GEN X: What music have you been listening to ?!

And so, folks wonder about me. Folks seem to wonder "why, oh why does he seem to sound a little angry"? Well, let's just put it this way. Not only did I have to put up with a mother who was schizophrenic while growing up, I was also occasionally bullied as a kid and teenager. I'm not sure why. I wasn't different from most folks as far as I could tell, other than being shy. I wasn't disfigured or prone to lisping. I wasn't usually picked on by groups---no, I had what were relatively normal friends, some of whom were even in the G.T.C. program.

However, when I became a Christian, I more fully looked the world squarely in the face and what I came to see didn't so much scare me as it did to hack me off ... and here's is what I came to see, something that I just wanted to take my tainted Ghost Rider self into, grab the little glowing red-eyed punk sitting in the dark shadowy doorway there, and have Van Helsing spank that punk with a wooden stake ...

Yeah, what I came to realize is that I get angry because I know ....*ahem***....'they' sit there, day in and night out in gargoyle fashion, mocking, in order to ...

And it is against their "Darkness" that I've felt the call to eternally resist ...

James 4:7

Jok said:

I think that it’s only due to your humble nature that you slightly altered your story, and didn’t finish it. I fixed it for you in the quote below, I’m sure that you really meant to say this;

Don’t mind me I’m on a sugar high right now and I’m bored. Oh and your girlfriend was also Elisabeth Shue so that was pretty impressive too lol

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OH boy! A story fit for print and a movie, too! Yeah, I guess to some extent you hit all of that on head, especially the part about my tangle with Cobra Kai. You got all of that right, because not only did I love The Karate Kid movie, but I knew from that point in life after having seen it, things just couldn't go wrong when ...


...well, you were right, Jok, except maybe for the part about having the girl friend in high school; and then there's the part where in all actuality I came in dead.........last..............on my 440 yard run in the track meet [which took place the same year this movie came out]. To tell the whole truth, I came in dead last on all of my runs in track. Talk about humiliation!

Jok said:

Well at least you were able to quickly check Olympic gold metalist, and NFL wide receiver off of your career choice list fairly early on lol.

Before we let the Karate Kid topic go I have to post the theme song, it’s so relaxing! It’s pretty short so sometimes I’ll put it on repeat.

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Oh yeah. I love that piece.

Since we're apparently segueing to softer listening songs that can ease the drab feelings of past defeats or of the pains from hard battles won, let's just take a moment to play something that reflects one reason why I enjoy fellow-shipping with other Christians. It's because it ...

There's something I've always wondered ever since I was an infant, and that one thing has been knowing ...


" If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
About a ghost from a wishing well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
You know that ghost is me
And I will never be set free
As long as I'm a ghost you can't see

If I could read your mind love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind the drugstore sells
When you reach the part where the heartaches
Come the hero would be me
Heroes often fail
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take ... ... ... ... "

Jok said:

Ok then we are going soft

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Oh, I don't think I'd ever say I'm "going soft," but there is definitely room for it in my musical tastes. Since you've presented a double-shot of a classic song, I'll do likewise. The following song is one of my favs, and in Christian ideology, one can never go wrong with looking for a ...


" I want to live
I want to give
I've been a miner
for a heart of gold
It's these expressions
I never give
That keep me searching
for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old
Keeps me searching
for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old

I've been to Hollywood
I've been to Redwood
I've crossed the ocean
for a heart of gold
I've been in my mind
it's such a fine line
That keeps me searching
for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old
Keeps me searching
for a heart of gold

And I'm getting old ... ... "

... it was 1986, and I had just been baptized, an act that marked my official entry into a 'new way' of looking at the world---a Christian Way.

It was also a time during which I began listening to music I would have never found if it hadn't been for the Christian book and music store I newly ran across. There, I had an initial success in discovering Kerry Livgren's second band, A.D. Unfortunately, even with that new outlet, I had a very, very difficult time finding music which I thought was the caliber of either A.D. or Stryper. At that Christian bookstore, the music section was a sad sight to behold: it offered 'sample' cassette tapes to play on several cheap, sometimes half broken, mono cassette players along with cheap headphones. During that summer, I must have plunked in dozens of tapes over several visits before I finally found even a shred of the kind of music I was looking for. It wasn't much, mind you, but it was just enough for me to breathe a breath of Christian inspiration ...

Anyway, I heard this song, a "power ballad" actually, one which seems to echo some classic Neil Sedaka from the 1960s and 70s... Let's just say it resonated with me. Or maybe it was just the reverb. I don't know ... all I do know is that I felt "spoken to."

" I don't want to see you cry
On someone else's shoulder
I don't want to see you hangin' on
To people and things that quickly fade
I made the moon my children
And I placed it in the sky
I held your hand when you were lonely
I put the sparkle in your eye

Who loves you children
Who loves you more and more
Who could love His children
More than Me ... ...

