My About Me section is meant to provide my readers with an honest picture of myself that gives a little bit of background information on who I am and I will wrap this up with a catchy image. I am a story teller and I like to use my imagination. I am interested in many things, but a few of my favorites are watching the NFL and playing golf. I do not like onions and I always make sure that my food does not contain any. I had two wonderful parents, my dad Herb Adams was a television repairman and my mother Mary Adams was mostly a stay at home mom. They are both deceased now and I miss them.
I am a retired Electrical Engineer specialized in control systems. I held many different positions because I worked mostly as a consultant. I did work as a Substitute Teacher, for a while, but the kids were awful. I am happiest when I am writing, as this gives my life has a purpose. Forming a sentence with meaningful words that articulate my inner feelings is an everyday quest for me. Every writer needs to tell their story, and all writers have their own style. All stories starts off with characters, who are able to entertain the reader. Creating realistic lovable characters is the best way to tell a story. If you are able to develop characters that become real to you, then you will know exactly what they will do say and do next and this lets your story progress to the completion.
Writing changes everything and having the calling to create something new through the power of words is much more than just making marks on a page. Once written, a book can be used by many people to learn and be entertained. The act of writing can be compared to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as it contains an inherent fuzziness, because various people may derive different meanings from reading the same words. You can never know the true nature of written words and the best I can do is hope is that people will understand the meanings that I am trying to convey. There are no clear-cut laws on how to write and it is impossible for me to determine how my readers react to my books.
The song ‘Tore Up Over You’ was written by Hank Ballard and was first released by The Midnighters in 1956. Hank Ballard was born John Henry Kendricks and he was an American R&B singer and songwriter, the lead vocalist of The Midnighters and one of the first rock and roll artists to emerge in the early 1950s. Ballard is best remembered for songs that were frequently as scandalous as they were inventive, most notably the salacious like ‘Work with Me Annie’. He also wrote ‘The Twist’, which sparked a dance craze in the United States. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
‘Tore Up Over You’ was performed over 230 times by the Legion of Mary and the Jerry Garcia Band between 1975 and 1995. This song was on Jerry Garcia’s third solo albumReflections, which was released in 1976. The band members to play along with Garcia on the album cut of this song were Nicky Hopkins on piano, Larry Knechtel on Fender Rhodes, John Kahn on bass, Ron Tutt on drums and Donna Jean Godchaux sang background vocals. Partway through the production of the album Reflections, Garcia stopped recording with his solo band and brought in the members of the Grateful Dead to be on five songs, so it ended up being half of the Jerry Garcia Band and half of the Grateful Dead.
This is a song of lost love, where the girl left and the guy is torn up over that and he ends up crying the whole night long. He complains that she didn’t love him like she said she would, because if she did, she never would have left him and went with somebody else. He world like her to tell him what he can do to make her come back and stay with him, because without her, he can’t seem to find his way.
Ever since you been gone
I just cried the whole night long
Since the day you said goodbye
Left me sore, no lie, no lie
Tore up over you, and I just can’t find my way.
Tore up! Yeah, yeah, yeah, tore up.
Whoa-oh-oh tore up! Yeah, yeah, yeah, tore up.
Tore up over you, and I just can’t find my way.
Never loved me like ya told me so if you did how could you go?
It was you, not me, that left and went away with someone else
Tore up over you, and I just can’t find my way.
Tore up! Yeah, yeah, yeah, tore up.
Whoa-oh-oh tore up! Yeah, yeah, yeah, tore up.
Tore up over you, and I just can’t find my way.
Tell me what can I do to make you come back and stay?
Tore up over you, and I just can’t find my way.
Tore up! Yeah, yeah, yeah, tore up.
Whoa-oh-oh tore up! Yeah, yeah, yeah, tore up.
Tore up over you, and I just can’t find my way.
What exactly is a “rhetorical question?”
It is obliviously not going to be simple.
What is meant by a “hair’s breadth”?
Something ubiquitously accepted to stand for the margin between success and failure.
How long is a “New York minute”?
It is 45 seconds faster than a Hollywood minute, which goes by much slower because they have to plan for scenes to be retaken many times and in between you have to redo your hair and makeup so they are perfect, you speak to your agent, you talk to gossip columnists about your plan to be on the red carpet and you practice giving your acceptance speech where you will mention all the people that you love.
