Beatles Marathon 3 ~ Classic Albums Live
(Revolver, Sgt Pepper & Magical Mystery Tour)
Phoenix Concert Theatre, Toronto
Friday, August 22, 2008
Dipping bread, freshly baked in hot spinach and artichoke dip
Over conversation with my brother Donnie at the Pour House Irish Pub
Was a delicious and delightful start to the last evening of my birthday week
Much of our conversation was about the much anticipated show we’d be seeing
Over at the Phoenix Concert Theatre a little later on
Like me, my brother is becoming a regular at Classic Albums Live presentations
Especially for the Beatle records
And round three of the Beatle Marathon had us very excited about hearing
Revolver, Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour in their entirety
Craig Martin, the series producer
Welcomed my brother and I at the door when we arrived
Looking completely dapper was he
In his dark pinstriped suit, white shirt, and shiny shoes
I couldn’t have been more charmed had he served as usher
And led us to our plush front row seats in the centre aisle
But wait a minute
There are no plush seats or aisles on the Phoenix floor
But we’re happier to be standing
Up front and centre
When I got a mysterious text telling me
“we’re here… over by the big screen”
“So are we”, says my reply, “but who are you?”, I wonder
Staring up at the big screen at Jerry Lee Lewis
Has me saying again “I really must have this dvd”
With Stella’s in hand, my brother and I can feel the excitement building around us
When I turn to see the crowd part to reveal my good friends Luke and Andrew
Coming straight toward me wearing lots of birthday cheer for me
And then the show began with Taxman to open things up from the Revolver lp
Eleanor Rigby was absolutely beautiful
And I was loving I’m Only Sleeping, my favourite track from the album
When my good friend Tanya arrived anxiously
With a large knapsack still pasted to her back due to no coat check
But no anxiousness a sip of Stella and looking up at the Beatle band wouldn’t fix
It was a pleasure to meet Wayne’s son Jesse
And to see that Dr Wu has given birth and brought another Beatle fan into the world
Both of them standing behind me with eyes and ears pointed straight ahead
At the amazing Beatle band in black
Joe Power gave great laughing in Yellow Submarine
Great laughing Joe
And Marty Morin… “Where did you learn to twirl sticks so well?”
I’m up to three beers now
And I’m feeling them
How the hell am I supposed to use a pen and hold a beer at the same time?
But Tanya solves that problem
Offering to be my beer holder many times throughout the night
3 beers
O my!
Hearing Joe’s bass playing loud and clear
I thought I didn’t drink anymore?
Great trumpet For No One and Mike Daley sings it beautifully
And with eye glasses propped on top of his curly head
Marty Morin does great hand shakes on Dr Robert
I’m anticipating the horn blasts for Got to Get You Into My Life
And I certainly do get them
But I wish the horn section was at the front of stage
Where “suddenly I see you
Did I tell you in need you?”
Andrew says, “the bass player has a Beatle cut”
And it’s true
I never noticed that before but yes, Joe Power has great hair
Mike Daley does trippy playing on Tomorrow Never Knows
But it was Strawberry Fields Forever that was my highlight number one of the night
Oh my god was it good
Mike Daley’s vocals, the horns and Alex McMaster on the cello
Were all completely amazing
And I think everyone there would agree
“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me”
But what does Doug Inglis have with him on the kit?
He appears to be holding a long snake-like thing with his sticks
I wonder what that is?
Everyone sings along with Marty Morin on Penny Lane
Not that there's anyone in the room who doesn’t know all the words to the songs
But I think it would’ve been a lot of fun
To see a white bouncing ball on the big screen
Bouncing atop all the words to the song
Like they had on Sesame Street was it?
