No matter your beliefs… I like you… I’m for you. Together… we can lift each other up. We’re not meant to live this life alone.
Work on trying to let someone in… even if it’s just one.
Ain’t no life outside each other.
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I have two excellent songs for you today
🎵 No Man Is an Island 2o14 🎵 I Have This Hope 2o16
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Be blessed… and don’t forget.
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Hebrews 10:24–25 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another
Hey yall… hope life’s treating ya good. The weekend is upon us and I’m so ready.
As I’m putting this Hank post together, I’m listening to my Lorde and Adele playlist on Amazon Music… and it just occurred to me how crazy that is. drastic difference. 😂 I’m a huge fan of both ladies. Especially Lorde. In fact, I’m planning on covering a few of their songs soon from the Bathroom Studio. 😎
But I don’t wanna get off track here…
Let’s get back to Bocephus.
Here’s two great ones you may not have heard before.
🎶 I Just Ain’t Been Able — from Family Tradition 1979
🎶 Woman on the Run — from Man of Steel 1983
I also added a really cool video of Hank on Letterman from the early ’80s… check it out.
For the past few months, I’ve been doing late-night recordings of songs in my bathroom because the acoustics are good. No fancy recording equipment—just my phone, the Lexis Audio Editor app, my guitar, and me. This one is a cover of You Love Me Anyway by Sidewalk Prophets.
Back around 2oO4, my baby sister met this guy. He was a punk rock skateboarder dude, not my sister’s normal type. His name was Tony. We became good friends. He hung out with guys in bands. On the weekends I would jam with them all. Tony turned me onto this next band, Mike Ness and the boys, aka Social Distortion, or Social D as their fans call them.
I had heard of them. I was familiar with two of their songs and I liked them, but I had no idea the depth of their music, and little did I know they would become my favorite.
Mike Ness is special. He founded the band in 1978 in Fullerton, California, Orange County, just outside of LA. Their early stuff was just raw rebellious punk rock, but they evolved into something unique. They are a mix of punk, country, rock, and blues, almost like a rockabilly type sound, very melodic but gritty. Mike writes great songs, lyrically and musically.
They are still going strong today, just put out a new record. They are true to themselves, the music, the fans. Mike and the boys are all heart. This is what I love about them. I think it’s why I connect like I do.
I have been deeply influenced by them. Tony died in a motorcycle accident a few years after I met him. I’m reminded of him often as I strum and sing their songs.
Here’s two good ones to start you off…
Reach for the Sky — 2oO4, Sex, Love and Rock ’n’ Roll 🎶
What’s a fear you’ve overcome — and how did you do it?
This is my first ever blog… ¡ started it back in November of last year… one reason was to help make it easier for me when ¡ get ready to write my first ever book… about my life…
¡ know fear
It knows me
¡ve been at war with it since the 90s
And newsflash
¡m winning
¡ always knew ¡ would
¡ do not give up
And ¡ do not give in
There’s been many dim lit days… dark nights… where it appeared though it had me.
But fear’s power is one that is borrowed
Borrowed from me
So ¡ve learned not to fuel it
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All ¡ know… is what it did take to make this
All ¡ am… is what it will take… to break this
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On a lighter note
Let’s talk about something a little more relatable
Spiders.
Big effin’ huge ones.
So ¡ve always been scared of them in the past… like fearful…
And I’m an outdoorsman haha
¡m not scared of much
Like snakes for example
Even poisonous ones ¡ will catch and hold carefully…
They don’t bother me at all
But spiders had my number
Until the summer of 2o1O
That’s when ¡ finally dealt with it
¡ was living and working at a Christian men’s drug rehab in Florida
It was a long-term treatment program
The guys lived there for 18 months
¡ was the resident director and lived in the same house with them
Well… the pastor that ran it wanted me to have my own place separate from everyone
So he purchased a used fifth-wheel camper trailer and we set it up out back on the ten-acre property
Hold up…
Let me back up a lil
The property had a lot of spiders
Florida has a lot of spiders lol
We would find them in the men’s residence all the time
Come to find out… they are called Huntsman spiders
And they are enormous and intimidating… most as big as your hand.
