Two third

I've seen more than what need to know
To cut the core of what's got to go
Everytime I see another trick to trade
There's nothing free from you it's paid
I write the song from a feel inside
I right the wrong with a safe confide
Don't talk your game cause I'm no longer new
All talk's the same you've got a permanent flue
Tonight is going to break the unspoken word
A quarter heart to take and place two third.

Religous control

It starts easy.  It seems normal.  That's how it gets you. It seems logical when your mind is magical.  But when the magical turns rational then the once true turns childish.

But the magic is still there.  It's hidden between the lines.  Read between the lines.  

Obsession can be good

My obsession can be good when it's properly harnessed. I just finished my screenplay!!!!!!!!!!

I've been working on it for the last few months but I've become obsessed in the last few days. I somehow was able to see a light at the end of the tunnel and I glued myself to the computer for days on end until...I'm done.

I think it's kind of good too.

Life is love if you want it

As messed up as things can get in this world there's twice as much beauty. What do I look for? What and whom do I seek? I'm seeing beauty in a life that previously had none. There's good if you want it. There's signs if you want them. There's laws at work. A system in place. A divine order. All you have to do is plug in. The magic is universal. Pain is universal. But so is love if we want it to be. You can see love in the worst. It's there if you want to see it. And if you do see it and you focus on it it gets bigger. It gets so big that what you thought was once bad is now love.

People are love. Life is love. But only if you want it to be.

Is it odd? Or is it God?

Just when everything seems pointless and random something that seems no less that a hand from the heavens above happens. With a billion possibilities even the unlucky ones seem to have a moment of grace in this life. This is my exerience. I've been living in what feels like he'll for I don't know how long. One day I look up and I see one of life's coincidences.

One that turned me. Everything looks different. I've got new reading glasses and what I'm reading spells change. Change for the better.

Surrender

So much fighting. So much stubborness. So deep runs the need to be right. And with this need to be right comes the need for you to be wrong. I'm at war! The problem is when you're at war there are no real winners. Even if you win you're fucked because war in itself is fucked.

I'm internally at war. I fight with the world but really I fight with myself. Who is this self that I fight with? Evil Duke? Is it evil Duke vs Super Duke? Where's the real Duke? I'm searching for him. This is who I want to surrender to. The peaceful one. The wise one.

The appropriate time

I'm that kid. The kid that wants what he wants right now! There's no rationalizing with that kid; he doesn't give a fuck. I'm him, he's me. The kid throws a tantrum and screams. Fuck you for saying no and fuck anyone who stands in my way of what I want now!

That's me. The only problem is I'm naturally quiet; I'm quiet on the outside. Anger is not tolerated in this family. Anger is an emotion I'm not allowed to have. So what do I do? I stuff it. I stay quiet. I stay alone with Ny thoughts. I'm an island. I let no one in. This is my life, the grown version of the kid.

When a kid gets angry he looses it. Kicks, screams, cries. But the 5 minutes later he's happy and seemingly forgets what the big deal is. He got all the bad emotion out of him. But as we train this kid to live in society he learns to shove down those emotions until no one can see any of them. Good boy. This is me the good boy.

The problem is I'm so good it fucked me up. There was too much too stuff. Dad leaving at 5 and then then dying at 12. Mom crying to a fourth grader about how hard life is. Her search for father figures for me. My search for father figures for me. Stuff it down. Don't feel, don't express.

Now I have kids. Now I'm the father. My oldest kid is 6 so I beat the record for staying with the family. Now I just have to live passed age 12 and I'm on top!

What happens after years of stuffing these things down? All I can say is that everything comes around. Deal with it now. Most of my problems come from the inability to do or say the appropriate thing at the appropriate time. As a result I deal with life at innapropriate times.

At least today I honestly want to face things.

You saved my life

I don't know if you can tell by looking at me but I experimented with a lot of LSD as a young adult. The first 2 or 9 times were really fun. I fell in love with it. Then I got arrested with 50 hits blah blah blah... Ever since then it wasn't really fun. I would take it and then just start thinking about my life and how it was going drastically wrong. It became the opposite of fun.