The thought of this makes me laugh out loud
Another great trumpet could be heard on Penny Lane
And I just noticed what a big drum Marty has behind him
But I haven’t seen him use it yet
And then the opening crowd noise for Sgt Pepper hit my ears
Followed shortly by Marty telling us…
“it was twenty years ago today
Sgt Pepper taught the band to play…”
And with a little help from his friends
Doug takes over the vocals from the drum kit
It was Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
When I finally saw Marty bang on that big drum
But damn, I need to pee
O no!
I can’t leave now
When I’m listening to Marcus Garrison Fixin’ a Hole
Pee?
O no!
Tanya says I should go during Within You Without You
“What? Are you kidding? I can’t go then!”
I think ahead and decide
I’ll go during Lovely Rita
Because my favourite song on this record is up next
And She’s Leaving Home was lovely
Again, Mike Daley blows me away as does the cello, the violin and the keys
Watching Joe playing bass and sharing back up vocals in Martyville
“Something inside that was always denied
For so many years
Bye bye”
The percussion rocked Within You Without You
And the sitar of course was a real treat
Sounds like Yoshi’s fan club from the original Beatle Marathon
Were in attendance again tonight
Because I heard lots of whoops and cheers for him
As I watched Joe’s fingers sliding up and down the bass
“Wasn’t that amazing?”, I hear over my left shoulder
It came from Dr Wu
And I would agree
Within You Without You would have to be my highlight number two
Marty holds the mic to sing When I’m Sixty-Four
As Andrew tells me…
“did you hear that Sting called Sir Paul on his 64th birthday and sang him this song?”
No, I didn’t know that
But I do hope he calls me on my sixty-fourth
I was taking in the great Good Morning horn blasts with the bald headed guitar
When my dear friend Karen arrived
Oh my god!
She didn’t tell me she was coming
What a great birthday surprise!
I love Karen and this surprise makes me very happy
When Tanya points out…
“Hey, there’s Patrick and Roberta from the Happy Pals!”
And she’s right
Grossman’s Tavern has come to the Phoenix
Happy Pals Dixieland Jazz has been the house band at Grossman’s Tavern
Every Saturday afternoon for over twenty years
And it’s very cool to see them here
Up front and freaking out to the Sgt Pepper reprise
When Karen leaves me to find her other half
Great chaotic build up of sounds before “woke up, fell out of bed…”
And when Mike squeezed into Marcusville to hit the final note of A Day in the Life
I looked over at Donnie
Standing there with his jaw hanging down to his chest
A little awestruck perhaps?
All You Need is Love is the song to separate Sgt Pepper from Magical Mystery Tour
And Happy Pal Roberta has hands waving in the air… “love, love, love…”
When Karen returns with Mike looking very Arlo Guthrie
“Oh my god Mike, it’s been centuries since I’ve seen you!”, I tell him
I’m so thrilled to be in the middle of this great birthday circle of friends
But Your Mother Should Know was a little weak
And I’m starting to notice the disorder of things
I Am the Walrus now?
Followed by Fool on the Hill now?
The band is messing with my mind man
The horns lost it during Fool but Luke says, “It’s okay, I’ll let it slide…”
And the flute was not on the same page in my ear
But even though Magical Mystery Tour’s songs
Were not played in the order I’m familiar with
I loved hearing my favourites Flying and Blue Jay Way
Heavy
But now I’m confused again
On Inner Light I hear the sitar
It sounds wonderful but where’s Yoshi?
The chair stands empty
“Where is that sound coming from?”
Was the sitar really coming from Mike’s acoustic?
It sounds like it may well have been
But I can’t be sure so I must remember to ask someone later
And now?
O no, it’s Hey Jude
This is not one of my favourite Beatle tunes
But having said that
It always amazes me how I can start off with a sense of a dread
For a very long song
Only to discover half way through it, “I love it! I love this song!”
And looking around, it looks like everyone else is loving it too
With spotted lights spinning around us
Mike Daley does a heavy job with a powerful vocal scream
As does Joe Power on the Revolution that follows
Revolution is my highlight number 3
A killer f**king scream Joe gave us for the opening of Revolution
And it all comes to an end with
"Alright
Alright
Alllllllrrrright!!"
