Tangled up in Blue

Im tangled up in Blue, Im living in the shadow of you.
it's been so long and you know I've paid some dues
Im tangled up in blue. 
I hope Bob Dylan plays this song tonight. I need it like I need a hug.
going to concerts alone is like my new past time.
I'd be nice to have some one someday to do things with
Im just a ballad of a thin man
and Ive got the tombstone blues
and its all tangled
This is the first halloween of my life that I won't be dressing up
sigh, like a a complete unknown, like a rollin stone, everybody
must get stoned I guess.

banjo

due to a confluence of signs from the ether I can not ignore it anymore and im getting a banjo. it makes sense really, but after seeing john lennon play one in nowhere boy and then seeing the guy from trampled by turtles shred (thanks po) i figured i could do the same and the next time chris comes to town i'll be ready! Friday is the day gals and gents. It shall be done and i'll be chickin pickin till the cows come home. yee haw! gunna find me my West Virginia roots down thar in ther hollar!

Poem for Hope

I would like to sing to you Allen and let my soul/self wail, undisciplined

endowed with my joys and miseries and lusts.

To sing of those that I love and those that love me 

(yes, I can admit now that I am loved)

of my experiences with Whitman and the trials of relying on his

old, grey, crumbled beard-compass

of hearing your strangled howl and crying alone in my bed 

contemplating the abuses of Carl Solomon

of Chicago and Jersalem and Paris and Barcelona and Athens

and S.L.'s Zurich and D.W.'s China and P. L's New York and L.A.

and the imaginary Manhattan cesspool Mecca

of the melting brains of the world and the receding morality coastlines

and the disappearing common sense polar bears

of this and that, ad nauseam, et cetera et cetera, so on and so forth...

I would like to sing to you Allen, to know you and be known by you

without boundary or fear and for this to be a celebration 

because you made me Holy! and when I swalloed Holiness it came out my eyes 

and ears and nose and pen

and I could pass it on with a kiss and so I kissed 

ALL the boys and ALL the girls!

and they were Holy!, too.

O Allen! O Soul! O Holiness! hear my song

and know me.

Chicago October 2010

pity party

i feel lost. i feel like i have no real friends.  i hate what im doing. i dont like the way i act. i just acted like a fool. im jealous.  im confused. i want to talk to someone but no one wants to listen and no ones even there.  even if i could explain its so complicated and the feelings are so deep.  im so emotionally invested in something that might never come to pass.  i want to be happy, i deserve to be happy.  i cant sleep.  i cant eat.  please God help me. this is me at my most vulnerable asking for help. i want to have the best day ever.  i've tried to be optimistic.  i listen to Og Mandino everyday, I studied David Wolfe, but im suffering. my heart yearns and my body aches. this is my plea, please show me a way out of this cycle of self-pity and negative thinking, please help me get some sleep. please bring some love in my life, i don;t want to be so pathetic, i have something to offer the world, i can do it, i like myself, but im just having a really really hard time recently.  help me see the forest not the trees. i want to find a purpose for being here. help me see the light. i dont want to be a quitter. give me strength show me the way.  I've read Luke 12:22 over and over and over please please help me believe it.  i trust you. I;ve fallen on my knees.  Im asking, Im knocking please open the door. ill do anything you ask Lord just please show me the way, im not asking for opportunity because i know there are infinite opportunities im simply asking for guidance because im so lost.  show me the way. i want to do what is right.  if i have ever written anything honest in my whole 24 years this is it, please lift this depression from my soul.  because i cant carry this burden any longer or at least give me the courage and power to endure it Lord, remember Cali? I said i would try my best, i am trying my best, all i have is love, give me some perspective, give me patience, please give me peace in my heart. thank you for all the gifts i do have, and for the time youve given me, may peace be with you and me and her and him, amen.

Landing on Yavin IV

this is a painting I made last year.  I call it "landing on Yavin 4'.  Yavin IV is where the Rebel Alliance had there base in Episode IV and where Anakin Skywalker battled Asajj Ventress.  It came to me in a dream on my friends couch...It's nothing special and not finished but it makes me wish I made more time to paint cause it's a lot of fun.  notice the red Death Star... anywho, I think I was trying to write something in Sanskrit hidden in the tree line, like may the Force be with you...

