Kings Cross

 The fire happened a significant time after the album was released, there is no connection 

Young people coming from poverty and unemployment in the North East headed to London 

Kings Cross is the station they arrived at 

The tramps, homeless, hanging round begging were a reminder that you might not make it and could end up like them, worse than you had it 

The Streets Paved With Gold myth about London goes back to Dick Whittington 

This song is a stark welcome to reality to those arriving

The man at the back of the queue was sent
To feel the smack of firm government
Linger by the flyposter, for a fight
It's the same story every night
I've been hurt and we've been had
You leave home, and you don't go back

Only last night I found myself lost
By the station called King's Cross
Dead and wounded on either side
You know it's only a matter of time
I've been good and I've been bad
I've been guilty of hanging around

So I went looking out today
For the one who got away
Murder walking round the block
Ending up in King's Cross
Good luck, bad luck waiting in a line
It takes more than the matter of time

Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday
Wait until tomorrow and there's still no way
Read it in a book or write it in a letter
Wake up in the morning and there's still no guarantee

"American Reckoning"

 I read through all the comments before adding my own

 George Floyd was a criminal, a drug dealer on drugs while committing yet another crime resisting arrest 

Floyd once held a gun to the belly of a pregnant woman

 Jon is a father himself 

Comments say various things including one saying they are not a Bon Jovi fan anymore 

The melody is sweet and the lyrics in many ways are touching

 But they are totally misdirected

 From These Days onwards Jon has been a multi millionaire writing songs about a world he long left behind 

During quarantine isolation rich old men like Jon were living as far from real society as anyone could be

 This song shows how far away he now is 

It's hard to not blame him, though he is writing a story based on something on TV that may have not been real to him 

Many people believe Floyd deserved what he got and that it should have happened sooner 

"Am I next ?"

 If a mother saw Floyd holding a gun to a pregnant womens belly would she have said that ?

 Police should have killed that piece of shit years ago 

This has nothing to do with "Race" it never did

George Floyd Between 1997 and 2005 served 8 jail terms including drug possession, theft and trespass

 2007 aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, entered an apartment as a gang of six, held gun to pregnant woman stomach, sentenced to five years 

Who are you singing the song for Jon ? 

Who exactly are you "grieving" for ?

If George Floyd had broken into your home Jon with his gang of big black men, while Dorothea was pregnant with Jake, Stephanie or Jesse, and put his gun against her stomach, would you be singing a song about him now ?

DJango castration

 The best payback would have been a progressive combination to maximise the suffering

 Castration here as that was standard

- this crap about bleeding out is wrong, slaves were regularly castrated, same method used on steers, and the hot end of the knife would cauterise the wound 

 - there is a method to castrate that doesn't even need cauterisation, you can look up a clip of that if you're curious

So: 

First stage, castrate him - then cut out his tongue 

Second stage a public naked whipping - strip him, tie him between the trees in the yard, have everyone there to witness and whip him all over - think the flogging in Passion Of The Christ 

Have him watch his wife get gang raped, first by the white farm hands, then all the slaves - one after the other - whether you also execute her in front of him or leave her alive is up to you 

Then give him to the Mandingo for sparring practice - brutal bareknuckle beatings by a seasoned fighter who knows how to hit and hurt 

- the added advantage is that your prize Mandingo, the one we saw earlier, gets better for having had the practice and wins you more fights

 Finally give what's left of him to the mines for the ending as described - literally worked to death down the pit 

Anyone thinking any of this is extreme, remember, these are things that happened all the time back then, none of this is made up or assumed 

Mr Olympia

 Haney competed in 91 to win his 8th putting him one ahead of Arnold's 7 

There would have been no point in him competing in 92 to try for a 9th 

Dorian came second in 91 Dorian has stated that if Haney had turned up in 92, then he, Dorian would still have won and been Mr O that year 

Dorian would have dethroned Haney the same way as Jay dethroned Ronnie after Ronnie got his 8th, no 9th for Ronnie, and there would have been no 9th for Haney

 Did Haney stay away because he knew Dorian would beat him? Or did he always know he would retire undefeated once he had his 8th?

Haney had his long run, then Dorian, then Ronnie 

Nasser, Shawn, Flex and Kevin were all runner up under Dorian, usually made up the top four, and any of them could have theoretically won on their year if they unseated Dorian 

Ronnie was way down the list so when Dorian didn't come out for his seventh, any of these four should or could have won that year 

So it was decided somewhere that Ronnie would be put into first place and stay there 

 Nasser, Shawn, Flex and Kevin should each have had a Sandow and held the title at least once in their career, the same way Samir and Dickerson did

1992 

Dorian

 Kevin 2nd 

Shawn 4th 

Ronnie 16th his Olympia debut

1993 

Dorian 

Flex 2nd

Shawn 3rd

 Kevin 5th

 Ronnie no sign

1994 

Dorian 

Shawn 2nd 

Kevin 3rd 

No Flex 

Ronnie 15th

1995 

Dorian 

Kevin 2nd 

Nasser 3rd 

Shawn 4th 

Flex 8th 

Ronnie 11th

1996 

Dorian 

Shawn 2nd 

Kevin 3rd 

Flex 4th 

Ronnie 5th

 Nasser scored 3rd disqualified

otherwise 96 would be

Dorian 

Shawn 2nd 

Nassar 3rd

Kevin 4th

Flex 5th

Ronnie 6th

a chance to have them all together in a classic lineup 

1997 

Dorian last Olympia

Nasser 2nd 

Shawn 3rd 

Kevin 4th 

Ronnie 9th

1998 

Ronnie first win 

Flex 2nd 

Nasser 3rd 

Kevin 4th

 Shawn 5th

We have Flex, Nasser, Kevin and Shawn occupying the runner up top five slots right through there 

In 98 anyone of them could have been number one, with the other three lining up behind them 

Somehow Ronnie comes from lower down the pile to win the show, with the four of them lining up after him 

With Dorian we saw him come 2nd to Haney in 91 then inherit the title in 92 

Jay came up the ranks and held second for consecutive years until he won 

So how did Ronnie jump over the four top guys and then stay there ?

 

Victims of a sudden impact are some of the hardest to treat. 

It’s not just the collision that injures them, it’s everything after, the centrifugal force keeps them moving; tossing them from vehicles, throwing them through windshields, slamming their internal organs into the skeleton, their bodies are injured over and over again. 

So there’s no way to know how much damage is actually been done until they stop. 

You can't prepare for a sudden impact. 

You can't brace yourself. It just hits you. Out of nowhere. 

And suddenly the life you knew before is over. 

Forever.

 

The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness. 

 

 even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.

 

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation

 

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.

 

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them.
They move on. They move away.
The moments that used to define them are covered by
moments of their own accomplishments.

It is not until much later, that
children understand;
their stories and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories
of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones,
beneath the water of their lives

freedom

 

 freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose

 - and commit yourself to what is best for you.

Numb - Song by Linkin Park

 

I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
Don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes

Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)

Can't you see that you're smothering me
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control?
'Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you

Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)
And every second I waste is more than I can take

I've become so numb
I can't feel you there
Become so tired
So much more aware
I'm becoming this
All I want to do
Is be more like me
And be less like you

And I know
I may end up failing too
But I know
You were just like me with someone disappointed in you

In the End - Song

 

It starts with one
All I know
It's so unreal
Watch you go

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end, it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end, it doesn't even matter

One thing, I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme
To remind myself of a time when I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mockin' me
Actin' like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I'm surprised it got so far
Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me in the end
You kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually
Be a memory of a time when I

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end, it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end, it doesn't even matter

One thing, I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind
I designed this rhyme to explain in due time
All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It's so unreal
You didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Tryin' to hold on, they didn't even know
I wasted it all just to watch you go
I kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory
Of a time when I tried so hard

 

The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; 

that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage. 

 people who have never dared to look into the depths of their soul, 

never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast,

 or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. 

Only those who know those frontiers know life; 

everything else is just passing the time,

 repeating the same tasks, 

growing old and dying

 without ever having discovered what we are doing here

 

In the beginning there was only a small amount of injustice abroad in the world, 

but everyone who came afterwards added their portion, always thinking it was very small and unimportant,

 and look where we have ended up today.

Close some doors

 

 Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, 

but simply because they no longer lead somewhere

 

We always have a tendency to see those things that do not exist 

and to be blind to the great lessons that are right there before our eyes 

 

humans 

Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there

 

Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course.

 Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death.

 

And although I have seen nothing but black crows in my life, it doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a white crow. 

Both for a philosopher and for a scientist it can be important not to reject the possibility of finding a white crow. 

You might almost say that hunting for 'the white crow' is science's principal task

 

One mole of a substance is equal to 6.022 × 10²³ units of that substance 

(such as atoms, molecules, or ions). 

The number 6.022 × 10²³ is known as Avogadro's number or Avogadro's constant. 

The concept of the mole can be used to convert between mass and number of particles..

 

In metric, 

one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, 

weighs one gram, 

and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade

—which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. 

An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it.

No one tells you these rules, but you break them at your peril. 

Rules, written and unwritten, help keep the trains on the tracks. 

Without them, things would devolve into chaos. 

But following all those rules can be stifling. 

There's no room to be yourself, to chart your own path.

 Sometimes you have to break the rules and go with your gut. 

I promise it'll only hurt a little.

 Medical textbooks from the Middle Ages contained a chart called "The Sphere of Life and Death."

 Doctors used it to predict health outcomes based only on a patient's name. 

The sphere was based on numerology, the Zodiac, the moon and starts.

 It's pseudo-science compared to modern metrics. But humans have always craved certainty. 

Diagnosis, prognosis, genetic predisposition. They're all ways of placing ourselves on the sphere. 

We ask science to protect us from the simplest fact of life: it's full of surprises. 

We trust science to predict the future. 

But even so, surprises are the only thing we can count on. 

Sometimes surprises are good. They lift you up and make life exquisite.

 But then there's the other kind of surprise, when the bottom drops out. 

However desperate you might be, don't look to the stars. 

Because they can't help you now.

 

philosophy of 20th century fascism

The glorification of masculine violence, 

the rejection of rationalism in favor of the human spirit (triumph of the will), 

the denunciation of capitalist decadence as the corrupter of a more pure, primal existence.

Soap

 

not just the object but the process of making it—

is a symbol of the brutality and violence of the “real world,” 

a world that most people would prefer to ignore.

 

Arrogance has to be earned

 

What usually happens when you poke something with a stick? 

It pokes back

 

If you can fake sincerity, you can fake pretty much anything

 

Humility is an important quality. 

Especially if you're wrong a lot.... 

Of course, when you're right, self-doubt doesn't help anybody, does it?

 

New is good. 

Because old ended in death 

 

Sometimes we can't see why normal isn't normal

 

Right and wrong do exist. 

Just because you don't know what the right answer is 

— maybe there's even no way you could know what the right answer is 

— doesn't make your answer right or even okay. 

It's much simpler than that. 

It's just plain wrong

 

I choose to believe that the white light people sometimes see... 

they're all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down.... 

There's no conclusive science. 

My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting.... 

I find it more comforting to believe that this isn't simply a test

 

You want to know how two chemicals interact, do you ask them? 

No, they're going to lie through their lying little chemical teeth. 

Throw them in a beaker and apply heat

 

 when you want to know the truth about someone 

that someone is probably the last person you should ask

 

It's a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. 

The only variable is about what

 

Truth begins in lies

 

Of course curiosity killed the cat,

and even if satisfaction supposedly brought it back,

there's still that little problem with the man on the radio telling me more and more about some useless information.

 

I live at the end of some interminable corridor

which the lucky damned can call hell

but which the much unluckier atheists must simply get used to calling home.

 

Your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations.

You'll care only about the darkness and you'll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you're some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay.

 

I've come to believe errors, especially written errors, are often the only markers left by a solitary life:

to sacrifice them is to lose the angles of personality, the riddle of a soul.

a very old soul.

A very old riddle.

 

Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you?.

 

Physics depends on a universe infinitely centred on an equals sign.

