A Stranger On A Bus

In February of 2011 my beloved Saturn (a gift of sobriety) died. I was crestfallen. I had loved that car. Every time I got in it I was reminded of the fact that my spiritual practice was more than a theory. I'll tell that story another time.

Anyway, suffice it to say, I loved that car. And it died. So I sold it for parts, sold a few other things, and scrounged up enough money to get another car.

I found a really cool Volvo, went to check it out, it seemed fine, and I bought it. As I drove away from the seller and got on the freeway, the car stalled. I rolled up the windows and realized the car smelled like fucking pot. Great. The last thing I as an alcoholic need is a stalled car that smells like a fucking blunt.

I immediately called the seller. No answer. Fuck. I just got screwed. I saw something glowing on the dash display and realized the bastard had put black tape across the bottom of it. When I pulled the black tape I discovered that the engine lights were all firing. Great. My fucking dash display is a fucking Christmas tree.

I lost my shit. I was going to kill the guy. I called and texted him a million times. I asked him to meet me face to face like a man so I could kick his fucking ass. He declined. Then he threatened to report me to his father who was a sheriff. What a fucking dick. I wanted to meet his father. I wanted to show his father what his fucking failure of a son had done. I wanted to beat the shit out of both of those mother fuckers.

Because I am not rich, it was going to take me a long time now to come up with the money for another car. There was no way I was going to sell this car. It smelled horrible and didn't run. Plus, it had been sold to me dishonorably. I had to figure out how to return it to honor. I then found out that the paperwork he gave me on the car was fraudulent. So I was now the proud owner of an illegal car that didn't run and smelled like Snoop's ass.

I eventually found out that the car was a non-op and the guy who sold it to me had fake ID and a fake address. There was nothing but a phone number that was probably a pay as you go phone.

I live in San Gabriel. I work in Burbank. What this now meant was that I was going to have to ride the bus to and from work. I work at night, from 5pm to 2am. The first bus home didn't show up until 4am. And it took 3 to 4 hours each way. So now I was forced to spend 8 to 10 hours on a fucking bus.

I was so fucking pissed off for the first month. I was out of my mind. I literally wanted to kill this guy with 4 years sober. How had I ended up here? I used to be rich. I had no debt, a promising career in banking... you know, a real fucking life. Stocks, bonds, property, FUCK.

And here I was in the dark hours of the morning on a bus with a bunch of fucking losers plotting the murder of a guy I would probably never find.

Because I'm retarded, I have to look at everything around me, analyze it, understand it, and then hate it. So that's what I did with every passenger on the bus rides.

There was this one bitch in particular who was fucking happy. This stupid sub-literate knuckle dragging cave dweller would get on the bus with her damn coffee and her iPod, dancing to her seat and saying hello to every single person on the bus with a big warm smile. Then she'd sit down and just dance in her stupid seat to her stupid music until she had to get off the stupid bus to go to her stupid job.

It got to the point where I would relish the time between when I got on the bus until when she got on the bus. It was always super cold, and I was happy to be on the warm bus and not having to look at her stupid ass. But invariably, "The Dolt" would get on the bus and start pissing me off.

This went on well into April. Every night I had this horrible anger eating away at me. I couldn't really interact with anyone. On weekends I was so tired I would just stay in my room and sleep the whole damn time.

Then, something changed. In early April I got tired. Really tired. I was so tired that I would just sit in my seat on the bus and just vegetate like a defeated human. It was all I had left. I started thinking differently about the guy who had fucked me over. It occurred to me that he lived in a world where crime was normal. He couldn't trust anyone. If he thought it was okay to fuck people over like that, then he surely was living in a culture that perpetuated that mindset. Then I realized that I was completely removed from his world.

I live in a world of incredible people. All of my friends are better than me. They all have these amazing characters that I aspire to. They're all nice and shit. The guy who hooked me up with the Saturn is this guy named Jeremy. He basically offered to give the car to me, but instead I asked to pay him for it. But fuck, he offered me a free fucking car.

The dude who sold me the Volvo probably has no one like that in his life. I realized that eventually I'd get another car and be back to normal, but this guy might end up in jail or dead because of his lifestyle. He was really fucked up in the head. He lived in a world where he was totally alone. No trust. Nothing but looking over his shoulder in case someone he fucked over found him. Like me.