There's a place called the nude bowl in Palm Springs. It's an abandoned pool in the middle of nowhere. Someone planned a party, 10 bands, beer, drugs and chicks. They made fliers and passed them out at school. My band was on the bill. The school found the flier and made an announcement that they were notifying the police.

All the bands backed out. Fuck that. Not my band, we went. We drive two hours and make it to the spot. Cars everywhere. The band sets up, skaters are skating, the suns setting and me and the guys drop LSD right before it's time to start playing. Not one minute after we take the acid about 5 cop cars pull up. The band didn't play one note. Everyone just dropped acid and we had to leave.

Where to go? Camping. We drove for an hour or so and ended up at the Wildemar camp ground. 30 kids frying on acid in the middle of nowhere. All kinds of crazy crap happened that night but my favorite part was staring at the fire. It kept turning different colors, I maybe saw it turn 20 different colors. I could of stared all night. It was all I wanted to do. Stare at the fire and drink cold beers from my cooler. Keystone light, a bottled taste in a can.

Someone had a bright idea to bring an axe to cut firewood. If you have a large group on acid in the middle of nowhere the chances are that some might be a little crazier than others. We had one that was definitely off the deep end that night. Somehow or another he got the axe. He was slowly walking around us looking very creepy with a distinct evil in his eyes.

I looked in those sinister eyes and I heard him mumble to himself,"I'm gonna kill somebody." What the fuck! I just wanted to stare at the fire. He eventually killed my cooler. That's when I thought it might be a good time to move a few campsites down.

For what it's worth I ran into this guy a few years later and he gave me a job working construction. He had quit drinking and doing drugs. I looked in his eyes remembering the evil but all I saw was love.

That guy saved my life.

The feast

The journey is fine it's the arriving that scares me
The searching is open but the finding is blinding
The looking is important to me and seeing what's there
Beyond the cloak and into the universe
Of inner realms and being
The journey is what I always wanted but holding on to
Things that seem normal holds me back
Frozen in time with only a chance to thaw
But breaking is only a thought I can call
Come with your tired feet and hungry hearts and feast in the
...

My life here

I'm tired but still I dance
I play my song and see beauty
I'm scared to break the trance
But still I'm searching

I'm a Dad, A husband, and a seeker
I seek truth and look inside
What I see is freakier
Than if nighttime strangers collide

Holding truth and loosing grip
To all things old
Is the cup of life I sip
As paths unfold

Illusions create choices
So strong they work
And as I find the hidden voices
I tackle the ultimate jerk

So this is life as I am here
To cooperate with circumstance
And walk through fear
Giving meaning to seeming chance

It's not so easy now

They say that youth is wasted on the young. Sometimes it's all right in front of you; you think you need to get to some other place but really all you need to do is look around because right now all is well. Look inside and seek truth. Follow your gut and a path will develop. When you're young it doesn't matter, you've got nothing to loose. This is why fear in the young adult is such bullshit.

Don't listen to people you don't respect. The difference between those who make it and those who don't? The one's who don't make it were told they suck all the time and the ones who make it are those who were told they suck almost all the time.

When you're young you have nothing to loose. Maybe you think you have time to loose. If you go for something you desire and fail then you've wasted those years. This is the fear. So you listen to mom and play it safe. The years fly by when you play it safe. You get stuff. A lot of luggage.

And then one day you wake up to realize that playing it safe was really what made you loose the time. Playing it safe is like time travel into the future. And when you wake up regret starts to seep in. Then you try to overcompensate but life has tied you down. You realize how easy it would have been when you were younger.

It's easy to go all in with nothing but the clothes on your back but what happens after the time travel? What if you wake up mid life and still want to save your soul? It's not easy. It's kind of like that camel through the eye of a needle shit. No one does it. Except me.