Old Picture Sunday

I found a treasure trove of old pictures.  Here are some goodies:

gingeraide!

health is wealth

yeeha

athens

epidaurus

cairo

giza

aegean

georgos and I

patria and I

nowhere boy

I have this empty feeling in my heart right now.  It almost physically hurts.  I had a pretty sweet day at work...I mean about as sweet as things can get at work...I came home passed out for an hour and now I feel like the Grand Canyon...expect emptier...why do our moods change so quick? Jimmy Eat World is forbidden from no on. no more emo music. SHIT!!! I can't believe how shitty I feel right now.  It totally sucks; it's almost laughable how much it sucks. Fuck. I need a distraction REALLY bad; I need to stop thinking about things. Today's the best day ever...hmmmmm. laugh at the world. things always work out for me... You can do it Derek.  You have been here before, get over it. I'm going to see nowhere boy...alone.  Fitting. 

no show

I went to see Dr. Manhattan, but didn't see Dr. Manhattan.  Couldn't find the show, I felt like such a nubie not being able to find something in Chicago.  Anyway, it worked out because I had a better phone conversation as a result that I wouldn't have had otherwise.  Should I go to a haunted house tonight? What should I be for Halloween? Not a Jedi again.  I need to get on that.  I'd say that this week has been probably the best week all year, for many reasons which I'll get into tomorrow.  I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow, on the seventh day the Lord rested, yahweh. no way. anyway, who knows everything is such a mystery, the weather, the future, selling things, love, where ever the hell "freindship fortress" was supposed to be to see Dman...vale

emo

The tides advance; the tides recede. Winter goes and summer comes.  Summer wanes and the cold increases.  The sun rises; the sun sets.  The moon is full;  the moon is black.  The birds arrive; the birds depart.  Flowers bloom; flowers fade.  Seeds are sown; harvests are reaped. All Nature is a circle of moods and I am part of Nature therefore like the tides my moods will rise; my moods will fall. 
Yesterday's joy will become today's sadness; yet today's sadness will grow into tomorrow's joy.  I understand that I must have yin and yang.  I am thankful for each.  I am thankful for the loneliness for it tests my character; I am thankful for every "I love you" for it makes my soul rejoice.  Thank you for my heartache for it allows me to appreciate what I do have; thank you for the warmth and affection for it acknowledges my love.  I will laugh at the world, at it's sorrow and suffering, at it's joy and ecstasy, but most of all I will laugh at myself, because we are most comical when we take ourselves too seriously.  With love in my heart I will make today the best day ever because today is all I have. Yesterday is gone forever though the memories still remain; yet tomorrow never comes. I wish everyone the same.  Love and gratitude, Derek

honey if you don't know then you don't

 It so awesome how you look back on bands that you absolutely adored in high school  and now their songs have all new meaning for you as you get a little older.  I used to have a Jimmy Eat World patch on my jacket.  I have been listening to Clarity and Bleed American and realized how phenomenal this band is...so Honey, if you don't know, well, then I guess you don't.

What's wrong baby, don't he treat you like he should?
Did you take 'em for it?
Every penny that you could?
We once walked out on the beach and once I almost touched your hand.
Oh how I dreamed to finally say such things then only to pretend.
Don't you know I'm thinkin', drivin' 405 past midnight.
You know I miss you.
Don't you know that I miss you?
Ninth and Ash on a Tuesday night.
I would write to you from a museum mile, toast to you:
your whisper, your smile.
Up the stairs at the Weatherford, a ghost each place I hide.
If you don't don't know, why would you say so?

Would you mean this please if it happens?
If you don't know, why would you say so?
Won't you get your story straight.
If you don't know, honey, why'd you just say so?
And I need this now more than I ever did.
If you don't well, honey, then you don't.
I left you waiting, at the least could we be friends?
Should have never started, ain't that the way it always ends?
On my life I'll try today, there's so much I've felt I should say, but.
Even if your heart would listen, doubt I could explain.
If you don't don't know, why'd you say so?
Would you mean this please if it happens?
If you don't know, why would you say so?
Won't you get your story straight.
If you don't know, honey, why'd you just say so?
Cause I need this now more than I ever did.
If you don't well, honey, then you don't.
So here we are now, a sip of wine a sip of water.
Someday maybe, maybe someday we'll be smarter.
And I'm sorry that I'm such a mess, I drank all my money could get and,
took everything you let me have and then I never loved you back.
If you don't don't know, why would you say so?
Would you mean the please if it happens?
If you don't know, why would you say so?
Won't you get your story straight?
If you don't know, honey, why'd you just say so?
Cause I need this now yeah need this, need this.
If you don't well, honey, then you don't
And if you don't well, honey, then you don't
If you don't know, honey, honey, then you don't.