I don't know how this happened, but I started to feel badly for him. One night I sent him a text and told him I forgave him and that I felt bad for him. I told him that if he ever turned his life around, to not worry about finding me a repaying the debt. It was cool.

Once I let go of that anger, I started softening on the dumb chick on the bus. One night she looked at me and smiled and said "hello" and I just looked at her in complete bewilderment. But when she turned and sat down, I realized I was smiling at her.

Then I got this really weird premonition. Sometimes, something talks to me. It's very rare, but there's this thing that talks to me. I don't know if it's my spinal chord or something, but this thing that talks to me knows stuff I don't know and it knows stuff that hasn't happened yet.

This thing told me that I was put on the bus to learn humility because something big was coming and I was going to need to have a humility anchor to keep me grounded so I could enjoy the ride.

When that voice talks, I listen. So I started looking for the thing I was supposed to learn.

And I realized that the thing I was supposed to learn had been saying hello to me every day for almost two months. It was the dumb shit. It was right there. There wasn't a molecule of ambition in her face. She was perfectly happy getting on a bus at 5am to go to some fucked up job that didn't pay her enough money to afford a car. But she was fucking HAPPY. And she was spreading her happiness around. No matter where you put that chick, she was going to be having fun. Period. Amazing. The dire conditions I was "reduced" to by the misconduct of another didn't make me a fucking victim. If she was happy there, then I had to be happy there too. Otherwise, I'm just a fucking asshole like the dick who fucked me over.

When I realized this, I felt ashamed of myself. So ashamed.

I started looking forward to the ride home. I wanted to see my teacher's smile. I wanted to see what she was going to teach me tonight. What thoughts were going to occur to me because of her delicious lack of ambition?

Then I started listening to music. I used to love to stand outside in the middle of the night with my music blasting in my ears. I hadn't listened to music in years. I'd been so consumed with making the record that it ended up being the only music I listened to. Even when I was in the car, I was working on the record. But now, I was lost again in the night, lost in the beautiful music of the night turning into dawn.

And then, suddenly, something remarkable happened.

My manager called me and told me she thought she had found the right producer to mix our record. I met him, and he was indeed the perfect person to mix the record. We went into the studio and he mixed it and it turned out amazing.

A friend of mine bought a bmw and offered to sell me his Camry on a totally generous payment plan.

As the record was completed, my band got asked to open for my favorite recording artist of all time.

Then the record got mastered.

So in the month of May, 2011, the month I turned 5 years sober, the record was mixed and mastered, I had a great car, and my band opened for my musical hero. To date it is the best month of my entire fucking life.

I haven't forgotten about the woman on the bus. I still think that if my band takes off and we make a ton of money, that I'm going to get on that morning bus with a check for $50k and give it to her so she can go get a fucking Lexus or something.

The reason I'm writing this a year later is because my band got signed. As a result we needed to get a specific kind of master recording from the guy who mastered our album. I went to pick up the master cd from him today.

And motherfuckers, I realized that his studio where I picked up the cd is on the same street I used to ride the bus on. And his studio is exactly in the middle of the spot where I got on the bus and she got on the bus.

Let me say that again: exactly in the middle. Every night on that bus I was coasting from my stop to her stop and passing the mastering lab where my record would receive its final touches. How incredible is that?????

Was I supposed to get jacked by that criminal so I'd see that woman??? And did the mastering happen on that same street so I would have to connect the two?????

It's all so fucking weird, man. 

I look at this experience, and the message I got from the thing that talks to me, and the message of forgiveness I got to send to the guy who sold me to the car, and the incredible humility I feel as a result of the bus experience, and all the promise that is coming with the success of the band, and I'm hard pressed to believe there isn't some kind of divine order at work in my life.

There is some kind of something going on that talks to me all the time. I'd love to know what that fucking thing is.

Why I Hate People

Me: Good morning, may I have a venti iced decaf with room for half and half?
Starbucks Employee: I'm sorry sir, we don't have iced decaf.
Me: Do you have decaf?
Starbucks Employee: yes.
Me: Do you have ice?
Starbucks Employee: yes.
Me: Tell you what - let's throw them together in a venti cup and see what happens.