 

People frequently comment on the emptiness in one night stands, but emptiness here has always been just another word for darkness.

Blind encounters writing sonnets no one can ever read.

Desire and pain communicated in the vague language of sex.

None of which made sense to me until much later when I realized everything I thought I'd retained of my encounters added up to so very little, hardly enduring, just shadows of love outlining nothing at all.

 

And where there is no Echo there is no description of space or love.

There is only silence.

 

Prometheus, thief of light, giver of light, bound by the gods, must have been a book.

 

Why did god create a dual universe?

So he might say ‘Be not like me. I am alone.'

And it might be heard.

 

Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.

 

Scientists have published studies about how the practice of gratitude improves mental and physical health. 

A daily gratitude practice reduces depression and increases happiness. Gratitude enhances empathy, which helps build positive relationships. It even lowers blood pressure. 

If giving thanks is so good for you, why do so many people struggle doing it? Why do we only designate one day a year to give thanks?

After everything we've been through, why not celebrate the good every day? Hug your loved ones. Smile at a stranger. Choose kindness.

 What's the worst that could happen? 

Someone might do it in return.

 

Every life on the planet begins as a single cell, which splits and multiplies over and over again.

 Each cell has a purpose and as it forms, internal and external forces converge on it, signalling to the cell what it will become. 

We call this process differentiation. 

An arm, a bone, a brain: all cells take a journey from generalized to specialized. They go from nothing to something, or what you could be to what you are. 

At a cellular level, we are made of forks in the road. A generalized cell is born and it splits and splits, not having much choice in the matter. Eventually, it's a body. Eventually, it's you, out in the world. 

So maybe you are who you are. Maybe you can't choose who you love or what you want any more than a cell can choose to be a liver, a lung, a heart.

 But cells only take you so far. 

In the end, you create yourself and your life is the life you've made.

 But no one said it would be easy.

 

Our DNA is made up out of four nucleotide bases. 

The sequences of these bases is what determines our unique genetic code. 

Everything, from dimples to eye color to tolerance for spicy food, can be found in our genes.

 Genetic makeup can also help ascertain risk for diseases. So, it stands to reason, if we want to minimize the risk, could we find a way to change our genes? And if we could, are we sure we should? 

Segments of our DNA strands can be turned on or off by our behaviours and environment. 

So why not change the expression of our DNA and make it our own? 

Because who we are isn't determined just by what we inherit but by what we choose to do with it.

 

We all have moments in which we want to hide from the results. 

But instead of closing your eyes and delaying the inevitable, find someone to hold your hand and face it with you.

 

When there's a poisonous snake in our path, we freeze.

When we smell smoke, we run.

When faced with danger, fear takes over and we react, desperate to feel safe. It's biological, primal.

But for someone who suffers from trauma, it's the everyday things. A song in a coffee shop, the smell of rubbing alcohol, seemingly random, common things, convincing your brain and body you're in danger. And there is no way out.

Too often, trauma gets dismissed as just in our head. But the pain is real. We feel it, in our muscles, our cells, our hearts, our heads.

And while there's no magic fix, no pill to make it disappear, we can ask for help.

 And we can tell our truth, whenever we're ready.

 

It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. 

Makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about.

 

 I drink so I can talk to assholes. 

This includes me. 

Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality—that's-all—I was curious...

 I always preferred to be hated. 

Like Eric von Stroheim in the movies, the man you love to hate, it's meant to be ironic, courage wants to laugh.

 You know it's a stupid situation.

 

 always a piece or two left over, 

. So what do you do with that piece? 

Do you try to fit it back in? Do you try to make it work? Or do you decide you can live without that missing piece? 

When we go without certain things long enough, it's easy to forget just how much we need them. We forget what we had once. We forget what it's like to live with a thing, not that we need, but that we want. 

That's why it's so important for us to remind ourselves, for us to remember, just because we can live without something, it doesn't mean we have to.

 

 as beautiful as it is, the snow starts to melt. 

And you're suddenly standing in dirty slush, frozen and unable to feel anything at all. 

But after enough time, even that disappears. 

The ground thaws, days get longer, and though you could never imagine it, you start to feel again.