When I was a teenager, playing and singing, I would go for hours and hours alone in my room. I was passionate about it, and it brought me so much joy, peace, and healing.
Then I got older, and drugs and alcohol entered the picture. And people. Things changed.
Then, I kind of forgot about secular music for a while and had my Christian music ministry. Toward the end of that, I just felt burned out and dealing with these ongoing heavy things, it made me lose the fire.
So I quit playing for a handful of years and wasn’t sure I’d ever play again.
Well, I started playing again this year, as some of you know, and it’s just been amazing for me.
I feel like that kid again.
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Here’s 2 songs that are the epitome of great hidden B-side gems. I just recorded these tonight, a few hours ago.
The summer of 2oO6, not long after I got back from the crossroads, I left Atlanta with the clothes on my back and moved out to Dallas Texas, to live with a friend and start a new life.
I took a job driving 18 wheelers with FedEx Ground, and I ended up training new drivers fresh out of CDL school with zero experience. It was my first time teaching this stuff, and it was actually really rewarding. I have a lot of great stories I could tell you from those days, but I’ll save them for another time.
I want to tell you a different story about another type of truck.
Sometimes on my days off, I’d go down to this little Mexican food truck on the corner from my house. The food was incredible. I mean, it ranks right up there with some of the best Mexican food I’ve ever had.
And the lady who owned the truck and cooked all the food was super beautiful.
I mean drop dead beautiful.
I remember thinking I’d never had anyone more beautiful take my order. I don’t even think I’d ever seen anyone more beautiful before. Maybe I had, but I’d have to really sit down and think about it.
One day I ordered a burrito and sat down at one of the little tables she had set up for her customers.
I got about three bites in when I felt something strange in my mouth.
I stopped chewing.
I was like, WTH?
I reached into my mouth with two fingers and pulled out a long black hair.
And I mean super long.
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Part of it came out of my mouth, but the rest was still inside the burrito.
So I pulled.
And pulled.
And pulled.
Finally, the whole thing came out.
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Wow.
I just sat there completely blown away.
I couldn’t believe it.
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I’m so lucky.
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So obviously I went back the next day and ordered another burrito, hoping for another hair.
I share some of my blog posts on my other platforms and with people I’m connected to in ministry. I’ve had quite a few people ask me about what happened to me with the crossroads thing, so I decided to share the story in an audio recording.
I also added 2 songs I just recorded, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “Love Song.” I hope yall enjoy them, and thank you for your continued support.
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My Crossroads StoryWill The Circle Be Unbroken Love Song
If you could relive one day from your past, which day would it be and why?
I don’t even have to think about it. I never would have gone down to the crossroads.
Let me tell you this. It’s not some old, crazy myth or legend, although it sounds like one. It’s the straight-up truth, and for the past 20 years, my life has been the stuff of movies because of that one unforgettable, unbelievably stupid thing I did.
It’s also the main reason I blog today. I wanted a place to gather the stories from my life, so that in a few years, when I’m ready to write my memoir, it will be easier to paint the picture.
Oh, how I wish I could go back to that night. I would have kept my mouth shut and just gone to sleep.
The past few days, I’ve woke up with this song on my lips, along with some drool because I’ve been sleeping like a sedated arctic fox lately.
Take It Back by Sister Hazel.
I’m a huge fan, and I do most of the ones from them, but I’ve never tried this one. So late last night, I messed around with it, and as I got into it, I realized the words reminded me of a past relationship.
The only time I ever said “I do.”
But what I meant to say was… Wait, wait, hold up! I mean, no, no, I don’t!
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Practissimos – Take It Back – SH
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Sometimes when I’m attempting one for the first time, I’ll slow it down. For instance, with this one, as I began, I decided at the last minute to do it in a different key. Also, I’m not doing it the same as Sister Hazel. For the most part, I kept the same progression, but I changed it up some in the moment as I felt.
The other night my girlfriend and I were having a conversation about old sayings that have been around for hundreds of years or so, and it made me think of one that I actually use.
“Red touch yellow, kill a fellow. Red touch black, friend of Jack.”
This is an adage that some in the U.S. use, especially in Florida. It’s one way you can tell the difference between a harmless Scarlet King Snake and America’s cobra, the deadly Coral Snake.
I’ve always loved snakes. Growing up as an outdoorsy kid in Georgia and living in Florida for many years, I’ve had many encounters, mainly because I went looking for them lol.
As a boy and young teen, my friends and I would spend countless hours in the woods looking for snakes. If anyone in my neighborhood had a snake issue, they would call me. Venomous or not, it didn’t matter. I would take care of it.
I’ve been bitten many times by harmless ones, and I’ve had some close calls handling dangerous ones. One memory I can still see clear as day in my mind.
I was around 10 years old. My friends and I had been back in the woods fishing this particular creek, and there was like a little swampy area with a trickle of a waterfall about 10 feet high. So I started climbing up it.