This just happened. The inability to draw upon the most basic forms of deductive reasoning seems to be a pervasive norm in today's world. I love what human beings are capable of (Science, Architecture, Literature, Music, Dance, Philosophy, Tilda Swinton). I hate what human beings are capable of (War, Greed, Sloth, Willful Ignorance, Starbucks Employees).

The reason I can't stand the latter category of human beings is simple: they force me to spend energy trying to find a way to love them. I'm willing to do it. After all, the alternative is harboring a resentment. And in my universe, resentments are assassins. So energy that could be better spent fantasizing about Japanese Triplets, a complex system of cables and pulleys, and a vat of jojoba oil gets squandered on the cosmically banal.

I figure I'll eventually outgrow this tendency to be such a judgmental prick once I finally realize that being frustrated with the cosmically banal is a waste of energy that could be better spent fantasizing about a foursome with me, Marion Cotillard, Olivia Wilde, and Kathy Bates.

Fuck. I guess I just made the realization.

You know, this self-examining/self-aware path I'm on is a real pain in the fucking ass. I don't get away with anything anymore. This sucks.

Fucking happiness.

Whatever.

A Stupid Old Man

"Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope." -F. Scott Fitzgerald

I have been sober now for nearly 6 years. The first few years of my sobriety were probably the hardest years of my life. I woke up every day believing it was a matter of time before the house of cards would come down in a terrific cascade of grand scale obliteration. I woke up with a feeling of terror every day. I couldn't shake it.

I knew I couldn't complete the process of recovery (the 12 steps of AA), and I knew it was my only hope. I knew the program academically as well as anyone can I suppose, I just couldn't do it. I lacked the courage and integrity requisite to complete the process. I would watch in awe as my fellow sober mates would go through the process, ascend to new heights, and begin leading full lives.

I would go to meetings, and seethe with anger when people would share about their bullshit sobriety. Often times members share about concepts and ideals which are not representative of what our literature touts as the method of recovery. And because I couldn't practice that method, I somehow derived comfort in deriding those who didn't even know about it. The irony was that invariably these fucking dolts who could barely read would manage to somehow complete the process as it's outlined in AA's literature, and then they too would surpass me and come to realize peace, joy, purpose, and freedom.

Then there were the assholes with many years of sobriety who spoke in pedestrian platitudes about shit that simply had nothing to do with the literature. I especially despised these particular fuckers. And the greatest of these was Gus.

Every time he spoke in meetings, he said the same god damn thing, "If you want to stay sober, you have to do three things: 1) Don't drink and go to meetings. If that doesn't work, 2) Don't drink and go to meetings. If THAT doesn't work, 3) Don't drink and go to meetings. If you do this, you'll learn to listen and then you'll listen to learn."

Every time this old fuck shared in a meeting, he said the same god damn thing. I fucking hated him. There's nothing in our primary text about acquiring recovery through meetings goddamnit. You have to fucking DO the fucking steps. Listening doesn't accomplish SHIT.

For some reason, and much to my dismay, Gus took to me and started asking me the same thing every time he saw me: "Are you still hitting yourself in the head with a hammer?"

This was worse than his stupid fucking shares. How on Earth had I ended up in a society of people who were tolerant of such sub-literate bullshit? How did I fucking get here?

I wanted to scream at him - "You stupid old fuck! Do you know ANYTHING about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous? Have you ever even READ the fucking book?"

But of course I didn't. I just bit my lip and dreamed of a day when I would find real meetings where people like him weren't tolerated.

I continued to go to meetings, even though I couldn't do the process of recovery. I would listen to people who had done it and wish I could be them. Why couldn't I be them? They would always talk to Gus when he was there. And I couldn't figure out why these brilliant humans were concerning themselves with such a low-grade human. As far as I could tell, he didn't know shit. He was just a silly old man who everyone kind of tolerated.

"Learn to listen and listen to learn" Bulshit! The only people I wanted to listen to were people who could do something I couldn't do. Listening to them never helped me. It only made me feel like I was trapped in a fail state, forever doomed to be sober but miserable.

I eventually was in so much pain that I stopped talking in meetings. I felt like a hypocrite. I would just sit in there and listen to the bullshit people had to share about their stupid lives. Every now and then someone said something funny. With even less frequency I sometimes heard something remotely germane to the program.

