Battered & Bloody

Patti Smith is a poet, singer and song writer..who is probably most noted for her solo work during the Punk Era of the mid to late 1970's. She got her big break playing CGBG's and Max's Kansas City Clubs in NYC. She was notorious for saying "Jesus died for somebody's sins but he didn't die for mine" during a cover version of the band Them's song GLORIA  . I absolutely adored her back in those days for that kind of brave, rebellious giving of the FINGER to established organised religion...and because that is exactly how I felt about it as well. As a matter of fact I felt that way right up until I became a Christian in January of this year (2011). I guess I believed in Jesus...I just figured he didn't want anything to do with me..

Edgar Allen Poe

Smith has been one of my favorite performers and writers dating back to before I was in high school. She was the kind of person I looked up to in the years I spent in the so-called wilderness, after being beaten & raped in the mid 1970's. I was always interested in poets, artists, writers and those who were fiercely independant and original. I was usually drawn to tragic characters such as: Wilfred Owen,Jim Morrison of the Doors, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Edgar Allen Poe, Vincent Van Gogh and the like.

Vincent Van Gogh

Basically from the age of 12, these were the kind of folks I looked up to, idolized... I worshiped them really. Their lives, philosophies and work were the greatest influences on me at that time. I followed a pattern of admiring artists and famous people who had lead "tragic' lives right up until the time I became a Christian, just 10 months ago. At that young age, I started to formulate that philosophy of Self-Reliance that eventually morphed into my own religion of "SELF-WORSHIP" which I believed in faithfully right up until the time I tried to kill myself...I suppose my SELF-WORSHIP strategy/Philosophy had a few flaws, eh?!

When I think about all this today, I am a little bit surprised and embarressed really, that that I went so far in my hero-worshipof these other human beings...I had always prided myself on never NEEDING anyone other then myself yet I was idolizing these very flawed, tragic human beings...I had really felt strongly that I had made better choices then that during this time but obviously I believed more strongly in the abilities of MAN then I would let myself admit at the time.

If anyone is familiar with all of the people listed above then they can pretty easily make the connection between them: They are all artists of some sort...all but one died BEFORE their time...some very tragically like Hemingway shooting himself. Most were famous in their own time except Vincent Van Gogh, who did not achieve fame or fortune DURING his lifetime. Patti Smith is the only one still living, and she has had a fair amount of tragedy in her life but appears now to be healed, happy and thriving....and she is performing again after a 2 decade long hiatus raising a family in Detroit, MI.

I'm not exactly sure what I thought I could get or learn but no doubt there was something very powerful for me in my connection with this group of people. Perhaps it was their rebellion as manifest in their ART and in the way they lived their lives...they like myself all lived HARD, drank, did drugs and pushed themselves beyond the limits of human endurance...testing themselves in multitude of unusual situations. The bottom line here is in many ways I could relate to their alienation from the NORM.


I didn't want any part of a society that allowed 12 years old boys to get brutalized in a public place. I wanted the whole freaking world to go to Hell and I imagined that they (those artists listed above) did too. Their work, their art gave me the courage, the inspiration and motivation as it were to FLIP-OFF our society as whole: Religion, the Establishment, Government, Authority...you name it. It was taking the "let's love everyone" attitude of the  1960's and replacing it with my own F**K-OFF attitude of the 1970-1980's. That whole "screw you" philosophy and attitude matched up very nicely with this life based completely on my own self-satisfaction that I was already working on and perfecting in my day to day life. I was going to make EVERYONE pay for what happened to me...for ignoring me and MY PAIN.


I'll be honest...tonight...just NOW really, is the very first time that I have EVER been able to articulate these thoughts and feelings with any semblance of order. They have obviously been there for a long, long time...raging just below the surface but until now I couldn't possibly know what it was all supposed to mean. Now I'm starting to understand: to SEE...


Understand...that is how vast the chasm between the isolation, alienation, hate, resentment and fear that drove me for so many years like a HELL-HOUND on my trail and my recent surrender and redemption at the foot of the CROSS. Battered, bloody and hurting, I finally recognized that the real battle of life had already been fought...and WON for me and for all people willing to believe... right there on that very CROSS. And that my friends...for ME anyway, has made ALL the difference!

ATONEMENT For Tommy

When I woke up this morning...at 3 freakin' AM I might add, I was immediately reminded of one of my favorite Bob Dylan Songs: A "Hard Rain's A-Gonna fall". Of course Bob was talking about a whole different kind of "Hard Rain" then I was thinking of, because we are truly getting torrential rainfall here this morning. No...Dylan in my opinion was reffering to a "PRICE" we were all going to have to pay...that something is coming that we are going to have to atone for, to make right or make some type of amends.


Could he be reffering to Divine Punishment? Certainly that is possible, as a great many other explanations are possible as well. Dylan himself was typically vague over the years when discussing this song and isn't really telling anyone what it really all means. I suspect that if he is anything like I am, it's meaning has changed for him over the years.


For me..as a young person I always linked this song directly to the Vietnam War. And there wasn't some secretive, astounding attachment to it...NO, the tune was just used in a lot of Vietnam Documentaries at one time, including my favorite "Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam" by HBO. And because of that linkage for me between the song and that War...it made an already heavy, forbidding song even more so in my mind.


The Vietnam War, like the Civil War, The Great War (WWI) and Word War II all played major, heavy roles in my mind and in my life, certainly as a young boy but right up until today. I am not going to delve any more deeply into that subject here...but studying War was something I have done all my life. 


I know today that this insatiable desire for knowledge of war was driven by a belief I have had since I was a small boy that I had been a British Soldier who died in The Great War during another life. Once again, I won't re-visit that subject now but HERE is a link to a recent post where I "came clean" about my thoughts and feelings on that subject. What is important to today's discussion is that in feeling connected to war, I was once again feeling things very deeply and delving even further into the subject of guilt, fear and redemption, the need to 'make up" for something...


Today I am actually thinking more about the notion of Atonement which was inspired by those thoughts of the Bob Dylan song this morning: "A Hard rain's A-Gonna Fall". I've mentioned often in my life that I tend to use rainfall as a metaphor for cleansing one's self of fear or guilt, changing one's life around or purging one's self of something unwanted or unpleasant. "A hard Rain will wash all my trouble away" kind of thing...A "spiritual" cleansing.


I very much look at it like that today, so when we have a dark, grey, rainy day such as we have today, I start thinking of such things like redemption, starting over, a new beginning...that type of thing. That is definately an appropriate state of mind for me to be in on a Monday...the day I visit the local county jail.


Renewal of a seemingly wasted life is always a topic near and dear to me today. The men I'll meet with tonight are all ripe for a change...but whether they actually make a change or not always comes down to having the willingness to do so. For me...I almost didn't make it. I fought to the bitter end thinking I could could some how solve my own problems but in all honesty, I didn't have a chance. I was just making things worse and ultimately I gave up and tried to end it all...only to fail at suicide as well.


No...I found recovery only after I stopped fighting it and surrendered to GOD. That is when everything thing in my life started to change, to look better for me. It didn't get easy but I had HOPE for the first time in ages that things might improve. So that turned out to be the very beginning of a brand new way of life that has continued now for more then 5 years.


Making amends...atonement...certainly played a huge role in my daily recovery and has to this very day. Of course I try to live the kind of life today where I hope I don't create a lot of additional heartbreak and pain that I will need to atone for later.


It's funny how this subject was literally inspired by the hard rain I woke up to this morning leading me to think about this one particular Bob Dylan Song. So I will leave you now with a reminder of how good that song really is: