Two hands wrapped tightly
Round a perspiring glass
I see a little tear
That I hope won't last
I’m wishing that what appears
Will disappear fast
I should have stopped myself
From speaking my mind
But just like a children's toy
I had to unwind
Now look at the consequence
It wasn't the time
Hindsight's gold
So I'm told
But could not admit
Hindsight's gold
Truth as old
As the pyramids
Always the last to know
And always behind
Shoot from the hip react
Behavior all mine
I was raised to know better
But still I decline
The last thing I want to see
Is that tear on your face
The last thing I want to be
Is the villain whose case
I’ve assumed by default it seems
And lives in disgrace
Can an old dog learn
How to do something new
Many times been burned
Understand it but
Just can't follow throught
Some kind of malady
Or some kind of curse
Whichever's afflicting me
It can't get much worse
I can't be concerned much more
And I'm not the first
I’m sorry for what I've done
And what might still come
I’d like to just disappear
But where would I run
There's nothing to show for this
My lesson is done
(from Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham)
". . . Jefferson wrote Adams in 1816. Jefferson took the broadest of views: "I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy." . . . Adams was always less sanguine. "I dare not look beyond my nose into futurity," he wrote Jefferson. "Our money, our commerce, our religion, our national and state constitutions, even our arts and sciences, are so many seedpots of division, faction, sedition and rebellion. Everything is transmuted into an instrument of electioneering.". . . The past, he (Jefferson) thought, should hold no magical, unexamined claim over the present. "Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched," he wrote in 1816 . . . "They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present: and 40 years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading: and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions...but I know also that the laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind....We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.". . . "
Other Ray Jozwiak Offerings
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
The old and the musty
The bitter and tired
Useless toxic clingings
Of a bygone day
Serve no lover of life
No matter the amount
Of rationalization . . .
(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mercy)
Definition of mercy
plural mercies
1 a :compassion or forbearance (see forbearance 1) shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power; also :lenient or compassionate treatment begged for mercy
b :imprisonment rather than death imposed as penalty for first-degree murder
2 a :a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion May God have mercy on us.
b :a fortunate circumstance it was a mercy they found her before she froze
3 :compassionate treatment of those in distress works of mercy among the poor
— mercy adjective
— at the mercy of
:wholly in the power of :with no way to protect oneself against
A new tune (in progress) inspired by many old tunes . . .
(https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/lifelong-learning)
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
― Henry Ford
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”
― Michel Legrand
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
― Albert Einstein
“You'll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.”
― Julia Child
“I read my eyes out and can't read half enough...the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.”
― John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife
“There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays
“There are few things more pathetic than those who have lost their curiosity and sense of adventure, and who no longer care to learn.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley, Way to Be!: 9 Rules For Living the Good Life
“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”
― Samuel Johnson, The Rambler
“The education of a man is never completed until he dies.”
― Robert E. Lee
“I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.”
― Thomas Jefferson
. . . They're all true. At least they are for me. I remember as a kid, at times saying "I'm bored." Now I know for a fact that, even if I lived to be 1,000 years old, I can never be bored. There is always something 'educational' (meaning possessing the ability to expose you to something that you do not know- or maybe as you get older - something you have forgotten) to experience whether it be a place to visit, something to see, something to hear or something to read. Yes read. This is a word that upsets a substantial amount of people these days. Also, in my case and hopefully in yours, there is always something to create!
(https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brood-awakening-17-year-cicadas-emerge-4-years-early/)
". . . Swarms of cicadas are unexpectedly crawling out from under trees from North Carolina to New Jersey. . . they chirp en masse for their mates, producing a relentless, shrill buzz that is recognized as a song of summer. And within a month they are gone. . . Different populations, or broods, of “periodical” cicadas emerge in distinct geographical regions during specific years, after spending a 13- or 17-year span growing underground. . . Scientists were expecting to see Brood VI bugs in South Carolina and Georgia, which happened, but they got a surprise when Brood X cicadas also started appearing in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Ohio and Indiana last week—four years earlier than anticipated. . . Experts suspect a warming climate, with more warm weeks a year during which the underground nymphs can grow, could be triggering some cicadas to emerge ahead of their brood. . . "
(from https://www.mintpressnews.com/green-party-senate-candidate-margaret-flowers-crashes-two-party-debate/221860/)
". . . Dr. Margaret Flowers, a Green Party candidate for Senate from Maryland, interrupted a televised debate to protest her exclusion from the forum . . .“I’m a candidate on the ballot. I have a statewide campaign. I don’t understand why I’m not up here,” Flowers declared as she briefly occupied the debate stage. . . Flowers is running for the seat long occupied by Democratic incumbent Barbara Mikulski, who announced her retirement earlier this year. . . During the direct action, Flowers took the stage amid loud applause from the audience and shook hands with her opponents, Democratic nominee Chris Van Hollen and Republican nominee Kathy Szeliga, both of whom agreed to debate Flowers. . . Despite being welcomed by her opponents, the organizers of the debate, CBS Baltimore and the University of Baltimore, refused to allow Flowers to participate. . . "
. . . who is threatened by an open debate among ALL candidates?
My latest solo offering, No Frills, is now available at - No Frills
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne-
poem by Robert Burns)
Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,
and never thought upon;
The flames of Love extinguished,
and fully past and gone:
Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,
that loving Breast of thine;
That thou canst never once reflect
On old long syne.
CHORUS:
On old long syne my Jo,
On old long syne,
That thou canst never once reflect,
On old long syne.
(from the New Year's Pre-Party at Bourbon Street on the Beach, December 31, 2015)
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
(from http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_66.html)
". . . Ah, all you up in heaven! And earth! What else? Shall I include hell as well? Damn it! Keep beating, my heart, and muscles, don’t grow old yet—keep me standing. Remember you! Yes, you poor ghost, as long as I have any power of memory in this distracted head. Remember you! Yes, I’ll wipe my mind clean of all trivial facts and memories and preserve only your commandment there. Yes, by God! Oh, you evil woman! Oh, you villain, villain, you damned, smiling villain! . . ."
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
Watching movies about old people gets one to thinking . . .
(from http://flavorwire.com/324742/20-famous-writers-on-death-and-mortality)
“Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” – Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist
“People living deeply have no fear of death.” – Anaïs Nin, The Diary Of Anaïs Nin, Volume Two
“Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain; a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats, humiliations, and despairs — the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity; but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man’s best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.” – Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth
“I can remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind — and that of the minds who suffer the bereavement. The nihilists say it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or a town.” – William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” – Helen Keller
OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
Old news, presumably true, but disturbing in any case . . .
(from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/27399337/ns/us_news-life/t/boy-accidentally-kills-self-gun-show/#.U6Oln6gmx1T)
". . . An 8-year-old boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at a gun fair. The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman’s Club, police Lt. Lawrence Vallierpratte said. Police said the boy, Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Conn., was with a certified instructor and called the death a “self-inflicted accidental shooting.” As the boy fired the Uzi, "the front end of the weapon went up with the backfire and he ended up receiving a round in his head," police Lt. Hipolito Nunez said. The boy died at a hospital. The boy's father and older brother were also there at the time, a gun club member and school official said. Francis Mitchell, a longtime member and trustee of the club, said he was told the boy's father was supporting his son from behind when the shooting happened. Although the death appeared to be an accident, officials were investigating. It is legal in Massachusetts for children to fire a weapon if they have permission from a parent or legal guardian and are supervised by a properly certified and licensed instructor, Lt. Hipolito Nunez said. The name of the instructor helping the boy was not released. The event ran in conjunction with C.O.P Firearms and Training, said in an ad that people are allowed to fire weapons at vehicles, pumpkins and other targets at the event. "It's all legal & fun — No permits or licenses required!!!!" reads the ad, posted on the club's Web site. Messages left on answering machines for the club and the C.O.P. group were not returned Monday. . ."
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)
My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
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