I will persist until I succeed.

I recognize that each day I am tested by life.  If I persist, if I continue to try, if I continue to charge forward, I will succeed.  I will persist until I succeed.  I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course in my veins.  The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal.  Failure I may encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road.  Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.  Always will I take another step.  If that is no avail I will take another, and yet another.  In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.  I will persist until I succeed.  I will never consider defeat and I will remove from my vocabulary such words and phrases as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, out of the question, improbable, failure, unworkable, hopeless, and retreat; for they are the words of fools.  I will avoid despair but if this disease of the mind should infect me then I will work on in despair.  I will toil and I will endure.  I will ignore the obstacles at my feet and keep mine eyes on the goals above my head, for I know that where dry desert ends green grass grows.  Each misfortune and each heartache will carry in it the seed of tomorrow's good luck.  I must have the night to appreciate the day.  I must fail often to succeed only once.  I will persist until I succeed.  I will try,  and try, and try again.  So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist.  If I persist long enough I will win.  I will persist.  I will win.
***
I walked for two hours from downtown Chicago to home on Irving park last night after working for twelve hours standing on my feet and I had the best conversation I have had in a few years. It was so inspiring, so soul lifting that even on no food and 4 hours of sleep I am skating by on an emotional high that is one thousand fold greater than any artificial substance could bring and it has given me more energy and vigor and will power and confidence and excitement than I have felt in a long, long time.  I have no illusions about the slim chances of my goals being achieved but I believe in miracles and I know that someday, maybe not even in this lifetime I will succeed.  Here is why: I will greet everyday with Love in my heart.  I will look on all things with Love and I will be born again.  If I have no other qualities I can succeed with Love alone.  For true Love is my greatest ally, and a powerful ally it is. 

Derek Walls' day off

Having a day off is much more meaningful when you work 60 hours a week.  I made my favorite solid meal today, which I have been living off of almost a year now.  Want know what's in it?  Cilantro (sometimes parsley), TAHINI, olives, hemp oil, hemp seed, apple cider vinegar, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin seed oil, jalapenos, haberno, Thai pepper, cayenne, TURMERIC, garlic (but not every time...I mean I would prefer to have it every time but I don't want to scare absolutely EVERYONE away having the smell come out of every orifice...)black pepper, cumin, sea salt.  I eat it all with celery and cucumber and sprinkle sea veggies over it all, i.e. kelp, dulse, sea lettuce. Totally the best ever.  Just like my smoothie this meal has taken me a while to perfect and I love it ever time.  It makes all the loneliness worth it...
I realize, though, that my food lifestyle has isolated me socially, for example: I never eat out, don't go to restaurants, only have maybe three or four close friends who I see once every two or three weeks, who all think I'm crazy, and since I started working 12 hour days I don't really have half an hour to prepare this meal above or make the best smoothie ever during the day, so I basically eat only once per day, usually around 7:00 a.m. in the morning and then go to work.... but I know that in time it will pay off big and I'll meet someone who has the same interests as me and we'll ride off in the sunset to our log cabin in the forest with our spring water and wood burning stove and be as happy as can be, but for now I am an urban, single, early twenty something, nostalgic about high school and the only girlfriend and band I ever really had and all that good stuff, living in an apartment with my parents, haven't been with a girl in 4 years, and spend most of my free time reading Rudolph Steiner or playing guitar or listening to some David Wolfe program, oh yeah did I mention that Star Wars: The Clone Wars in on cartoon network in about 30 minutes...you can call me, you can call me anytime....N-E-R-D!!! But I like it that way for now.

HAPPY 70th Birthday to John Lennon tomorrow!!!!!!

p.s. my cats say hello

work

"Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace."  - Victor Hugo

d man

Last night at a little establishment in Logan Square I saw Dr. Manhattan.  Over the last year or so I have come to extremely love this band and really appreciate the guys in it.  I was in a band once and ever since that part of me left there was always feelings of bitterness and jealously and resentment and confusion etc. etc. However, since I gave all that up, I have lived vicariously through Dr. Manhattan and I really love and cherish there passion and energy.  They all inspire me because they are clearly on their mission.  They are the perfect band to me.  They mix punk and funk and pop and emo and rock and roll and blues and electronic and the Beatles and it is so much fun to go to their shows and dance.  I always look forward to seeing them and watching them grow.  I really see it now and realize how silly I was for ever doubting them.  I wish them infinite success and nothing but the best time ever.  I hope if you read this you check them out and/or learn about them someday.  Electraumatized!