I've had the house, the care, the income. Those three things have vanished. I have a wife. I have two young children. I have things to loose. But still I hold on to my guns when I say that nothing is worse than loosing your soul. I think that winning your soul is number one. What kind of husband am I with no soul? What kind of father am I who doesn't follow his own truth?

So you've got to do it. There is a way out of hell but you've got to turn around and start walking out. I choose to leave my situation, I choose life and choose to be a man. I choose to be an example for my kids and I don't care what I have to walk through to get there.

A love story

There's something missing. Something familiar yet lost. Something deep inside. Something locked up. The key is missing. This key is the key to make you complete. It's the key that makes life worth living. It's the key that opens your eye's in a way that allows you to see beauty. With the key you can see beauty you never saw previously. This is the key to the kingdom!

Without this key you experience loneliness beyond comprehension. Anxiety, depression, emptiness and pain. Mostly all of the different kinds of suffering are in your immediate perspective. Life is meaningless. Life is dark, scary, pointless and meaningless.

Then one day you look up and you meet someone. Someone who holds the key. They give you the key and you unlock something wonderful. Words cannot describe the feelings you have towards the universe. Everything makes since. Wonderment surrounds you. Not only does the magical new world become available to you but you have someone to share it with. Life means something at last.

Movies, bike rides, long talks, and late nights. You're growing spiritually at an amazing rate and never before have you felt so alive. Your muse has also come to visit you and the heavens begin to use you as a vessel for beautiful poetry, music and art. You can't remember what life was like before you had access to this key.

Then one day your someone with the key takes away the key and leaves. Colors immediately turn to black and white. The darkness reappears. Your soul goes back into hibernation. You quickly become a shell of a human. You get lost in your mind. You don't see the world at all anymore. All you see is hell. A hell within your mind.

This goes on for years until you hear a Neil Young song. You search for someone who is turning and when you find this person you begin to turn.

If you are lucky (and this journey doesn't kill you; as it does many who dare to embark on it) then you learn something. You have the key. It's just a matter of opening your eyes, find someone who's turning, and hold on to your focus.

These are the good times

I used to ride motorcycles to the movies with my old mentor and drink large bottles of Dr. Pepper and stay up very late. Whenever it was time to ride our motorcycles he would say, "Are you ready for the good times?" It felt at the time that those were times that would be remembered as the best. They were definitely times that have been put on the permanent hard drive.

My 6 year old woke up at 2:30 am asking if it was time to open presents. That went on for a few hours. My mom showed up at 6am and the kids bolted downstairs. I woke up and immediately had a panic attack! The kids had a pretty good Christmas. They're both crying and in a terrible mood now that all the festivities have drained everything out of them.

Sometimes it's tough to see the beauty of the forest when the ugly trees are staring you in the face. Ugly trees being screaming and crying accompanied with uncomfortable thinking. But I stop that thinking as soon as I notice it and focus on my awesome wife and how cool it really is spending time with the kids.

There's no better feeling than making the kids laugh and we've definitely been doing a lot of that lately. Even with the bad this truly is a wonderful life when I just make it a point to open my eyes and see with my heart.

Time to eat

Christmas is tomorrow and all the gifts I got for the family aren't good enough! OK let's not stress out here. Calm down. Be cool man!

I got out of a Christmas party that has a bunch of people I would never see unless I went to this party. I'm having panic attacks. My kids are whining. I'm locked in a head of thoughts. I'm tired. I don't have a talk show. I have over half of a screenplay. I don't know what's going on.

Pull it together man. Think of something good.

My wife is beautiful. She's cooking dinner right now. I love my kids. Life is good when I stay cool. Stay cool man.

Focus on others. Focus on what you can give to the situation. (I'm talking to myself here.) I'm rambling thoughts and posting them on the internet like a crazy man. Ok be cool man.

"Daddy time to eat!"

Speak up

It's rained for a week in my neck of the woods; flooding, closed roads, the whole nine yards. The big water run off drainage canal like the one from the Jack Nicholson Movie China Town was raging with rapids. I heard there was a 6 foot stationary wave at the end right before the ocean.

