Resetting

Another birthday comes and goes for a friend I knew and lost many years ago and I still mark it as a really heavy day of sadness. I have a nagging guilt about the fact that I don’t mark my own brothers passing several years ago with as heavy of a heart as I do with this lost friend. I couldn’t bring myself to really examine my feelings about why I grieve his loss still and suspect that that answer will elude me well into my latter years. I could write about him and our friendship freely until recently. I discovered that I have lost the ability to write about him and our latter friendship during a process of evaluating who he was, who I was and how I may have treated him later on in our friendship. I’ve said before that I have come to realize that the loss takes much more from a person than we are willing to admit at first. I’ve attached ideas of him no longer being in pain, or suffering, or that he transcended into a new stage of spirit, when in reality I just want my friend back. I want my childhood back. I want my peace of mind back. If in some odd way I could do that by resetting everything; buy my parents old house, decorate my room like it was when I was fifteen, walk out the front door down the street, turn right, then left, then right  and walk into his downstairs den where he would be waiting for me to start a movie or listen to tapes on his dads stereo, I would do it. Fifteen is long, long passed me by and all of those wishes are a sad impossibility and most likely a loss of my wholeness as a person I will never regain again. As a creative person never lacking inspiration, I find this blockage in my souls artery as painful as I imagine the real thing would be. And as friends fade suddenly for inexplicable reasons over the years, the same wound quietly grows and throbs somewhere deep within me. The best I can guess is that it’s a part of me tapping me on the shoulder during the good times with the polite reminder that time is not on my side and ultimately not my friend. Time only steals my good friends and while my memories of them are my only respite during the profound times of loss, eventually, even I know that time will steal those too. So until then, as the oxymoronic Happy Birthdays cycle back around once again old friend, know you are missed. Marshall Brent Glazener 3/23/1976- 7/27/2000

Desperation Exasperation

I was pumping gas at a local QT and had a guy walk past me coming from the near by apartments, smelling of weed and looking as if he had just woke up. I followed him in to the QT to pay for my gas and buy a Monster in hopes that it would give me a boost to help me get my 10 hour day started. He walked to the counter asked for some Black and Milds and held a 40 oz. Budweiser in his right hand. It was obvious he too was starting his day as well. A day of leisure, pot smoking, a little drinking, and who knows what else. I stood there and quietly judged him and he knew it and didn’t care. He left. I walked back out to my truck, and to my day, and stayed bothered by that chance meeting with this anonymous guy my age with no responsibilities and no cares. So here we are as a divided country, getting prepared to listen to our President tell us all that our nation is strong and he has a plan for the future as if its just business as usual. I could listen to him, our President, or I could listen instead to that little voice in the back of my head that seems to be warning me that what I hear just does not seem to sit well with me in a logical, or mathematical sense for that matter. It’s the same small voice that told millions of Americans to buy up all the rounds and guns they could get their hands on in recent weeks and told others to refinance their houses and buy gold with their cashed out equity. It’s not the Presidents words, because we’ve heard them all before. I think it’s the sobering reality that all may actually be lost. Listen to talk radio and the Right and Left-Wingers are gnawing off their own limbs and eating their own with no end in sight. So what does this mean? I may have told this story before on this blog but I will never forget when I was in my early 20′s working with a home remodeler and we did a job for an older couple that lived in an extremely nice home overlooking a golf course. The man in his late 50′s or so seemed very complimentary with the work we were doing on his home. He went on to tell us that he was taking a class at the local junior college on weekends to learn how to do masonry. Here was a guy who had it made by the worlds standards looking at me with a sort of envy over my ability to work with my hands. He worked for a large company that had made him wealthy, but he told me something that still resonates/ haunts me to this day. He said that one day, people with no skills to produce anything tangible with their hands will not survive. Survive what? Almost 20 years later I now know what he meant and what motivated him to look ahead instead of just living for today. There is a paradigm shift happening within our culture and our World that most of us can’t seem to articulate except in desperation and exasperation with our circumstances. In reality, our circumstances are a tiny symptom as is the current state of politics. Unrest, war, famine, all of it is just a symptom of the issue. This man knew what the issue was, and on a good day when the wind blows just right and my head is clear, I too feel like I know what the issue is. I’ll get up and work every day to provide the necessities for my family and try not to feel contempt for the guy I saw in the QT because he may feel like he is living off of societies scraps, so he simply does not care. One day soon if he manages to “survive”, he will know what it is like living on actual scraps if he is extremely lucky and if I can keep my head clear, I will hopefully get to live and make a way for me and my family in what seems to be a new beginning for us all.