What does it mean to “fly by the seat of your pants”?
I think this question should have been why was there a fly on Mike Pence’ head.
What does “by the skin of your teeth” mean?
This is how Trump escaped justice.
What are “the dog days of summer”?
These are the days when all the fire hydrants are opened.
What does it mean to “go ’round Robin Hood’s barn“?
What does it mean when a project “gets the green light”?
Dance like nobody is watching.
What does it mean to “eighty-six” something?
That is when you don’t make it to the bathroom in time.
What or where exactly is “file thirteen”?
This is also called the Trump combover, which is not a good look.
Supertramp was formed in 1969 by pianist and vocalist Rick Davies. Davies was in a group called the Joint, but he became disenchanted with them, so Davies started a new band by placing an ad in the British music weekly Melody Maker, and recruited guitarist Richard Palmer, percussionist Robert Millar, and vocalist/bassist Roger Hodgson. Davies initially dubbed the new band Daddy, but to avoid comparison with a number of other paternally named acts, he changed their billing to Supertramp, taking the name from the 1908 memoir “The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp”, by Welsh author William Henry Davies. Rick Davies was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2015, but by 2018 Davies had largely overcome his health problems. Supertramp has been snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Roger Hodgson, the legendary co-founder of Supertramp wrote many of their classic hits and he was the driving force behind what fans call the 14 golden years of the band. Hodgson wrote ‘Dreamer’, ‘Breakfast in America’, ‘Give a Little Bit’, ‘The Logical Song’, ‘Take The Long Way Home’, ‘It’s Raining Again’, and many more. He wrote, sang, and arranged the enduring rock standards that made Supertramp a worldwide phenomenon with album sales in excess of 60 million. Roger Hodgson left the band in 1983 and the Supertramp that most people know has not existed for over 30 years. The music of Supertramp totally changed after Roger left to match Rick Davies’s musical influence, which is more jazz and blues. Hodgson moved his family away from the Los Angeles music scene to live a simpler lifestyle close to nature and be home with his children as they were growing up.
‘Bloody Well Right’ was written by Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson and this song became Supertramp’s first charting hit in the US reaching #35 on the charts. It was recorded on their Crime Of The Century 1974 album. Supertramp was a progressive rock band that formed in London in 1970, but ‘Bloody Well Right’ failed to chart in the UK, and it is thought that the British were offended by the adjective “bloody” in the title, as it has been considered to be a swear word over there since at least 1676. These days it is considered a mild expletive at best all around the world, but a few years back, it was only used by people who were thought to be in the lower class, and anyone respectable considered it to be a horrid word. Some people referred to this as a concept album. but Roger Hodgson said that other…
Gilliame of the Green Woods approached the tower where Lady Marable was locked away and he shouted, “Thrown down your hair Marable, I am here to save you.” Lady Marable looked out the window of the tower and she said, “That didn’t work so well the last time, as when you tried to climb up my hair you were shot with an arrow and I had a throbbing headache for a whole week after, and besides, my father made me cut my hair, so you will need a ladder to reach me. There is another problem Gilliame, as my father has me wearing a chastity belt and it is extremely uncomfortable. It is a very inconvenient device, and my father just wants to ensure my virginity, so I will have to lead a chaste life, till he can find a suitor for me.”
Gilliame shouted up at Lady Marable, “Your father can’t stop the cycle of life and he can’t keep all the evils of the world from harming you. I am not afraid of your father and I am wearing a suit of armor today, so no arrows will deter me. I can get a ladder and I know a blacksmith who can remove your chastity belt. Your father is a big jerk for thinking that he can enforce fidelity on you, as I feel that you should be able to date or have sex with anyone, even while you are in a committed romantic relationship. Monogamy is only a temporary state, until you see that the grass may be greener on the other side. Most marriages don’t last because sexual satisfaction declines if you stay with the same partner, so you have to flirt and find somebody new, to get that excitement back. I think that we should be faithful to each other, but an occasional extra-marital affair has never hurt anyone.”
Lady Marable said, “I don’t think that my father would ever approve of you, but I hate the bastard for locking me in this tower and making me wear this damn contraption, so go get the ladder and alert the blacksmith that we will be coming, as I can’t stand wearing this another minute.”
