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Rock Bottom Riser's Interests
General
My family:
"His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all."
"Boys, I may lead you into hell; but I'll get you out if you do exactly as I tell you to do. I'll never send you into a battle, I'll lead you. All I ask of any man to do is follow me."
Quote taken from "Captain L.H. McNelly - Texas Ranger - The Life and Times of a Fighting Man" by Chuck Parsons & Marianne E. Hall Little, pp 187.
McNelly gave this little speech to some of his young rangers as they were about to go into bandit territory along the Nueces Strip (Texas - 1875).
Walking in a dark gray cloud.
No ground, no sky.
A house up ahead.
Through a window of warm yellow light
come festive sounds of laughing chatter.
Looking at me
is the brother with the red hair.
I tap on the window pane.
With unquiet pleading
I ask, "Can I come in?"
With commiserate calm, he responds,
"It's too late. You can't come in C_______."
Falling away from the light,
sitting on the porch,
disconsolate,
I weep.
Many Rivers To Cross
"Many Rivers To Cross
But I Can'T Seem To Find My Way Over
Wandering I'M Lost"
"Many Rivers To Cross
And It'S Only My Will That Keeps Me Alive
I'Ve Been Ripped, Washed Up For Years
And I Merely Survive Because Of My Pride"
"And This Loneliness Won'T Leave Me Alone"
Quotes from lyrics penned by Jimmy Cliff
I dedicate the following song to my mom, sister, and three brothers.
"Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear."
"It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there."
I wasn't born here and it feels like "I'll die here against my will."
"I know it looks like I'm movin' but I'm standin' still."
"Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb."
"I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from."
"Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer."
"It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there."
"wonderfulness" and "BILL COSBY is a very funny fellow RIGHT!" - Bill Cosby
"Astral Weeks" and "Moondance" - Van Morrison "Today!
" - Mississippi John Hurt
"American I, II, III, IV, & V" - Johnny Cash
"Watermark" and "Shepherd Moons" - Enya
"CROSBY, STILLS & NASH" and
"Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young"
"Feliciano!" - Jose Feliciano
"Fleetwood Mac"
"Classics - The Early Years" - Neil Diamond
"Harvest", "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere", and "After the Gold Rush" - Neil Young
"Come Away With Me" and "Feels Like Home" - Norah Jones
"The Million Dollar Motel" - film score
"Santana"
"Time And Love - The Essential Masters" - Laura Nyro
"In The Wee Small Hours" and "Sings for Only the Lonely" - Frank Sinatra
"O Brother, Where Art Thou" - film score
"Night Divides the Day - The Music of the Doors" - George Winston
"believe" and "Devotion" - Aaron Neville
"The Pusher" - Steppenwolf
"Girl From The North Country", "Not Dark Yet", and "Gotta Serve Somebody" - Bob Dylan
"Sowin' Love" - Paul Overstreet
"Morning Wonder" - The Earlies:
"Vessel In Vain" - Smog
"Can't Find My Way Home" - Blind Faith
"Help Me" - Johnny Cash
"I Lift Up My Eyes" - John Michael Talbot
"When A Man Loves A Woman" - Percy Sledge
"l Love The Rain The Most" - Joe Purdy
"Crazy Love" - Van Morrison
"Tell It Like It Is" - Aaron Neville
"Sundown" - Gordon Lightfoot
"The Heart That You Own" - Dwight Yoakam
"Statued" - Adem
"Wash Away (Reprise)" - Joe Purdy
"People Get Ready" - The Blind Boys Of Alabama
"On The Evening Train" - Johnny Cash
"Dead Man" - M Ward
"Lamb Of God" - John Michael Talbot
"The Quiet Man" - John Wayne/Maureen O'Hara by John Ford
"A Man For All Seasons" - Paul Scofield by Fred Zinnemann
"Predator" - Schwarzenegger by John McTiernan
"Matrix" - Keanu Reeves by Andy and Larry Wachowski
"Braveheart" - Mel Gibson by Mel Gibson
"The 13th Warrior" - Antonio Banderas by John McTiernan
"The Third Miracle" - Ed Harris/Anne Heche by Agnieszka Holland
"Band of Brothers" - by Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg
"Unbreakable" - Bruce Willis by M. Night Shyamalan
"Black Hawk Down" - Josh Hartnett by Ridley Scott
"O Brother, Where Art Thou" - George Clooney by The Coen Brothers
"Fist of Legend" - Jet Li by Gordon Chan
"The Lady Killers" - Tom Hanks by The Coen Brothers
"The Fast Runner" - Natar Ungulaq/Sylvia Ivalu by Zacharias Kunuk
"Never Cry Wolf" - Charles Martin Smith by Carroll Ballard
"Cinderella Man" - Russell Crowe by Ron Howard
"The Greatest Game Ever Played" - Shia LaBeouf by Bill Paxton
"The Lost City" - Andy Garcia by Andy Garcia:
"I want to let the poems
soar from my soul."