Moments

I spoke with my wife tonight for about two hours concerning our family goals and dreams. We spoke of our girls and our house and our desires to watch our girls grow up into responsible and heartfelt people. Raising my girls, Molly and Mallory, and watching them grow up has been the most important thing I have ever done. It also has been one of the most bitter-sweet aspects of being an involved father. I see them getting older and eventually I know that they will move on to their own lives. Its what we have been training them for since the first day we brought them home from the hospital. But I wish I could make the time stop if only for a little while so I can process these moments, the light on their little faces as they sleep, the giggles that I know I will painfully struggle to remember many years from now in my  old age. I struggle with the feeling that I am missing out, or that I may miss a glance or a moment. It’s because I am a moment guy. I take mental pictures of moments that are going to be the building blocks of my past memories. I cant bear the thought of missing even one. But for tonight, my sweetest moment was sitting with my wife and reflecting on our lives and our girls. I am enormously blessed, and affirmed because nights like these assure me that God does indeed exist, and He does Love me immensely.

Pink Moon Gonna Get You All

Nick Drake fascinates me. I’d like to think if I was 20 years older I would have discovered him and his music and watched his success play out well into his bright future. But it was not to be, and it seems that he knew it. He wrote some of the most brilliant and haunting songs and then retreated into a sad darkness that eventually silenced him musically as well as humanly. It’s the closest thing to magic to me to be able fall in love with an artist that had an inconsequential career and died 2 years before I was born. But somewhere out there was a person or perhaps people that heard his music and kept it alive long enough for me to be able to appreciate it.  People seem to ask me a lot about music and what I recommend. I could not recommend Nick Drake enough. Try out Pink Moon and try to not let it slip into your soul forever.  “None of you stand so tall, Pink moon gonna get you all”- Nick Drake

God Hates Fags?

So a Christian opens his mouth and dumb opinions come pouring out like a water fall. Wrap it in up in doctrine, a few good bible verses, make it biblically air tight and your good to go, right? This happens every day. Most of us who are Christians usually leak out disputed or controversial opinions in tiny drips that are hardly noticeable to casual observers. So, when people do pay attention, the ensuing damage does little to undo the worst stereotypes in all of us. A ‘For Today’ band member decided to let his opinions get the best of him and he, and his band, have paid dearly. Their singer is in the process of damage control and currently doing a tap-dance of epic proportions on YouTube. What my opinions are about the LGBT community are irrelevant. Period. The “us verses them ” mentality is so offensive, and unbiblical, yet it is the default and ideal platform that half baked Christian philosophizing tends to be framed in. The sad part is that the apology and tap dancing does nothing except make the offender feel better as if the damage has been undone, but the slighted and alienated have had their worst fears realized and confirmed by another of Gods unruly mercenaries. This will never change but will be repeated over and over again until Christians stop being concerned with being right and instead focus on being Christians. So here is the question Christian: Does God Hate Fags?, because like it or not, thats what you say and how you look to others when you condemn the LGBT community. If he does, then we are all screwed because the love, lifestyle and commitment that a same sex couple displays wont hold a candle to the hate, darkness and derision in the hearts of all of us that call ourselves Christians, who in turn, hate and judge those that we were put in trust to reach for God. Not to mention our hate for his Word and ways of His Son that we tend to overlook in ourselves as we hand out our condemnation to those around us. So go ahead and call me a Liberal Christian. Ill proudly bear that burden if it makes them feel better, because I know they will trip over them selves one day to call Jesus a Liberal. Jesus loves us ALL, including the most “Fabulous” among us, so lets open our eyes to the deep chasm thats being built between us and those we were told to love.

Life and Debt

I am a horribly self conscious person and extremely introverted by design so sharing too much information into my personal life is always been a struggle. Ironically, I have felt that writing is similar to playing drums in the sense that when I am behind a kit, I tend to feel like I am back at home, safe in my childhood bedroom on my drum kit. So, I don’t necessarily feel intimidated by an audience or even by the audience that I have on my blog. Of course, all of this is a precursor to what I’ve been wanting to share for a long while now, but I have not been able to due to timing or my own self conscious faults. But with a new year and what will be a year dominated by financial headlines, I feel like my hard earned perspective deserves its say. But I want to share my testimony first so that most of you don’t think i’m just another internet blow hard. Here it goes…