Jerome “Little Anthony” Gourdine was only 18 when he recorded ‘Tears on My Pillow’ and this was the debut recording for Little Anthony and the Imperials who were previously been known as “The Duponts” and “The Chesters”. ‘Tears on My Pillow’ was a #4 hit and it was written by Sylvester Bradford and Al Lewis in 1958. The Brooklyn-based group was one of the very close to being classified as being a doo–wop group that was able to enjoy sustained success on the R&B and pop charts throughout the 1960s. Little Anthony was known for his high-pitched falsetto voice and the “Little” descriptor supposedly came from the legendary Brooklyn disc jockey and promoter Alan Freed who played this song on radio station WINS in New York, and commented to its distributor, “My gosh, that girl sure can song.” When he was told that the singer was a male, he replied, “He must be awfully little.”
The group members for this record were Jerome Anthony “Little Anthony” Gourdine, Clarence Collins, Tracy Lord, Ernest Wright, Jr., and Glouster “Nate” Rogers. ‘Tears On My Pillow’ used the same backing tracks as the Penguins’ ‘Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)’, because the record company barely had enough money for the session tape. Little Anthony is a sobbing mess in this song, where he can’t deal with a heartbreak. The song is filled with beautiful words of sadness and longing for a relationship which the girl doesn’t seem to remember to begin again.
In 1975, Gourdine left the band to focus on acting and a solo singing career, achieving some success over the next 16 years as singer Little Anthony and actor Anthony Gourdine. In 1978, Little Anthony became a Born-Again Christian, saying that he was touched by the power of the Holy Spirit. Little Anthony turned 80 this year and he lives in Boca Raton, FL. Little Anthony and the Imperials had 17 pop and 12 R&B chart hits, they sold 32 million records worldwide and they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.
You don’t remember me, but I remember you
‘Twas not so long ago, you broke my heart in two
Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart
Caused by you, you
If we could start anew, I wouldn’t hesitate
I’d gladly take you back, and tempt the hand of fate
Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, caused by you
Love is not a gadget, love is not a toy
When you find the one you love
She’ll fill your heart with joy
If we could start anew, I wouldn’t hesitate
I’d gladly take you back, and tempt the hand of fate
Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, caused by you
You (oh oh oh)
You (oh oh oh), you (oh oh oh)
You (oh oh oh) you (oh oh oh)
Respond to this challenge, by either by using the prompt word pillow, or going with the above picture, or by means of the song ‘Tossin’ and Turnin’’, or by going with any other Bobby Lewis song, or another song from the 1960 era. ‘Tossin’ and Turnin’’ was written by Ritchie Adams and Malou Rene, and recorded by Bobby Lewis in 1960. It reached #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B chart and this song has become a standard on oldies compilations. It was named the #1 single on the Billboard chart for 1961, after spending seven consecutive weeks at the top and it has the distinction of being one of only six songs from the 1960s that spent seven consecutive weeks at the top. Only two records, ‘Theme From A Summer Place’ by Percy Faith (1960) and ‘Hey Jude’ by the Beatles (1968) spent more weeks in the top spot during that decade (both nine weeks). This song was featured in American Graffiti and it is on the soundtrack for National Lampoon’s Animal House. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked the song as the 27th biggest song of all time that charted on the Billboard Hot 100, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the chart. It remains one of the most requested radio tracks of all time.
Ritchie Adams was a songwriter and the former lead singer of The Fireflies and Malou Rene was the wife of Beltone’s A&R director and bandleader Joe Rene. The song had an unusual instrumental break, played by King Curtis on the mouth piece of his sax. Rene’s orchestra featuring Haywood Henry on baritone sax, Paul Griffin on piano, Ritchie Adams and Eric Gale playing guitars, Bob Bushnell, bass guitar, Sticks Evans on drums, Bobby singing lead vocal with backing vocals supplied by girl group The Swanettes. Lewis was living in Newark, New Jersey, since 1980, but he died last year on April 28, 2020, at the age of 95, after contracting pneumonia. Many people experience difficulty sleeping at some point in their lives, which could be caused by aging, too much stimulation before bedtime (such as watching television, playing video games, or exercising), consuming too much caffeine, noise disturbances, an uncomfortable bedroom, or a feeling of excitement, but in this song, the singer can’t get his mind off his girl.