What a great show ender
After-show chats were everywhere
Joe Power explained to me the disorder of things
Russell Gray tells me he’s been called worse things than the bald headed guitar
And I also learn Mr Gray shares the same astrological position as myself
Happy Birthday to you too Russell
I may be the queen of the astrological forest mister, but you are the king
It was wonderful to introduce my brother to the great Marty Morin
And to hear a bit about the Morin family trip to Newfoundland
But then I suddenly found Darren
“Where were you all night?”, I ask him
With a birthday kiss to the cheek, he tells me
He chose to hang with his other friends at the back
And that’s okay
Because they had a great after-show glow about them
I’m so glad they were here showing love for these musicians
But it wasn’t Darren who sent me that text at the top of the evening
So I wonder who the hell sent that text?
Watching Mike Daley packing up his gear
Sipping on yet another beer
I browse the Beatle photo display with Craig Martin, CAL ring leader
Where I too felt a great after-show glow
With the realization that gee, not only do I have great taste in music
But I still have great friends
Who will still come out and share this great music with me
On my birthday
I was already having a pretty darn good birthday week
But Friday, August 22, 2008 will go down in history
As one of my Top 5 birthday celebrations
Because little did I know
The best part of my birthday night was still to come
And o my god, was it good!
But that’s a whole other bedtime story
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"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. The artist's job is not to be clear, to be heard fully or understood, or to even be liked. The job of an artist is to deepen the mystery within each person that crosses their path so much that they have no choice but to give up shallowness." ~ Francis Bacon“
"Happiness is a fleeting moment of a day. It's not a state of being. If you're happy all the time, something's wrong with you. We are put on this earth to toil and to make things. Making the world a better place is not a happy job." - John Mellencamp
“There was a young lady named Sally,
who enjoyed the occasional dally.
She sat on the lap of a well-endowed chap,
and griped, ‘Sir, you’re right up my alley.’” ~ unknown
LMH is a Toronto-based writer/blogger, freelance music journalist/photo journalist, with a flair for publishing in-depth interviews at entertainment websites. Contact directly at livemusichead@yahoo.com
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~ Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City
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~ Dolly Parton
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"Well, this whole notion that we have to be happy is a ridiculous notion. I mean, let's be honest. Paul Quarrington, as you know, died only two weeks ago and I'm really sad about that. I'm devastated. But while I was crying in his office, my therapist said, 'you have issues with abandonment'. I replied, 'this isn't fucking abandonment. Paul's my best friend and he's going to die. Why are you going on about abandonment?' All this is to say, there's a lot in life to be sad about. And the notion that if you're sad there must be something wrong with you, is extremely absurd. Having said that, I've been on Prozac since '97." ~ Dan Hill
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"Any fool can be happy. It takes a real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep." ~ Clive Barker
"Happiness is not on my list of priorities. I just deal with day-to-day things. If I’m happy, I’m happy – and if I’m not, I don’t know the difference. Knowing that you are the person you were put on this earth to be – that’s much more important than just being happy." ~ Bob Dylan
"People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.” ~ Jim Morrison
“She secretly refused to believe that anyone loved anyone. Families lived in a wasteful atmosphere of custom and kissed one another with secret indifference. She thought the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires.”~ Thornton Wilder
"For me, a song is the main kind of method of encapsulating an emotion. My songs have a definite strong emotional core... ya know, (laughs) there's a school. Personally, if it's not written in blood, and brought about by some sort of emotional sacrifice, whether it be happiness or sadness or experience, it doesn't say anything to me."
~ Rufus Wainwright.
"Music is supposed to be entertaining and if it touches you emotionally, so much the better. Sometimes you do it to save your own life, not anybody else's. That's why I write. I'm not trying to change anybody else's life or the world, I'm trying to keep from blowing my own brains out. That's the real point."
