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—————– Original Message —————–
From: D MAQ
Date: 15/05/2007

blasphemy!!!! May God have mercy on you….lol no playing but… really…. how the heck do you suppose we have souls..?.
unless, you really don’t think we have souls?

did souls evolve from apes or something?

Response:

I am assuming that by souls you mean our spiritual dimension. I believe that we are spiritual beings accountable for a physical body here on this planet. I also believe that every animal and living thing has a spiritual dimension. Dogs, horses, insects, trees. This spiritual dimension is essentially energy. It is on a higher plane than our consciousness or our feelings, both of which we often mistake for our spiritual dimension. I’m gonna have to think about your concept of “souls”, though. Because I equate having a soul with having a personal thing that can be redeemed or saved or validated. My idea of our spiritual dimension is more expansive than that and can even transcend bodies and physical limitations explaining how you can feel inexplicably connected or affected by people, thoughts, nature etc. Like a whole spiritual level that we can’t see and can’t even conceive where there are no limits and where every animal and person’ spirit can meld together in a sea of energy transference.

And yes, i do not believe in God yet i do believe in this spiritual field, because i do not believe that one power has ultimate authority in the spiritual field, everything and ultimately everyone is equal with no limits or rules or conditions. yet i can understand when people talk about “God” because they are talking about a ultimate omnipresent power, and i can relate that with my theory of a spiritual field that is everywhere and nowhere and is everything and is in everything.

Now, as for your question about where souls come from. I am going to assume that you mean where does this spitual realm come from, and conversely where do our idividual capacities for spiritual awareness come from, since I have already explained that I do not believe in the term “souls”. I really have no explanation for where this spritual realm came from, how it came to be or when it will end. However I do belive that it is in a constant state of change, and that when our physical bodies perish our spirit can still exist in the spritual dimension. I also believe that while our physical bodies are still alive, our spirits can be so disconected from the great spiritual dimension that we are essentially spritually-void physical facades of beings. Many people live in this state of non-existence.

This is all very wordy, i know. but read it slow and it just migh make sense. i hope you can understand what my consciousness is trying to convey to you.

What’s your belief?

n.

i wish you were still here too. it’s been a fucking awesome week here, dude. fucking unreal.

So, Rob and I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain yesterday with a new friend of ours from Vancouver. we rode every single rollercoaster there: Viper, Tatsu twice, DejaVu, Riddler’s Revenge, Batman The Ride, Superman The Ride, and X. By half way through my body was so rocked. I never knew that it was legal for rollercaosters to cause one physical trauma. I feel like i was in 8 car crashes yesterday. They were the coolest rollercoasters I have ever been on, but nonetheless I think I dropped 20 IQ points since yesterday morning. So, this one ride, DejaVu works by first going in reverse at a really high backwards up an incline so the coaster can get it’s speed. then it drops and goes down a really crazy track that does unnatural things to your body and then it hits the endd of the track and does the whole thing again in reverse. Well, about 5 seconds in to the first descent I hit my head on the padded shoulder rest and kinda blacked out. I couldn’t see anything. It was the feeling right before fainting. And it’s really scary being on a rollercoaster and being blind. oh, and rob relapsed on cough medicine at Magic Mountain. He thought it would be a great idea to drink some Robitussin on an empty stomach so that he could try to have an accidental freebee. nice try. he was stoned. it was funny.

just woke up on the couch at Thia’s. I feel awesome. I’m going to go shower and smoke.

I fucking love it here. I want to move here.

Last night we played at the Lamplighter to a crowd of about 60. I didn’t really count, but the place was reasonably full. We were scheduled to go on for 9 but didn’t until 9:50. Ben, Devitt and Joseph showed up just after 9. I had a LOT of fun onstage and off. I wasn’t so nervous this time. We got a nice soundcheck an hour before doors opened, so i could work out any kinks. Like, my Hagstrom HIII decided to be a cunt and feedback like crazy even on the middle pickup. I knew that the bridge and neck pickups had gone microphonic and squeel like bitches, but when we practice i can safely play through the middle pickup. anyway, I just used my backup guitar, my ’76 Ibanez PF100 and it sounded great. The soundguy, Trouble, was awesome. Really a nice guy. Said in all his years of doing gigs that IHHO we sounded just awesome, a really good sound. Felt good to let loose on stage, to really let it out. The rush was pretty much the best feeling I have felt. It compared with some of the best highs I’ve had on drugs. Way better than an orgasm. Seriously. And that was just to a crowd of 60 that were hardly in to what we were playing. The point is that all four of us on stage gave it everything and were really in it together. I made a point of making us all huddle in a hug before we went on the stage. Lisa and Jen were very reluctant but they gave in. JT said a few things… that she loves us and that we’re going to go kick some ass. Then we went up there and had ball. I nailed everything. I could hear everything.

