Strange Connections: Good People in Bad Romances

Other than substance addiction issues, one might not think that Bon Scott and Amy Winehouse have much in common. However, both of them were involved to the point of obsession with people who were incredibly bad for them, and although musically speaking they are both artists I can't get enough of, I have to stop listening after a fairly brief period of time because I know what and who they're singing about and it's really depressing.

The other issue is the fact that I can relate all too well to being obsessed with a person who is really, really, really horrible for you. I did it more than once. People think that all-consuming "love" is wonderful. It's anything but, and usually, it isn't really love, it's an obsession. So, yanno, no thanks to ending up in the ER with bloody wrists over some asshole who doesn't deserve my pain. Better to be alone than to be with someone toxic.

Although, unfortunately, in my case, more often than not, I'm alone in bad company.

Plus, in the case of AC/DC, I can only listen for just so long (and that isn't long these days) before I start getting really pissed off about the way Malcolm Young went out. Dementia is the absolute fucking worst, particularly when it takes out someone whose intelligence was a key part of who they were. Malcolm Young was a high school dropout, but he was smarter than a lot of people with strings of letters behind their names.

The late Glen Campbell's wife said of dementia "It's better to die some other way," and she's absolutely right. Fuck dementia.

As Bob Seger once said, sometimes I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

~Cie~

Observations of a Dead World: Burlesque Silliness with a Heartbreaking Ending

Hipster music journalists love to decry this band as a one-trick pony, but they were actually full of surprises. Sure, the same five songs get played over and over and over on commercial radio stations. Even though I was an early fan of AC/DC, I started changing the station whenever "For Those About To Rock" would come on so I wouldn't start hating it. That's how badly that particular song was overplayed.

Musical chops aside (and the musical choppage is strong in this lot) these guys were obviously not professional models. Bon seemed fairly well at ease with striking poses, and Angus is a ham. The others never seem to know quite what to do with themselves.

Mark Evans and Cliff Williams both tended to have neutral facial expressions in photos. Maybe it's a bass player thing. In this particular photo, I'm not sure there was much else that Phil Rudd could have done. After all, Angus was stepping on his head.

I really do wonder what Malcolm was doing, though. Did the photographer tell him to do that? Was there someone up above pouring some sort of beverage down on him and he was hoping to drink it rather than getting soaked by it? Is he performing a Stupid Big Brother Trick and pretending he's going to bite Angus' leg? Did he feel stupid when he saw this picture after the fact?

Although Angus was the one who became (in)famous for stripping off, Bon was the band member who had a tendency to dress like a member of Chippendale's. There are many photos of him wearing pants which looked like they'd been painted on, and he often struck poses indicating that said pants were about to come off.

This incarnation of AC/DC really wasn't around that long in the scheme of things. 

I've likened the way I feel looking at photos of AC/DC to the emotions expressed by the priest in Arthur C. Clarke's powerful story, The Star. The priest experienced a crisis of faith after discovering that the Star of Bethlehem shone as brightly as it did because it had gone supernova, destroying a peaceful civilization.

In some ways, AC/DC had a (crossed) binary star system. There was the band in its incarnation with Bon. This was the beta star in the system. It shone brightly but was short-lived. 

The alpha star continued on for 37 more years after Bon's passing. It started going into its death throes when Malcolm became too ill to perform anymore and collapsed on itself when Brian Johnson was no longer able to continue performing due to hearing problems and Cliff Williams retired because things had become too fucking depressing.

I'm in the camp that thinks that AC/DC needs to rock in peace, to remain a nebula rather than trying to cobble together some sort of zombie version of itself. To be clear, I am not one of those ageist assholes who thinks that only the young and the hawt should play music. I subscribe to the belief that as long as you can and want to play, you should, and most of the truly talented musicians I can think of are not "Hawt." 

Angus and Stevie Young should work on other projects. Whatever they create together ought to be good, because they're both talented musicians. Certainly, there's no problem with them playing AC/DC's material. AC/DC was, after all, half Angus' creation. He was the face of the band while Malcolm was the brains.

Without its brain, AC/DC was a different band. It was still a good band, but the material on Rock or Bust shows the marked change in a band that had lost its leader and one of its key components. Still, the band could arguably continue working under the AC/DC name at that point. Malcolm's replacement, his nephew, had learned much of his technique from the original and had been given the green light by Malcolm himself to take up the reins.

With the loss of Brian Johnson and Cliff Williams, AC/DC was done although Angus Young was still there.

I feel very sad for Angus. Not only did he lose his best friend of a lifetime, but he also lost the project which had been his reason for living for some 44 years. I hope that if continuing to play can bring him some semblance of peace, he will do so. Despite being a broke fuck, I would find a way to support his work by buying his albums. However, I hope he lays AC/DC to rest. Whatever lineup was created at this point would be a hollow echo of the band's past glory.

AC/DC needs to be allowed to fade to black.

~Cie~

AC/DC, doing stuff that got them on the Satanic Panic Shit List.

AC/DC - Inject the Venom - HQ/1080p

break

Can't help but think of this song sometimes when it's Insulin Time. 

Honestly, though, I don't listen to AC/DC very much these days in spite of what they have meant to me during my life.

All the shit that's happened to them depresses the fuck out of me.

I talk about diabetes a lot because I'm still getting used to the idea of having another dying organ in my body.

I didn't talk about hypothyroidism or PCOS or menopause that much because menopause made me happy and resolved the problems of PCOS, and hypothyroidism required swallowing a couple of small pills.

I talked about glaucoma a bit when I was first diagnosed, but my eye pressure is good and my peripheral vision doesn't seem to have deteriorated, and the treatment is an eye drop in each eye once a day.

With diabetes, I have to inject something into my body to prevent elevated blood glucose from destroying other organs such as my kidneys and my eyes or possibly the blood vessels in my brain.

It isn't that the injections hurt. I hardly feel them. Oddly enough, they make me feel kind of empowered, sort of like "take that, you fucking dead pancreas! I don't need your stupid ass anyway!"

Nonetheless, it's kind of weird, and it's not something I ever thought I'd have to do.

In a few months, it'll be old hat, and I'll hardly ever mention it.

Unlike my stupid bipolar disorder. Lithium helps control the irritability and paranoia, but there are still issues, plus the stigma and ignorance surrounding psych disorders.

I'm just a huge fucking mess. I want a body without 99 million problems in my next life.

Scratch that. I don't want a next life. I just want to float around in the Aethers, being an asshole.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

In Memory of Bon Scott 2017

9 July 1946 - 19 February 1980

It is hard for me to believe that it is 37 years since Bon Scott's passing. I found out only a few days after I turned 15. This may seem like a real lame ass admission to the sophisticated types who may be reading these words, but I was rather in love with him at the time, and beyond that, I just liked him. He was a good person and something of a personal hero, someone who I would think of when I was trying to be brave. 

His death devastated me. I've actually never gotten over it, although, and you can take this as you want to, (but don't be a dick) I've accepted it because he's told me that things are okay. 

Bon may be best known for his infamously cheeky song lyrics, but I always thought that the best thing about him was his wish to bring a bit of laughter and fun into the lives of others. I always felt like he realized that a lot of people were living difficult lives and maybe he thought he didn't have a lot of ability to change that, but he did have a knack for writing songs and making people laugh. It was sort of like he was saying "I know you've had a raw deal in life, Mate, but here's something to take your mind off that for a minute. It's my humble gift to you."

That humble gift was worth a lot and far outweighs any of the mistakes he may have made along the way. He was a good guy, and I will always think of him fondly.

~Cie~

Hilarious Signs of the Apocalypse: A Wee Scotsman on a Talking Horse

If you were a teenager in the 1980's like I was, and you grew up in the United States, you remember this shit. Come remember this shit with me, or, if you're too young to remember, you can read about this shit and wonder how anyone could possibly be so stupid.

http://www.vh1.com/news/54726/remembering-the-80s-heavy-metal-satanic-panic/

Taking this little stroll down Ridiculous Memory Lane has brought me to a startling conclusion about the end of the world.