The rain stopped today. My sons and I walked down to the beach; it was trashed. The water is brown and muddy and the beach is covered with bamboo sticks and tennis balls. My sons like to get the bamboo sticks and play Star Wars; I usually have to stop them from killing each other.

I found an old basket ball and I was kicking it like a soccer ball down the beach. My son and I were kicking it back and forth to each other. Sooner or later my son gave up on soccer and went back bamboo Star Wars fights. I continued to dribble the ball with my feet down the beach. Another family approached us coming from the opposite direction; A Couple with two sons. The mom had a big bag of tennis balls she was collecting she said to me, "I told my kids there would be a ton of balls here, they didn't believe me." I smiled at her and continued to dribble the ball past her. Then her son comes up to me and picks up my basket ball and runs over to his mom saying, "Look mom I found a basketball." Then I said nothing.

I was thinking that I should tell the kid, "Hey that's my basketball!" But then I thought what do I want with an old basketball. It's not that big of a deal Duke. Let it go. Then I thought fuck that little kid I should say something. Then I thought no I shouldn't. This thinking continued for a long time as my stomach increasingly tightened up.

For one thing, why do I care? Why do I dwell on such a thing? But it's a symbol of my problem. I don't speak my mind up front. I push it down and then years later it comes to the surface in messed up ways like panic attacks.

So this is just a reminder to speak up for yourself even when it's not a big deal, who knows maybe you can avoid cancer.

Thoughts, words, and intentions

What I think, what I say, and what I intend to have happen. I say these three things everyday after my home yoga practice to remind me of something.

My mind can really get me, and not in a good way. If I decide to go asleep at the wheel my mind takes over. It takes over with self obsession, with jealousy, with envy, greed and the rest of the 7 deadly sins. It's repeated thinking based in fear. There's no need to have the same thought twice unless you enjoy having that thought.

The way I talk is what builds my world. The way I describe my world is what leads to perspective. It's all about perspective and this life has a full spectrum of perspectives from negative to positive. My words are powerful.

My intent. This is where it starts. I can think it through. What is it. Become aware. Be awake and act out your true intent.

We are judged on our actions and not our intentions.

What's next

I've got a feeling that I'm flying
It's more than if I'm dying
I'm holding on to something great
I don't know but I can't wait
Singing in the shower
A voice that displays power

My luck is turning round
I'm no longer looking down
Cement is just for feet
And I'm walking to the beat
It's just a different type of way
And there's a place that I can stay
If I want to
If I'm so inclined
If I want to
The world wouldn't mind
Traveling through space
My time has quit the race
And all the circumstances stop
My problems I did drop

I'm in love with just a thought
But it's gone and all I've got
Is words that can't explain
And a picture that once came
With a sub text
and that's what's next

Aterations

Night time thinking
In thought I'm sinking
Controlled illusions
Turned delusions
Unspoken truth
A girl named Ruth
Hitting home
Sitting alone
Tired eyelids
Fired sky bids
Timely situations
Finally alterations

What haunts me

Beautiful mistakes, wonderful one takes
Upside down thoughts and a head of banging pots
Lipstick instincts and lost pattern pinks
Teary eyed soul and a shifting pole
A whirling ball and a lonely stall
A stand up freak and an absent mystique

These are the beautiful mistakes that haunt me

It's a comedy

A bromance cheater movie set to the backdrop of a zany world of a failed talk show host.

Duke wants a friend but what he has is a fan. Chipper has a BFF but wants a new best friend. Chipper is torn between his BFF and his new bromance with Ryan. Ryan wants to hang with Chipper but Chipper once again has a BFF. The next best thing is Duke. Duke leaves his fan to hang out with Ryan. Eventually Chipper leaves his BFF and Ryan leaves Duke for Chipper.

What is a hipster? What is cool? What is an outsider? What is true uniqueness?

These and so many more questions will be answered.