~ Guy Clark
“Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. That's what music is to me.” ~ Janis Joplin
"The deepest people are the ones who've been hurt the most."
~ unknown
“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.”
~ Tom Waits
"The truth hurts for a little while, but lies hurt forever."~ unknown
“I picture Cupid, alone in a bar, drunk, chain-smoking, frustrated, bitter, desperate, ready to trade in his bow for a bazooka.”~ Scotty Campbell
"Isn't it strange that two strangers, suddenly don't feel so strange?It's something familiar, though this time it's different... what they're in for feels like sea change. Isn't it weird that two weirdos can wind up not feeling that weird? It's all so momentous, yet perfectly normal. Scary, but not to be feared. And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? But each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame. Isn't it great that two people together, can tear down one wall? The handwriting is on it, it's not hieroglyphic. That barrier just has to fall. Isn't it sad that most people stay so lonely, it's almost a crime? We might be strange weirdos, but it can't be normal to be frightened so much of our time." ~ Loudon Wainwright III
"I always think of it as my most personal record [Nebraska] that dealt with what happens when all these things that I believed in when I was 25... what happens when all these things don't work? What happens when all those things just break down? What happens when your friends fail you, or you fail your friends... and you're all alone? What happens when you can't find a job and you can't find some place to work? What are you left with? Can you live? Can you go on? At the time I didn't know the answer. I didn't know if you could or not. I know that isolation to me feels about the most dangerous thing on earth."~ Bruce Springsteen
"In my next life I want to live my life backwards. I'll start out dead and get that out of the way. Then I'll wake up in an old people’s home feeling better every day. I'll get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect my pension, and then when I start work, I'll get a gold watch and a party on my first day. I'll work for 40 years ...until I'm young enough to enjoy my retirement. I'll party, drink alcohol, and be generally promiscuous, then I'll be ready for high school. Then I'll go to primary school, become a kid, and play. I'll have no responsibilities, I'll become a baby until I'm born. And then I'll spend the last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service, larger quarters every day and then voila! I'll finish off as an orgasm.”~ Woody Allen
“I don't know about other people, but when I wake up in the morning and put my shoes on, I think, Jesus Christ, now what?”~ Charles Bukowski
“Son, I just want you to know:
life is a black, sucking vortex of anguish and despair, filled with brief moments of false hope and empty joy, all the while dragging you inevitably closer to final, absolute, and eternal death. Enjoy your day. Love always, Dad."
~ note on a dresser
"Your heroes turn out to be assholes, and the light in the tunnel that you're chasin' is a train".
~ unknown
"I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, jaded, cynical or angry, but I am, so that's how it comes out."
~ Bill Hicks
“Let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
"You're the one who broke my heart. You're the reason my world fell apart. It's guys like you that make me cry, yet I still love you, don't ask why." ~ Unknown
"It's not death that separates people; it's the absence of love."
~ Jim Morrison
"Since you're gone, deep inside it hurts. I'm just another sad guest on this dark earth. I want to believe in the mercy of the world again... make it rain, make it rain!" ~ Tom Waits
"The truth is... everybody is going to hurt you. You just have to find the ones worth suffering for."~ Bob Marley
"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do, you apologize for the truth." ~ Benjamin Disraeli
“If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.”~ David Sedaris
"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes." ~ William Gibson
"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone." ~ Rose Kennedy
"I'm amazed that men like you can be so shallow, thick and slow. There is not a man among you who knows or cares if I come or go!"
~ Ted Neeley (Jesus), Jesus Christ Superstar
"In the quick of the night they reach for their moment and try to make an honest stand. But they wind up wounded, not even dead." ~ Bruce Springsteen
"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."~ George Bernard Shaw
"The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference."