Are you ready?

After reading (and laughing at) the aforementioned shit, I have come to the conclusion that the Apocalypse will be marked not by four horsemen, but by a single horseman: Angus Young, riding on Mr. Ed, while carrying a cache of Dungeons and Dragons manuals in his backpack. 

You see, The Apocalypse will be ludicrous rather than terrifying. I, for one, have my 20 sided dice ready to roll. Who's bringing snacks?

~Cie~

Not exactly a replacement for Nostradamus, but probably funnier

Here is like a for real top seekrit AC/DC Devil Worshiping Ceremony caught live on tape and stuff by our super spy team. Look at this wickedness. Just look at it! 

Angus Young's RED guitar and hat.

Malcolm Young's RED tank top.

Hordes of RED capped minions!

Giant iguanas!

Pterodactyls!

The only thing that could make it more wicked and diabolical would be Mr. Ed!

You'll have to read the article.

The Cheese Grates It: The Hate that Hate Breeds

I was replying to a post by the wonderful Russell Duffy, when I realized that my reply had  morphed into a post. It is necessary to read Russell's post to fully understand why I was inspired to write what I have here, so here's the link:

http://openmindedsearchfortruth.blogspot.com/2016/09/no-room.html

I try not to let hate in. For instance, although I dislike Donald Trump with a fair intensity, if I were to allow myself to hate him, it would hurt me a lot more than it does him. Hate is an emotion with a lot of energy invested in it. It is a poor investment, and we should avoid it.

It wasn't always this way. I've mellowed with age and with the proper diagnosis of my mental illnesses. Taking Lithium turns down the intensity of my more extreme emotions.

Whenever I have felt hate, it's because I feel threatened by the person I'm feeling hate for.

I remember in my late teens on up into my thirties, I felt ire towards women that I perceived as "slutty." Having been brought up in a misogynistic society, I perceived "slutty" women as both threatening and entirely responsible for their presentation. I feared that these "easy" women who put their wares on display so readily would "steal my man." I was disgusted by "skanky" actresses making men put all the more pressure on ordinary women like me to transform into some sort of perfectly proportioned and ever available nymph there for the taking.

I was never the "there for the taking" kind, and I was anything but sexy. I really did not even want to be sexy. I hated these women for "making" me hate myself more than I already did.

Years later, I learned that most of the women I felt threatened by also suffered because of these perceptions, and that they aren't "perfect" either.

Britney Spears is attractive. She's pretty and can certainly present as sexy. More importantly, she's genuinely beautiful, as in she's a good and kind person. Britney insisted on releasing the unretouched photos from her Candies Shoes photo shoot to show that she does not actually have the impossibly perfect body that so many women are led to believe we should have, not only to our own detriment, but, I believe, to the detriment of society as a whole, to the detriment of the entire human collective consciousness, if I may be so bold.
Personally, on a purely aesthetic level, I think that Real Britney is very lovely and nothing needed to be done to "correct" her physique. I wonder if a day will ever come when we don't erase what people actually look like. For my own part, I like real people.
When I was younger, I would never have said something so kind about Britney Spears. In my view, she was a skank who was putting herself on display and making life more difficult for women like me. I didn't want to put myself on display. Doing so makes me very uncomfortable. Unless I'm posing for art classes, which is something I did in order to help myself get over the mindset that only "slutty" people allowed themselves to be seen nude. More on that in a minute.
I learned over time that Britney Spears was a nice young lady who wore sexy costumes while performing. She wasn't a "slutty man stealer." Like many of us, she was looking for The One. She was disturbed by all the focus on her breasts, particularly when she was still a teenager. She was struggling with untreated bipolar disorder. She is a good person, and I was wrong to judge her the way I did. My prejudices clouded my true intuition.