There was this one small ledge. As I pulled my head up over it, I came face to face with one of the largest Water Moccasins I’ve ever seen, aka the Cottonmouth. Its head was about the size of a tennis ball, and it was all coiled up, just inches from my nose.
We were staring at each other there for a second, both of us surprised. Lucky for me, it was just relaxing and sunning itself.
I slowly lowered myself back below the ledge, and that was it. End of story.
Later in the evening, after talking with my girlfriend, I still had snakes on my mind, so I decided to go on Wikipedia and read about all the documented snakebite deaths in American history. It was just fascinating.
So many people were bitten while in church and later died. How effin crazy is that? Snakes in church is a whole nother subject for another time.
One story was especially sad. The pastor of this one church was letting his young pregnant wife handle a rattlesnake, I believe it was, and she was bitten. Both she and the baby died, and he had charges brought against him.
Another story was from the 1970s. A woman in Florida was driving one evening and had to pee, so she pulled over on the side of the road and went behind some bushes. She didn’t even know she had been bitten. She thought it was a thorn bush that poked her in the butt.
She was dead the next morning.
It wasn’t a thorn. It was rattlesnake fangs.
Many of the stories are interesting. I’ll post the Wikipedia link below in case anyone wants to check it out.
So let’s get back to the Coral Snake. It’s different from America’s other deadly snakes. Its venom is a neurotoxin, which means it targets the nervous system instead of destroying tissue. There may not be much pain or swelling, but it will totally shut you down and paralyze the diaphragm. The cause of death is respiratory failure. Without proper treatment, you don’t stand much of a chance.
Coral Snakes are Elapids, the same family as cobras, mambas, kraits, sea snakes, and like the brown snake and others found in Australia.
We have 3 species of Coral Snakes here in the U.S. The Eastern Coral, Texas Coral, and Sonoran or Arizona Coral.
I’ve handled some of the Eastern ones from my years living in Florida. From my experience with them, they have been pretty chill for the most part, but not always. I have seen them bite.
At times I would hold them freely without securing the head if I felt that particular one was calm enough. Don’t ever do this yourself. It’s best to not even handle them.
Here’s 2 lil quick stories.
One evening I was sitting out on my enclosed back patio and one slithered close to my feet. I ended up handling that one freely and took it to the woods on the edge of my backyard and released it.
Another time, I was standing in my backyard one morning having coffee and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a fairly large one. I didn’t hold him loosely because he tried to open his mouth and bite a few times, and he showed me his 2 tiny needle teeth.
Elapids have different fangs from vipers or rear fanged snakes. They don’t fold back. They are just lil short, sharp, fixed, hollow needles.
I have so many stories I could tell you regarding my snake encounters, maybe some other time. I’m tired of writing now, and I want to go get some caffeine.
But yeah, snakes are so cool to me. Heck, ya know what? All living creatures are cool. And it’s funny how this story slithered into my mind from a conversation with someone who is the coolest of cool, my favorite living creature, my amazing girlfriend. ❤️🔥🐍❤️🔥
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Cool Snake Pics
A harmless Scarlet King SnakeEastern CoralBaby EasternTexas Coral, I think or maybe EasternSonoran or Arizona CoralFlorida Cottonmouth
I try and practice playing guitar every couple of days. Many times I’m trying to remember songs and solos I haven’t played in 20 to 30 years. I also like learning new songs every week or two.
I have a few recording apps I use and I’m still figuring them out, so a lot of times I’ll record my practice sessions so that I can go back later and tinker with all the settings on the apps and try and perfect the sound quality.
So here’s a lil behind the scenes in the bathroom. This is me practicing the Meat Puppets song “Lake of Fire.” You may remember Kurt Cobain performing it on the Nirvana MTV Unplugged album. Kurt was infatuated with the Meat Puppets. I’m a huge fan of theirs also. One of my favorite records to this day is Too High to Die.
This song led me down a rabbit trail and I ended up doing many of their songs and Nirvana too.
My first memories as a child are of sitting beside my great grandmother as she played the piano and sang Christian songs. I’ve been singing ever since.
But I never planned on being a musician. It was more like it chose me and I could take my heart there.
It’s such a great thing to have people to talk to. Friends. Family. A counselor. A therapist. Your pastor. Someone. Anyone.
I didn’t have any of that as a young Gen X teenager.
I just had a dead best friend and God and Guitar.
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Blues ManShooting Star
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I’m just a singer, a natural-born guitar ringer Kind of a clinger to sad old songs I’m not a walk-behinder, I’m a new note finder But my name’s a reminder of a blues man that’s already gone
My dad once told me a story years ago about a strange man who approached him in a truck stop parking lot.
He said he was getting out of his truck and suddenly there was a man right there in front of him. He thought the guy was about to rob him, but instead, he gets right up in my dad’s face and says, “You’re going to see a miracle in your family.”
Then the guy turns and walks away.
My dad said that he looked away for a second and then looked back up, and the guy was gone. Just disappeared.
My dad thinks it was an angel, and he thinks the miracle is meant for me.
