Things to Be Thankful For - Giving Up Gracefully the Treasures of Youth & Sixties & Seventies Rock'n'Roll

"Be alive while you are alive" ~ Unknown


"I was wise enough to see that one can't experience one's 
grandfather's revolution. Rip it up!" ~ Jp Valentine

There are a very many things that we need to be thankful for and I wanted to share just one of mine with you and hope that, after this, you'll take a few moment's time to close your eyes, relax and reflect on yours too. 

The one I want to tell you something that I have discovered the importance of nearly 35 years after it happened! All until this time, I was thankful that I was there and got to see it, but I never fully grasped how I was able to be a part of a bigger picture; a bigger "scene." Now that I have, I realize that God (Vishnu, Siva, Buddha, the Great Electrode, Bob, what-have-you) gave me such a wonderful present that I shall always cherish.


Usually, when you read these sorts of posts and articles about what we should be thankful for, you are given a litany of the usual things and those are things to be thankful for today: Family, a home, food, health... Of course, those are things to be greatly thankful for and to never forget. But, may I ask that you indulge yourself and take a time trip and be thankful for something you probably don't really think about all that much? And, perhaps, feel a little guilty about today if you stop, reflect and say, "Thank you for that wonderful time!"


I'm talking about being thankful for the past. The past that's never coming again. I'm talking about being thankful for the treasures of youth we received. And, I'm talking about giving up gracefully those treasures of youth so that we do not cling to to them like a drowning man clings to straw, but that we surrender them to the next generation with class befitting our age and experience. 


I'm talking about our youth. Those wonderful dates, places you visited, things you experienced that only young people can do. I want you to take this morning and reflect for a few moments on your favorite of those experiences; experiences that probably you, and only you, of all those around you know about.


This morning, when I woke up, I thought about my life and how lucky I am; how lucky I was. I enjoyed things that few people could have and, I'm sure, that you can say the same thing about yourself.  Everyone has enjoyed something special in their time in this cosmos that has happened especially for them that no one else can, or will, ever experience again.


For me, there are so many. But, like I said, I'd like for you today to think about and focus on one. 


Here's my "one" that I stumbled upon that I rediscovered yesterday and it was something that happened about 35 years ago! While I enjoyed it at the time, I didn't realize that it was so unique. Let me reminisce and tell you about it.


I wrote yesterday about a producer friend I have who lives in Hollywood. His name is Jp Valentine. Jp and I have become good friends, I like to think, yet we have never even met. We have corresponded greatly and he sent me a gift the other day that really has stopped me and made me pause and think.

The present he sent me was a book entitled, "Riot on Sunset Strip - Rock'n'Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood." It is a wonderful book filled with photos and accounts of the Golden Time between 1965 and 1966 for Rock'n'Roll music and the Sunset Strip that occurred for a few shorts months.


Here's a VERY short synopsis of the book:


For a brief period between 1965 and 1966, Rock’n’Roll music, heavily influenced by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as well as American acts such as the Byrds, the Doors, Love, Buffalo Springfield, the Mamas & the Papas and more, displaced cinema as the center of action in Hollywood. The scene appeared out of nowhere, lasted a few exiting and incredible few months and then just vanished just as suddenly as it appeared. The mix of London and Los Angeles gave rise to an eruption of local music and culture at that time. From this cultural explosion, Rock’n’Roll combined and quickly permeated television, animation, cinema and popular culture around the western world.  

Map of the Sunset Strip from "Riot on Sunset Strip - Rock'n'Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood."

Here is a snippet of a review of the book that I took from Amazon:


I loved this book because of the way it put me right on the Sunset Strip in the mid 60s, making me feel like I was sitting at Canter's Deli with Gene Clark and then dancing to The Byrds at Ciro's later that same evening. I also love the argument it makes about San Francisco's elitist attitude about its own 60s bands, versus those of L.A. Ask me to choose between The Grateful Dead and Love, between Moby Grape and The Byrds, between any SF garage band and The Seeds or The Music Machine, and I'm going with the Hollywood "cream puff" act every time. The book also makes you feel the tragedy of the collapse of the Sunset Strip nightclub scene, after the police effectively shut it down because some influential people in town didn't like the idea of the Strip being a place for teenagers to hang out and dance to groovy music. You get to know what a magical time and place the Strip was in 65-66, and it makes you want to be there.  

Wow! That sounds like a cool place! I love that sort of thing. Jp tells me these sorts of cultural booms happened in London, Paris, Berlin and America in the 1920s, as well as a few other places and times that I was too dumb to take note of. He also tells me that, besides 1965 ~ 1966 on the Sunset Strip, that it happened again, albeit very briefly, on that very same Sunset Strip in 1977.