Angus Young has taught me so much, even though I was never fortunate enough to meet him in this life. I don't know why that is, considering that I feel like we would be friends if we had been allowed to know each other, but that's a post for another time. Unfortunately, he didn't teach me how to play the guitar. Musically, I have all the talent of a hammer. I bash on instruments and hurt them, or at least hurt anyone listening to the cacophony I produce.
One day while watching Angus strip off and drop trou, it came to me that here is a person who does not think of himself as attractive, who has, in fact, referred to himself as "that ugly little man," and yet he's baring it all for the world to see. Now, I realize that what Angus does is not art school modeling, it's burlesque. However, I was inspired to take my body, such as it is, stretch marks, scars, fat rolls and saggy breasts, and put it on display for pay at art schools in my area.
I started seeing myself as less ugly when I was modeling. Also, it's a different culture. Modeling for art schools is not sexy. Yes, I had idiots saying I was an "exhibitionist" for doing this. I'm not. I had people praising me for being so "uninhibited." I'm really not.
Being a man, Angus does not have the added fuckery of people thinking he's "slutty" for taking his clothes off. A naked man is not "slutty," he's just naked. A naked woman is seen as a "skank" who is "asking for it." More on this another time.
This realization made me very angry, both at myself for having bought into it and having wasted my energies on hate for others because of it, and at the society which teaches it.
I have a million reasons for wanting to find Angus in the spirit world after my body boots me out for good and give him a big hug. This is one of them. And then, maybe we can be friends. It's something I like to think is possible.

My uncontrolled borderline personality disorder certainly played a part in my hateful thinking. People with borderline personality disorder tend to see the world in shades of black and white. People are either wonderful or they're terrible. This extreme love/hate dichotomy is very disconcerting, especially considering that people are terribly flawed creatures who inevitably fuck up.
However, I place more of the blame for my hateful attitudes on a society that views women in terms of being virgins or whores. You can't tell how promiscuous a person is by the way they're dressed or whether they've ever appeared nude in a movie or even if they've appeared in porn. You can't tell what that person's morals are when it comes to having sex with a person who's in a committed relationship.
Hate is a strong and destructive emotion. There are rational reasons for disliking a person, but rational reasons for hating someone are few and far between, and are of a catastrophic nature such as when hate is directed at someone who murdered a loved one.
Beating yourself up for irrational feelings won't help. Try to get to the root of the feeling. It generally boils down to learned prejudices and/or personal insecurity.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Friendly Fill-Ins Week 17

Week 17: September 2, 2016

1. My favorite way to exercise is in a therapy pool. But I haven't had access to a pool since I quit my old job a year ago.

2. Something I learned last week was that it really sucks to be without money. Oh, wait, I already knew that.

3. I am sentimental about:

This beautiful mess. 

The photo isn't mine.

4. Some people might find it surprising to know that I used to believe that wonderful things would happen to you if you were a good person. I have since learned that bad people get away with a lot of shit and terrible things happen to good people. There is no rhyme or reason to it.

~Cie~

Get To Know The Netherworld Crew: The Real Cie

The theme for Silver Threading's Writer's Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge is Comedy. What does the above picture have to do with comedy? It doesn't, it has to do with me, The Real Cie, the butt of the Universe's cruel jokes. We'll get to that.
I created the above picture to be included in a mass email for the birthday of Jared Padalecki, the actor who plays Sam Winchester on Supernatural. Jared lives with depression, and he created the Always Keep Fighting charity to raise awareness. There's something about Jared. More on people with "something about them" later in the post.
Yes, the tattoo is the permanent kind.

Am I doing this right? I don't know. Will they like me? Probably not. A few people do, but most people don't understand where I'm coming from at all. Nor do they get my sense of humor.
In this post, I refer to myself in both first and third person. Referring to me as I am now, I always use first person. Referring to my past self or the fictionalized version of myself, I will use either first or third person. I tend not to edit posts of this nature too much, because I want to preserve the emotional rawness.

I've never fit in. I was badly bullied. I had a serious mental illness (I have three diagnoses, actually: Bipolar disorder type 2, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Obsessive-compulsive disorder) that was improperly diagnosed until I was nearly 40. There was always something different about me. People saw that and wanted to destroy it. I wasn't pretty, I was socially awkward. I tried to make people like me, but they didn't. I started self-injuring when I was in my early teens. I made my first suicide attempt at age 13 by swallowing a bottle of aspirin.

