Clam Chowder

smoke if you got 'em...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 01:58:00 +0000

My days are measured out in cigarettes. Knowing I must quit adds urgency. Cutting down isn’t the answer. One day soon I will take the plunge and wonder if I will feel each second pass and if then I will truly be alive and be able to face the abyss that is life without time. One thing is clear. It could make for a very long life completely ignoring the number of years left. But now my life is divided into discrete packets and what will be will be.

i light a candle...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:43:00 +0000

The days are getting longer. It is a new year and hope springs eternal…. It’s one of those moments when the Universe moves one inch to the left. Everything is brand new but nothing has changed. I am looking forward after weeks of lassitude. That doesn’t mean I’m still not a victim of circumstance and that there will not be a whole lot more hurt but things feel right again, for the moment.

Merry Christmas!

clinically depressed

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:09:00 +0000

I have a fractured hip and a bone broken in my hand. I sit in front of the monitor naked in a wheel chair with a cast on my left hand. It’s almost seven in the evening and I just woke up from a delicious nap and it just hit me. I’m depressed. You idiot, you might say, of course your depressed. You’re crippled, live in a single apartment with only one friend. But then it hit me there is something wrong with this picture. I rise to adversity and all summer I thought psychosis had nothing more it could throw at me. Depression was just who I was for years. I thought it was over. Gail said I was hibernating and she was right.

So now with my coffers full and short days, conditions are ideal. There couldn’t be a better way to convalesce as long as I don’t fall prey to the chatter and accept the restlessness as the price of admission.

Well that’s about it. I don’t have the energy to post anymore.

subway revisited...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:28:00 +0000

Subway revisited…

I'm stuck in what feels like the doldrums. A maelstrom engulfed me all Spring and Summer. I endured blast after blast of psychotic breaks. These have abated but with them the sparkle that illuminated my posts. Before they were political but after they were all over the map featuring everything from philosophy, theology, history, to the Social Sciences, I also dabbled in fiction. Many of them missed the mark but some were bang on. Now my neurotransmitters are behaving themselves the meat and potatoes approach of prior posts seems to be in order, but now I lack inspiration and the self-confidence it took to be a political commentator. Also I've just plain lost interest in anything topical. So I will turn to a different place and time.

Around 2001 I edited and wrote for a newsletter dealing with mental health issues. At the time the work seemed stilted, wooden and sophomoric and but I kept it on my hard drive as a kind of memento.

There is an enormous gulf between then and now. So wide that there seemed to be no relationship between the person I am now and the one I was then. Maturation doesn't account for the divide. The progressive myth permeates Western culture and is false for retrogression is as likely as progress. No, it was as if I were a different person.

In my first History course we looked at different interpretations of what History is. One of the essays was titled, "Every Man is His Own Historian." It simply looked at how one can create a history of out of our own past. It was banal really. All it did was introduce the concept of primary sources and documenting past events. But the concept means more than that to me.

I am no Proust. Memories are more cerebral than visceral. I must reconstruct the past as much by using my intellect as my senses. It is as if I were a character in my own narrative and memories must metaphorically be written down before they are real. This is not to say that affect doesn't colour them, but I don't relive the highs and lows. They just affect the point of view of the narrator.

Back then I was in a dark place. Hindsight shows things were looking up as the following piece shows. Although I now see there was light at the end of the tunnel my self-image was somewhere between that of pond scum and slime mold and I was the last to know.

Now that that the incredible highs of the summer are over I am once again unhappy, but have a better sense of my own self-worth as I struggle to keep the creative life blood from coagulating, but depression threatens to wipe out the positive feelings and make me doubt my own self worth as an artist. But even then there is a quantum leap between now and ten years ago., or at least so I thought. I mentioned that in the narrative that passes for memory affect the colour and what was I reading from the newsletter makes me see I was every bit as talented back then and actually wrote with more polish. This narrows the gap and makes me see that I am the same person seven years on. See for yourself. I picked the piece because it shows the insight I forgot I had.

It is also is interesting as it opens up a road map that plots a route to beat depression, one as valuable as it was then. I hope you enjoy it.

Subway…

An old joke comes to mind. A despondent man decides to end it all and throws himself in front of a Subway. Several hours later, his will to live returns when he realizes he lacks the patience to wait the millions of years it will take Continental Drift to crush him under the restaurant.

