Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff; they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Click here to help.

Sometimes I feel this way...

And I really, really hope that the CIA isn't tracking how often I go to this website.

I'm going to piss a lot of people off right now, but...I agree with him.

A Small Revenge

The Bible says "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." and "Vengence is mine, Sayeth the Lord...", As well, Karma tells us that "What goes around - comes around"...

Chinese philosophy teaches through the Yin and Yang that all light and good has a perfectly opposite darkness and evil...And we are taught from the time that we are born that our actions, whether big or small, have equal and opposite reactions...In fact, the entire world seems to be telling us with every cycle of the moon and dawning of the sun that there is light and dark in every "thing."

Including us.

In my own life I have met many people that truly believed that if they were "good enough" and did enough "good things" that all of their bad deeds would be wiped away and they could die with a clean slate...as if all of the detached frog legs and moth wings could be reattached with Holy Ghost Super Glue and all of their bad deeds and evil thoughts could be wiped away with Jesus Christ's blood in a spray bottle...Is being good truly enough to reset the counter on the questionable things we have done and will do?

Can we, and more importantly, should we ignore, hide from and push down that dark side of our selves in an effort to boost our "Holiness"?

AWESOME!

"I've got a fever and the only cure is more cowbell!"

The Great Cover Up, Upholstery For The Soul

In my teen years while living in Santa Rosa I worked as an Upholsterers Apprentice...No, I did not wear a funny hat with stars on it and the furniture did not dance to the flick of my wrist or tempo of my staple gun.

Upholstery was a good job for me, I enjoyed it and I'd do it for a living if it paid enough money for anyone other than a starving kid or a greencard-less immigrant.

I'd gotten the job by being bored and in the right place and approximately two years ahead of the right time.
The owner of the upholstery shop was Danny Skiles, he and his brood went to my family's church...Anywho, Danny called my Dad on a hot summer afternoon to see if my older brother Jimmy and I would be able to help him deliver some furniture from his shop to a customers house...The reason he needed to hire some underage workers (ME) instead of using his own employees was because one of his guys had quit only days before to hit the road as a traveling musician (good luck to him) and the other employee had cut his hand wide open with a staple removing tool which was appropriately named "The Pig Sticker."

Either way, I soon found my 14 year old self in the back of a moving van trying not to get my grubby little hands all over the brand new golden-colored velvet that covered the antique sofa that I would soon be lifting with my 14 year old back.

I guess my Dad and Danny Skiles had conspired to make a man out of me by way of upholstery.

***

Quick tangent...Did you know that the majority of adult males in the upholstery industry over the last 30 years have learned the trade of upholstery while in prison for crimes requiring more than a 5 year term and social rehabilitation...So, I guess it was either making license plates or upholstery...I'm really glad that my loving Dad and a virtual stranger conspired to place me amongst convicts of ill repute to start me on my vaunted career path...Yeah for ME! I get to study prison tats and learn curse words in three different languages as well as the various plastic utensils that can be turned into lethal weapons using toilet paper and a comb! WHOOPEEE!
Tangent over.

***

Anywho, from that first afternoon forward I worked for Masters Touch Custom Upholstery as the Apprentice Upholsterer under the direction and tutelage of Danny Skiles and another guy named Danny...I forget the other Danny's last name, I only remember that he was around 60 years old and he was into motorbike racing and ballroom dancing...His favorite song was Lady In Red, he had a tattoo of an Eagle eating a snake on his left forearm and he hated Texas and everything, anything and anyone that came from Texas...I don't know why.

I learned from the movie Big Fish that you never start off a story that has a point by asking a question, I.E.: "Do you know what the thing is about Upholstery?"...Instead you're supposed to say: "The thing about upholstery is..."

So, the thing about upholstery is that when you get down to the form and function of upholstery; it's only good for one thing...Covering up old, dirty, worn-out materials with clean, new, stylish materials.