Because I was raised Catholic, I believed that committing suicide was a sin that would get you sent to hell. Because sending a person who was already suffering to hell makes a lot of sense, right? Not here to argue theology, but that idea is a crock of shit, as is the idea that people who commit suicide are "selfish" or "stupid." Suicide may be "a permanent end to a temporary problem," or it may in fact be not a permanent end to a lifelong problem. Pithy sayings don't work on serious issues.
"This is really fucking depressing, Real Cie," you're saying. "When are you going to get to the comedy part?"
The prompt mentions Robin Williams.

Mork is one of the friends I turned to when real life was too painful.
I was a writer from the time I was very young. I was precocious and learned to read at a first grade level when I was four years old. I'm not saying this to brag about how smart I was, because I don't really think I'm that smart overall. I was in the top percentile for the English category when I took my SAT's. I have some sort of gift in the English comprehension and writing areas, but I've never learned to use it in a way that appeals to most people. I'd like to thank my bipolar disorder for that.
I always had a real sense for the absurd as well. I could find bits of humor in the oddest places. Other people didn't get it. I used it to survive.
Young Me used her literary and metaphysical gifts to escape to an alternate world. Unlike the world I was living in, this world was filled with fun and friends.
I didn't know it then, but I was an empath who could pick up on other people's emotions. I wish I could have known Robin Williams in life. I think that Real Cie and Robin would have been friends, just like Cie in my stories and Mork were friends. That's what I like to think.

This became Mork and Cie's favorite band after one of Cie's few friends' older brothers played their music and Cie said "wow, who's that?"
Keep in mind that in the 1970's, there was no public Internet. Young Cie had to go into record shops and look for imported magazines to find out more about her new favorite band. She liked doing research anyway, and liked pretending to be a detective.
If you see evil rather than humor when looking at the above picture, you need to adjust your perspective. I'm still gobsmacked that anyone could have thought of these men as "evil."
Cie liked AC/DC not only for the music, but because, like her, they were outcasts and freaks who used their sense of humor both to cope and to entertain others. They didn't like people who bullied other people. There was also "something about them."
I didn't know it yet, but "something about them" means "walking wounded."

Even at ten years old, when I was watching Star Trek reruns I really resonated with the Empath character, Gem. I didn't know it yet, but it was because, like her, I take on other people's pain. I don't get physical manifestations, and, unfortunately, I can't do psychic healing on a physical level.
This plane is purgatory, and this world is in a lot of pain. I used and still use my sense of the Ridiculous to cope, and most people don't get it. I've suffered a lot of derision because of it.
I still do it because the Pissed Off Crusader for Justice in me doesn't want me to destroy who I am to please other people. I've tried it several times. I almost didn't survive. I won't do it again.
I think that many people who express themselves through comedy use comedy as a coping mechanism. Like me, they have been bullied, or they suffer with a mood disorder such as depression or bipolar disorder. Seeing the ridiculous helps us survive. Often we try to make the world a better place. Sadly, it doesn't really seem to work.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though. If we make the world a somewhat better place for a few people, it's worth it.
I've got more to say, much more. But the foam mat on my bed has slipped sideways and it's really irritating me, so I need to fix it.
Did I mention that I have OCD?
I have to joke about my mental illnesses, because otherwise I'd go crazy!
I'll be here all week. Also, for the rest of my life.

~Cie~

Cross-posted to:

Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp

Encyclopedia Netherworld

One Love

The Cheese Grates It: The Satanic Panics Were and Are Stupid

Just putting this out there. 

Obviously I'm still pissed off about this because I've never forgotten it.

Back in the day, ya know, when dinosaurs roamed and we had to fear being crushed by brontosaurus with their big feet and walnut brains, I was in high school, and I had a really bad reputation for being a "devil worshiper." 

There seemed to be two reasons for this.

One was my belief that government sanctioned health care "such as they have in Sweden"was a good idea.