A friend and I crossed a mountain torrent moving from boulder to boulder. Midstream he slipped; reflexively, I pulled him back, and my own momentum carried me into white water. Sure of my doom, I barely struggled but then hit a rock, my head popped up, and my friend screamed “Stand up!”

Although unbelievably powerful, the stream was shallow. I stood and plastered myself against the rock and let the current take me to the next one; even with sodden clothing, I made it to shore.

After a lifetime of suffering, it is hard to say a good word about depression, but like most psychological states, it serves a function. It causes negative ideation, but dulls emotions, blunting anger or grief that the psyche cannot deal with, and dissipates when it can. Nevertheless, for some of us, this biochemical mechanism isn’t reactive, but occurs out of the blue and becomes chronic. Even then, it can serve a function by keeping one alive when life seems hopeless, as most in the grips of melancholia lack both the psychic and physical wherewithal to end their lives.

I have often bottomed out, but only contemplated suicide once; rather than despondency, passive aggression was the motivating force. I wanted to hurt someone; make her feel responsible. I made the threat; depression saved me, I lacked energy and the resolve to carry through.

An alarming trend developed with the arrival of Prozac and the other SSRIs. Rather than just combating depression, some used them to become better than well. They are used as a performance enhancers and as means of countering the everyday “blues” or “blahs”; allowing the user to be even braver to face in this new world.

The depressed person is in greatest danger when they come out of it. As the pall lifts, almost paradoxically, they are at a greater risk of suicide. Renewed emotional and physical vigour pull away the safety net. Real emotions long blocked by torpor become overpowering and where the mystery writer’s bywords, means, motive are ever present in the depths. Newfound vim creates opportunity and viola! a nasty end becomes more likely.

Controversy rages over the use of anti-depressants by children. Adolescents often have poor impulse control, which increases the risk of suicide after “recovery”, especially if the drug grants relief too quickly: Another case where the operation sometimes succeeds but the patient dies.

My own case is complicated. I am bi-polar; anti-depressants are effective, but often too much so. They end depression but can catapult me into hyper-mania, therefore, I take anti-manic agents as prophylactics and anti-psychotics when those fail. For years I yo-yoed, as psychiatrists struggled to find just the right cocktail.

There have been breakthroughs in the treatment of affective disorders. Along with what had been a nominally successful mix of psychotropic drugs, I now take an atypical anti-psychotic, usually reserved for schizophrenia. The new mix is much more effective.

To return to the raging stream, I have found another antidote. No longer a complete slave to synapses or on the drugs that control them, I can partially control affect by other means. Like my friend who screamed, “Stand up!” a family physician showed me, that though the waters of depression run swift, they need not be deep. She introduced me to Cognitive Therapy (http://www.psychologyinfo.com/depression/cognitive.htm)

In essence, this involves changing one’s mental set and replacing the negative with the positive. In my case, trust in my GPs judgment allowed me to suspend a feeling of impotence: A feeling of being damned to failure, in my own ability to make positive changes. We agreed on me reaching what now seem trivial goals. As I achieved them, I felt more positive. I worked with her for years. The increments were tiny; given enough time, however, mountains are moveable.

Ten years ago, I was virtually catatonic. Even brushing my teeth proved daunting; reading, let alone writing, seemed out of the question. Years of harsh drugs and violent mood swings produced profound cognitive damage. My goal setting focused on repairing this.

I started with large print crossword books from drugstore newsstands and moved at a snail’s pace. What you are reading speaks to the success of the enterprise.

I end with a caveat. Perhaps cognitive therapy has made medication unnecessary, but after twenty years struggling with a chronic illness, I am unwilling to take the risk. To be honest the times I have felt medication unnecessary are when I most needed it and if I act on the impulse generally wind up on a psych ward.

is it me or is it getting warmer in here?

