What doesn't kill you!

The view from stage did NOT look like this!

My band had a profound experience tonight, for the first time since we started playing together about a year and a half ago we played a show that sucked!
As part of the "prestigious" annual Amman Theatre Festival, we were featured as the only musical act this year, we were given the main theatre and a time slot that is considered the "headlining" act of the day, what they somehow managed to forget though, was that a musical act requires an adequate sound system and a sound technician who knows slightly more about mixers than that if you push the level fader up the instrument becomes louder!
I’m not going to get into the details of what we had to do to get any kind of even remotely acceptable sound, all I’m going to say is that the mixer was placed in a booth above the theatre, the most interesting thing about this booth is that when you are in it you hear the instruments as if you are in another building, and since the sound man had absolutely no idea how to do anything I had to set up the sound, which meant that I had to listen to the instruments, then run up to the booth to make the desired adjustment to each instrument on its own, then come back down to make sure I made the right adjustments, which usually doesn’t work till you do it at least 4 to 5 times for each source of sound on stage, we had 12 sources of sound on stage including several microphones for the drums and percussion, end of story, by the time we agreed that what we had was probably the best we can possibly get out of the garbage equopment that we had I was so physically, emotionally and morally worn out that I needed a week of rest to recove, but I had to stand on stage and play an hour and a half show knowing that although the band is doing a very good job what the audience is hearing is not close to being as good!
Knowing me though, there’s always a silver lining, I am extremely proud of my band, anyone I know in similar conditions would have played terribly, but the guys proved to me and to themselves today that they are real pros and true musicians… WAY TO GO SIGN OF THYME! :-D

Dear shepherd!

Today I was reminded of that old story where a shepherd kept calling the villagers to save him from a wolf that he claimed attacked his sheep, and twice they came for his aid but there was no wolf, and when the wolf came for real and he screamed in distress at the top of his voice no one came to his aid because no one really believed there was a problem...
So my dear shepherd, I am sorry that the wolf got your sheep this time, but you always seem to joke around and rarely take things seriously to the point that makes it hard to know when you are actually serious... thats why i wasnt able to know that you really needed my aid...

Reclaiming the disclaimer!

I truly appreciate the sentiment from Lulwa and Mud on my disclaimer post, I've been thinking about this and the truth is I don't think what I wrote was an apology!
It is true that I am entitled to my opinion, I wouldn't write it down if I didn't believe that, yet I believe its very wise for everyone to be able to question their own beliefs on regular basis no matter how strongly they believe in them, the only thing worse than not have something to believe in is believing in anything blindly, I need to give myself the space to retract if one day I decide that I have made a mistake, I am definitely capable of mistakes you know!
I am not retracting my disclaimer, because what is written in it is the truth, yet if anyone thinks that its an apology they may need to go back and read it again.... :-)

Did I show you my biceps?!

I think watching a whole season of Six Feet Under on DVD in three days is not exactly healthy, and I’m not only talking about all the dead people; every character on that show is so dramatically fucked up that even real life feels like a walk in the park in comparison to life in the Fishers’ dimension. I’m not exactly an acting expert or critic, but if someone can get me to dislike them so much in a TV show they must be damn good! I really like this ugly morbid show! And it makes me think…
There are a few questions I have never been able to fully answer since I always find myself in constant disagreement with the common and seemingly obvious views in the matter.
What does it mean to be strong? What is strength? And does the term strong apply when strength is almost always manifested circumstantially?
I am someone who is able to express his feelings openly and freely to a point that may occasionally seem rather impulsive, am I strong because I don’t fear judgment or weak because I can’t suppress what may be inappropriate to express or what may stop me from getting what I want because I act too soon? Even if through experience I know that that would happen.
When and where does self indulgence move from being an empowerment to make bold decisions that feel right to folly that could reach the point of attempted self destruction? Are we given enough space and time for maneuvering between the two? Or is all of it just fear of conformity and being…you know…average…
Is fear of dying a legitimate fear? There are two kinds of people generally, those who fear dying and those who are in denial of it, the latter seem to be the majority and the former are well, also most people! Would anyone be so nice as to underscore the area in the middle of both extremes where one can profoundly enjoy life despite mortality? Are we given enough time and space to realize this area?
Sometimes the cruelty and cynicism inflicted onto a human being’s everyday life seem over whelming, anyone who can deny that they are fucked up in one way or another is probably even more fucked up than usual. Yet if answers to these questions were handed out freely at your neighborhood convenient store would you be able to capitalize on them without creating even more paradoxes and carnally anal complications? Are we truly equipped with the sensitivity that would enable us uproot and absorb the essence of mercy? Are we capable of even beginning to comprehend the concept of justice if it wasn’t relative?
Six feet Under could very well be the reason why I was feeling rather down today, or maybe it’s anxiety over my upcoming show and the usual financial and organizational problems that surround it, maybe it’s the ex girlfriend who’s getting married next Thursday to a guy she doesn’t know and allowing herself into a life she’ll probably hate, or maybe it’s my new friend who doesn’t seem to know her ass from a hole in the wall, or maybe it’s because I’ve been playing pool like Stevie Wonder in the past few days. Whatever the reason, a can always say that if I manage to survive through the night, tomorrow is a new day! And even though I still won’t have answers to these questions tomorrow, by some act of mercy, which I won't understand, it probably won’t really matter anymore!