The other was my love for what became known as "classic rock" music, especially a weird little band known for a weird little guy who sometimes wore a hat with devil horns and was infamous for dropping trou and mooning the audience.

Call Angus Young cheeky--hell, call the entire band cheeky, and you're right. But I never understood for one minute how people could accuse them of being evil. 

I think I'm feeling particularly sensitive about it at the moment, having read how Angus makes sure to frequently contact his very sick, dying brother, even though he's said that his brother "isn't in there at all any more."

Angus always tells Malcolm that he loves him and that everyone misses him, even though he isn't sure if anything he says gets through.

What an evil, evil bastard. What kind of a monster does that?

Angus also said that disbanding after Malcolm could no longer continue might have been the right thing to do, but back when they first started, if you didn't play, you didn't eat, and that has always stuck with him.

You don't forget being really poor, which these guys were.

I initially liked them for their music. I wouldn't have noticed them if it hadn't been for that. Once I found out what kind of people they were, I liked them even more because of that.

I guess I've never understood how people can start really nasty, baseless rumors about other people. I never understood the Satanic Panic crap, not even for a minute. I can tell you that rather than making me want to become more religious, it pushed me away from religion. Even though I feared that I might be going to some sort of hell, because I was raised with those beliefs, I wasn't going to join in a witch hunt.

It's a real lark that people are still talking this kind of shit today. 

Ask me again why I think humans are the creator's biggest mistake.

I'm really not a complete misanthrope, even though such a statement might make me appear to be one. I like people one on one, unless they give me reason not to. It's the human race as a whole that I have problems with.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: A Label I'll Accept

 Friends, I am an agnostic.

Let's break this down, because that is what I do.

I am a fallen Catholic who long ago soured on the "Church God," mostly because of the way many religious people treated me. From the time I was ten years old, I lived in a town that we'll just call Peyton Place.

I was labeled a communist for my statement in social studies class that I thought that socialized medicine, "such as they have in Sweden," seemed like a good idea.

Communist devolved into "Satan Worshiper," and I suppose the fact that I liked these fuckers

did nothing to counter the argument.

Cheeky bastards were talking about driving across Australia in the summer, by the way. To paraquote Phil Rudd, anyone who's done so knew exactly what they were talking about.

This isn't my music blog, so let's get back to the other reasons why people think I'm going to hell.

I have spiritual beliefs, but I'm not religious. As I've grown longer in the tooth, I've become more sour on religion over the years--any religion. This isn't strictly a Let's Bash Christianity post, (in fact, I'm trying to avoid bashing anyone's beliefs) although Christianity is the first religion I soured on.

This doesn't mean that I have any problem with Jesus, by the way. Like the Doobie Brothers said, Jesus is just all right with me. He's a good guy. It's certain of his followers I have problems with, not him.

So, we've established that I really don't like religion much.

Religion does not automatically make anyone a good person. Your actions count for far more than what deity or deities you worship.

On the other hand, being religious does not automatically make a person ignorant or an extremist. I'm not keen on hard line Atheism either. I cannot get behind ridiculing people for having faith in a higher power. "My way or the highway" thinking is short sighted, whether the person engaging in it is a theist or an atheist.

There are charts which divide agnosticism into "Agnostic Atheism" and "Agnostic Theism." I guess I'm closer to being an agnostic theist, but hell, who knows?

I'm not an Atheist or a secular humanist. I believe in at least the possibility of a higher power.

 For many years, it has been my opinion that it is highly unlikely that a higher power gives any more of a fuck what we humans think of it than I give what a paramecium thinks of me. Something mighty enough to create universes does not need the parasites polluting its planets worshiping it to satisfy its ego.

I believe in at least the possibility of a soul that survives the death of the physical body. However, this actually has jack shit to do with whether or not I believe in a higher power. There could be an energy which survives the death of the body, which might be referred to as a soul, regardless of whether or not there is a higher power.

I mentioned that I soured on Christianity a long time ago, in great part because of the way I was treated by the lovely, Bible-thumpin' citizens of Peyton Place.