Going to take my Hagstrom in to the shop tomorrow to see if it can be fixed. Going to Seattle on Thursday morning, super early to take Tamar to Seatac for her flight to NY. Then I get her car for a few days. Going to spend the rest of the day Thursday in Seattle, by myself, doing whatever the fuck i feel like doing. Probably go to every guitar and music store in Seattle and spend way too much money.

Need to put together some merch for our next show. May 6th at the Gecko club. It’s an all ages show, so the kids will lap up merch like a kitten on milk. Buttons, silk-screened patches, t-shirts, possibly even the first run of our demo. Have our logo, still need a graphic for the shirts. Need an artist. I’m just not up to it, can’t think of anything to graphically.

Spent the day today in the studio recording vocals for three of our tracks, Please Tell Me, Don’t Tell Me and Face First. The gang vocals on Face First were fucking a good time.

Something I dug up from May ’04. I was 20. This is about a month after I relapsed for the second time since treatment. When I say I had 8 months clean, i really didn’t. Nice to have written records – I still thought to this day that the longest clean time I had before now was that 8 month period, but as it says in this journal entry, I smoked a joint during that time. Self-deception is confounding.

“”” says: (12:21:31 AM)
dawg

smokegak@msn.com says: (12:21:51 AM)
yo

says: (12:21:54 AM)
wassup

says: (12:22:03 AM)
what r u doing?

smokegak@msn.com says: (12:22:29 AM)
fuck all u

says: (12:22:33 AM)
fuck all.

says: (12:22:37 AM)
u got dope?

smokegak@msn.com says: (12:22:46 AM)
no shitr

says: (12:22:52 AM)
i relapsed. need to get high.

smokegak@msn.com says: (12:22:55 AM)
y u dont do it

says: (12:23:27 AM)
rather smoke dope with someone i know rather than smoke crack/shoot smack down on pain and wastings.

I had 8 months clean and sober. That’s not quite true. I did smoke pot once with Tina. I didn’t like it though. The pot high made me feel sketchy.

Last night I slipped. I was left alone in a user’s apartment. As soon as she walked out the door I started my search of the residence for drugs. I knew they were somewhere.
Remember how you used to hide your drugs so no one would find them, not even your best friends whom you didn’t trust. She was not so aware. Afterall, a former user with 8 months clean and “no desire to use” isn’t a threat to one’s supply.
I found them. Top drawer in the kitchen. A tray of glass pipes among writing supplies and kitchen items.
I searched for one with a any trace of dope left. Bingo. Go to the bathroom and close the door. Heat the pipe, remember how it used to look and feel. The tension watching the first plumes of vapour stream off the melting brown crystallized lump. Deep breaths. Be aware of how the pipe looked before you touched it, with all it’s fogged glass intricacies and shape of the crystallized dope, now melting into a puddle of mud. After ever hit, be sure to replicate the appearance so she won’t know. Fuck it – here comes a big hit. Feel ground give way and blood excelerate as vessels contract, feel your heart beat in your throat. Colours shift. Woah, okay. Can’t hoot too much or she’ll notice when she gets home and looks for her leftovers.
Everything changed. Hyper-speed now. No regrets. I remember now what it was like to be high and not aware. To not be myself – To not think.

I now have two choices, two decisions I must make every few seconds when my brain pages me again for a response:
to embrace recovery and life, which I know is good and wonderful and carefree.
Or
To drown these feelings, all of this in another drug, another high, another escape.