Reflective disclaimer!

Dear Boog3ee's blog reader:-
Reflecting on my last post and a couple of other thoughts that I had from other places, I would like to say that if by reading my posts you feel like I'm being judgmental, condescending or if I make it sound like I supposedly know how you see things or how you should see things (which I don't) then please feel free to ignore whatever I say or be so candid as to tell me to "fuck off" if so pleases you, I tend to allow my over nourished ego to take over sometimes and lead be to believe that I know more than what I know... part of it is because its fun to write with that attitude!
I'm not changing the posts though... at the end of the day I'm sharing some of my experiences and some of what I learned from them, it may be pompous, but its not entirely bullshit! :-)
Thank you!

The boog3ee code!

“Life is complicated, life is like a watermelon, life is a journey, life sucks!”, “God is everywhere, god is inside every one of us, god is cruel, god is navy blue!”
Whenever someone starts a sentence with “life is” or “god is” in an attempt to produce an assertive definition of the subject I find myself wallowing in an overwhelming urge to beg Scott to “beam me up” away from the conversation.
Depending on the day, the mood and the circumstances, the little discovery I am about to discuss seems as the luckiest or the unluckiest thing I’ve brought my silly self to find out, anyway though, it seems to have had a profound effect on my life.
Human being’s knowledge is vast, their capabilities are almost immeasurable and their understanding can be overwhelming, I mean believe me! I’ve met some pretty damn intelligent folk in my life so far, yet what is even more colossal than all that is human’s capability of imagination. To describe it humans tend to refer to it as limitless.
I believe that it is fair to say that logic, as we know it and whether from an individual or a common perspective, is of our own creation as humans, we discovered it based on our senses and perception, and due to our circumstances through which we view our surrounding environment in all its’ vastness. This notion leads to another realization: all matter counter to our perception of logic, i.e. what we refer to as illogic, is also a human invention based on human perception, yet mostly created through the vessel of human imagination since all things deemed illogical tend to not exist in our material or rational world, unless of course we discover at some point that these things do in fact exist, in which case they are removed from the illogical category and added to the logical category.
Since all what is logical and/or illogical is either subject to our perception or imagination we could easily say that all things in existence, and many things that do not exist fall under this category too, yet by using the logic theories themselves we find ourselves unable to prove that our imagination is limitless, since even if we can’t perceive of it, we can basically imagine the limits of our own imagination!
If you allow yourself to take this journey you may be able to see many things and understand a lot, in other words you would considerably widen you perception, yet by realizing some kind of an estimation of the shear size of one’s imagination and then coming to the conclusion that all of it remains limited, new concepts start to become slightly clearer, namely that which is beyond imagination and the concept of eternity.
And here we find the ultimate mind fuck; try to put all these things into consideration, and then attempt to finish this sentence: “life is _____”, or “God is ______”. How about another perspective? Can you finish this sentence: “I am _________”?
How about this for a conclusion? Allow yourself to nourish your ego to the point that you feel that everything that you can absorb or imagine is within your grasp, yet never lose sight of the utter insignificance of who and what you are compared to what could and does lay beyond.

P.S. Photo by Uraib Touqan

mmm...mmm...mmm...mmm....

Today I ran myself into a brick wall after a few days driving a car that I knew had no brakes down a curvy, bumpy and completely unpleasant slope. How? Well that’s what happens when you drive a car that has no brakes down a curvy, bumpy and completely unpleasant slope, why? Because I wanted to see how it feels like.
Ok fine! It’s about a girl, but that’s as much as I’m going to say candidly because this post is not about whining over enter-gender miscommunication or feeling sorry for myself, cause I don’t, honest!
I kinda feel a bit sorry for myself, because myself deserves more than what it’s getting and I’m not in the mood to preach patience to myself tonight, I’m in the mood to question the sanity of the whole world!The whole world is crazy, it makes perfect sense; if the whole world is sane then I’m the one who’s crazy, and we can’t have that now, can we?!
Bare with me, this will start to make sense to you too soon, I promise.
I’ve been taught, and I strongly believe, that a fully grown and mature individual should under all circumstances be responsible for his/her choices and the repercussions of those choices, therefore by knowingly and consciously choosing to drive a car that has no brakes down a curvy, bumpy and completely unpleasant slope I have no quarrel with the rules of physics and the eventuality factor that very predictably guided me into running smack into a brick wall, I am therefore seemingly unchanged, yet two thing seem to be slightly out of place:

1- I am slightly hurt, but I guess that’s part of being human to get hurt in such a situation.