About three years in I started hearing people talking about problems they'd had working the steps of the program. I started talking to them after meetings and found that many of my heroes had encountered the same terror driven trepidation as I in completing the steps. Their stories encouraged me to the point that I began moving forward in the steps. I wasn't necessarily doing anything, I was just opening up to the possibility that I might someday be able to do something. But it was weird. It was as if the steps started doing me, not the other way around. My experience began to dictate my decisions, and my decisions began to create new experiences. I began to feel lighter. I began to have...... hope.

After many, many spiritual experiences, I became convinced that everything was going to be ok. And I exhaled. I woke up one morning, knew everything was going to be ok, and literally exhaled. After a while I came to realize that the whole time I had been torturing myself. I had been so unusually cruel to myself. Everything had always been fine. If only I had known that years before. If only someone could have told me I was okay and didn't need to hurt myself.

I don't know why I stayed in meetings. I don't know why I stopped talking and started listening. But I'm so glad I didn't leave. I'm so glad I started listening.

One day about a year and a half ago, I was in a meeting. Gus got up to share and said the same thing I'd heard him saying for years: "Don't Drink and go to meetings. If that doesn't work, don't drink and go to meetings. If that doesn't work, don't drink and go to meetings. If you do, you'll learn to listen and then you'll listen to learn.

I was almost in tears. I am in tears right now as I type this. The next thing that happened was indescribable. I walked up to Gus after the meeting. I don't know what pushed me through my ego towards him, but whatever it was, it was more powerful than my ego dared to be.

I stood in front of Gus. I couldn't say a word. I was just looking at him. It was then that he smiled and said, "I'm so glad you stopped beating yourself over the head with that hammer."

After that I hoped to see Gus every time I went to a meeting. And every time I saw him, I felt a sense of profound comfort and hope. Gus didn't have to quote the book. He didn't have to go into flowery discourse. All he had to do was talk about what worked for him in the simplest way possible. And to date, he is in the category of the top 5 people who have most profoundly affected me.

Gus' life is a gift. And 5 days ago, that gift was taken away.

I love you Gus. I will always love you. I am so sorry for never telling you I loved you. I hope you knew.

And for the record, Gus was a fucking genius. And I am a stupid old man.

The First Composition

I was eleven years old when I wrote my first composition.

I heard a melody in my head. There was a piano in the house, so I went to it, found the notes I heard, and began trying to play them. It was a painstaking process, but I eventually found all of the notes in the melody and could reproduce them on the piano. I then began practicing playing the melody over and over with the intent of eventually playing it perfectly.

Whilst practicing the melody, I began to hear a counter melody. I began playing that melody with my left hand, and determined I could play the initial melody with my right hand while playing the counter melody with my left hand.

 The coordination of the two took several weeks. I was obsessed with perfecting the performance of this little bagatelle, and could think of nothing else. I'd play it over and over and over and over....

I'm sure I drove my family crazy.

Well, I eventually got to the point where I was able to play this little minuet perfectly. And so I did. Constantly. It was an indescribable feeling. I had no idea that I had composed a song. I had no idea how significant,  and defining a moment this would be in my life.

One day, I was playing the song and happened to look out the window. I could see the tree in the backyard. The wind was blowing through it, and the leaves were rustling beautifully and shimmering in the sunlight. I was struck dumb by the beauty of those leaves rustling in the wind, reflecting the light of the sun.

I then looked down at my fingers playing the minuet, and it hit me like a ton of bricks: my fingers were leaves, rustling in the wind and shimmering in the light.

At that moment I knew who and what I was.

It's been over 30 years since that first composition. I have no idea how many songs I've written since then (hundreds?). But the experience of composition is always the same: I hear music, I learn how to reproduce it, and then I perfect the reproduction of it.

I don't know where the music comes from. I can't make it magically appear. It comes when it wants to. I have tried to conjure it up, with no success. I'm at the mercy of the god of music.

That first experience of composition was so intimate. So transcendent. So defining. I had no idea that it had nothing to do with me. I thought it was my secret possession.

It took me thirty years to discover that the gift of musical composition was placed in my care only so that I might have something to give to you.

I'm what you might call a "slow learner".