The battle for twenty bucks

Tbftb

Years ago, i posted a craigslist ad for needing a drummer. I had just started my building trusses job. Broke. Penniless. Making 10 bucks an hour in 2014 and taking care of my family of 6. That was a hard year financially and mentally. I had just been abandoned by my mother and that entire side of the family and was feeling lost. I have always wrote songs but that year, i started piecing my songs together into a more cohesive format. I came up with 4 different albums of interest.

This drummer and i would work hard for the next four years with it all ending before getting it recorded. I went up to Iowa City, from Winfield, barely making enough to cover the gas. The Battle for Twenty Bucks. I had nothing but a dream. All of my 20 dollar trips really hurt me bad.

So many problems in this whole decade. Money was a major factor. So, this drummer wouldnt ever agree to go play these songs live. Fear of embarrassment or whatever it was. I could never convince him to play these songs live. He was a great drummer (no complaints there, ive always drawn kickass musicians to my cause) but 4 years of nailing down songs we were never going to play.

So tbftb affected me. It was an honest to God battle we faced every. Single. Day. Do i put gas in to practice or feed my family. Gas was high (much like today, it depends on a countrys leader, so it seems) food was high, i had eight million other things i could have done with that money but my wife wanted me to pursue my dream. So i started going to open mics everywhere (more of my own money, which i didnt have and couldnt afford, time away to travel to these places, it was always a battle for 20 bucks) and just couldnt pull these songs off (remember i have a horrible memory for my own lyrics and others) without help. I bombed on stage more often than people had the guts to try. But i kept at it. It grew me.

So yeah. Its really too dang bad that we couldnt have recorded our work in a good format and really made this album materialize. I will revisit it in the future but not now. Tbftb is still ready (minus the band) to record.

But its timeless. It applies now too. It is what people are going through. For some of us, money aint never been handed to us (i know, starving artists, even though we all push towards thriving artist categories) and without the right tools, we can never get the job done.

My first band was called Hatchetflower (i kept the name) and featured a kick ass bassist and his old lady on saxophone. We practiced for a month and then went to the infamous open mic night at The Mill (iowa City). It went really well. That night i called in to work and we recorded three songs and drank alot of coffee. The next night, they left. Just moved out to California. I have some hard feelings still about that. It sure made me distrust anyone but me concerning music. Abandonment. Orphaned (musically). Shut down. Deflated. Broke. Penniless. Heartbroken. That has been my way for a very, very long time.

So we all got battles. Some battle addiction. Some battle for even a little bit of livable wage. Some battle through alcoholism or cutting or deaths of loved ones. Some battle to find something that makes them feel alive. Whatever you are battling, the battle is a human condition.

Someday. I am not giving up on these dreams, gifts, talents and where i have taken them from the start. Goals. Get you some long term goals and realize that not everyone who shows up is gonna see it through to its end (a good end, getting heard, getting noticed, building cool art that people relate to.

So keep battling, readers.

Much love. My current album is in the works. Not done yet.

Peace. Strength beyond strength.

Unlisted

This is my normal life. I should start a Youtube channel. Enjoy! Like, subscribe, share!

Laundry post

clean clothes. Thats all I can say.

My washer parts wont be here til July. Have yet to score a working dryer cheap at auction. So here we are. At the laundry mat. Not a bad place to sit and participate in an online auction.

If laundry was a chore that people hated, I’m not one of them. I like the gladness that comes from having and being able to wear clean clothes. The order being restored. I like doing dishes too as long as a good playlist is on.

Any fellow laundry goers on here? Nah, y’all probably got your own washer and dryer at your house. (And they most probably work). Rich fuckers. Lolz. Kidding. The randomness of a laundromat is peculiar. Like riding public transits.

Clean clothes. Enjoy your day y’all.

My favorite guitar solo 2

My last post was a bit of humor. Bit of ego. Not really though. If you knew me at all you would know that I havent been able to solo effectively up until that recording. Live. One take. I should have mixed in a better vocal. My own voice has changed throughout the years. Yours will too.