~ unknown
"The longer we listen to one another with real attention the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories, and not simply opinions." ~ Barbara Deming
“We met a lot of really good people, but I never met one person who really impressed me. The first person to ever impress me in my life was Ravi Shankar. And he was the only person who didn’t try to impress me. It was by his being. He taught me so much without actually saying a word. It was by example.” ~ George Harrison
“Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.” ~ Albert Einstein
"I'd rather die of thirst than drink from the cup of mediocrity."
~ Stella Artois
"I have a low tolerance for mediocrity in music and life. I'm into pain and joy and the in-between doesn't interest me."
~ Steve Earle
“How can you admire a human who consciously embraces the bland, the mediocre, and the safe rather than risk the suffering that disappointment can bring?” ~ Tom Robbins
"I will not be a common man because it is my right to be an uncommon man. I will stir the smooth sands of monotony."
~ Peter O'Toole
"It's not the time in your life, it's the life in your time."
~ Bruce Springsteen
"Time, as far as my father was concerned, was a gift you gave to other people." ~ Michelle Obama
"Dear Optimist, Pessimist and Realist... while you guys were arguing about the glass being half full or half empty, I drank it." ~ The Opportunist
“There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.” ~ Buddha
"Love don't make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We're not here to make things perfect.... we're here to ruin ourselves, break our hearts, love the wrong people, and die. The storybooks are bullshit."~ Nicolas Cage, Moonstruck
"You're a victim too Flagg. But you're such an unbelievable example of walking fertilizer, it's hard for me to care."
~ Dr. Sidney Freedman, M*A*S*H
“I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you are the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do... and in every single thought that you have. And how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that’s all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you. And I watch them wondering how they can watch you bring their food and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it, makes me feel good... about me.”
~ Melvin (Jack Nicholson), As Good As It Gets
“You make me want to be a better man.”
~ Melvin (Jack Nicholson), As Good As It Gets
"Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?"
~ Paul Newman (on fidelity to his wife, Joanne Woodward)
"She's faced the hardest times you could imagine. And many times her eyes fought back the tears. And when her youthful world was about to fall in, each time her slender shoulders bore the weight of all her fears, and her sorrow no one hears, still rings in midnight silence, in her ears... let her cry, for she's a lady. Let her dream, for she's a child. Let the rain fall down upon her. She's a free and gentle flower, growing wild."
~ Wildflower by Skylark
"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." ~ Winston Churchill
"I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth,
I didn't come to fool you.
And even though
it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah"
~ Leonard Cohen
"Parrotheads are just like Deadheads, but with money."
~ unknown
"You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth." ~ John Lennon
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench,
a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free,
and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
~ Hunter S Thompson
"I could name on less than five fingers the individuals who've become tremendously successful, who have changed positively."~ Bill Graham
"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."
~ Albert Einstein
"If you're going to do what you want to do, and be as challenging as you want to be in this day and age, and not completely suck everybody's penis, you have to treat the music industry as a type of war." ~ Rufus Wainwright
“The make or break of a show is how well the artists perform. But we have to make certain that the sound is good, the lights are good, the dressing rooms are clean, there’s paper in the toilet room, the hot dogs are hot, and whatever else goes into it. And what that takes is mania.” ~ Bill Graham
"The two most misused words in the entire English vocabulary are love and friendship. A true friend would die for you, so when you start counting them on one hand, you don't need any fingers."~ Larry Flynt
"We build too many walls and not enough bridges."
~ Isaac Newton
"It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn't speak to each other if they met at a party."
~ Nick Hornby
"Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you're comfortable with." ~ Jerry Seinfeld
“I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.” ~ JB Brooks, (John Wayne), The Shootist
“I will fight for your right to be weird, just as I know you will fight for mine.” ~ Hunter S Thompson
"When you get to the very bottom of the human soul, where the nit is slamming into the grit and you're sinking, but you reach down to help someone who's sinking worse than you are... everybody gets high." ~ Wavy Gravy
"One day I was pretty upset, and we walked in the garden. We didn't say much for a long time. We sat down on a bench. He really went inside me. He wanted to find out what made me so sad. And he did this in such a fantastic way. I can't repeat the words or tell you exactly what it was, but he did it in such a fantastic way that made me feel good. He found out what the problem was in no time. Nobody had ever done that before and will never do it again." ~ Klaus Voormann on George Harrison
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart."