Upholstery is a cover-up of surface proportions meant to hide the skeletal frame and the thousand tiny nails and screws that hold it together...the springs, the cotton, even the cushions themselves would be totally naked and out of place if not held together by the fabric that most aptly described the feeling that the owner of the furniture was going for when they chose that rusty-orange corduroy monstrosity to cover that perfectly yet simply elegant antique loveseat...God help us all!

You see, upholstery may not seem like any big deal until you meet and get to know the people that are getting all of their furniture re-covered for each and every season and holiday...It's not re-upholstery to some of these people, it's re-birth...re-creation.

Take Peaches Scandini for example.

Peaches Scandini was the type of woman that had married and divorced enough wealthy men to make herself quite rich by the time she was pushing 40.
Peaches was our most loyal and eccentric customer and called the upholstery shop virtually every day of the workweek to see if new materials had arrived that she would like...You see, we knew what Peaches would like because Peaches only had her furniture covered in fabrics that shared the tonal quality of, you guessed it, a Peach.

Peaches Scandini had her entire mansion-full of furniture and tapestries recovered and/or remade in Peach-colored materials 4 to 5 times per year.
Peaches never seemed as happy as when she had her whole house remade in Peach tones...almost manically happy really.

I always felt like I was seeing Peaches Scandini from the inside-out when we re-upholstered her furniture. Peaches wore her need of recognition and acceptance on the outside like a suit and that need shown clearly to anybody who was paying attention...Peaches was a broken woman, she was worn-out and used-up, a woman in need of upholstery of the soul...and every time she got her possessions re-covered in materials that screamed for recognition and acknowledgement, that practically said out loud: "I am Peaches Scandini, please notice me, please pay attention to me...Please love me."; she must have felt that she was losing a little bit more of her self in the re-created, re-covered and re-upholstered facade that she had created of her life.
Peaches Scandini just wanted to start over, she wanted to re-cover her self.

How many times have we sought renewal of the material things that make us - us; when all that we really wanted was re-upholstery of the soul?

My Newest Hobby

Like most of you, I'm always trying to find better uses for the internet than porn, c'mon, admit it.
My latest "find" of significance is Flickr!

I'm not much of a photographer but I do enjoy catching the odd snapshot of my dogs chewing on each others heads or the smiling face of my gorgeous wife.

Click here to see my Flickr site!

The Passion of the Shoelace Maker

Let's see if I remember how this works...ah yes; I bare my soul - you comment.
How's about a quick catch up on what's current and a simple segue to the rest of this blog...OK?

Biggest recent change: I no longer lead worship for Mission Gathering Christian Church.

On that note and possibly related you might recall a post from a few months back where I left you all with a bitter taste in your mouths because I wouldn't/couldn't divulge what it was that was making me so upset, despondent, cranky and just pissy in general...well, prepare to be either disappointed again or entertained by a simple story...So, sit back and let me tell you a tale.

***Names, places, persons and hobbies have been changed to protect the innocent***

Once upon a time in the richest city in the world there lived a simple man with a great talent, his name was Becks and he was the greatest maker of quality shoelaces in the region.

Although Becks was the best at what he did; he never let the praise of his customers go to his head and he never put a price on his shoelaces that he believed was more than they were worth...in that way Becks could allow his passion for his work to speak for itself.

Becks had many customers that sought his quality shoelaces but humble as he was; he had never believed that he could make his passion for perfect shoelaces his livelihood...until one fine summer afternoon...

On that particular afternoon a local shoedesigner named Lil' Rick asked Becks to join him in the design and crafting of the greatest and most authentic shoe that could ever be.

Lil' Rick told Becks a tale of his master plan to design a shoe that would be totally new, like nothing that had ever been, comfortable but not confining, light but not lacking in quality and finally; this shoe was to be the only shoe that anyone would ever need for the rest of their lives.