.
.
"All is beautiful and loyal,
All is musical and right,
And all, like the diamond,
Is charcoal before being light.
With the poor of the world
I want to cast my fate;
A little brook in the mountain
Pleases me more than the sea."
"I cultivate a white rose
In July as in January
For the sincere friend
Who offers me his honest hand.
And for the cruel one who nips from me
My heart by which I live,
I cultivate neither thorns nor thistles;
I cultivate the white rose."
"Lady in the Water" - Paul Giamatti by M. Night Shyamalan:
"The moment a person finds his voice, is the moment his life takes on grace."
"Repentance" - Avtandil Makharadze by Tengiz Abuladze:
"The people can be enlightened only by a spiritual pastor. A moral hero."
"Groundhog Day" - Bill Murray/Andie MacDowell by Harold Ramis
"Flags of Our Fathers" - Adam Beach/Ryan Phillippe/Jesse Bradford by Clint Eastwood
"The Twilight Samurai" - Hiroyuki Sanada/Rie Miyazawa by Yoji Yamada
"Hiroshima: BBC History of World War II" - by Paul Wilmshurst
"Japan's War: In Colour" - Brian Cox by ???
"Off the Black" - Trevor Morgan/Nick Nolte by James Ponsoldt
"Apocalypto" - Rudy Youngblood by Mel Gibson
"As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me" - Bernhard Bettermann by Hardy Martins
"Little Dieter Needs to Fly" - Dieter Dengler by Werner Herzog
"The Italian" - Dima Zemlyanko by Andrei Kravchuk
"Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas)" - Diane Kruger/Benno Furmann/Guillaume Canet/Gary Lewis/Dany Boon/Daniel Bruhl by Christian Carion
"Sketches of Frank Gehry" - Frank O. Gehry by Sydney Pollack
"Path to Paradise" - Guilfoyle/Eisenberg/Malik/Harden by Leslie Libman
"Driving Lessons" - Rupert Grint/Julie Walters/Laura Linney by Jeremy Brock
"All the Mornings of the World (Tous les matins du monde)" - Jean-Pierre Marielle/Gérard Depardieu/Anne Brochet/Guillaume Depardieu by Alain Coirneau
"Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple" - Jim Jones and his followers by Stanley Nelson:
Of his followers "nobody ever saw the big picture. And I think that is one of the lessons of Peoples Temple. How much can we excuse in the name of something that is bigger? How much can we excuse before we say, 'Wait a minute! Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong!'"
"The Steel Helmet" - Gene Evans by Samuel Fuller
Television
"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair; and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."
I never felt magic crazy as this
I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea
I never held emotion in the palm of my hand
Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree
But now you're here
Brighten my northern sky.
It's been a long time that I'm waiting
Been a long time that I'm blown
Been a long time that I've wandered
Through the people I have known
Oh, if you would and you could
Straighten my new mind's eye.
Would you love me for my money
Would you love me for my head
Would you love me through the winter
Would you love me 'til I'm dead
Oh, if you would and you could
Come blow your horn on high.
"Catechism of the Catholic Church"
- The official resource for those who want to know what the Catholic Church believes and teaches.
"My Daily Catholic Bible" - Paul Thigpen (Editor)
"The Iliad" - Homer (Robert Fitzgerald: Translator)
"Beowulf" - Seamus Heaney (Translator)
"Skeletons on the Zahara: A true story of survival" by Dean King
"Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" - Alfred Lansing
"The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom" - Slavomir Rawicz
"The Brendan Voyage: Across the Atlantic in a Leather Boat" - Tim Severin
"The Rivers Ran East" by Leonard Clark
"The Memory Wars" - Frederick Crews
"The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat : And Other Clinical Tales" - Oliver Sacks
"Where the Roots Reach for Water - A personal & natural history of melancholia" by Jeffery Smith
"Darkness Visible - A memoir of Madness" by William Styron
"A Mind That Found Itself" by Clifford Whittingham Beers
"The Silence of Angels" by Dale C. Allison, Jr.
