Archive for the 'OCD' Category

Thanks to Jeremy Camp for the “Bro Talk” in first class…

Published on 05/04/2012 in Going Somewhere, Music, OCD, Writing and iPad. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Mental barriers are at times the hardest ones to break. They represent core issues and situations that are formed of the strongest emotions. Why? Because they come from our brain and from our own belief that they are valid in some strange way. So we let them take root and grow. We watch them slowly overtake the highway of life progress. We let them tell us what NOT to do.

I let my barriers grow too freely. I don’t take the time to grab the pruning shears out of the shed and do any trimming. I typically let life go on and don’t mend to my hedges until it is too late and they are waaaayyyy out of control. The end result being a session of depression or angst about why things are the way they are.

Well fast forward to last week and I had what might be considered a slight epiphany. I was forced to look at things from a different perspective. I say forced because the person that was talking to me was one whom I could not doubt. They are living the life that they want to live and they are successful in that direction. The light that they shed on my situation really made me do some hard deep thinking. And I looked at things in a way that like my barriers, I chose to not address in the right way.

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Thank you to Mr. Jeremy Camp for the bro talk. You shed a light on my situation that you may not have even known you flicked on, but you did non-the-less. I have started to assess my situation in a new fashion. I have started to re-address my efforts (though small shifts) in a hope to turn my ship in the direction that *I* want to be going in. To express efforts in the projects and things that will serve *ME* and *MY* situation the best.

Thanks again Jeremy. Hope to talk to you, or hang, when I am in Nashville soon.

First Blog from the…IPAD.

Published on 01/21/2012 in Coffee Shop Confessions, OCD, Old Age, Writing and iPad. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

It is January 21st in the year 2012. This Saturday following Seattle’s WINTERBLAST 2012 is kind of an odd one. For the past 5 days the temperatures have been in the mid 20′s to the high 20′s. We have had too much snow for the area. NOT too much snow for me…but too much snow for the drooling masses.

Today though…is different. Today is stark in contrast to the days previous. It is partly cloudy…the temperature being 45* instead of 28*. The wind is blowing hard, very hard. The wind blows with such force that it causes wives to wake in the 4 o’clock hour to inform their husband that they are scared. The wind is what I am used to calling a “Chinook Wind”. It brings the warmth from the ocean and the smell of change.

Today is full of change. I am writing this little post in MY world from my IPAD. I am sloooowwwllly starting to embrace this little piece of technology and figure out how to use it in my daily life. I am so used to lugging around my 8.34lb laptop and all of its trappings for these kinds of purposes…but think I might get along well with this smaller, younger cousin. I am hoping that I will be able to bring just this gizmo with me on the road for my business travels. The battery life alone gives me hope that we will have a nice little relationship. Once I figure out the apps that will give me the best business use possible…it is on.

The first thing that I did pick up for this little gizmo though is a bluetooth keyboard/case from Brookstone. Pretty bomb.com little unit. It is allowing me to type much faster than I would ever be able to chicken peck on the flat screen. Though smaller in footprint, it is quite an imrovement.

May this be another part of the things that come…the changes that blow through our life day to day. Not too unlike the winds that blow this fine morning.

Things learned today…

Published on 01/18/2012 in OCD, Old Age and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Well here Sara and I are in our first winter in the new house. We are slowly learning about the quirks of our home and the things that happen here during the shifts of season.

I learned today that my shit is not nearly as soft as it used to be. As I was walking up the driveway this afternoon I took a fucking dive. Right square on my old man hip and elbow I fell. I am now tighter than a bolt in a square hole…

Next I learned that due to the incline of my driveway, coupled with a touch of slush…your car will slide out of the driveway! I took some groceries out of the back of the car and thought I heard someone coming up the cul-d-sac, turning I witnessed my car sliding out of the drive!!!

Luckily nothing was damaged, the car was in park, all is good. What this did though was remind me that things happen in a flash, and when we least expect them.

Be safe in this season of weather related chaos. Remember that taking your time, being wise, and patient may just pay dividends in the future.

I know I will be resting my bones these next few days…

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Thoughts of the now…

Published on 10/12/2011 in Lyrics, OCD, Old Age, Poetry and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I am here.
I have so much to write.
So many things to say that should be said.
Blank spaces translating my fears.
Fears drenched in saline from adolescent tears.

Try to see tomorrow…
Try to see tomorrow…

Looking down again.
Scribbled thoughts on paper.
A man conjuring demons of a boy long gone.
Passing through on memory lane.
Confusion the destination of this game.