I do not think any users would get me high right now. For 8 months I have been the advocate for clean living and “how great it is” and “if you only knew how great things are when you are not on drugs”. True enough, but I also when I said that I was obviously not in consideration of just how hard it is to resist the insanity of repeating a mistake again and again – getting high to relieve the emotions of previously getting high – getting high just because getting sober seems so lame in light of being high. After using steadily like this for a while the logic behind it disappears and you don’t even know why you get high, other than the fact that you cannot stop, no matter how much you want to. And after being in a place of “wanting to quit” but not being able to for a while you give up and just let the drugs consume you.
I know this is where I am heading if I choose to use. I know things will only get harder if I use again. I know I’ll end up right back in this same spot making this same decision, except each time the decision is more and more heavily weighted to the desire to use. More guilt = more desire. More desire = more guilt.
There is a way out. I know this. I was clean for 8 months. I know if I really want to not use, then I just have to do some things like admitting all this to another human being, being totally fucking honest with someone else, not protecting my disease like I am now, and having the willingness to have The Power direct me.
The more and more I think about this decision, the more tired of it I become, and the more I just want escape and release. My mind (or my disease, whatever you want to call it) tells me that this release will come by consuming another drug. But logic tells me this is not so.

I think crack is my best option. I could just go down to main and hastings and pick up a rock and a pipe and go smoke it in a alley like everyone else who’s been in my same shoes. Of course, I am different. I won’t end up like them. Always wanted to know what it is like. Crack, I mean. Maybe now is the perfect opportunity to find out. Just one rock. HA!

Heroin is scary. I’d have to be really in need to stick a needle in my arm. I mean, I’ve thought about it. It does appeal to me. But having never shot any dope before, I am not about to learn from some gross fuck in an alley with who knows what rig.”””

Something I dug up from May ’04. I was 20. This is about a month after I relapsed for the second time since treatment. When I say I had 8 months clean, i really didn’t. Nice to have written records – I still thought to this day that the longest clean time I had before now was that 8 month period, but as it says in this journal entry, I smoked a joint during that time. Self-deception is confounding.

“”” says: (12:21:31 AM)
dawg

smokegak@msn.com says: (12:21:51 AM)
yo

says: (12:21:54 AM)
wassup

says: (12:22:03 AM)
what r u doing?

smokegak@msn.com says: (12:22:29 AM)
fuck all u

says: (12:22:33 AM)
fuck all.

says: (12:22:37 AM)
u got dope?

smokegak@msn.com says: (12:22:46 AM)
no shitr

says: (12:22:52 AM)
i relapsed. need to get high.

smokegak@msn.com says: (12:22:55 AM)
y u dont do it

says: (12:23:27 AM)
rather smoke dope with someone i know rather than smoke crack/shoot smack down on pain and wastings.

I had 8 months clean and sober. That’s not quite true. I did smoke pot once with Tina. I didn’t like it though. The pot high made me feel sketchy.

Last night I slipped. I was left alone in a user’s apartment. As soon as she walked out the door I started my search of the residence for drugs. I knew they were somewhere.
Remember how you used to hide your drugs so no one would find them, not even your best friends whom you didn’t trust. She was not so aware. Afterall, a former user with 8 months clean and “no desire to use” isn’t a threat to one’s supply.
I found them. Top drawer in the kitchen. A tray of glass pipes among writing supplies and kitchen items.
I searched for one with a any trace of dope left. Bingo. Go to the bathroom and close the door. Heat the pipe, remember how it used to look and feel. The tension watching the first plumes of vapour stream off the melting brown crystallized lump. Deep breaths. Be aware of how the pipe looked before you touched it, with all it’s fogged glass intricacies and shape of the crystallized dope, now melting into a puddle of mud. After ever hit, be sure to replicate the appearance so she won’t know. Fuck it – here comes a big hit. Feel ground give way and blood excelerate as vessels contract, feel your heart beat in your throat. Colours shift. Woah, okay. Can’t hoot too much or she’ll notice when she gets home and looks for her leftovers.
Everything changed. Hyper-speed now. No regrets. I remember now what it was like to be high and not aware. To not be myself – To not think.