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:19:00 +0000

I watched a special on Global Warming. Up until then I was an agnostic but am now a believer, but do not see the issue is as apocalyptic as some believe. The consequences will be grave for there is only limited will to change. Western economies are based on growth and increased consumption. Even if the West were to go green the East are playing catch up and have huge populations and economies and employ old dirty technologies. No as the drastic effects of climate change come into effect growth will cease not out of the will to change but because economies will collapse and carbon emission will fall. That is not to say that the world will not be drastically changed and suffering and death will take place on an unprecedented scale, but human society and culture are frail compared with other aspects of the biosphere. So I believe the world will come through and mankind in a drastically changed form will come through as well, unless of course we have crossed the line, in which case it’s been fun.

down in the dumps...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:31:00 +0000

I lost my job last Spring and was hypo-manic all summer so I find myself living on a shoes string with no ADSL or phone. Now I am in the local library. It actually is great fun to be off the grid.

terry's funniest home posts...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:44:00 +0000

i am kind of in the doldrums so i will look back and at my funniest posts so far.

far, far away...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:54:00 +0000

I live at the intersection of two busy streets and the traffic noise can get to me when I am out on my patio. I've found a solution. I wrote a thing last summer about the benficial effects of birds songs on those who suffer from a shizo-affective disorder. Well I've found a solution to the din of traffic: a bird feeding station. Watching the birds who come to eat as they flit about and hearing their chirping and songs takes me far away. I also feed a cat. I love cats and even though he will not come close to me, he can be very entertaining in the middle of the night.

plumbing problems...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:08:00 +0000

I seem to have my anxiety under control. This is the greatest thing to happen in my life time, for it has always plagued me. The only symptom remaining is an urgent need to urinate, which can be embarrasing, and is very ironic, because for years I had lost the ablitity to pee at all. I had to self-catherize. I was prone to bladder infections, which is very unusual in males. During a routine physical my Doctor palped my abdomen and was unable to find my organs. I suppose she assumed there must be an enormous tumour and ordered an ultrasound. This showed the mass was taken up by my bladder. She sent me to a urologist who found that I had lost most of the muscle tone there and when he inserted a chatheter he discovered much to his amazement that my bladder had a volume of four and a half litres! He recommended that I self-cathterize, not an easy procedure, as you can well imagine. Too make matters worse I was forced to do it up to six times a day to avoid infection. This was because many of the residents of the psychiatric boarding home where I lived had compromised immune systems. This was further aggravated by the fact that many of them smoked and some smoked "butts" increasing the probablity that infections would spread, Now that I am on my own I only do it once a day and have only minor infections over the last few years. Last night I did not catheterize with no ill effects except for increased urgency and frequency.While in Respite Care my medications were adjusted which accounts for much of the change but there is more to it. In a contolled environment I learned to be more in touch with my own body. The frequency and urgency started there. During my first stay for the first few days I wore an adult diaper and even after that continued to wet myself and often did not make it to the washroom. Over time the frequency and urgency remained but the incontinence diminished. Now except for the occasional accident, usually involving no more than a dribble, it is in check. I'm sure the root cause is an ultra-sensative urethra. I expect this will heal over time.The only residual effect is a sense of foreboding that the new found relief will not last and because I am socially isolated that my routine will break down and I will crack and lose control. The days are very long and it is hard to stay busy, but so far I am doing okay. Wish me luck!

facebook fiasco...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:29:00 +0000

The Guardiana looks at the ridiclous extent to which people go too to leave themselves open to scrutiny ."Take the case of Maxi Sopo, a 26-year-old criminal in hiding in Mexico who not only used his Facebook status to tell all and sundry what a good time he was having, but also made the somewhat elementary error of adding a former justice department official to his list of friends.
In status updates from Cancun, where the Cameroon-born fugitive was on the run from charges of bank fraud in Seattle, he said he was "living in paradise" and "loving it".."

age before beauty...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:08:00 +0000

I have new idea about age. When I was forty I dreaded getting old and thought I would lose around a step as each year But I just watched a band leader who was a favourite of my mother's when she was in her early twenties. My mother is now eighty. Along with him was the man who introduced me to newspaper columns 45 years ago. He must be in his mid-eighties. Neither is about to run a marathon but they are both sharp as a tack. Other than getting frailer and dealing with more health issues, I think the future is bright. There is a reason that old age is venerated in most of the world.

salmon...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:23:00 +0000

I just witnessed something spectacular. Something I never dreamed I would ever see. There is a bridge close to my a[apartment and in the river undeneath it I've watched a salmon run. Today I watched some Pink Salmon spawn on a gravel. It was a birds eye view which very few get to see. The females were laying their eggs and the males were fighting to see who could fertilize them. Fucking incredible!