... ... Jesus is the Son of God
In this I won't deny
For God so loved the world
He sent His Son to die
He hung on the cross for His children
To set us free from sin
He gave us the life eternal
Just ask the Savior in
He hung on the cross for His children
To set us free from sin
He gave us the life eternal
Just ask the Savior in ... ... "

Ever have moments where you look around at society and feel like everything has the spiritual, social and ethical superficiality of a bunch of card-board cut-outs? Does it feel like every day is a grind in one way or another in our effort to somehow find success or get to the "top" of life, whatever that really is? If you do, then like me, you've at times found yourself feeling like you're being turned into a 2-dimensional person, fluttering around in and along the ...



" I dreamt I was a child
Holding a string
Into the sky
Climbing it till I finally reached the other side

A city of gold
A beautiful noise
A blanket of sound
Covering me
Pulling the sky into the ground

I get carried away
Please
Warm the blood inside my veins
I get carried away
Please
Warm the blood inside my veins

I stand on the air
Hovering high
Over the earth
I stare at the star as she is waiting to give birth

You are the voice
I can hear
And now I can see
I am a photograph of who I used to be ... ... "

If it wasn't for this little song jingling around in my noggin' as a youngster, who knows what kind of trouble I might of ended up getting into later in life. Who says a song can't or doesn't teach a person a little ethics and/or morality here or there?


" ... ... Open up the window
Let some air into this room
I think I'm almost choking from
The smell of stale perfume
And that cigarette you're smoking
'Bout to scare me half to death
Open up the window sucka
Let me catch my breath

Mama told me not to come
Mama told me not to come
That ain't the way to have fun, son
That ain't the way to have fun, son ... ... "

I don't know why, but when I heard Sade on the radio in the 1980s and early 1990s, with her beautiful fusion of jazz, pop and blues, I always felt a kind of mellowness and calm of ... "soul" ... wash over me, each and every time.

Since that time she has released the following song below. I not only like it, but I think it reflects much of how I've existentially wrestled with my own Christian faith over the past 30 years. In all of that, even with the pressures exerted by the world to 'let go' of faith, I can't help but remain a ... ....


For a little something extra, someone might enjoy the following brief blog article on Sade and Christianity.

FAQ :: Jesus & Sade for Good Friday

And so it was this past week I wasn't feeling at my peak spiritual self. I was kind of down in the dumps and then this song apparently was just released about a week ago. When I heard it, I thought ..... "no, just keep cutting through the Darkness with the Light of Christ !!!"

SO, FULL THROTTLE, UP!!!!! Yeah, baby! Here's another brand new one from one of my all-time favorite bands!

If I was a castaway on a desert island, dreaming of the moment that I could escape, you know one of the songs I'd be singing every day would be ...


" Every time when I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It went by, like dusk to dawn
Isn't that the way
Everybody's got the dues in life to pay

I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Half my life
Is books, written pages
Live and learn from fools and
From sages
You know it's true, oh
All the things come back to you

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away ... ... "

Jok said:

I would recommend not getting too comfortable with @2PhiloVoid ’s calm & friendly demeanor, for I have seen the stranger in himself!

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...and I, the stranger? I kind of feel like a dummy having to admit this, but I definitely have seen the "stranger" in myself, particularly through all of the seeming mundanity of life. However, the more concerning thing for me is that I've seen it in many other people as well. Seeing the stranger in other people is indeed a strange sight to see, especially when it happens during ...



" Well even the longest night won't last forever
But too many hopes and dreams won't see the light
And all of the plans I make won't come together

Something in the air
Maybe for the only time in my life
Something in the air
Turning me around and guiding me right

And it's a prime time, maybe the stars were right
I had a premonition, it's gonna be my turn tonight
Gonna be my turn tonight

Well even the brightest star won't shine forever
But all of the hands I play are working out right
And every move I make feels like a winner ... "

... Little did I know that in listening to her at the tender age of 6, I was listening to themes which would play out in my own life-script, even until I'd arrive ...

Jok said:

The name of that band sounded familiar and I just remembered to go look for their song that I like, it was this;

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Oh, yeah! That's another of one of my top 40 all-time favorite songs. Love it! It's so laced with political--almost biblical type--innuendo. All of which probably isn't too surprising if Alan Parson's took a cue from the Orwellian playbook, 1984. But then there's this other song that's also one of my all-time favs, and even though it was produced by what at the time was a "secular" rock band (and still is in many respects), the mere fact that at least 4 of the members were Christian at the time and contributed to its writing and production, it's pretty much a "Christian" product and say something that also seems to nod toward political--but really biblical--innuendo.