I now have two choices, two decisions I must make every few seconds when my brain pages me again for a response:
to embrace recovery and life, which I know is good and wonderful and carefree.
Or
To drown these feelings, all of this in another drug, another high, another escape.

I do not think any users would get me high right now. For 8 months I have been the advocate for clean living and “how great it is” and “if you only knew how great things are when you are not on drugs”. True enough, but I also when I said that I was obviously not in consideration of just how hard it is to resist the insanity of repeating a mistake again and again – getting high to relieve the emotions of previously getting high – getting high just because getting sober seems so lame in light of being high. After using steadily like this for a while the logic behind it disappears and you don’t even know why you get high, other than the fact that you cannot stop, no matter how much you want to. And after being in a place of “wanting to quit” but not being able to for a while you give up and just let the drugs consume you.
I know this is where I am heading if I choose to use. I know things will only get harder if I use again. I know I’ll end up right back in this same spot making this same decision, except each time the decision is more and more heavily weighted to the desire to use. More guilt = more desire. More desire = more guilt.
There is a way out. I know this. I was clean for 8 months. I know if I really want to not use, then I just have to do some things like admitting all this to another human being, being totally fucking honest with someone else, not protecting my disease like I am now, and having the willingness to have The Power direct me.
The more and more I think about this decision, the more tired of it I become, and the more I just want escape and release. My mind (or my disease, whatever you want to call it) tells me that this release will come by consuming another drug. But logic tells me this is not so.

I think crack is my best option. I could just go down to main and hastings and pick up a rock and a pipe and go smoke it in a alley like everyone else who’s been in my same shoes. Of course, I am different. I won’t end up like them. Always wanted to know what it is like. Crack, I mean. Maybe now is the perfect opportunity to find out. Just one rock. HA!

Heroin is scary. I’d have to be really in need to stick a needle in my arm. I mean, I’ve thought about it. It does appeal to me. But having never shot any dope before, I am not about to learn from some gross fuck in an alley with who knows what rig.”””

well. sunday was the 11th of march. that makes me clean and sober for two years. that is to say, i haven’t (purposefully) ingested alcohol or drugs in two years. prior to that two years, i never thought i would live to see this day. i really did not think there was a way out. apparently there is.

i am sick at home with the flu and i am taking a couple days off work to sleep to hopsfully feel better. my insides all hurt. i have a horrible cough that is probably the result of smoking some excess of two packs on friday.

the show was fun. i am glad i have my first rock show out of the way. i got nervous a couple hours before the show. when i got up on stage i was shaking a little. it was pretty hard looking out at a room full of over 100 people (i would guess) and knowing they’re all watching/listening to you. the power went out in the first song. the film crew that was filming us used some high-wattage lights that flipped the breaker. so we played through it. through the whole first song with no power. all you could hear was drums and bass. for some reason Lisa’s bass amp still worked. the sound on stage sucked. i couldn’t hear my guitar at all. which led me to the decision to never again let the sound guy turn down my amp. on the contrary, i will be turning UP my amp so that atleast i know i can hear myself on stage. they can turn me down FOH. my Hagstrom III arrived at my brother’s house in Seattle. Maddy is picking it up for me. Really liking my rig right now. and i think i might be happy for a while with it. it is as follows:

Guitars
’78 Ibanez PF-100 Black (Tuned to Drop D)
’79 Ibanez PF-200 Cream (Standard Tuning)
’65 Hagstrom III Red(Standard Tuning)

Effects
Boss Chromatic Tuner
Electro-Harmonix Small Clone Chorus
Boss SD-1 Super-OverDrive
ProCo The Rat (vintage)
Boss DS-1 Distortion
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal

Amp
Piper P1001TR 100-watt non-master head
Marshall 1960A 4×12 cab

I was powering the Marshall cab with a Fender Twin Reverb Amp, but i switched that out on the weekend and will be returning it to L&M whenever i get there.

needs? none.
wants? none.