the not so ugly american...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:12:00 +0000

I'd always thought that America was just flexing its miliary might when they entered WWI but as in WWII they if fact were strongly isolationist and the then President Woodrow Wilsoo campaigned on a promise he would keep them out of the war. It was not until Zimmerman, the German Defence Minister offered to help the Mexican's take back Arizona and New Mexico that his hand was forced. Sometimes I must force my image of "the ugly American"' out of my mind.

xanadu...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:25:00 +0000

The Chinese smoke like chimneys and I would bet dollars for donuts that they don't get lung cancer. I went to a Mongolian Grill for lunch today. The staff were Taiwanese but the owner waa outside smoking a cigarette and he looked to be a full blooded Mongol. It sent shivers up my spine remembering "Stately pleasure domes of Xanadu...." and all that. It was a good lunch

a new kind of fish story...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:19:00 +0000

As I've said before there is a river that runs close to my door and the salmon are running. I walked to a bridge nearby to check them out and met a Rumanian and a fellow from South Africa. I told them about the fish and then the Romanian did all the talking and it was well worth listening. He described life in his native country under Communism, how hard the winters were there and about the hardships of being a long haul trucker. He said he left his native country because of the fall of the Berlin Wall and all that entailed. When he mentioned Capitalism he almost spit on the ground. So I asked him why he'd come to Canada if he hated capitalism so much and he replied that Canada was a much more socialist country. It is a brisk morning and I wasn't dressed for it so I shivered and had to say goodbye.

something is wrong here...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:06:00 +0000

There must have been a design flaw when this building was built. I am forever falling down the front stairs and it's odd too that I am forever locking my keys in my apartment, it isn't a design flaw but it is odd and come to think of it my apartment is supposed to be a handicapped suite and yet the door is so large that I'm not able to get in with groceries without using my entire body to prop it open. It is large, I'll grant you that but the counters are too low, not low enough to be wheel chair accessible but low enough to be hard on my back. The cupboards are absurd. The top ones are so high I have to stand on tiptoes too reach anything and I'm 6" tall. There is a walk in closet bigger than a bachelor suite in Hong Kong. The carpets are brown and made of a fabric that is impossible to vacuum. The last time I tried I almost burned out my vacuum cleaner. I do have a patio which had an absolute northern exposure. It is below road level and used to have a hedge that rose six feet above that. Now they have put up a black wrought iron reminiscent of an insane asylum. I guess someone was just misguided. But if I were not on a small pension and if there was any other available subsidized housing I'd gladly take it.

edgar martinez should go to The Hall of Fame however..

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:58:00 +0000

I need to weigh in on baseballs designated hitter rule. On the plus side it allows us to see the great hitters play past their prime on the other side it ruins the cerebral side of the game. I have to go with the National League, for what it's worth.

ah, shucks!

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:51:00 +0000

I have always thought I was an outgoing guy but it just ain’t true. When I was in the hospital I came into contact with a girl who I was sure was the one, that the spheres had aligned just right, that we were soul mates. After I got out I went back to see her and I felt like a school boy. She promised she would call and I got bent out of shape when she didn't, but now I'm glad she didn't because I wouldn't have known what to say. It is never a good idea to reconnect with anybody when you are both out of the hospital. As usual, be careful what you wish for.

Now there is a gal living across the street. I see her a lot because she does the landscaping on the property. She is very attractive and has a winning smile but I am even too shy to introduce myself and ask her if I can pick her up a coffee are Starbucks. Sometimes I wish I was still deluded.

making movies...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:47:00 +0000

