court ruled on a case involving political speech even a year ago (in 2016) in Heffernan v. City of Patterson.     My previous few posts here fall within the boundaries of political speech. There is nothing anyone can say to my detriment, shame, (or even incrimination) over it, as least in legal terms.    I stand for the

   It probably does look a lot better. All someone had to do was mention something.

    In the previous post I was not trying to say that I somehow think that work and a strong workforce for national economies is not important.  I do not have a skewed view of work neither personally nor in terms of national economies. America needs a strong, committed workforce to be prosperous and for the economy to thrive. It needs to be said, though, that I've fought agendas at a personal level that are strange. I am not a person who has a problem in terms of work ethic. I've never had a problem getting up out of bed and making it there in time. I have always been good at what I do, and excellent even, so that has not been my issue, either. I am not someone who was bad at their job.    In fact, were I to live under a communist government (or a situation where my job is chosen purely according to what I am good at), I would end up doing the same line of work I've already done (music, teaching music, and directing ensembles). None that was a plea for different main work

      Aimee Mann remarked in an interview about her recent album  Mental Illness that "it's hard to be a person," and she was speaking in regards to many people having a difficult time. A pastor at the church I was attending actually used the quote in his sermon in regards to the human condition and our need for a savior- the Lord Jesus. I obviously know that it's hard to be a person (and that Jesus saves), but on top of that everything is made harder if other persons won't let persons be themselves as who they are, or accept them as who they genuinely are. I wonder who would be interested in helping to write and ratify like a "Port Riga Statement" (title inspired by a blend of two other things- the Buddyrevelles song "Port Riga" from their first album September, November on Motorcoat Records, and the "Port Huron" statement by Students for a Democratic Society from the 1960's). The band members of the Buddyrevelles are my former

   I have not encountered much direct opposition where someone is willing to say to my face that I should not have written a few of my books, but I will still just set the record straight here. There are so many people talked about in the memoir A Dragon Comes as Well , and so much is discussed in The Semantolkino'hara that all of it begs the question of whether I should have written and released them to the public in the first place .  My opponents can make the argument that "it is not typically done"- no one writes about others directly. Doing so is not in accordance with the folkways and norms of society. Some may see it even as rude or jeopardizing my career.        For my rebuttal to all this, I say that such criticism is derived from preconceived intent to place too much attention on me while ignoring the actions of everyone else and the circumstances that brought all of it about. I did not just one day wake up and conjure these works from nothing. They happened

   The somewhat invisible component of what I am doing in my blogs is the fact that it essentially is performance of professional writing tasks. Since I mentioned the idea in one of my blogs of people needing speaking out more concerning one issue, many people probably tried to sit down and write something, only to experience unpleasant flashbacks of high school English class where they had to ask the teacher "how long should it be?" and "are we graded down for misspelling?" They may have come to realize since then just how complicated the process of composition is. This is a fact of life that I long ago came to realize.     Let me do what I can here to help. I will not cover how to write in any and every stylistic genre and length, because a how-to on that subject matter would be the length of a whole book. Let's focus on how to write a basic blog post. The basic steps to writing an excellent blog post are easy to learn and do, and a good process is as follo

    "We shall parse the lightning from the semi-truck" I wrote to a beloved friend back in 2014. Shall we proceed? Let us not get daunted. First I will discuss what is meant and the various implications, and then I will parse the language in the traditional sense and forthwith plum the implications of what can be meaningfully gleaned from that.      Let us picture the scene together right now. Up in the cloudy sky in the middle of a storm, charges are forming in the air, slowly building. The charges reach their threshold and all of a sudden, a bolt of lightning forms in the air and rips all the way down to the ground level where a semi-truck is passing along a freeway. The electricity hits the metal top of the truck, but the truck is well-designed to protect the rider, who at that point only hears the bolt of lightning and feels a bump. The electrical charge dissipates and the truck continues to pass along the freeway without any problem. The rider may later discover lightni

     I have gone so far as to perform some edits in the already-published combined edition of A Dragon Comes As Well: a memoir. As pertaining to the section about the so-called "book of destiny" (and in regards to the problems I've already written about in my blog here, pertaining to that), I will present the edited version of that section in the book right here:    In the books of scholarly commentary on the book of Isaiah, as pertaining to chapter 34 to be exact, there is an opinion among some that a so-called “Book of Destiny” from Hebrew literature and beliefs ( a belief with its basis in the Scriptures as found in Psalm 40:8; 139:16, Malachi 3:16, Daniel 7:10, and Revelation 20:12), is the Scroll or Book of the Lord referred to in Isaiah 34:16. In the commentary by John N. Oswalt, [1] the writer posits the “Book of Destiny” as one of four possibilities as to what the book of the Lord in Isaiah 34:16 is. I am not so ostentatious as to claim that the Semantolkino’h