Vocals: Gibby Jourgen

Writing, recording, mixing, mastering, artworking: tcr!

High Court Records, Pink Room Studios, Geneva, Illinois

You can dance to it. C’mon let’s go. C’mon let’s go.

Momma, wake up. C’mon let’s go. Get outta bed. C’mon let’s go. Put on your clothes. C’mon let’s go. Smack that ass. C’mon let’s go.

Slam some coffee. C’mon let’s go. Pull on your wig. C’mon let’s go. Slap on lipstick. C’mon let’s go. Smack that ass. C’mon let’s go.

Put on your shoes. C’mon let’s go. Grab yer purse. C’mon let’s go. Fix your wig. C’mon let’s go. Smack that ass. C’mon let’s go.

Get in the truck. C’mon let’s go. Get in the truck. C’mon let’s go.

Tires on fire. Tires on fire. Tires on fire.

16 valves of vampire. Red lining my lard desire. Twin teeth amplifiers. Windows down, hair dryer.

Tires on fire. Tires on fire. Tires on fire.

16 valves of vampire. Red lining my lard desire. Twin teeth amplifiers. Windows down, hair dryer.

#diariespodcast #diariesvideo

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It’s an older, original song but it still checks out 🚀 definitely share this with your friends 👽

I am ready to go back to outer space. It’s my place, recognize the faces, the foreign shapes. I know the people of my race. And you are catching there at home plate and I’m clear off in left field. Not at the second stupid base waiting to make a double play. I’m out in orbit waving goodbye as I rocket far away.

Rain delay. Too much dumb, damn static in our game. Can’t hear the signals, too much atmosphere. Houston, we have a problem: I’m burning up here. Arm’s singed to rubber. Bottom of the ninth and I’m patrolling Pluto.

The only way to win…

Lover, you just never knew what it was like to kick around in my shoes, sleep with my childhood rules learned in Sun, Sunday school. And I won’t count the sleepless moons I tried to appeal them for you. The shoes are broken in, the fans have gone. The laces are long, the currents are strong and I could drown in my freezing swimming, swimming pool.

Behind in the count. Risky day for lift off, stars dealigned. Three balls and two strikes, zero gravity. Jammed comms, windshield cracked from your impact. Who’s that in the dugout? Guess I struck out. Broken hearts hemisphere.

Tears in space…

#diariespodcast #diariesvideo

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Do you know what I really hate?

When somebody is being over-the-top nice after they’ve fucked something up.

Do you know what I really like?

When someone offers up a sincere apology and then gets on with the day.

Own it. Regret it. Forget it.

Take five minutes, have a real conversation, and then go back to regular life.

If I don’t acknowledge I can come across like an unsympathetic magician. Trying to trick you into paying attention to my magic rabbit and hat. All the while my other hand is holding a bloody knife. I’m not fooling anyone.

And then if I’m dancing around like an out-of-the-ordinary, out-of-control ballerina with an obviously fabricated sugary song and dance, it only makes whatever transgression worse. It prolongs the distress.

Elaine said to me seven years ago, “…and don't grovel.”

I get “wanting to make it better” with flowers from up my sleeve and I’m sure I’ve tried to pull rosy ruses myself. But keep it to a minimum. Otherwise it’s a black reminder. The fuck up lingers like a red rubber band, stretching the hurt out for way longer than it needs to.

Humility. Brevity. Authenticity. I won’t go wrong with these.

#relationships #advancedsoul #diariespodcast

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Peeps, it was a busy summer.

Most of it was spent cleaning and packing up my house. That was a lot. I lived there for 11 years, the longest place I’d ever lived in my life. I threw away countless bags of trash, of life debris and clutter. ⛸

In June Sara and I went to see Ludovico at the Cadillac Palace in Chicago. Maggie and I went to Gay Pride in Aurora. Sara took all of us to Cantigny Park for my 47th birthday. We played mini golf in the dark during Swedish Days.

In July there was the case of the stolen bicycle and Maggie turned 14. We went to Minneapolis to check out the Mall of America and Paisley Park.