I tIn 2000 I was the resident at a Boarding Home for low functioning mental health consumers and my mood was at an all time low. I was rescued by the Executive Director of a non-profit umbella organization set up to deal with indivuals battling mental illness in the area. One of their programs was called "the Club House" a program to get consumers back into the community and give them job skills. She suggested I join the Newsletter Group, one of the units and I wouldn't be sitting here writing this post or sitting here at all she also found this aparment her. My writing was prolific but I felt less than mediocre, which was a reflection of my mood, but actuallly most of it stands up quite nicely. Here is my favourite,hought I was making movies. This was a delusion I laboured under while I walked the streets alone for what seemed like days on end.
I almost never sought out locations or checked what productions were in town, and never tried to contact anybody remotely involved with the industry, yet I was convinced I played an integral part in the process.
My definition of what went into the making of a movie went far beyond the conventional ones. During one of my rambles the tone of voice I used to buy a pack of penny matches in a convenience store might have a major impact on a picture being shot across town or even one in pre-production thousands of miles away, or at least so I felt at the time.
There is some truth to the notion that movies have a profound effect on everyday behavior and that the converse is also true. If one applies chaos theory then the accumulation of many supposedly unrelated social interactions could have an effect on the way a movie is made. But my delusion, grandiose as it was, made me see myself as pivotal to the process, a kind of one man focus group being monitored by God knows who.
There seemed to be a whole lot more people involved with a production than I had ever realized. Those mentioned in the credits were only the tip of the iceberg. Most received no acknow- ledgement or remuneration. Like me they were only in it for the pure satisfaction of taking part in a creative process, and yet we seemed every bit as important as those listed up on the silver screen.
It seems like such an odd process now, especially odd in that I had almost no contact with anybody. I walked the streets stopping whenever I could afford it for a cup of coffee. Buying matches would seem like a major encounter and yet I felt I was making a big contribution. Every action was important: my gait, the way I held a cigarette, the expression on my face when I made eye contact with someone who may have been in on the pro- cess.
I have come up with a rule. When I am high the amount I find myself marginalized is inversely proportional to how I feel about myself. The less involved I am with the world around me the better I feel and the more grandiose I become.
Never did I get any actual affirmation or confirmation from any one that what I was doing was important. Nowhere did I read or find out through any other media or hear from anybody else about this peculiar process, and yet I knew that I (and others like me) played a key role in the making of movies.
These others were virtually indistinguishable from anybody else. All I can say is I knew who they were and they knew me. It was a conspiracy sealed in silence.
This was the way I justified my existence. Making movies was not my only delusion, but it gave purpose to my wanderings. I was a focal point in the process.
To develop a movie analogy it was as if a close up was being taken of me and then the camera panned away into a crane shot rising higher and higher, finally taking in the whole city and beyond. As this imaginary camera pulled away one could see the effect my actions had on everyone around me. At critical points along the way those in on the process, by their actions, molded this chain reaction in such a way as to influence the real movers and shakers. To keep the analogy going the majority of people were unknowing extras, but in my addled mind there must have been many unsung "movie makers" like me in the chain.
Early on in my illness while I lived in Victoria I came in contact with an actual movie production. Bruce Dern was making a Western set at the turn of the twentieth century and for part of it they used a couple of city blocks downtown. I only saw a couple of scenes being shot. I was so high at this point I could not sit or stand still for more than a few minutes, and the "hurry up and wait" approach common to all moviemaking precluded me from taking in much of the action. Also at this point, for all my grandiosity, I was shy and avoided crowds choosing to skulk around downtown late at night or in the early morning.
There was activity at the shoot twenty-four hours a day, what with electricians, lighting people, carpenters and wranglers to handle the animals that were tied up on the street. It was during the off hours that I developed the sense of fraternity that stayed with me as long as the delusion persisted. I barely said a word to anybody involved and then nothing more than "hello" or "how are you?" and could hardly make eye contact, but I knew I was playing as big a part as they were in making that movie, or to be more exact, a bigger role.
This seems absurd now. Other than watching a few street scenes being filmed and reading a couple of paragraphs about it in the paper I know nothing about the movie. I have never seen it and am not even sure it made it to theatres, and yet at the time I thought the production revolved around me.
This was early on in my illness. Before coming to Victoria on a psychotic whim, I had spent a year and a half in virtual isolation desperately depressed. I did not seek out help until what seemed the bitter end. The stigma of mental illness kept me away from professional help, and when I finally sought out a psychiatrist I was put on antidepressants. These, as often happens with someone with an affective disorder, worked too well and I was thrust into my first hyper-manic episode and along with it a nascent thought disorder became manifest.
I still lived in virtual isolation but now rather than being hopeless the world was suddenly my oyster and from almost total obscurity I was now a very important person. This is how I came to be making a movie in Victoria.
The rule about marginalization and grandiosity was never more in play. Externally not much had changed. While depressed, about all I did was walk the street avoiding any contact with friend or stranger. When I first got high the same was true. Internally things were turned on their head but at both ends there was no human contact – no real contact with reality.
What was involved was a bizarre form of "method acting". My walks were a grand performance finely nuanced for the benefit of my fellow participants and in the end for the actors and contributors to the actual movie. It is next to impossible to rationally explain my "motivation" or how the choices that resulted from it had an impact on the making of an actual movie except to say in my deluded state, what I was doing seemed to involve a lot of craft.
It now seems incredible how far I stumbled off sanity’s beaten path. How the way I held a cigarette could be so important, or even how I came up with the appropriate way to perform these seemingly mundane actions.
Obviously I was not well then and to talk about it is a bit embarrassing. I have been rid of the delusion for over twelve years and yet this is the first time I have spoken f it, but in a way I have no regrets. During a time when I had no money or friends and the only way I had to amuse myself was to walk, moviemaking was a pleasant diversion. It kept me amused, and is that such a bad thing?
I am eternally grateful that I have cast off the shackles of madness and am now grounded enough to get on with a productive life. By looking at this delusion almost affectionately I do not want to help promulgate the myth that madness is some how noble. This one was benign, but most delusions are destructive and engender isolation, fear, distrust, and pain. This was most certainly true of most of mine. But I have to say it was fun to be "making movies" for awhile, at least in my mind.