I kicked the blankets on the floor
Turned my pillow upside down
I think that most people will look at my belly and wonder how anything could get that big. My belly is big, but the rest of my body is normal size. Upon first glance, I don’t have the most attractive physique and I guess people would call me pudgy or chubby. The simple answer of how my belly got so big is that I don’t exercise and I mostly eat whatever I want. I have never been a guy with a deeply set of chiseled six-pack abs, so nobody will ever get a first opinion of me being a universal sign of good physical fitness and health. I am OK with that, as I am not looking for a woman who spends three hours a day working out in a gym and I would much rather date a girl who would share a pizza pie with me, than one I would have to wait 2 hours for her to get ready for a date. I don’t think that many women are attracted to my dad bod and I will turn down that second Krispy Kreme, not because of the size of my belly, but because of my diabetes.
I am sure that my bald head and my grey hair are also one of the first things that people will notice about me and it has been a long time since I got my last haircut, so I probably come off as being a bit scraggly. Researchers say that a man with more belly fat, will have more of the female sex hormone estradiol, which helps to inhibit orgasm and thus allows them to last longer in bed. I read that men with softer bodies make better cuddlers. Most young girls are more interested in a certain body type, but there is no guarantee that it will stay that way as a man gets older. All that a woman should be looking for in a man, is somebody who is considerate, responsive, and responsible and you can’t get that from a first impression.
Written for Fandango’s Provocative Question #117 which is, “What impression do you think you give when you first meet someone?”
Most people have never met someone who is transgender, so it can be hard for them to understand this lifestyle. Transgender people have switched their gender identity so it differs from their biological sex, which is based on their genitals. Most people who transition to another gender do not have second thoughts because in their brain, they were born transgender and they feel that the gender identity they have chosen is their real gender, because the genitals that they were given at birth were incorrect. Being transgender is not something that you catch from infected people, nor are you socially conditioned to be transgender. It doesn’t happen often, but there is something called retransitioning, or detransitioning where people decide to reverse their transition.
Lauren was born a girl and she was not uncomfortable as a child, but that changed when she became an adolescent. She didn’t seem to fit in with the other girls and at 14, she realized that she was attracted to other girls. She enjoyed doing the fun things that boys did, but she didn’t want to be a boy, she just wanted to be neutral. Her breasts were always a problem as a lot of men desired her for her boobs, thinking that she was sexy and they were always hitting on her. At 15, Lauren believed becoming a woman might limit her choices in life. All of the unwanted male attention and the discomfort she felt with her female body made her come out as being a bisexual, but she actually thought of herself as a lesbian. Lauren was miserable and she felt like she was being pushed to decide between transitioning into a man, or committing suicide. After doing her research, she decided to take the first step into becoming a transgender man. Lauren got a prescription for testosterone and after she had a mastectomy, she started calling herself Larry.
Larry was assured by the doctor who he trusted that everything would be completely reversible, which ended up being a big crock of shit. Transitioning to a male was not all that it was cracked up to be as Larry was still suicidal, and he developed an eating disorder. Larry was passing as a man, and nobody guessed that he was a trans, but he still had all of these mixed feelings inside his head about his life and how everything changed. He was never fully comfortable being a transgender man and he had to block out all these memories of his childhood when he was a girl. Dating never worked for him, because he was not comfortable with his new body. Now that he was a man, he was no longer interested in women and he became attracted to men and started identifying himself as a pansexual.
Larry found this dating site where this guy Oliver was looking for romance with another transgender man, and they hit it off right away. Oliver had grown up as Olivia, so they had many things in common and eventually they moved in together as a couple. They had many had intense discussions about their own identities and Oliver started to question whether he was really transgender, which made Larry also have doubts. They had each other and they both decided to stop taking the hormone injections just to see what would happen to their bodies and face things that they felt they were now ready for. Several months into their detransitioning, they are now living out their lives as females again and lesbian lovers, which their friends and family are happy about. It has been a long journey for them and that still may be in-between being happy and normal, but neither one has any regrets about the choices they made.
Written for Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Nekneeraj’s Photo Challenge #365 that uses a photo by Veerendra on Pexels.com.