2- I am angry, actually I am quite livid; this is the only factor that seems to be completely wrong!

Why would I be angry if it was my choice to replace a crash test dummy? And who am I angry at? At myself? Or at the car?The answer is none of the above; I am angry at the laws of physics, and after many years of experiences running more cars than I can count into brick walls whether while knowing that these cars had breaks or not I somehow, and until this day, and with each time I get behind a steering wheel, still believe that the car will come into a smooth and silky stop of it’s own accord.
Does this make sense to you? Does it sound sane? For your own sake I hope it does, because if it doesn’t then you’re in for a life time sitting in a parking lot!
P.S. I am not angry any more, will be out car shopping maybe as soon as tomorrow!
Have a good one!

It's an ocean of thick skulls!

So here is a big fat question, what do we, humans, have to lose?
My grandmother died at the age of 85, this was about 10 years ago, she had pretty much every disease known to man kind, and to top that she somehow managed to fall down at least twice a year and break more and more of her bones which ended up less sturdy than a flake chocolate bar on a hot day. And although she died virtually penniless and miserable, not a day passed when her delusional mind was discovering some scheme that someone is preparing to hurt, maim or kill her.
My grandmother, god rest her soul, was nuts, and probably an extreme example, but with time I am discovering that this feeling of mistrust amongst people is festering much more than I’d ever imagined.
A lesson one learns in life if he/she is lucky: I wake up everyday, I get out of bed and I seek what I want, and I protect what I have, and as time progresses I lose touch, I keep seeking what I want although I don’t really know what it is that I want, and I protect what I have although I don’t absorb the value of what I have, and since I don’t know what I want, chances are I’ll end up having, and cherishing, things that I never really had the desire to acquire, and I end up loving people whom I never even liked! Is there a point to this rambling? Well…it’s a simple fact, the grand finally, and the only truth one is destined to learn whether one stopped to smell the roses or drove over them with one’s brand new SUV, the fact that at the end, one dies.
I am as guilty of wasting my chances as the next person, but I’m trying to learn, and the only thing I’ve learned that is doing me any good is that I need to take more risks, I need to risk trusting my instincts, and I need to risk trusting people, I mean, I’m dying anyway, I don’t have anything to lose, they don’t have anything with me that they can steal.
Hurt is not eternal, and joy is a decision, and beauty is the Mekka that you find everywhere you look and see, so you have to learn to see and not just look, the more you risk the bigger your chance of not getting screwed, and whether the glass is full or empty is also a matter of looking and seeing, and did I mention that who gives a shit about the damn glass? No one will live long enough to fill it or spill it anyway!
I guess my point is: trust yourself to trust people, and get hurt cause it doesn’t really matter, and decide to be happy cause you don’t have time to be anything else, be happy as you should be when you look in the mirror, that’s how you make people happy when they look in your mirror, tell everyone who may care as much as you can of how you feel, and tell the one you love everything about everything about how you feel…

Or just dont listen to me...
boog3ee

And so, he commences his blogging!

Life became beautiful when I decided it was to be so, and to come to this decision I had to overcome, accept or ignore the following obstacles:
1- I am going to die.
2- God needs to exist for life to be beautiful, he is not everything and never anything you want him to be, your desires, imagination and perspective are categorically irrelevant in the matter, so stop attempting to define him. (I'm only using "him" because it feels tacky to say "him/her")
3- When i close my eyes to sleep, no matter who is in the room and how close they may be, I am completely alone and unable to lie.
4- I can always do what i chose to do, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get what I want to get.
5- The male gender of humans rules the world, they build it, they save it and they maintain it, every last one of them is a pig and no matter how old or glorious any of them becomes they remain insatiable children.
6- The female gender of humans rules the world, they bring it to life, they nurture it and they keep it in order, all women are like great Ferraris driven by tractor drivers with cement shoes.
7- I can't get myself to like eggplants, but i don't have to eat them!

Hey! welcome to my blog!
Boog3ee