Another Good Man Gone

(I wrote this one around 7/27/2013)

I just realized how my using days weren't always bad.  Or, my life wasn't always bad.  I was on my way to trouble....
 
I remember right before I moved to San Francisco, we flew to Jamaica with Ekoostik Hookah - our old friends.  I was friends with those guys, but not nearly as close to them as some of my other friends were.  One of my friends was taught to play guitar by the absolutely amazing guitar player - Steve Sweeney.  I guess many friends of mine went to Ohio State and Hookah got their start in Columbus.  Hookah's base player, Cliff Starbuck, went over to one of my best friends home sometimes.  

They don't play much out west.  A few years ago, they played up in Eureka.  Susan and I went and saw them both nights.  I played pool with Dave Katz, the singer/guitar player/keyboardist.  Susan and I sat with the drummer, Eric Lanese, on the charted jet to Jamaica.  They are good guys.

 

 

Steve Sweeney in Eureka.

 
While that Jamaica trip was fun, I was starting to become the hardcore addict I am.  I remember going to a crack house in Negril.  Crack houses in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine were bad enough.  Wow!  I can't even write about what went on at that crack house.  I'm full of guilt that's for sure.  I WAS MARRIED back then.  I guess I've said too much already.
 
I was a very good person back when all I did was LSD, marijuana and alcohol and followed The Grateful Dead and Ekoostik Hookah.  It's when cocaine and then crack entered my life that I turned to the dark side.  Having sex on the floor with some Jamaican chick on the floor of a Jamaican crack house pretty much ruined that trip for me.  Otherwise, it was a beautiful trip.  Oh, then their was the drunk Jamaican woman on the beach. 
 
Jamaican women are too easy.    I wasn't even looking and I got some twice.  I feel guilty.  Still.  Very.  I wish I could go back to Jamaica now that I'm single.  Old behavior!!!  Stop it.  I really am not that person anymore.  I mean that.  I still feel guilty.  No wonder I'm single.  I doubt my ex-wife knows this.  I may have told her.  I told her about everyone I ever screwed.  I was so sick.  No wonder I'm so lonely.  The Universe has it's way of paying it's karma back one way or another, this I know.
 
I probably shouldn't write about all this, but it really was the beginning of hell on earth for me.  Actually, I did pick up prostitutes in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine, but that was almost always because they had good crack connections and access to a bombed out s*** hole to smoke it in.  It REALLY wasn't about sex for me that much back then. 
 
Going to prostitutes for crack was dishonest enough to my poor wife who believed I was the only faithful honest man left on this earth.  When we first met, I was.  Falling so low really tour my heart out.  As a clean human being, I am a good person.  I mean that.  Using, I am so bad.  Especially when I started shooting speed.  It was the lust of my life.  Sex was all I ever wanted.
 
Being so f***ed up that I had sex with two Jamaicans, one on a crack house floor, still bothers me today.  Actually, that's exactly how I got the first needle in my arm years later.  I was broke and hating crack because I knew that all I could think about during my first hit of crack was my next hit of crack.  Still, I was out looking for something, anything.
 
A prostitute invited me into her place and smoked some crystal meth with me.  I had only smoked it once before about a year before.  That night, I was broke and still not very sure of what was up nor was I very interested in being with someone.  I wasn't messed up yet.  I just thought she was being "nice".  She asked if I wanted to shoot it.  I did.   I know realize, it was a big first time hit - about 50 units. I guess it's one of those cases where the first one is free.  It would cost me more than money can ever be worth.
 
Darkness had me.  I remember that night so clearly.  She took me to her friends place at the top of a skyscraper and we shot some more and had some more sex.  I was hooked into the scene.  It was recorded on their webcam.  Later, this horrified me, but at the time, I was so high, I didn't care.  I was SO high.  I don't like to think about it because sickly enough, I want it a little bit still.  Not like I used to.  It doesn't give me that warming heart rush feeling like it used to.  Thank God.
 
The early days of getting hooked were so dark and ridiculous.  I went home and told Susan I shot up.  I left at the rest out - at the time.  I would eventually tell her.  I couldn't stop regretting how sick I was, but I also couldn't stop thinking about that rush that made me want to take my clothes off.  Every time I did a hit, I took my clothes off.  That's why I found my way to places like Land End or The Marine Headlands or Baker Beach or Golden Gate Beach or my own little private cove all the time.  I was a sick mess.  That's when I discovered "The New World Order".  It ended up actually being evil, which meant one thing - God exists! 
 
This blog was not supposed to go this way.  My life wasn't either.  I started off trying to remember the good days and write about where they led me.  A lot of people will tell me not to be so honest.  The Truth is so important.  I must live it.  More importantly, I must have a good honest life.  If I will always have to tell everyone everything about me, I must be a good person.  I can't misbehave.  I have to live in The Truth.  I just do.  Every way possible.
 
Details about my life don't  need to be told.  For instance, I hurt myself really bad by jumping off the roof of a parking garage.  I had a lot of internal damage.  I have a lot of restroom issues.  I can just leave it at that. 
 
I ended up having sex issues.  I'm a sex addict.  I can leave it at that.  That's enough.  That's too much.  Telling the details of being on the floor in having sex in a Jamaican crack house is simply to remind myself just how wrong that was.
 
I hate myself a lot lately.  That's not okay.  Almost everyday I say to myself, "I f***ing hate you", in my head.  I need to get over this.  It is the past I hate myself for, but I am constantly reminded of the past.  Everything I hear and see and everything I say.  Just mentioning the past starting this blog took me this direction.  The wrong direction.  That's the story of my life.  I need to be able to forgive myself.  That will be hard.
 
I am grateful to be alive.  I need to remain a good person to love myself.  I want to love myself.  I believe God loves me.  I believe God did not love the person I was or God at least didn't love the things I did.  There is nothing to love about my dark past.  I do hate it. 

I love music.  It really does speak to me.  I like to listen to it and I like to try to perform it.  I sure won't be performing it like my old friends, but I have a good time.

 

 

 

Reluctant hero of the family
His life played out like a tragedy
Music man was all he claimed to be

A flesh of brilliance like a shooting star
Etched in your mind for as long as you are
Give him five minutes, you could feel the music in his heart

Bringing joy to everyone
Taking pride in the work that he'd done
But we never really thought that he'd be gone
I was hoping there'd be just one more song

and now another man
Another good man gone
another man
Another good man gone

Singing melodies that warm my core
Never fittin' into a typical mold
Taking me back to the days of old

Telling tails of life and places he'd been
A profit of sorts to his father would kin
Visit him once and you knew you'd be back
Over and over and over and over again

You know he had a lot of fun
All in all it was a hell of a run
But we never really thought that he'd be gone
I was hoping there'd be just one more son

and now another man
Another good man gone
another man
Another good man gone

Remember how we laughed and how we cried
53 years til his heart grew tired
But he left his mark just like a branding iron

Sometimes still I hear the music play
A warm wind blowing all the clouds away
Lettin' the sunshine bright in the sky on a cold dark winter day

No one stays forever young
Nothin' for sure but the risin' of the sun
But I never really thought that he'd be gone
I was hoping there'd be just one more song