Maggie started high school in August, too. 😳

Five chipmunks were caught and released over the summer. I took over 450 photos. I didn’t keep track of how many restaurants that Sara and I went to.

This month of September we went to Nebraska for Sara’s sister’s wedding. During the sermon or whatever the pastor shared a story about an older couple with a successful marriage. When asked how they had stayed together for so long the husband replied, “I always figured it was her turn to get what she wanted.”

That’s how you win.

In healthy relationships life isn’t all about getting what we want but most of it is giving people what they want. Keeping that Christmas spirit of giving all year round is one of the foremost keys to happiness.

In a similar thread Jimi messaged me not long ago, shared something that Cokie Roberts’ husband had said regarding their marriage. It was that the most important life choice we can make is who we spend it with.

So in August Maggie and I moved in with Sara and her kids. It wasn’t on accident or on a whim that I chose Sara. She’s beautiful, kind, selfless, and intent on everyone having a good life. 💝

Speaking of life choices, today is/was my last day at the job I’ve had for the last 13 years. See, I could’ve stayed at my job and in my house in Geneva and been mostly comfortable. But then again and I hate to say this but life can suck when you’re stuck in second place.

I’ve lived much of my life in the moment, in the here and now, but sometimes it’s better to look bigger picture.

What we’re doing and what we really want to achieve.

Where we’re going and where we really want to be.

Who we’re with and who’ll really give us the fairy tale.

I’ve gotten divorced, I’ve moved, and I start a new job on Monday. Go team. 💪

#photos #lettherebehope #diariespodcast

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I have back and forth feelings of whether alcoholism is an actual disease like hepatitis or something. I guess at the end of the day it doesn't matter to me, doesn't change that my soul was sick. Emotionally distraught to the point it was affecting everything from my sleeping to my shitting to my relationships with Maggie and my cats. You that know me personally know my story.

Did you ever see Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield? It's from the mid 80s, light hearted, goofy, classic Dangerfield.

There's a scene where he's arguing with his professor about selling widgets. Dangerfield gets hung up on what exactly a widget is and the professor exasperated finally says...

It's a fictional product, it doesn't matter.

That's a powerful train of thought for me. Sometimes I can get hung up on wanting to debate a topic and often it's because I'm wanting to deflect looking at my own issues. I resist so I don't need to peer inward.

When I'm deflecting I need to remember to self-critique. Maybe there's something I'm avoiding. And if so, the debate "doesn't matter."

It's weird how I remember these lines from movies and they graft themselves into, make up part of my spiritual being. 😉

Anyways. Is alcoholism a true medical disease? I don't care. What I do care about, what does matter is that I can't drink responsibly. I drink irresponsibly to the point of excess. I get frantic when I don't drink. It becomes the only thing I care about. Above all else. That's what does matter.

Also, as a last thing. I do think it's a proper medical illness. The way alcoholics are utterly consumed by the cravings and will drink to literal death, well that's just not a lack of willpower.

#alcoholism #healthnews #protip #diariespodcast

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If I’m feeling the same way a few days later about something I need to make peace with it. Or not.

It’s true that the only thing I have to do with my feelings is feel them but sometimes they linger. They don’t resolve. And then I have to do something. I need to take action.

Often times that action is just accepting whatever happened that caused my unrest to begin with. If the situation involved another person, for example, how would I act around them if it didn’t happen at all?

That’s how I accept things. It’s not hard once I decide that I want to move forward in life. Regardless of where my feelings are at.

Acting differently than how I feel isn’t denying my feelings or pretending whatever didn’t happened. It’s me deciding that I’m done with all that and am going to move on even if my heart is telling me something else.

It’s not usual when the only closure I get is accepting that I won’t get resolution. That’s a realization I get to in my head because feelings can be icky and sticky.

Like watching somebody leave when I want them to stay. I give them a hug and a kiss on the cheek, watch them get into the car and drive down the street. My heart twists as the taillights drive away. The physical bond between us stretches and dissolves as the car gets smaller.