The weird thing is that I was there in 1977 and saw it and was a part of it! I never realized that that time had its roots in a sixties rock movement in Hollywood. 


I knew it was fun and have always been thankful for being there and seeing it and being a part of it, while it was going on, but never realized how it fit in with the evolution of pop music culture in America until I read page 25 of "Riot on Sunset Strip - Rock'n'Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood." On page 25, it talks about the sudden disappearance of the Hollywood Rock music scene in 1966. It says, 

"Not even the smallest portion of the (Sunset) Strip would seem vital again until the emergence of the punk rock scene in the late 1970s..." 

That really astounds me. I never realized how the seventies punk boom fit into the overall history of Hollywood and Los Angeles. The seventies punk boom in Los Angeles, also, seems to me was there one day and then gone the next.

The Deadboys were one of the best live acts I have ever seen

I wrote to Jp:

"In my youth, I lived all over the USA moving almost yearly and changing elementary and Jr. high schools annually. It always made me a sort of outcast with few friends. I stayed in Calif. through high school but still was considered sort of "backwards" by my peers (even the slang and lingo and how kids talked was different from the Mid West - where I just came from - to California)." 

"When the punk boom happened, I used to drive my car, by myself, to Los Angeles and go see punk bands. I saw the Deadboys play, I think it was 5 nights in a row and Sham 69 play 7 nights in a row at (I think it was the Whiskey - can't remember). I liked it so much that I drove all the way from Venture to Los Angeles (about 1.5 hours) every night to see these shows! I loved it. I loved Hollywood. Guess what? I thought that the night club scene was the way it always was and always has been... Now I read that part in the book, "Riot on Sunset Strip..." and it really surprises me that it is not. I got lucky... I stepped into a Time Warp! I honestly didn't know. I thought it was business as as usual... Thank you, Jp. for allowing me to know this and thank you God for allowing me to be there."

Wow! That was a wonderful time. That was my time....


But now, we're back to today... I'm back to this blog post. It's a Saturday morning here in Japan and my family is sleeping and I am sitting here reminiscing about the past, a past they know nothing about.


It is a guilty pleasure of mine to enjoy those memories that only I know about and only I can recall...


Thanks for listening to mine. Now, it's your turn. Whether you want to write it down or not, why don't you take some time today or in the morning tomorrow to sit down and think back? Think way back to something you haven't thought of in years... Maybe it was that time with friends? Or that time with mom and dad when you were a child? Or maybe it was that time on that date with that someone you'll never forget?


Think back. Remember it. It is a present. Enjoy it.


Enjoy the wonderful memories and, while still cherishing them, gracefully give up the treasures of youth... 


Be thankful for them. Enjoy them. You have many more wonderful memories coming.  


Thank you to Jp Valentine

My Near Death Experience

Have you ever seen these people on TV who claim to have had a near-death experience (NDE)? They all claim seeing "clouds" or "lights" or floating in a room outside of their body. Some also talk about seeing angels and long dead relatives. These are some of the common experiences people who claim they've had near-death experience.


People who hear about these near-death experiences usually think the person telling the story is "crazy."

I never used to believe that stuff at all either... That is, until it happened to me. Yes, I have had a near death experience. Actually, this has happened to me twice. Both times were in Japan. This post is about the first time it happened to me. It must have been about 1995 or so.


I was once told by a Za Zen Buddhist priest that having a near-death experience was the fastest way to enlightenment. I know that my thinking radically changed, but don't know if I could say I was enlightened. I don't think I am a very enlightened person, but I have had experiences that should have enlightened me. I have had these so-called near-death experiences. Well, actually, I'm not happy to be able to say that I've had them twice. I reckon that, in a way, it should be sort of embarrassing. I reckon that near-death experiences should enlighten anyone who has a lick of good sense. I guess I don't have enough sense.

But you can't really run around telling people this sort of thing. Why? Because if you tell people that you died and came back to life, no one will believe you. They'll all think that you are nuts. I'm not a Christian but I am well versed in the bible. In the Book of Mark, when Jesus toured the countryside and healed the sick, he told those whom he had healed to, "Tell no one." He did that because, well, because it's obvious. If you were deathly ill and then you witnessed a miracle and were cured, and told people what happened, they'd all think you were nuts... Of course.


It's like telling people that you were abducted by aliens or have seen ghosts... Or even an exorcism....

You see people who talk about these things on TV sometimes, but you can't figure out if it's real or not unless you've experienced it yourself. George Foreman talked about it. I saw him on a TV interview talking about his near death experience. When I heard his words, I knew that he wasn't lying. I've been there. I've done that.