Try to see tomorrow…
Try to see tomorrow…

Cry little boy.
Cry again tonight.
Freedom falls from your voice again.
Some things we never needed to hear.
Deaf walls of deceit disguising your true worth.

Try to see tomorrow…
Try to see tomorrow…
Never as far as might seem…
Never as far as might seem…

Just sitting here in a hotel room at 12:30am. Fingers lock like anchors on the ocean floor when I try to write the things that I want to convey. I do not know where this fear comes from. Is it my growing older? Is it my quest for perfection? Might it be the fear of being judged…

I do know that the past couple of weeks have been quite amazing. My band played an amazing set of shows in Yakima, WA (of which I must write about). Also my oldest son Diego turned 14. I look at him and his brother Cruz and am instantly taken back to a different place. That place of confusion…that place that is created when living in a broken home. That time of not knowing just what to say, or when to say it, or how to feel about it.

Thinking the words are simple. Stacking them on a ledge outside of your mind is the hardest part.

38th revolution…

Published on 01/19/2011 in Going Somewhere, History for Sale, Music, OCD, Old Age, Uncategorized and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Center aisle. Not the kind of aisle that you would expect to be performing in… or on…but the kind where you are contained within 2sqft whilst breathing recycled air, gagging on the salted 28grams of peanuts you were blessed with, and praying that you don’t catch DEATH from the coughing souls around you.

Thank you Delta Airlines. Thank you to my slight case of work induced adult ADD. For between the two of you battling for my time, I somehow forgot to check my seat reservation and realize that it did not get saved correctly. Full flights don’t forgive, and if we forget, well that is a calculation that equals a loss.

So while sitting in my dreaded middle seat I have plenty of time to ponder something. 38 spins around this thing we call life. See today, January 19th…I turn 38. Yes if you have read this far you might have come to the correct assumption that I am traveling on my birthday. Happy, happy, happy day to Mark!
I swear this has happened before…on spin number 35 or 36, who can remember anymore

2011 has started with a promise, like all years do, of potentially amazing things. Sara and I are trying to find a place to call our home. March 29th will finally see the release of my very first MUSIC release “Going Somewhere…?”. www.markyoungrocks.com will finally be my home to park my various music projects and releases on, which is something that I have lacked for many years now. HISTORY for SALE will be going into the famed STUDIO X on February 5th to start the recording of our second EP. All of these things will be happening before the completion of March…so as we start to rotate around spin 39…I am off to a good start.

The seat smells…the asses of so many leaving their mark, their stains before me.

Oh thank you for the present…

It’s my 38th birthday.

Cup of INSPIRATION…

Published on 11/16/2010 in OCD, Old Age, Photography and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .
The Hot Pot

"Write your own story..."

Today I introduce my new friend. I bought him last night with my wife Sara at Michaels Craft Store. He was only $1.00 and though he was stacked in a bin with many like him, this particular one spoke to me. Maybe it was the voices of the factory workers in China that make .015 cents per 100 cups? Maybe it was the fact that I have been feeling creatively taxed these past months? I do not know exactly why, but his little message spoke clearly to me: “Write your own story”. 

It is gentle little reminders like this one that continue us on our path. They nudge us along through these days of dark rise and dark fall. They help to keep our eyes somewhat focused on a horizon that we at times feel may never really approach. A horizontal line of color and life that we swear is out there, knowing so because we can see it, but still afraid to believe in because it seems so far out of reach.  

It took a little $1.00 mug to help put me back in sync with my mental GPS. Today I feel like I am slightly back on course. Maybe it is the cup of strong coffee that sits inside my new friend. Maybe it is just a case of mental diarrhea that needed to be purged. Regardless the job has been accomplished and I sit here typing for you.  

Writing my own story…

Sometimes I cry…

Published on 12/22/2008 in OCD, Old Age and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Sometimes I cry…I do not know why, but they fall. The tears of pain, frustration, age, disappointment…they well and form much like the tides. They shift, swell, and eventually fall down. Like condensation they sometimes stay inside and trickle from within. Never showing their gleam they still cascade through the cracks and make statements that I don’t need to hear.

Tonight I am fighting the tides. I am fighting the very emotions that I sense forming in the corner of my mind. I wish I had more time, I wish I had more resources to help convey the things I want to do to this world. My only wish is that I don’t run out of time…time, this seems to be such a fundamental theme for me as of late…the running out of time.

I am 36 in one month.
I am missing my boys grow.
I am loosing who I am in my battles.
I am losing the battle of time.