To the left. Around a bend. Disappear. Gone is gone.

I turn and hobble up the sidewalk, the fallen leaves are too coincidental. The chilly air a nuisance, the gray sky unwanted.

Inside the tears drip down like droplets over the outside of a boiling pot. Steam on the lid and mist in my eyes making it too hard to see what’s inside. Everything’s overflowing. Everything’s too much.

The house isn’t empty but I’d rather be by myself. Alone I turn off the stove and the pot and the water start to cool. Just a minute ago the somebody was there and now I only have a fading memory.

Okay stop. Enough with the melodrama.

There was never a stove. Nor a boiling pot.

Feelings are beautiful, magical things and experiencing them makes us whole human beings. They’re the yin to the intellect’s yan.

But they don’t run the show and allowing them to will only end up making life miserable.

#advancedsoul #diariespodcast

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Sometimes when I’m going to work I get stuck behind a school bus. And then I roll my eyes… Today I watched a handful of parents corralling their kids, funneling them toward the awaiting bus. There were enough kids that I needed to count them so as to know when I could be on my way.

🚌

And then everything changed.

Two of the kids were swaying, almost dancing. Little horses waiting to run. Smiles on their little faces, overly eager happiness as they waited their turn to board. Their day ahead would be magical. It already was.

“We’re gonna do math and reading and writing and maybe some science.”

If you’re ever feeling down, go watch some kindergartners waiting for the school bus.

One dad looked especially proud, his heart overflowing with love as he readied his daughter’s coat and straightened her collar. She was his finest achievement by far. His little girl with yellow barrettes and her white backpack with pink butterflies.

Having my own daughters I know the pride and the joy that she gave him. Kids change everything. They increase our capacity to love and give us a reason to.

And then this father looked like he didn’t want to let his daughter go as she turned around. His heart seemed to break when she took a few steps away to mingle with the other little ones. Kisses blew from his mouth when she climbed the big steps up into the bus. This is a few weeks into the school year, too, so it’s not like it was his first day sending her off to school.

😊

The whole time standing a few feet beside him was another dad. He was a little self-conscious, like maybe he couldn’t put himself out there in front of the other parents so emotionally. There’s a mandate for him to play it cool but I could tell from his expression that he felt similar to the first dad. That was his baby growing up and heading out, too. He was just keeping his emotions in check so as not let the crowd see. That’s okay. Not everybody is supposed to be unchained. But guys, the first dad’s heart was too full of love to care who knew.

So here’s the last yet equally important part of the story.

I live in white suburbia with a picket fence and three bird feeders, but the interaction between these fathers and daughters took place in a lower income neighborhood. The parents and children were of all different colors, all different shapes, all different sizes. Those school kids accepted each other no matter what. That little one with yellow barrettes wasn’t afraid of people that looked different because those other souls are all she’s ever known. I hope she carries that with her for the rest of her life.

And where they lived made no difference in how much that father loved his daughter and her white backpack. It didn’t matter to him that he was on the corner of a patch of weeds and she didn’t care that they lived in an older apartment building with a crumbling parking lot. It didn’t change the spring in her step or the bounce in her hair as she was off on her adventure.

The sun was shining on them both even if there were clouds in the sky.

❤️

#schoolnews #lettherebehope #diariespodcast

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When I’m around you guys it’s easy to be my best self.

I would almost say that it comes naturally. I don’t even think about it.

But there are other times when I’m around other people when there’s nothing easy about being a good person. It takes 100% of my concentration. It takes dedicated and duplicated prayers. It takes front-burner, fore-thought action.

It takes getting to know and being comfortable with my anger beforehand so it’s not overwhelming when I’m around the jerks who live only in their own worlds, who live from only their own point of view.[1]

It takes regular and routine reseting so I don’t get lost in the chaos. It takes pretending to care even when I honestly don’t.

Because at the end of the day people are going to hurt us. They’re going to give us reasons to be angry. The trick is to love them anyway. At all costs.