"A Time To Keep Silence" by Patrick Leigh Fermor
"The Silmarillion (2nd Edition)", "The Hobbit", and "The Lord of the Rings" - J.R.R. Tolkien
"The Education of Little Tree" - Forrest Carter
"The Closing of the American Mind" by Allan Bloom
"The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine" by Robert Conquest
"The Great Terror: A Reassessment" by Robert Conquest
"Stalin: Breaker of Nations" by Robert Conquest
"Few Returned: Twenty-eight Days on the Russian Front, Winter 1942-1943" by Eugenio Corti (Peter Edward Levy: Translator)
"Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose
"We Die Alone" by David Howarth
"With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa" by E.B. Sledge
"Ghost Soldiers - The forgotten epic story of World War II's most dramatic mission" by Hampton Sides
"Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950" by Martin Russ
"We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang - The battle that changed the war in Vietnam" by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway
"Black Hawk Down" by Mark Bowden
"The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11" by Lawrence Wright
"God's Fool: The life and times of Francis of Assisi" by Julien Green
"Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake handling and redemption in Southern Appalachia" by Dennis Covington
"A Memoir of Mary Ann" by the Dominican Nuns who took care of her (Introduction by Flannery O'Connor)
"Confessions of a Twentieth Century Pilgrim" - Malcolm Muggeridge
"The Father and the Son: My father's journey into the Monastic life" by Matt Murray
"Shadows on the Koyukuk: An Alaskan Native's Life Along the River" - Sidney Huntington
"Raising Ourselves: A Gwich'in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon River" - Velma Wallis
"Eagle Blue" by Michael D'Orso
"Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowat
First into Nagasaki" by George Weller (edited by Anthony Weller)
Reading "???" by ???
"Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace."
Catechism of the Catholic Church (2310)
Army National Guard
Saint Michael, Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen. -- Pope Leo XIII (1904)
Some parting thoughts to contemplate (Catechism of the Catholic Church):
2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.
2311 Public authorities should make equitable provision for those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms; these are nonetheless obliged to serve the human community in some other way.
2313 Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.
Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide.
2314 "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes.
About me:
Born in Juneau, Alaska. Raised in Haines (my mother, God rest her soul, is from Klukwan), Sitka, Hoonah, and Juneau. When I was around eleven years old, I spent a couple years in the Seattle, Washington area. At age 16, I left home and lived in Anchorage, Alaska for approximately 2 years. Then I lived in Oregon (Portland, Clackamus, Eugene, Medford, Klamath Falls, Dexter, and Cornelius) for 3 to 4 years. After that I lived in Florida (Jacksonville, where I got married) for about 9 years. Moved up to New Jersey (Chatham) where we lived for 3 years. Finally we settled in Pennsylvania where we have been for the past 21 years. I truly hope to make it back to Alaska someday.
"In so many respects, the Trade Center dead formed a kind of universal parliament, representing sixty-two countries and nearly every ethnic group and religion in the world. There was an ex-hippie stockbroker, the gay Catholic chaplain of the New York City Fire Department, a Japanese hockey player, an Ecuadoran sous chef, a Barbie Doll collector, a vegetarian calligrapher, a Palestinian accountant... The manifold ways in which they attached to life testified to the Quranic injunction that the taking of a single life destroys a universe. Al-Qaeda had aimed its attacks at America, but it struck all of humanity."
Quote taken from "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" by Lawrence Wright, pp 368.
Who I'd like to meet:
Hi Barry!
Hi Nick!
Hi Mike!
Hi Roy!
Hi Tony!
Hi Winston!
My Upward Bound mates. We took college prep courses at Alaska Methodist University (now known as Alaska Pacific University) during the later half of the 1960s.
Our Lady Of Guadalupe
Patroness of the Americas
You are the Woman clothed with the sun who labors to give birth to Christ while Satan, the Red Dragon, waits to voraciously devour your child.
May Christ the King reign over us, our families, cities, states, nations and the whole of humanity.
O sweet Virgin Mary, Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!
Shiloh Youth Revival Centers, Inc. was a Protestant "Jesus People" communal endeavor that existed from around 1968 through the 1970s. Communal houses were established throughout the United States during that period. Shiloh began to disintegrate around 1978 and no longer exists today.
1717 NW Hoyt Street (Portland, Oregon)
"Let me tell you the news.
My heads been wet with the midnight dew.
I've been down on bended knee,
Talkin to the man from Galiee.
He spoke to me in a voice so sweet,
I thought I heard the shuffle of angels feet.
He called my name and my heart stood still,
When He said "C_______ go do my will"
Adapted from the traditional folk song "Run On".
The location of the following film is "The Land" (Dexter, Oregon).
"Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me"
"When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars
Then the mountain rose before me
By the deep well of desire
From the fountain of forgiveness
Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars
Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares"
Adapted from the song
"Dante's prayer"
by Loreena McKennitt
"the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass
and was rolled back,
and he beheld white shores
and beyond them a far green country
under a swift sunrise."
"Oh the great ship will anchor in the Harbor of Love"
hey dad, I had the operation, I should be getting out of the hospital today. Everything went fine. I can barely walk (just stiffness) but i should be back to normal in about a week. I'll give you a call once I'm back in Egypt my phone doesn't work over here.