~ Helen Keller
"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable."~ The Wizard of Oz
"I should, of course, have been warned. Our differences were plain to see; that I chose not to see them said much about my fantasies, my desire to please and my denial of reality. I was not just a product of the 60s; I was, by nature, volatile, oversensitive, quick to take offence, prey to burst of exuberance and energy soon followed by deep troughs of melancholy." ~ Margaret Trudeau
"Why do some people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you really want to get tough, grow a vagina... those things take a pounding!" ~ Betty White
"If you think all men are created equal, you haven't seen Bo Diddley in the shower." ~ Ronnie Hawkins
"The only thing better than roses on my piano is...
tulips on my organ!" ~ Tom Waits
"If I see something sagging, dragging and bagging, I have it nipped, tucked and sucked." ~ Dolly Parton
"The important thing is to write music that people will sing generations from now; for the unborn. Human emotions and melodies are always what we’ve stuck to, because that’s perennial as the grass. People will always be able to relate to it, young and old.” ~ Robin Gibb
"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." ~ Ernest Hemingway
"If you do not breathe through writing; if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then do not write, our culture has no use for it." ~ Anais Nin
“Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read.”
~ Frank Zappa
"More often than not, even the people and even the moments and even the circumstances that you feel you can go to for stability, for that piece of happiness, can all of a sudden shift, and can all of a sudden become tainted. And everything that you believe, or even that small moment of connection that you can feel can sometimes be destroyed. And I’m not a negative person, I’m shockingly, somewhat of a realist. And I’m a very passionate person, so I don’t like to expect that shift, I don’t like to expect for things that I love to become malignant or to become a great disappointment. But it happens. And it’s devastating. Every time." ~ Davey Havok
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive." ~ James Baldwin
“And once you live a few good stories, after you’ve fucked up a little, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.” ~ unknown
"Millions of books have been written on every conceivable subject by all these great minds, and in the end, none of 'em knows anything more about the big questions of life than I do. Jeez, I read Socrates, ya know. He used to knock off little Greek boys, so what the hell's he got to teach me? And Nietzsche with his theory of eternal recurrence who said we're going to live the life we live, over and over again, the exact same way, for eternity. Great. That means I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. It's not worth it."
~ Woody Allen
"To live is to suffer. To survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears this to be true."
~ James Branch Cabell
“The forecast today is overwhelming depression with scattered betrayal , and a high probability of melancholy coupled with intermittent bouts of black rage.” ~ Scotty Campbell
"If we're gonna fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all: indifference."
~ Robin Williams as Hunter "Patch" Adams
"Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet."~ Bob Marley
"Rufus (Wainwright) put a lot of effort into his press and publicity duties. He was an engaging interviewee, no matter how obscure the publication or how few readers it might expect to reach. When the tape recorder or camera was clicked on, he could usually be relied upon to deliver. 'I've had a lot of practice in front of the mirror', he explained to the Phoenix New Times. 'I stayed up long enough doing mock interviews with Letterman and Barbara Walters in bed, before masturbating."~ Kirk Lake, There Will Be Rainbows
"Loudon [Wainwright] writes bitterly funny and heartbreaking folk music, which has inspired me to be honest in my own work. He is truly fearless. Commercial considerations don't seem to matter much to him. His music is gorgeous and hilarious and painful. It is everything I hope to achieve in my career." ~ Judd Apatow
"The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear."