So favorite solo? Thats tough. I grade on whether it fit the song and served it or not. Believe it or not, I tend to sing the guitar solos. My car. Don’t worry about it. Lolz.

Some great guitar solos are out there. Some great players. Some interesting techniques and some wild antics.

The trouble with fame, it seems ego is fulfilled and awakens an ancient whatevers.then the drinking. Then the drugs. Then harder shit. I want better role models. I want to hear the solo and feel that persons investment in it. Night after night. Day after day. Never mistreating the fans, but winning them over. Given to a lady at home and no hanky panky bullshit on the side. You hardly hear about it (I’m sure it exists) in country music. Jazz and blues as well. It seems gospel to want people who remain, integrity intact.

Who wouldn’t want a thousand girls? I did when I picked up guitar. Visions of beauties strutting around me. Then I growed. I want to love one woman more than a few thousand times. I want intimacy. I want honesty. I want it without my ego having to be inflated by the power one could wield if famous.

So, like our guitar solos we enjoy, we look forward to peeling back those layers of rock star nonsense. I don’t understand why someone would get rich and famous, mostly rich, and then vacate their neighborhoods and leave them in the background. A rearview town. I think a more suitable approach, would be to invest back into those communities. Grow them. So that batch of people, wherever they live, may also have opportunities.

Peace yall. Meek. (Power under control)

Pray for our nation. Pray hard for its leaders. For truth. For healing. For humanity being decent again.

Much love.

Visit Butcheringsaint’s shop, for cool artwork on awesome products! https://www.redbubble.com/people/Butcheringsaint/shop?asc=u

My favorite guitar solo

I am hardly vain, but the more I listen to myself play the guitar on this one, (a first time one take on my four track), it is still hard to imagine what the hell I played that day, or how? Was I even there?. Thats that zone. One of the people lost in a moment of time with their art. This guitar solo is my sole contribution to the guitar community as of yet. All in all I think my dad would have enjoyed this one. So, yeah.

Hatchetflower!

Much love

this is the song that a drummer heard on a whim through a craigslist ad of mine and decided I was interesting enough to start a project with. Great times y’all!

.s. My singing is nothing this horrible nowadays. Lolz. See ya

Candy upholstery

A candy shop? Those take one back in time dont they? An upholstery shop? The end game of my hide gathering abilities. Ive never paid much attention to the times of men, but the long days of a goof ball living life. From death to life. Spiritual? Perhaps.

What awaits me yet? Who knows anymore than you know what awaits you.

Leather.

Lingerie in the mail is weird to anybody other than me?

I bought a few flutes last year from an etsy shop. Didn’t bother looking where it shipped from. One was from Russia. The other was the Ukraine. They both got gridlocked at customs. The packages were beat to shit. They had to have inspected them dozens of times. It was cool watching it stuck on the online tracker, saying at us customs. Weird experience. Happy to say that the flutes were unharmed. Ive never ordered anything from another continent before. ?have you? Weird stickerings? It was an experience…

Favorite candy of mine? Starburst unwrapped. Used to be such a pain in the ass to unwrap each and every stupid one of them. Still worth it. Do we really need that much plastic waste tho? No. The unwrapped is the way. I have spoken!

Butchering and meat work is dangerous shit. Beef are wild, untamed beasts who can be a major fuckhead when they want to be.

I still cant imagine why I do this work? It is awakening a kinder side in me which I have long held inward.

Soul. The pixar movie is a pretty cool take on it. Ive been rewatching that one a few times. Your spark is not your purpose. One person once said, that butchering was not who I am. That wrecked me. So, I gave it some wild insight and delved deep into my own workings. It wrrrrrrrecked alot of things til I had hashed that out. Be careful what you say to people. Being kind is the best reward.

When we went to a checkout one time, this cashier was yacking our heads off, stating he was scared to fight this dinosaur on a video game. I had finished butchering beef just two hours prior. I was kind to him and let him babble.

“How should I know, luke? I just cut bait and blow shit up for a living.” Sheev in character.

“I said, no Bo, no.. “Johnny knoxville

“Oh I thought you said, go Bo, go” Stifler.