I have played in some “not too shabby” bands and visited every state in this country except Maine, Hawaii, and Alaska. I have also played music in some of the most amazing countries abroad and met many great people. Most of you know of my musical past, but none of you know this: Within the past ten years I have been audited by the IRS, Filed for Chapter 7 protection more than once, and have had thousands of dollars offset by the Treasury Department. I have also had many independent Insurance audits. I have had large lines of Credit, multiple SBA loans and SBA Lines of Credit as well as credit cards with $50k dollar limits or no limits at all. I’ve had bank accounts with every bank imaginable. I have started many companies and have filed for at least 7 L.L.C.’s that I can recall, not including DBA’s. I’ve had several minority business certifications and have been bonded for millions of dollars as well as carried my own liability insurance for up to 2 million dollars. I have grossed over a million dollars with a single company, with my best year at almost $500,000 at my peak. I have worked with the local government on almost all levels, and been a member of every association that would accept my membership fee. I have aggressively bid on and completed projects in every city in North Texas, public and private. At one point I had debt of over $400,000 with my interest payments alone on those debts at almost $12,000 a month. I have filed several lawsuits in the past 10 years and settled or won them all, and I am thankful that I have never been sued myself. I have been on the tallest mountains and the lowest valleys. My point in all of this is that I have wondered in the financial forest for a long time, scatter shooting and hoping that I would hit some sort of stability or goal that would allow me to raise a family and play music and feel important. I have given every ounce of passion, blood, sweat and tears I had until I had no more. I’ve been tapped out Spiritually, Musically and Emotionally. I feel like i’ve survived the impossible and the unsurvivable. The term ‘sleepless nights’ is very real and the feeling of failure is nothing in hindsight. It’s the process of failure that is unbearable. BUT, my whole life, God has protected me and opened my eyes to the limits that I have put on myself. I never accepted the idea that I was merely a poor kid from Central Arlington and I had to find a “little” job and get happy. Happiness is nothing. Joy comes with purpose and purpose comes with dedication. This new year holds some real amazing opportunities for me and my family and yes, music and business have never been better. So, affirm yourself and your purpose by committing to chase your dreams, thinking really big, estrange yourself from the rot of pop culture, and be passionate about things that matter. Most important, don’t focus on changing the world, just change your heart for God little by little every day.

Grumpy Cat Shrugged

Random Thoughts: I love dried fruit. It reminds me of candy. I continually switch from my Converse to my slippers multiple times a day and I believe that the frequency directly correlates with my age. Between 40 and 50 degrees is a no-mans land of wheather or not I should start a fire and it stresses me out. My tolerance for ignorance shrinks daily, but my appreciation for satire and irony grows and tends to level me out. Grumpy Cat is a force to be reckoned with. I find it funny that belief in God existing perpetually has always been a pipe dream to Science, yet Science believes that something came from an empty, nothing, endless void the size of a molecule. Truth is we all have pipes we smoke. Words are overrated, especially in music. Music has suffered immensely, and so have we all. The more I read Ayn Rand, the more I don’t want to. I’ve had writers block for a year now, but it seems more like writers apathy. Our country isn’t in decline, it’s dead. Our morals are not loose, they don’t exist. Up is the new down, and down can become sideways if you turn your head. I don’t like “the cloud”, or even the idea of “the cloud”. God face-palms every time the phrase “God Particle” is uttered. God face-palms a lot these days, and somewhere else, so does Ayn Rand.

Constant Seas Dallas

So, we played our first show! Check it out!

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/54063736″>Constant Seas- The Earth Holds It’s Breath</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/panthercityfilms”>Panther City Films</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Cycles

Here is to New Beginnings! I am very excited to be a part of a group of musicians of this caliber.

Constant Seas to KIVA

Most of you know of my epic cynicism for the “feel good” and “make a difference” Social Awareness nonsense that seems to be everywhere these days. What I see as passing for social awareness is often is the product of “fads” and the trendiness of “Look at me, I Care” and “I’m making a difference”. So often we all think that being socially active can be achieved simply by “awareness”. Im fully aware of suffering and poverty all around the world, but until I give more than lip service and “Likes” to the real problems and real struggling, my social awareness is just selfishness, like a passing guilt trip, passing through my consciousness like a cloud in the sky. Once the cloud passes, so does the guilt. Being in a band is also an inherently selfish thing. It takes and takes and only gives back memories, hook-ups and good times. Sex, drugs and Rock N’ Roll. And as the years pass, the lifestyle wears on you like a bad joke. I wanted to make my experience with CONSTANT SEAS mean something more than just the trappings of my typical musical motivations. I have been in bands for many reasons, from girls and money to ministry, and they all have left me feeling like I never made an impact other than writing a good song or trying to sell my Faith like I sold t-shirts at the merch table. As unorthodox as Constant Seas is musically, I wanted our purpose to be equally unorthodox by making our existence one of servanthood in a very real way. I spoke to the guys about starting a KIVA account and making an actual financial impact with our music. What is KIVA? KIVA is a micro-lending company that my wife and I have been supporting for the past 6 years. We have loaned many thousands of dollars by initially giving $250 over six years ago. That $250 has been loaned out and repaid 38 times to many, many people. From a man in Romania to a group of women in Nigeria, they are all entrepreneurs looking to start a business without having to use loan sharks with crushing terms. KIVA lends your money directly to the borrower at next to 0% interest and follows them throughout the repayment process. They help out the borrower in ways too numerous to name here and you make a real difference to real people that can’t financially help themselves due to their situations. I wanted to take our KIVA experience a step further a few weeks ago by proposing to the guys in CONSTANT SEAS that we get our own KIVA account and contribute 100% of our door proceeds at every show we play to Kiva virtually assuring that if you support us by coming out to see us play, you will be making a difference. I cant think of a better way to mix music and servanthood. And I cant think of a better reason to play music. Here is a link to our page if you would like to start one of your own.

http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/constantseas1261