it don't mean a thing is iit don't have that twang...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:51:00 +0000

Country music was the last bastion of the tried and true way of writing writing aongs. The song writer comes up with a lyric or an idea and archetypically writes something on the back of an envelope or napkn and then he and his partner craft a song. The problem is that an artist who is created by hype takes it for granted that he is a song writer and feels he can pass the middle man, when his position in the lime light is all hype. How can a guy with a great head for a cowboy hat write songs that even hold a candle to the writers in Nashville's equivalent of the Brill Building?

what a bitch!

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:23:00 +0000

On the Dike across the street from my apartment there is an asphalt psth way and there are many people walking their dogs. Now I can't have a pet and if I did it would be a cat but I am on a first name basis with a rottweiler bitch. She doesn't do much walking but sleeps on the couch and barks at any dog that walks on what she considers her section of a different dike in front of a friend's house. I would love to take her out here. She would eat the first small dog she saw.

world of warcraft...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:01:00 +0000

In this miserable excuse of suburb, the kids are the only bright light. There is a high school nearby and a skate board park across the bridge. It's been a long time since I was one of them but earlier this year I got to play a PC computer game called World of Warcraft and it was incredible. I can see why kids are mesmerized in front of their computer screens. It is a fantasy game and yet I was right there. All I left to remind me are screenshots like the one shown here. It was an utterly amazing experience and I recommend it for those who have lost touch with what it was like to be a kid.

trust your instincts. You might be surpised...

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:44:00 +0000

I have mentioned before there was psyciatrist who taught me anxiety management techniques. One of them was meditation. He was Chinese and said that in Chinese all the word means is sitting still. Sound simple, just try it for two minutes He also taught me something else too, a technique to control impulse control or manic multi-taskings. All you do is chose something to do quickly without even thinking of possible repucusions and then do it. You would think this is impulsive for and what may usually result will prove counter productive. Well that doesn't matter and as you learn to trust yourself most of your choices will prove to sound. There will be no need to spin your wheels,. The only ground rule is you must work on the task for an allotted period and not stop unless the house catches on fire

say you want a revolution, not!

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:36:00 +0000

According to Wikipedia "Madison Deniro wrote a small biographical piece on Little Walter stating that "He was the first musician of any kind to purposely use electronic distortion."[6]" So much for the tale that John Lennon invented feed back by leaning his instrument against an amplifier.

got a mind to give up living believe i'll go shopping instead. twelve bar blues

noreply@blogger.com (Terry Boal) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:09:00 +0000

Who says there 'aint no American "sonnets". I just listened to 3 Blues songs by my favourite harp player, Little Walter. Two were 2 minutes forty-four seconds ong and the other was 2 minutes forty-one seconds. How's that for timing. Bob Dylan ruined everything.