Be not easily offended but do set healthy boundaries.

So the leather seats in our rental car were not comfortable. Great car, bad seating. Do people even do upholstery anymore? Takes my brain to The Boondock Saints 2, scene where Louie is running the upholstery shop. Great movie.

Gangs of New York. Great movie as well. Nobody won but the government.

So enjoy life. Y’all.

Fridge for 50 years

With the arrival of our new fridge, we asked ourselves a different question. What are we going to put in there? By now we know what sauces we like. We know what hot sauce, which barbecue sauce, which ketchup, which mustard. Which good cuisine will bless this mess for another long batch of time. Say, 50 years?

When you ask different questions, you get better results. Its that simple.

Your body does mysterious things when you ask of it. Rewiring. Forge coming soon! Been studying this hobby for 10 years with no hands on. Waiting on money, waiting on tools, waiting on coal, waiting to blacksmith. Learning at a very far distance. Why things had to be like this? Well, I didnt discover frugality such as auctions or closeouts. Didn’t manage money correctly. Didnt know how. Thought I never made enough. Blah blah blah. “Excuse upon excuse for why there isnt.” Bubba sparxxx.

Auctions. Thats all I got to say. Should have done this long ago.

Groceries? The more groceries the more trash seems to accumulate. Like, give me a barrel of something. I’ll get tired of it but figure out how to cook it to its maximum potential. If not I, somebody near enough to me, will.

Butchering. I kill shit and rip its guts out to make it useful. You ever look at Nathan in the Bible? Nathan walks right up to King David and speaks his mind. Doesnt mince words either. “Sir, I have some hard truths for you to be hearing noweth, henceforthwith.

Nathan. An interesting name for an interesting batch of people’s. People really should get themselves a tribe of Nathan people. Urinate. Combinat(e)ion. Plurality. Rambling.

I am psyched up. My kid puked in the car ride on the way home. That must be attended to. Post haste. Yuck. Our vehicle sways like a boat on an ocean. Like a 70s muscle. Its not a real fun drive. Things were supposed to be fixed, but mekanik, may have just not have. Thats why I try to keep my own things running. One maybe should.

One Thanksgiving, same kid came up and puked on my lap. This guy. Yeah. CNA work comes in handy in child raising. But its better to build boys than to mend men.

50 years. At 90, I think I’ll just wander off into the forest and die, dignified.

I really encourage the butchering, health, teaching, trades type of life. College is an expensive piece of paper but it doesnt always lead to contentment. 50 years in the fridge type of thinking.

He is risen. Faith.

Much love.

Some get read

Some get read and some should be, while others get ignored. Some praised and should be ignored. But it is what it is.

A lot of new things have come our way as a tribe. I hope your tribe gets good stuff too.

I have had a butchering “coincidence” recent, that is of note here. I ran into the old butchering boss. Ive wrote about him. I went out for a steak meal as a family. First time in 10 years. It’s cool when children get older…rambled. So rare for me to be there, rare to be there and spot this guy. Had a half hour conversation with the man. He still has taught me the craft from his well of knowledge. I had to move on to learn more from others. Who knows? Closure?

Had my first visit with my grandma the other day, first in a year and a half. I needed distance. Alot of happenings happened while I was away. Threw out my hand me down fridge with its twice handed bitter memories. Got a new one. Most people go larger. I do not. Smaller. Fits under my cabinet, finally makes the flow right.

So while America is being crippled and bankrupted and rampaged, I got a new fridge. I dont like where this heads as it stands. God puts people in power. He knows their darkness if there be any in it.

“Its a rental”

Motto recent and not forgotten.

Yeah so is our body but I still managed to find the weed shops. Lord, knows I smoke weed. I seen it work. my crippled ass father had a truckload of pills but none of them worked. But weed made him tolerable. He wasn’t always mellow. Too worked up, shoulda taken up art or music production. Or painting. Something to find peace.

Meeting up with enemies is hard. Harder is letting that anger affect you now. Holding it will always harm the holder.