After a boxing match that George lost he was taken to the locker room and there he passed out and says that he "died" and had an out of body experience. He says that he was falling in a dark tunnel into pitch black. It was then and there he knew that he had died. He then says that he thought to himself,


"So this is death? Oh well, at least I believe in God." George then goes on to tell about how a giant hand caught him as he was falling and then he "...felt the blood of Jesus pouring through his veins."


Some may know this story. When George recovered, he was a different man. He was no longer angry at the world and he retired from boxing and became a preacher. It's a great story.


My story isn't that great because I was never heavy-weight champion of the world... But my story is similar.

This isn't what I did, but it's just as stupid

I don't really want to go into the complete details (it's embarrassing how stupid I was - it was an accidental drug overdose) but I was doing something that I wasn't supposed to be doing. You know how that is? Accidents always happen when you are screwing around and not being careful...


Those sorts of things happen all the time. And that's why accidents happen all the time; people not being careful and doing dumb things.


Anyhow, after my little, er, "mishap," I knew I was in no condition to do anything. If I called an ambulance, and if I recovered, I'd probably get arrested. If I went out anywhere, I'd probably collapse and the results would be the same. So I did what I thought would be the safest thing to prevent a heart attack, I laid down on the floor and tried to stay calm.


Later on, I don't know how much later on, I can only recall that I opened my eyes and I was floating in the air with my back against the ceiling. It didn't seem the least bit strange to me that I was floating in the air and looking down. I was in no pain and felt fine.


Below me, on the ground was the body of a young man and there were three extremely old gentlemen leaning over the young man. The three old gentlemen were all dressed completely in white. (And, no they didn't have any wings.) The entire scene had a misty, almost fog-like like appearance as if it were happening in the clouds but we were inside a room.


I looked at them as they knelt over while silently looking at the young man. I couldn't tell if they were praying or examining him. I spoke up, pointed to the young man, and said to them,


"Hey! That guy doesn't look right. There's something wrong with that guy..."


The old gentlemen didn't respond or seem to notice me at all. I kept repeating the sentences but they ignored me. Then, I paused for a moment. I looked at the young man and he looked strangely familiar to me. Yes! He did! I knew who it was! That guy laying on the ground was me. 


But it wasn't me! It's hard to explain. That wasn't me lying on the floor, "me" (I) was floating in the air...but it was my earthly body laying there lifeless and still. 


I spoke to the men,


"Hey! That's me! That guy is me! No! I can't die! I have children! I have lots of things to do I have too many things to take care of before I die! No!" I think I began shouting...

It was then and there that the man sitting in the middle oh-so slowly turned his head up towards me and his eyes met mine. What I saw shocked me. His face looked as if he must have been 150-years-old. His hair was completely white. His eyes were sunken in and his face incredibly wrinkled. I have never seen such an old person in my life before.


He looked up at me hanging against the ceiling. In his eyes were anger and revulsion.


The other two men never even glanced at me. The man in the middle just stared at me not saying a word. No! It wasn't a stare. It was a glare! I could read his mind. I could understand the anger in his eyes. He was thinking,


"What... a... disgusting... waste... of... life!" 


I paused. I knew he was right. It was a complete and disgusting waste of life. This realization was like an arrow being shot into my heart. I felt ashamed of  myself. 


I then no longer wanted to protest. I felt defeated. I shut my mouth and then I closed my eyes. I then realized that I was dead for sure but, for some strange reason, I didn't feel sad anymore. I can't remember if my eyes were opened or closed but I saw my life like a movie. It went by me like a flash. I saw my mom; I saw my childhood; my childhood memories.... I actually felt okay.


But that's the last thing I remember about that part; seeing my life and feeling okay....


I don't know exactly how many hours passed, but I woke up on the floor and it was nearly dawn. My clothes were soaking wet and I was freezing. I did my best to dry myself off and then I went home.


It would be a few years later that I would enter drug rehabilitation... I was glad I did. I was also glad that I was able to experience this so-called near-death experience. It changed me a lot. I am also no longer angry. I am truly striving to be a better person and to make a difference. I know that I am one of the truly fortunate few on this earth. 


These stories are so ridiculous and outrageous that no one would make them up. Yet, like I said, if you tell people this, they'll think you are crazy. When I was a younger man, I would laugh at these stories... But, I don't laugh at them anymore. It's easy, it seems to me, to tell a charlatan from the real thing.


I just now searched for you for a Youtube video that deals with this subject, and I found a good one. I am, again, totally blown away how close some of these people's experiences are to mine. 

I can't say that I wish for you a near-death experience because that involves something very dangerous or traumatic... But, if you do, and come back fine, then I envy you.


Just don't tell too many people about it. They'll think you're crazy.