#advancedsoul #diariespodcast

Granted I do, too, at times but somewhere along the way I was clued into thinking about you guys, too. Your wants, your needs, your feelings before letting what I want become too much of a priority. ↑

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Some time over the weekend I had a dream that it was Wednesday after work and the robot vacuum hadn't done his scheduled cleaning. And then I was crushed and frustrated, defeated and agitated, almost to the brink of tears.

Another substantiated claim that I don't deserve nice things.

It was worse when I was drinking, that train of thought. I’d like to say it surprises me that I still have that thought but it doesn’t.

Really though it’s not about deserving as much as “can’t have nice things.” Because I’ll put myself in impossible situations. Where I’ll never win.

It’s a dysfunctional pattern carried from when I was a teenager or something. Which leads into the struggles of a life inherited. From a previous life. More realistically it’s probably from my genetics. Family of origin stuff, a television spin off.

Desperately pleading that things would get better. But they won’t. They can’t. I stay in those situations because I’ve dug a hole. It’s pretty much impossible to get out. I don’t know how to do anything else.

And we don’t find nice things in holes. They don’t have them.

After spending over a decade in a hole it becomes familiar and comfortable. I can distract myself with my imagination, satisfy myself with make-believe. I can put a nice rug here and maybe a lamp over there.

Sometimes I strive and strain to climb out. But it just doesn’t work. And then I give up. Yet again. It’s easier just to give up, accept that everything’s terrible. Because this is just how it’s going to be.

Obviously I don’t feel spiritual every day. And then I flounder around for a day or two. Maybe a week. Read a spiritual book. Go to a meeting. Hear something that puts me back on track. Points me again in the right direction.

How I feel is not who I am.

God’s got a bigger plan. Maybe I’m not supposed to have nice things right now.

Keep the faith, peeps. Let go absolutely.

#allislost #advancedsoul #diariespodcast #nicethings

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Lying is the absolute worst.

“No, I wasn’t drinking. What the hell are you talking about?”

Telling lies. To another person. Makes them crazy. They start to question their own sanity.

Someone has a pretty good idea about something and then we go and sow a row of doubt. It’s twofold. Not only are we handing them a flat out lie, we’re also giving them personal conflict. We’re insisting they stop questioning us and question themselves.

Self-doubt is one of the worst things we can serve somebody. It’s a car wreck for the soul. Twisted metal and broken headlights. Sure, the fender can be bent back but it’ll never be true.

It’s funny that we tell our kids that it’s not what they did that was so bad, it was that they lied about it. And then we grow up as adults and do the same thing. But on a Rushmore, monumental level.

I don’t know about you guys but if someone lies to me that’s just it.

…

I wrote the above back in August. And then it just sat there not feeling finished.

It’s all fine and good but it’s also abstract. The real stories in life aren’t. The car crash here is that I lied to somebody yesterday. A flat out lie as mentioned above. First time I can remember since I stopped drinking.

I lied because I don’t like this person. I don’t trust them. Being honest gives them ammunition and I don’t like the thought of loading bullets into an unstable person’s gun.

I am kind of disappointed in myself, though. Lying goes against what I believe, who I want to be. In all situations. In all dilemmas.

However, I don’t feel too bad for lying to this particular person. They lie to me on the bimonthly basis, the latest just this past week. I know they lied because I looked it up. I didn’t crucify this person for it but I wanted to. I mean really wanted to.

I could justify the whole situation with some notion about how spiritual truths need not apply in all situations. Cold wars and nuclear armaments. I won’t make more of a case than that because I don’t really have one. Plastic tanks and toy soldiers, peeps.

Would I do it again? Tell a flat out lie? Probably not but I don’t know. Sometimes somebody shines a hot spotlight on us and shit just happens. I don’t like how I feel about lying for sure. I don’t like playing the odds that I’ll get caught. Driving fast doesn’t appeal to me anymore. I don’t want to smash up, crash up somebody’s fender.

So there’s my confession. Two Jim Carrolls and a bottle of wine.

#confessional #diariespodcast

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