Movie tip. If there be all these offended (weeping and gnashing of teeth) ones, why not have every movie with every actor/tress voice it. Select it and go. You want somebody like Samuel Jackson in the Hobbit? Pick em… Or put jack black within the vampire realm or what have you? Lucy Liu in a chick flick. (My personal fave is Rom coms. I dislike the suspense genre. Gore, it is obvious, is ok to me.Just seen too many real life stuff movies can’t quite grasp. Real situations.

Pick em.

Keep writing. Be your biggest fan. Cheer yourself on. Fight for thy right to partyeth.

Much love

Alpha females

One might be a baddie and one might be a goodie. When alpha females start out of the woodwork. They don’t come out the woodwork just for any regular dude. Something intrigues and they give Chase. Guys, this is a good sign I would take it. No thanks though on my end. I have my lady. Like I need more idiot drama in my life. Hard pass.

I always wanted to be a man amongst men. Started the journey with not a hint of clue what I was to do, or what qualities I thought led there. Starting point, in fact, is not a reality until there is vision. Look backwards from our caskets and hear what people would bring up at our funerals.

Ive always found talented and admirable people in my life. Some, quite respectable. Jammed with a good many peoples and synergized with a few. Known a few, solid excellent women. Gratitude.

So was out one night, had a sip of whiskey peanut butter. Screwball. Great in coffee. Wife was there at the show, and this stranger and her flask was passed. I was clueless and missed she was even hitting on me. Waltzed right up and introduced herself to my wife. Oh she got the icy stare. Ooh. Colder. I missed all this. Had no clue. Straight up over my fence.

So, my alpha female is a lion not a sheep. Most of our relationships could be committed too. We gotta teach each other to lead through this life. What people dont understand, is that leadership and its fruits do bring order. A somewhat chaotic as life goes, disaster of order. What a ruckus. But if weak, become strong while appearing weak. Art of war type mentality.

Ive recently read Rex Brown (pantera bassist) and Fieldy (korn bassist). Modern day Solomon’s. You ask me. Had everything but it became nothing. They seem like kick ass peoples. Interesting takes on it all. You know me, I’m into interesting takes.

I have too many guitars but want more. I dreamed twice a month with catalogs from Americanmusicalsupply and musicians friend. Got me wanting to build guitars (an itch yet to scratch. Too much dreaming.

“Fear can steal your dreams but so can cobwebs. Play!!!” Me. Yours truly from my only published work.

Life got you down. Chin up. Cheer up. Hope comes.

Lot of messiness in peoples lives. I try not to be involved. Not my circus and not my monkeys.

“A new level of confidence and power” pantera. Much love.

Everything agenda

But everything is not everything. It never will be. Whats our expectations for the time.?

The people I’m to reach dont live inside their churches walls. My people to reach stay as far from there as possible. but whoever, we are here to help, we must remember to serve and to wash feet.

The Lord has a plan. Sit calm y’all.

My wife found a soap opera; shadowhunters from City of Bones (the books). I think its too much like general Hospital or Days of our Lives but there’s vampires and werewolfs and other odd interesting shit down the rabbit hole of life. I give it a stale. She rates it superb. One can only make their own mind up.

Loving too many cats is a problem. Find them homes. Spay and neuter them. Dont let em breed like digging rabbits.

Following a path is rarely easy. I reread the cube van chronicles and I turned to look as a dunce. Where the story went from there is a wild adventure. Might do something with the arsonists tying it all together. No printer ink for read and edit phase.

Her birthday is today. A cute little fishy. A contradiction but to quote my own song, Dance with you,

“Shapes and colors, diamonds or dumpsters, cut like a knife, there’s no other, not another lover, I want by my side, weve had moments where weve barely spoken but weve survived, together we live, we love, we ride.”

(Now how is that for a chorus).

Ive walked a semi good path. It never is easy to find a path. But do all parents help that matter?. It’s hard to see trades neglected and college tossed at us, instead. My college neglected to let me in. Hell, I thought there was only prestige and clout with the one and not the other

Stay well y’all. Fuck covid. Destroyed a planet a little too damn well that it doesnt sit right and there’s too many questions not answered? Nah. Who cares. Faith over fear. Be easy!