Turn It Up!

So, we are at home watching the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Heart is being inducted which seems more than appropriate and long overdue (I always had a girl crush on Nancy Wilson). Ann and Nancy Wilson, the rocking sister team of Heart are now 63 and 59 respectively. When they went to perform you brace yourself because, hey, not everyone continues to hit the same notes with the same clarity as they did in their twenties.

Boy, was I blown away.

Not only is Nancy still shredding the guitar with goddess-like aggression, Ann’s voice remains perfect, unhindered by time and if she struggled to hit those notes in “Barracuda” her face didn’t show it.

What is my point besides ranting on about Heart? It’s bigger than that.

It’s about inspiration, and did I get a large dose after watching their flawless performance. Worth mentioning is also the fact they are mother’s who attend parent/teacher conferences AND doing the whole rock and roll thing.

Through my books and blogs and short stories, there is always an underlying, subtle theme about finding inspiration. From people, from art, music, love…it’s all good, and seeing artists get better with time are motivational miracles.

After all, miracles are shifts in perception. If we perceive ourselves as capable of greatness at twenty and eighty there is nothing we can’t achieve.

To quote Nancy at the induction ceremony, “We’re looking straight into the future, and we say, turn it up.”

Idealism or a Goal for Humanity?

I can't help it. When tragedies like Newtown and recently the Boston Marathon hit, I melt into a blubbering heap of emotion and anger. The idea of posting pleasantries on social media and NOT staying alert to the world and our fellow humans who suffer seems abhorrent. I cry, vent and (blog) until purged, but I must admit, I haven't really stopped mourning since Newtown.

This isn't going to be a political blog. We know what we must do as fellow citizens of planet Earth. I will warn against complacency, as it has not served us well in the past. We should collectively work on our ADS about how we start to resolve these senseless acts of terror we experience as a nation on a fairly regular basis - 9/11 would have been enough.

This time a comedian helped put things in perspective, one Patton Oswalt. You may have seen his quote about April 15 floating around the Internet. Here is the full context. It isn't long, but it is usually where I try to end up after these heart-wrenching events occur. Yes, I will continue to be mad as hell and tired as shit until things change, yet it isn't a bad thing to pull back our own hatred and realize most of us our good.

Boston. Fucking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem -- one human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in a while, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evildoers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."