~ J Krishnamurti
"Fear not your enemies, for they can only kill you. Fear not your friends, for they can only betray you. Fear only the indifferent, who permit the killers and betrayers to walk safely on the earth."~ E Yashinsky
"We are each on our own path, doing exactly what we are supposed to do, and I have to learn to let go. I've been of two minds lately: the-standing-up-for-myself-proud woman versus the-cosmic-acceptance-of-everything-in-its-proper-place. I know I can no longer present myself on a silver platter to anybody, but I refuse to play the fucking game, and I'm interested in drawing someone to me who has no interest in playing it either." ~ Pamela des Barres
"I was being interviewed by an intelligent man who obviously took my novel very seriously, and he asked, simply enough, 'How has returning to Christ actually influenced your life?' I found myself thinking about this and then answering, 'It demands of me that I love people'. This was a turning point, this simple acknowledgement. Because I began to realize what the message of Christ was for me: to love my friends and to love my enemies. And the mystery was that loving my friends was sometimes harder than loving my enemies. And that if one loved both, completely and sincerely, and if one could convince others to do this as well, one could, theoretically, bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth... I am a baby Christian when it comes to loving. I am just learning. So far were my daily thoughts from loving people that I have a lifelong vocation now in learning how to find Christ in every single person for whom I meet. Again and again, I fail because of temper and pride. I fail because it is so easy to judge someone else rather than love that person. And I fail because I cannot execute the simplest operations - answering an angry email for instance, in pure love." ~ Anne Rice
"Age doesn't protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age." ~ Anais Nin
"I had this song (on Boys In The Trees) called Haunting. Basically you don't have to see someone for a long, long time for them to still be inside you. There's no way of killing it off; it's kind of an obsession. And some people do have that affect on me. I have a good memory, especially for emotions. I never get over strong feelings." ~ Carly Simon
"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."
~ Zora Neale Hurston
“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us, but we can't strike them all by ourselves.” ~ Laura Esquivel
"Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same." ~ Adlai E Stevenson
"After we made love I knew it was over. Did I ever really love Big, or was I addicted to the pain? The exquisite pain of wanting someone so unattainable?
~ Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City
"The hottest love has the coldest end." ~ Socrates
"Joy lives concealed in grief." ~ Rumi
"Imperfection is beauty; madness is genius. And it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring."
~ Marilyn Monroe
"Art and love are the same thing: it's the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you."~ Chuck Klosterman
"I'm obsessed with death I think. It's a big subject with me. I have a very pessimistic view of life. You should know this about me if we're gonna go out. I feel that life is divided up into the horrible and the miserable. Those are the two categories. The horrible would be like terminal cases, blind people, cripples. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So when you go through life you should be thankful if you're miserable."
~ Wood Allen, Annie Hall
"It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe."~ Muhammad Ali
“Too often in her life, love had been defined as... humiliation with occasional roses." ~ unknown
"The truth is... we hide because we want to be found, we walk away to see who will follow, we cry to see who will wipe away the tears, and we let our hearts get broken to see who will come and fix them." ~ unknown
"I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more."
~ Maurice Sendak
"I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love." ~ Charles Bukowski
“They say time heals. It’s bullshit. Time’s a thief.”
~ Bobby Cannavale as Dr. Miguel Cruz on Nurse Jackie
"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." ~ Anais Nin
“The wreckage and the ruin and the heartbreak is all worth it. Life is tragedy, broken by moments of unworldly bliss, making the tragedy bearable.”~ Bruce Springsteen
"I may not lead the most dramatic life, but in my brain it's War and Peace everyday." ~ Rufus Wainwright
“For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.”~ Hunter S Thompson
"The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless." ~ Tolstoy
"We go through life. We shed our skins. We become ourselves." ~ Patti Smith
"This thing we call existence, who knows what it all means? Time and Life and People are just glossy magazines." ~ Loudon Wainwright III
"Too often in her life, love had been defined as 'humiliation with occasional roses.'" ~ unknown
"For her fifth wedding, the bride wore black and carried a scotch and soda." Phyllis Battelle
"If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it." ~ Ernest Hemingway
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." ~ Soren Kierkegaard