When Becks did not immediately jump in excitement at Lil' Rick's plan, Lil' Rick began to tell Becks that he would soon be able to design shoelaces for his living rather than his hobby...Of course, this was Becks' dream!

Still, Becks was reluctant to join Lil' Rick in his grand scheme because Becks had tried before to design a better shoe with many different shoedesigners who'd all had great ideas of how to design the very best shoe. And though these shoe design experiences had jaded Becks; he was not one to ever give up on a good thing.

And so he agreed to join Lil' Rick.

Though Becks and Lil' Rick started out with poor materials and did not have many people that were anxious to try their newly designed shoe; they did not give up and Becks put his heart into his shoelaces more than ever.

Over time, Becks began to notice that Lil' Rick was not fulfilling his part of their originally agreed upon plan...though Becks' shoelaces were as full of quality as ever, the shoes that Lil' Rick was designing seemed to be designed to compete with Becks' shoelaces rather than to complement them and thus each other.

Becks began to wonder if Lil' Rick had ever really intended to co-design a shoe with him in the first place; or whether Lil' Rick was using Becks for his quality shoelaces just to keep Lil' Rick's shoes from falling off of the feet of the people that tried them on.

Every few months Lil' Rick seemed to pull Becks aside and encourage him to keep making his very best shoelaces because his dream of making shoelaces for a living was just around the corner; but only if Becks kept doing his very best.

Becks began to feel that Lil' Rick did not care at all about Becks passion and his gifts of creating shoelaces, and as time went on and Lil' Rick made empty promise after empty promise; Becks began to doubt that his passion was being used by Lil' Rick for the right shoes - or for the right customers.

Years passed...

There came a time in the great city when Lil' Rick became very popular among a few powerful people, these few people believed that Lil' Rick had in fact created the very best shoe that could ever be. Lil' Rick was thrilled to have his talent recognized and sought to further his area of sales and advertisement for his shoe design.

However great the amount of praise that Lil' Rick received for his shoe design; Lil' Rick did not share his praise, popularity or profit with Becks, even though Becks had helped to create the shoe that had become so beloved, even though Becks very own shoelaces were the very instruments that kept Lil' Rick's shoes from falling off of the feet of those that tried them on.

Becks began to ask himself: "How can a shoe be a shoe without shoe laces?"

Months passed...

Came a time when Lil' Rick told Becks: "I'm going to change the color of my perfect shoes and I will also add some pretty designs that will draw even more people to desire my shoes."
Becks thought this idea was fine and he said so: "That sounds fine, I'm sure the people will like these new ideas."

But then Lil' Rick told Becks to do the strangest thing...Lil' Rick said: "If you want to continue to make shoes with me you will have to change your shoelaces to the way I want them."

This was not something that Becks could understand and he thought to himself 'Why would Lil' Rick want to change my shoelaces? They are perfect the way they are exactly the way I make them...They complement Lil' Rick's shoes in every way and they keep his shoes from falling off of the people's feet!'

Becks was hurt by Lil' Rick's new ideas and he said so: "I don't understand, Lil' Rick, why would you want to change something that is just the way that it should be?"...Becks continued, hurt and confused..."If my shoelaces are fulfilling their purpose in every way and every customer that has ever used them has been more than happy; why would it ever be necessary to change them?"

Lil' Rick spoke softly and sweetly to Becks and told him that if he ever wanted to make shoelaces for a living he would have to do things the way that Lil' Rick wanted them.

Becks did not believe that this was any way to make authentic shoes.

At the end of the day Becks decided that his just-right shoelaces were no longer enough to please Lil' Rick and though all of those that bought Lil' Rick's shoes in the future may feel that something was missing; Becks felt that if his just-right shoelaces couldn't be seen for what they were than he would have to take his shoelaces elsewhere.

Today Becks makes his shoelaces for the people he loves, at home as a hobby.

Lil' Rick now uses velcro to keep his shoes from falling off of peoples feet.

And Becks lived happily ever after.