I also soured on what might be termed New Age thinking, and even on Paganism, at least in any organized form.

Why would this be true?

Because all of these schools of thought have way too many "my way or the highway" adherents and not nearly enough people willing to try and understand the often scarred and damaged souls of their fellow travelers. New Ageism tends to blame those suffering from illness as having brought that illness on themselves, and I encountered far too many people calling themselves Pagans who may have left the Christian god in the church but did not leave their dogmatic attitudes there.

I also soured on the Unitarian Universalist church, which I was part of for about 10 years. I found it to be the Church of Secular Humanism, and any discussion of spiritual ideas was greeted with an allegorical pat on the head and a "bless your little pea-pickin' heart" attitude. 

I searched for many years for kindred spirits, only to find that they really are few and far between.

I have also discovered along the way that everybody hates agnostics, except for other agnostics.

Ah well. I should be used to being a pariah by now.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Soul Calls

At The Beginning of the End: Version 6
Photoshop manipulation by The Real Cie

This is my final post on the Cie Loves Mal tumblr. 

I am no longer using this blog for its original purpose. I feel far too vulnerable doing so. I feel like I have revealed things that are much too personal. 

I was intending to delete the blog, however, I am leaving it here with one final post. I am creating a new blog for my artwork, stories, and personal thoughts. If you want the URL, say so in the comments. I don’t read messages.

I remember one time a blogger wondered why she had such strong emotions for James Hetfield, a person whom she has never met. Sure, she loves his music, but this emotion went far beyond the rational. As someone who has had a lot of experience with the metaphysical, I did not believe what she was feeling to be irrational, but at the time I couldn’t explain this phenomenon. I now can, and I hope to be able to save other people a lot of grief by doing so.

The information I discovered is in this post. Please read it. It will save you a lot of heartache. I wish I had known about this phenomenon when I was much younger. It would have saved me many years of pain.

The phenomenon I refer to is known as a Soul Call.

People with empathic abilities are particularly susceptible to soul calls.

The soul call explains why some people always have a tendency to find stray animals. It also explains why some people have a tendency to find wounded people whom they try to save, only to end up with a broken heart.

The soul call also explains why an otherwise rational person could feel as if she is falling in love with (for instance) James Hetfield, whom she has never met. It has nothing to do with lust or wanting to bang a rock musician for the thrill. She might not even necessarily want to have sex with him. She does, however, find herself wanting to be close to him. The desire to do so becomes all consuming.

This happens because James (or whomever) is feeling troubled about something. He may not even be consciously aware that he is particularly troubled, but his psyche is reaching out, saying “does someone have an answer for me?”

I am hoping that understanding the nature of soul calls can help quell the miserable feeling of unrequited love that all empaths feel at one time or another for a person whom they cannot possibly get close to, and whom it might not even be a good idea to get close to.

For my own part, I would have been saved 26 years of misery wherein I felt a strong pull towards someone who turned out to have both substance and sex addiction problems. This person haunted my dreams, literally. My need to find and get close to him destroyed my marriage. Fortunately, what I wanted never transpired. In fact, during my final astral encounter with him, I ended up telling him to stay away from me or I would hit him in the face with a shovel.

For the record, the person in question is not Malcolm Young.

Regarding Malcolm Young, his soul is screaming and has been for many years. I do not mean to imply that he is in a literal hell, for this is not the case. I only mean to impart that he is extremely troubled by his situation because he is sorry for hurting those who care about him and he can’t do anything about it.

I believe that what Angus said about Malcolm not being in his body at all any more is true. He is, for all intents and purposes, in spirit. The fact that his body remains in the material world is disconcerting and distressing to him.

Certainly there will be empaths who will hear this call and feel as if they are falling in love with such a spirit. However, romantic love is not what he needs or wants. Blessings, prayers, and peaceful vibrations are helpful to spirits in a situation such as Malcolm’s. Regarding Malcolm in particular, I think he would greatly welcome such assistance. 