Ok… back to the story…
The camper had some type of hole somewhere underneath the frame
And shortly after ¡ moved in
So did all my long-legged, hairy little roommates
They would crawl on me while ¡ was sleeping
¡d wake up and they would be on… the ceiling… the walls… the floor… just all over
¡ went to put my bedroom shoes on once…
And a big one was in there
¡ could feel it on my bare toes
It was frantically moving around trying to get out haha
So like lightning… ¡ pulled my foot out and out it came… then it ran up my leg
These types of things happened often with my new friends
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¡ didn’t think ¡ could stay
Live here like this
In this place… with them. 😬
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We searched and searched trying to find how they were getting in
But we never found it
As the days passed
¡ had more encounters
Daily…
Nightly…
Then it occurred to me
¡ had never once been bitten by one
So ¡ did much praying
Asking God to help me get over this fear
And He did
Little by little
¡ got to where it didn’t bother me
¡ even stopped trying to kill them
¡ got to where ¡ could lay in bed at night and read
Even if one was resting on the wall beside me
Sometimes there might be three or four in plain sight in the room at the same time
And it didn’t faze me anymore
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¡ stayed in that camper for about a year
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Never once got bit
Not one time
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There was nothing to fear… ever.
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only something to face.
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This is a Huntsman Spider I was told… not a Wolf Spider as me and my friends are calling it in this video…
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For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. — 2 Timothy 1:7
Yall should check out my friend Tracie’s blog sometime.
One of the coolest things she does is her Tuesday album reviews. Just recommend an album you enjoy, and she’ll give it a listen and share her thoughts.
And don’t worry about the type of music or genre… or anything else. If it’s an album you love, send it her way. You might even introduce her (and the rest of us) to a hidden gem. 🎶😎
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇
Tuesdays are for Tunes We have broken out of the genre mold today, Gang. And I am here for it. I hope you will be too. It might not be your type of music, but that is the whole point of Tuesdays are for Tunes. To break out of our normal and maybe check out […]
Write the stuff that makes em think you’re the coolness… and sometimes… tell them that they are the coolness too… because truly they are… and truly do both… and truly care about the stuff that truly matters and truly forget the rest… and truly be repetitive with it. Heart Grammar.
So I’m starting a new band this week for my Sunday music post…
Tenth Avenue North started in the early 2oO0s when a group of students met at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida. Lead singer Mike Donehey, drummer Jason Jamison, and their friends needed a name for a local show and couldn’t agree on one. They ended up using the name of the street where some of them lived… 10th Avenue North. The name was supposed to be temporary—but it stuck.
Before signing a record deal, they spent years playing churches, colleges, and small venues while releasing independent projects. Their breakthrough came with their major-label debut album Over and Underneath (2oO8), which included songs like Love Is Here and By Your Side.
They announced a farewell in 2o2O, but later reunited after a multi-year hiatus and returned to recording and touring. From what I’m hearing, they’re still going strong today and back out on the road again.
I first heard them in 2oO8… and I remember thinking, “these guys are pretty dang good.”
Funny story though… I actually bought into a rumor back then. Someone told me this band started in his church in Sarasota, Florida, and that they were named after the street the church was on—10th Ave N. So I ran with that for a while 😄
There’s a little truth mixed in there—they are from Florida, and they are named after a street—but yeah… not Sarasota, and not that church. That’s how stories get twisted over time.
So what happened? How do things like that even start? 😄😁
But anyway… we’ll leave that there.
Let’s get into the music.
I hope y’all enjoy 🎶
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Bathroom Recording Of Worn
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Proverbs 3:5–6 (ESV)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart… and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways… acknowledge Him… and He will make straight your paths.