If the sky were to open right now, if my mind were clear and could beam from inside…what would be projected upon the night…? Would I shine bright and white with dramatic presence? Or, would I cast the redness of conflict and battle…the war that I at times feel raging within?

I do know that my treaty, my armistice in my never ending battle is by my side. She is right now the one that I look forward to seeing every day. My battle of time has one stable factor and that is her…She through methods she does not even know of helps me to find a balance. A balance of what is now and what can be. For this I hope that I never have to go through time without her.

I try to do so much, too much at times…It is my effort to battle the demons of time. I think that if I stuff, gorge, and fill all the little gaps in my days that I might be able to twist some back out of the daily grind…The unfortunate thing to this little theory of mine is that instead of saving, creating, or slowing time, I kill it. I kill the creative momentum needed to accomplish the task that would have made me feel so good. A second and equally unfortunate side effect of this habit is that I end up spending more time on those things than on the people I care about. I battle for the blue team instead of the green team. The green team is the one that is wanting to make me a general…

I am loosing the battle.

I am trying to gain ground.

I just need some time.

So many things on the schedule…

Published on 08/07/2008 in OCD, Old Age and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

So much activity so little time…Is this what life is about?  Like a can of sardines we lay side by side packing day after day of activities into the tightest of spaces.  I feel cramped.  My mind feels wrought with peril as I try and collate the items into a sensible order.

Is this what it means to go insane?  Is this what it means to go crazy…?  I think, I worry, I feel, I carry on.  There are times I scream mental cries…aching sounds that ring from ear to ear only echoing on the space that is called brain matter.  The screams fall then upon my deaf ears, falling to the ground…waiting for the next.

There are times when clarity comes…the moments of awareness that are not normal.  They strike the day with such an obtuse angle that the sting bites like a serpent.  All at once and with a vengeance I know that things are ok, for now.  I do wish there were more times like these…times when things were clear in my foresight and not cloudy like the evenings in late July.

These times humble me…they make me realize that all the things I fret, worry, and obsess about are not really all that paramount.  They make me look around, breathe deep, and be happy that I am who I am…that as long as I can take those deep breaths that I am a lucky man.

Lucky I am…he tells himself as another draws deep and visions flash so fast.

The ride continues…

Frustration and the frightening…

Published on 06/08/2008 in Going Somewhere, Music, OCD, Recording and Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

IT resonates…..

Like a marching army through my mind, the sounds of “what now” sing again in efforts to collapse the walls of stability that I have fought so hard to build. This DRONING is not of the C3PO kind…but a more merciless foe. It is something that is un-tangible, can not be classified, and is more than likely the sum of all parts.

At times I don’t think that the hum has ever left…I feel that it just gets pushed to the back of the mix. Lately though, someone must have twisted the pot switch and added some high freq. because I hear it. Maybe it is my hearing aids feeding back…I am not sure. But it is there.

This hobby of mine, this music thing, seems to have become an amplifier of sorts. Harnessing the sounds into a strong focal beam that I swear to god is etching a hole in my brain…It is a lonely road this thing. Being all alone in this journey of ideas, of thoughts, of emotions, and trying to convey them in a clear enough portrait is frightening. There are so many finite details that have to be considered that OCD easily creates ADD, and the next thing you know you are all over the map with no resolution to the task at hand.

Cover art, bass, scheduling recording time, Press Releases, Mechanical Licensing agreements for cover songs…All things that occupy my brain. Doing the dishes, folding laundry, mowing the lawn…all tumble to the wayside in my mental priority list. Hummmmmmm see there it is right there…

This month (June already) should find BASS being tracked in the following weeks. Then it will be mix time…Hummmmmmm. A trip to Florida and then possibly North Carolina will fall somewhere in this month as well…Hummmmmmmmm…

There are so many amazing people I have met on this musical journey, so many talented people that do nothing with said talents. They crush my abilities with no effort…yet they have gone no-where. While I am at work, working my real job, I listen to their myspace pages and contemplate how amazing it is that they have done nothing with their talents…Yes it is about the art form to me…Yes it is about having people listen to my sounds…But still, I hear their works and think “…my God…where do I fit in…?”

Thankfully my loving girlfriend listens to my ramblings as best as she can. She is the only one that I have that at least attempts to listen to my mental Hummmmmmm. I use her as my soundboard and my unofficial assistant.

So I sit and wonder, with wobbling mind I ask myself…Why am I doing this? What is the goal again? Will people even like what they hear…?