In closing, yes, dear empathic souls, the love in your heart for the one whose soul call you are receiving is real. On closer examination, you are likely to find that it is not, in fact, romantic love. Look deeper. Ask how you can help. If you cannot sense anything concrete, simply send white light or say blessings or a prayer on behalf of the one making the soul call. Believe that it will help. It will.

I know now that I have received many soul calls over the years. I have been severely damaged by feelings of unrequited love and of loss, and it will take time for me to heal. I hope that I can save some of you the grief I have known. That is why I leave this here for you.

Peace, 

Cie

The Cheese Grates It: Body vs. Soul

“Some people touch your body, some people touch your soul.” --Bruce Adler

Malcolm Young never touched my body, not even a handshake. But he touched my soul more deeply than some people whom I foolishly allowed to touch my body out of desperate need to find some semblance of love--even a perverted pretense of love--somewhere.

It makes me kind of sad when I see girls and women literally proclaiming that they’d happily “be a groupie” for (fill in the blank.)

I would never have been a groupie for anybody.

It isn’t that I have disdain for people who choose to be groupies. I admit, I did when I was younger. I thought they were cheap. Over the years I’ve come to see that such people tend to be looking for love. But you aren’t going to find love when you allow yourself to be but one of someone’s many options. 

Never let yourself be someone’s option. You’re better than that.

Beyond his early 20s, Malcolm was not one to sample from the vast pool of groupies making themselves available. I respected that. If two people are unattached and want to hook up, fine. I don’t respect the sort of fellow (or lady) who is in a committed relationship but hooks up with everything that comes along anyway. I feel bad for such a person’s partner, who is no doubt hoping that one day he will settle down and be true. My experience has shown me that such people never do.

I know sex is a big thing for a lot of people. Personally, I don’t care about it. I can only be involved with someone I care deeply about, and I’d have to trust them deeply too. I don’t trust easily.

I can’t really explain why, but this is a person who truly does touch my soul. I care deeply about him. I wish I could heal him.

Sex? Meh, I have my hand for that. What is in the heart means much more than a random meeting of genitals ever could.

Granted, not everyone is wired the way I am. That’s okay. Just so long as no one is going behind someone else’s back, I really don’t care what people do. I just got tired of being mocked because I’m not that way.

The Cheese Hath Grated It

Wordless Wednesday Fail: Spiraling Into the Past

Spiraling Into the Past, Version 6

Spiraling Into the Past, Version 7

Photoshop images by The Real Cie

Back in the present, Pepper listened to the strains she'd discovered all those years ago. Then they had been the sounds of freedom and rebellion. Now, although her love for these songs had never died, there was something quaint about them, accompanied by a heart-wrenching sense of loss.

From "Fetch," Team Netherworld's WIP Novel

Dedicated with love to Malcolm Young for everything he made possible

*********************************************

Hello, and welcome to another Wordless Wednesday Fail, where the Real Cie shows images (often things she's done in Photoshop) and refuses to comply with the "wordless" part of "Wordless Wednesday".

Youth is wasted on the young. When I bought this album, I was young (fourteen) and super stupid. I think I really believed these guys would be like they are on this album forever. Older than me but still young enough. Sassy, impish, but nowhere in the vicinity of actual evil, like some morons made them out to be. Actually, in spite of the provocative humor, they were really sweet people who just wanted to make the world a more enjoyable place. I loved that about them.

I never thought that less than a year after I bought this album that Bon Scott would be dead.

I could not have imagined that Phil Rudd would end up a meth addict, estranged from the band and in trouble with the law for making foolish, drug-fueled threats towards a person with whom he had a disagreement.

I certainly never thought that Malcolm Young, who created the band, would have his cognitive abilities destroyed to the point where he could no longer remember the works he created, where he didn't know the brother to whom he was so very close, and where he didn't even know who he himself was.

Y'all can't tell me that this plane of existence isn't Purgatory. I'm convinced that it is. Those of us who are stuck here are just trying to get by. Some of us, like these guys, try to make it a little nicer for their fellow inmates.

Maybe if we all learn the lesson that we need to treat each other a little more kindly, we can get out of here.

~Cie~