A musical journey from the pit

I had my my idea what other music was. Admittedly it was pitifully shallow and myopic. For a song to betray a sense of tenderness and sentimentally was 'pop' or 'touchy-feelly' I could have been more honest to admit that i was merely repressing my emotions; to be a hard bitten hard rock/ blues fan devoid of any emotion except hate and anger.

Yeah, I did not have the best of deals. To me, my peers were the inside crust where else I was the public enemy. The degenerate outsider that has better things to do rather than indulge in all things that were the light. I had my scars to validate my hate. Those years in church and school. They had taken one look at me and decided that I wasn't worth their time.

Enter my plans for revenge.

To surround myself things that were brutal and grim. To be in a state of siege and betray not the weakness that you actually have. I did admittedly alienate a lot of my peers. My fault. My mistake. There is no justification for that.

I guess I suffered needlessly for my mistakes. While I suffered I buried all I had left of myself in the vast collections of music I had collected. From the lone suffering guitar of the blues to the outsider chic of indie rock. To think I used to think It would bring a revelation to my life. How naive I was. I professed to be cooler than all the kids in campus while all the I am just as dazed an confused as they are.

It all started with a little ol' band from Seattle, Washington which later got big in the early 90's
It was only during the summer of 96 (two years fresh after Cobain's suicide) that a bespeckled fat outsider from Kuching got hold of a compilation tape from his cousin amidst the secrecy of illegal school peddling. The sheer audacity and outrageousness in Cobain's lyrics blew away that kid.. so much so it brainwashed him to think that being tortured was the zenith of artistic development.

The kid eventually went though counseling, which in turn had him referred to the elders of his own anglican church. After a lengthy deliverance session the kid stayed clean for a while, joining the youth only to be cast out by the gears of youth politics.

Amidst all that... he still remembered the sound: the brutality, it's honesty, it's seeming solutions that could have been the key that would deliver him from this world.

He would also delve deeper to the past. Discovering bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple which in turn inspired him to pick up the guitar.

He practiced hours on end. Playing the same bloody riff over and over again much to the annoyance of his friends. For all their jeering and insinuations, he was very hell bent on being the next Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton.

No one dug the music unfortunately. By Form 4, the world was held sway to Limp Bizkit and Korn. Hip-hop was fast making the bucks. Everyone else wanted to be just like them and it was very hard to find like minded folks to even sit with you and listen. Some would really salute you for sticking to your guns. But most would see you as nothing: a lone anachronism fighting for a lost cause.

You'd think things might pick up in college. Nope.

This kid by then grows his hair long and goes to college. He spends more time on Napster than actually doing precious research and assignments for class. He rarely gets any sunlight for he only goes out from his room only pig out at the local fast food joint or to buy albums or guitar mags. He still dreams to make it big. But for all this, he's just a rebel without a clue. College deadlines pile up so much that he freaks and goes into a nervous breakdown.

It comes to the point he can't even play the guitar... let alone to live.

He returns to his hometown in Kuching. Spends a good part of the day just lying in bed just plained zonked by medication. He tries to make a fast chromatic run on his guitar but he hardly could do it right. Outside he knows very well his friends and relatives are talking behind his back; passing condescending judgments and spewing out patronizing pity so they may look the part of the exalted hero and saviour. He's totally at a dead end. To most, there is no going back from him.

He is lying in bed with all the lights shut. He had earlier on just bought an album which seem to elevate him from where is was then.

The title was 'New York City Ghosts' by the band Sonic Youth.

He plays a track 'Small flowers, Cracked concrete'

It was about a doomed poet named DA Levy

He listens to it. Imagining the lights of night time Cleveland and the monsters which lurked in Levy's skull.

It really impressed the kid...so much so he actually checks out DA Levy's website to figure more about him.

He also got to know about the Beats: men like Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti who were madmen in their own right; fighting the system with their prose.

Poetry as a weapon. The kid thinks it over.

Before you actually know it...he actually begins to write his poetry.




By then the kid has gone beyond metal and the blues. By then he had gotten himself hooked to the BeBop gods of old. Swing cats like Miles Davis, Coltrane and Mingus. The kid even got himself back appreciating to the concept of melody; that you need not trying to prove yourself by atonality and grind.

It could be any chord: natural or flat, clean or distorted.

So long it had the power to invoke.

But for all that growing knowledge of music. It was still self serving. The poetry was a lot better than the first initial tries. Still it had the monotony of angst. He was still pissed at the world for his treatment. The epic graphic details and the dripping sarcasm seemed like a nice touch of prose. But still it was all empty.

But then it made sense in one moonlit night. By then He had been feeding on some good soul food: the true cornerstone of what is Christ. The answer that even Douglas Adams failed to notice in his dying days.

The piece that actually makes the fullest of all chords. The Root note that brings life to all that was dead.

This was the perfect sound forever. The answer to all things in this entire plane and beyond.

To think the music I had could ease the pain and bitterness. This was the truest of all songs that set the hardest of hearts free. No longer all my dealings, be it music and art, be it poetry and life itself be something of any empty end. It was like the life blood has flowed back to my shriveled soul veins. The real purpose in all I have in life. In Christ alone!

For His poetry now has a greater purpose now.The word flows like a rivers, with the deadlines of bullets. The music now is thousand times more fuller with the Lord's anointing. Here is the unending flow of His love flowing through Him now. The people all wonder where he gets it all. Was it intense tutoring, was it by some Faustian pact. He smiles as they all congregate to analyze. All he says it's by the Lord alone, I could do all things.

So here now was a outcast thats become the king among men. For it was by one virtue of a sacrifice by one God. To take the place of humanity for His judgment. To suffer all that we deserve. All for us to be in His righteousness. All this so we may not suffer nor lack.

It's really easy to deny it all as hogwash or just plain ramblings of rabid Calvinist with nothing better to do but to talk about metaphysical concepts and such. This is not a matter of doctrine or ideas. This is the truth. The mere belief in a Redeemer that delivers is enough to elicit change to this broken of worlds. No nned for the sheer wiles of diplomacy or politics. One trust in the Father and all things in Him shall be done.

For it has come a time all will believe. Not by force, fear or guilt. But only of a warmth that humanity sorely lacks: the embrace of Father that has never once forgotten us all.