today was a good day. i needed one. the week prior was shitty. full of shit. had trouble getting up every morning. saw no point in anything. work was long and bullshit. all cause i really missed one person. funny that. two awesome rehearsals last week. i think we’re ready for some shows. i know i am. super excited for the show on friday. doors open at 8pm. we’ll probably go on at 9 or 9:30. it’s going to sell out for sure, so i am told. my first real show playing a lead part in a rock band and it’s going to be infront of a sizeable audience. spent all of saturday night, from 7pm to 7am painting a backdrop for our show. it’s 12 feet tall and 15 feet wide. a big graphic of an anatomical heart with our band name across it in a romantic scripty font. I ran in to Maddy on the street outside Lick and she came back to the studio to help me paint and hang out. it was so fucking nice seeing her. it was like a weight was lifted. nothing happened. no hanky panky. no inuendos. no flirting. we were just hanging out and i honestly enjoyed her company. and i cared what she had to say. and i cared about her.

maybe i just need unatached sex. Abra made that suggestion to me tonight and it I agreed. I think that really is what i need. friendship and nsa sex every once in a while.

i was watching this porn called triple stacked where a guy is fucking three chicks at one time that all are acting like they are loving it and are totally in to him and each other. it went through my head that this is my fantasy. but the reality of it makes me sick.

all the female energy in my life. i have dreams of drowning in menstrual blood.

you gave me a Febreeze air freshner unit. ya know, one of those ones that you plug in to the wall and it’s got these vials of scented oil in them that heat up and really do a good job of making a smelly room like mine smell like something else. in this case you got me vials that smell exactly like your house. and in this case it’s doing a really good job of constantly reminding me of your house and you days since i’ve seen you.

i have a(nother) sinus infection. snorting salt water hurts like a motherfucking bitch. but it seems to be working.

i probably shouldn’t write when i feel like this… but it’s also when i am most inspired to write. i really want to talk to someone about how i am feeling but it seems that there’s nothing really to say and there’s nothing anyone can do to change how i am feeling. i guess that’s what my counsellor is for. i feel that i can talk to her. cause she has to listen. she gets paid to just sit there and soak up all my bad shit like a sponge.after i leave her office i don’t really have any new solutions but the bad feelings are now split between me and someone else. or at least i get the feeling that my problem is less when someone else knows about it.

it happened again. i got scared and i bolted. scared isn’t the right word. what is the righ word to describe it? maybe i just don’t know how to be happy with another person in an intimate context. i miss HER. i wanna ask her how her day was and i feel as though this time i would actually care enough to listen. i wanna know if she had a headache all day again, cause right now i actually care about her, which, strangely is more than i can say about the last week or two weeks of spotty apathetic love on my part. i really wasn’t there for her. i really didn’t let myself become emotionally available. a lot of the time i wasn’t even physically available, particularly in the last few days, which is when i made the difficult decision to not out either of us through that agony. and this time, unlike all the past relationships i quit cause i couldn’t hack, i am not gonna go back. i won’t do that to her. i care about her too much, i guess. it’s bad enough to be broken up with once, but over and over again every weekend for two or even six months? that’s just cruel. and that’s exactly what i did to Bre. that’s exactly what i did to Lorea. that’s exactly what i did to Tamar. kept thinking i could “get over my fears”. kept thinking it was just a brief phase of disinterest. kept thinking suddenly i would get struck to my senses and would treat her like i wish i could. wish i could just write my life out like a character in a screenplay and just be exactly like i wanted to be. but this screenwriter isn’t fervent enough and this actor is not professional enough to pull off a convincing role. i truly hope her and i can still hang out. i know we can’t right now. the dust needs time to settle. yesterday i was surprisingly happy after i told her i couldn’t date her anymore. i felt like i got what i needed and that i was on a path to honesty. today the fucking reality set in. all those things you take for granted. waking up to her in your bed. you were so apathetic before. now you missed her. watching her tell a story and be extatic and giggle. her fucking passion and aliveness. her honesty and willingness to try to make things work…. i could go on but it’s making me more sad.

i still feel like the decision i made was a necessary one and that it was the only thing to do to save our relationship with one another. and by that i mean our union of souls. cause when i was in that intimate-romantic context i couldn’t feel anything. and now i can feel her so close to me. and it hurts.

i got drafted by this emo band called ready.set.die… as their lead guitarist. 
i play lead guitar in an emo  band. i died my hair black and i straighten my bangs. I’m a poser and i’m totally fine with that.

ha!

xoxo