Matthew 28:5 gives an account of the resurrection narrative, which is where an angel has appeared at the empty tomb and gives instructions to Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary”. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. There are many different ideas on who this other Mary was and since it happened so long ago, all of this is speculation now. Mary is a common name for a female and I included four Mary’s when I wrote my second book Ancient Book Of Eli. The first Mary was the mother of Jesus, the second was Mary Magdalene, the third was Mary sister of Lazarus and from what I could find there was this one person called Mary of Clopas and another Mary Salome, I felt that I could switch this around and I had Salome being the mother of this Mary who was married to Clopas, thus making her Mary of Clopas the baker. With her mother being Salome, it made sense for her to also be called Mary Salome. It was this Mary who got married in the wedding at Cana and because I made Salome a cousin of Jesus’ mother, her daughter Mary was the sister of the apostles John and James. I know very confusing, but it made sense to me. I guess one reason that I wrote this book was to embellish on what could have happened and make more sense out of everything. Below is my resurrection story, but the other Mary is not in it.
Mary Magdalene said, “The saddest day of my life was when I stood under the cross and watched when Jesus died. Jesus always seemed to be in control of everything that was going on around Him, but while He was up on the cross, He looked so helpless. Jesus was innocent and He suffered and died and to His very end, He was trying to save others by requesting forgiveness for those who were Salome crucified with Him. When the Sabbath ended, I went to His tomb with Jesus’ mother Mary, His Aunt Salome and my good friend Susanna, so we could anoint Jesus’ body with burial spices that Nicodemus had given us. On our way there, we started discussing how we could we be able to roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb. We decided that we would try to roll the big stone away ourselves, but if this proved to be too difficult, so we decided that we would go back and recruit as many disciples, as we thought would be necessary to help us. We arrived at the tomb early Sunday morning, just past sunrise. When we arrived, we saw that the very large stone had been split in two and was lying on its side, so we entered the tomb. Inside on the right we noticed a young man sitting clothed in a white robe, which startled us. Once our eyes adjusted to the darkness of the tomb, we realized that this was not a young man, but an angel. The angel said, ‘Do not be so surprised. You are looking for Jesus, the Nazarene, who was crucified. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He isn’t here! He has been raised from the dead! Look, this is where they laid his body. Remember He told you that He would be turned over to sinful men, be crucified, and rise again on the third day! Now go and give this message to His disciples, including Peter. Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as He told you before he died’!”
“We fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, not saying anything to each other, because we were too frightened to talk. We knew that the apostles were with Steven, who was one of the seven ordained deacons that helped to look after and provide care for the widows and the poor. When we arrived there, we found the apostles hiding out in the upper room at his house. Inside Steven’s house, we saw Peter, Andrew, John and James and I told them that I had seen an angel of the Lord, and we all reported the instructions that were given to us from the angel.”
“Salome and her husband Zebedee were at Steven’s house along with their daughter Mary and her husband Clopas, the baker. Clopas had made honey buns topped with sugar frosting in the shape of a cross, which he said was to honor Jesus. Clopas also made these rolls of pastry filled with grape preserves that were shaped like bunny rabbits, which were also delicious. Joanna the wife of Chuza soon arrived. After we ate this lovely breakfast, Peter and John went back to the tomb with me to see for themselves. They saw the stone was gone and they looked inside the tomb and they saw the linen cloths that Jesus’ body had been wrapped in, but nothing else. Peter and John were amazed at what they saw and they believed what I had told them, but shortly after that, they said they were going to Peter’s house, as they were confused about what they should do. I remained standing outside His tomb weeping. I was still seeking direction from the one that I loved so dearly. I was burning with the fire of love, longing for Him who had been taken away from me.”
“Suddenly Jesus was standing there beside me, but I did not recognize Him, as I thought this man must be the gardener. Jesus said to me, ‘Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?’ I replied, ‘Sir, if you have taken Him away, tell me where He is, and I will take Him!’ Jesus said, ‘Mary!’ Then I recognized this gardener to be Jesus and I exclaimed, ‘Master!’ Jesus said, ‘Don’t hold on to me, because I have not yet returned to my Father. But go to my disciples and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ I ran all the way to Peter’s house and said to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord!’, and I told them everything that had happened.”
What kind of Deadheads are in that video? I guess they don’t know the story about how Benjamin Franklin developed a new and unique method for casting bells, one that could be used to improve the production process of large bells. The method utilized steam to assist in the cooling process while the bell is still hot. The steam causes a rapid cooling, producing droplet of dew on the bell. This was called “dewing the bell”. After this process, the bell was rolled on cotton cloth to absorb the excess moisture and Franklin called that rolling away the due.
