"Checking in..." is how it started. "I'd rather be." is how it ended.

Professionally:
Still working and playing gigs with Urban Dread in the South Bay every weekend
Still playing shows with the East Wind Rockers backing up Belizean artis Eljai in support of his most recent album "The Other Side of Eljai", which was released on Tuff Gong this year
Still working with Carla Werner on our project, working title "Northern Soul", and looking forward to having our recordings and EPK complete by end of October.

Personally:
Still going through a lot of changes relating to my own personal life and recent experiences (which I will continue to hold close to the belt at this point) and also in understanding the world, which I know will be a lifelong philosophical adventure...but it is taking some adjusting.  I'm more up than down, and grateful to understand life and people and myself the way I do.  Even when I'm down, I'm grateful...I have a pretty steadfast peace that runs through me on a core level, though my exterior can be quite antsy at times struggling to keep up and stay in the hustle and flow of my lifestyle at this point in time.

I think I could write a book size blog on the topic of life being good or bad and the relativity of those words, and there is a lot to say and discuss about it, but I just want to blurt out some random thoughts and fragments on it right now... How come life is so GOOD for some people and others just can't seem to get it there? I've recently heard this frustration from a cross section of people and it made me think about the life perception thing.  I'm just going to float with it for a minute and see where it goes...  

Some insight into my happiness...life is just that, LIFE...and it just IS, and always will be whether it's yours, his, mine, hers, theirs, whatever.  Our past doesn't matter so much as learning from it does; just as a nation or world or species should learn from the history of events that resulted in unfavorable outcomes so as not to repeat them.  On a smaller scale so should we do just that in our lives.  I don't see any purpose in letting our past beat us down or prevent us from seeing the here and now and what is still to come, and having confidence rather than hope.  That's one thing: I don't dwell on my past but I stay aware of it to watch for repeating patterns...and then I will try something COMPLETELY different if an issue continues to surface in my life intrapersonally that is not congruent to a positive outcome and possible ideal future (except when sadistically deliberate...hey, I still have my issues lol). Not dwelling on the past though, that alone doesn't make life good...nothing can...because life can't be good.  WTF? Only WE can.

I remembered my starting thought: "Life is just that, LIFE."  So life IS, then we can fill in the rest because it is subjective.  Life is..._____.   "Good"?  Sure, as good as YOU are.  Life is "shitty"? Yep, if that's where YOU are at.  We can choose and then so it will be, regardless of what happens next or happened before.  Like those license plate borders that say, "I'd rather be..._____." Skiing, golfing, surfing, skydiving, topless (ha)... There's another way to get life better, make it better by saying it is so...aren't there a ton of books about that type of thing?  I think our world might be getting a little better because of cool POSITIVE THINKING (gag [lovingly sarcastic]) Secret books  like that...but I digress.  If I were to make a custom license plate border it would say just that but it would end with a period.  "I'd rather be."  Do you know why?  Because I'd rather "be" than anything else, and it's a cool frame of mind to be in because it's one of the few things that always will be and is whether we want it or not.  We are and always will be.  So let's...and make it good, because we are.