The aging ex convict.

o.k. I've been sort of been documenting the astonishing mental & emotional shift in the way I think as I age; as it's happening in real time. I’ve never read anyone else do it. This wasn't a planned or expected endeavor but one that I've taken upon myself due to the intensity and increasing frequency of these strange occurances.
I mean, when you’re 64 you like to tell yourself that you’ve seen it all. Especially if you’ve seen a whole lot. Like me.

Boy, was I wrong. ←-perfect example right there folks. “I was wrong”. A simple remark that comes so easy, effortless, and naturally to me today. A phrase I am always very eager to proclaim to the universe. I speak those words with pride, excitement, and inspiration. Each word, a beacon of hope. A conformation that I can learn for my mistakes, IF I recognize them for what they are. Mistakes. That means being wrong much more than being right. Admitting them.

Since I've done 10 yrs on the installment plan in prison for dope, over a 45 yr span of my life, I just knew I had a lifetime's worth of very unique, true prison-crime stories to take me to the grave IF I ever got set up on Substack and started writing. After about a decade of honing my literary approach for free on FB, I had huge help getting set up on Substack last Feb. And started writing those stories here.

But before I decided to make that move I literally had to prove to myself that I really was off dope for eternity and committed to what I've euphemistically called 'legal living' for the rest of my life. Something I’d only ever been able to pull off for about 3 yrs at a stretch in the past. 10 yrs later I was convinced. There WAS no doubt. And it was during that decade that 'it' began. The ‘it’ being an overwhelming feeling of intense, focused, empathy, compassion, & overall humanity.

Over all types of mundane, everyday :poop: that I’ve seen my entire life and just never noticed. Never really noticed. Decades ago that woman who was on “All in The Family” Sally Struthers, used to do these little charity tv bits about the starving kids in Ethiopia. I remember them vividly. Not because I cared so much, because I didn’t. I was real young and still had that teenage boy cruel streak I guess or just had never faced hunger and adversity in my own short life,………yet.
To my everlasting shame my friends and I would make fun of the commercials. Like a meme before the internet.

Mocking and taunting a humanitarian disaster. Anyway, I outgrew that level of ignorance but it still never really ‘got to me’ like I thought it did to a ‘normal people’.
I guess about 6 years ‘it’ began with a frequency that got my attention. NOW if I see that same commercial and sit through it I’m shattered. Absolutely shattered.
Same damn thing. I’m minding my own business, then out of nowhere I’ll see something that rips me out of the frame and leave me sitting here with tears streaming down my face man. Over all types of stuff too.

It scared the hell out of me at first because I thought I was having a stroke or something. It was so alien. It was so sneaky and incremental because by the time I really took notice it had its hooks in me deep already and I knew it wasn’t going to stop or get better.
So with ZERO ability to resist or fight it I decided to make myself a phycological Guinee pig and document the bizarre process. Rationally.

Here’s a perfect example. Sometimes I’ll watch some short youtube-tic-toc compilations of ‘good sportsmanship moments’ and stuff like twin toddlers babbling to each other to pets with the zoomies, etc. It’s a normal, quiet, uneventful day. I’m emotionally stable. In a great mood, physically o.k.
On comes a clip of a newborn gorilla. The father is seeing him for the first time. They stare at each other a bit in wonderment, and the little one gets this look of absolute magical amazement I’ve never paid attention to before, as his tiny, unsteady, hand trembles tentatively forward to touch dads gently, serene, face. 3 words kept coming to my head. Rare, beautiful, moment.

The look that little gorilla had in its eyes was the same look in mine as I watched this. It always starts the same way as the realization sets in. Out of nowhere, choppy short breaths at first as I can feel my blood pressure increase, heart begins to pound, eyes begin to fill and well up, and I literally endure an emotional metamorphosis where I’m hypnotized and focused in so hard at what I’m seeing that I’m lost in the moment, just like that little gorilla is, experiencing life for the first time. And being just as amazed at the magical, rare moment.
It feels like having actual spiritual contact with a moment of universal creation and discovery. And it’s all encapsulated by the simple look in that gorillas eyes. The fact that I recognized it is just beyond me to explain as I lack the linguistic skills and eloquence. And folks, I do try.

You see, it’s no different. It’s new to both of us.
A few years ago if this happened once a month I’d write about it. You know, it was just so unusual and unexpected for a guy like me who's spent his life surrounded by non stop violence to be torn out of the frame so easily. I mean the novelty of it all was just so fascinating. It really was unique and special for me.
Do you know what I call it when it happens these days? A Wednesday. Because it happens every day. Not a day goes by that I don’t read, see, hear, experience, or think about either something so sad, tragic, and heartbreaking I’ll tear up, or something so touching, tender, kind and moving I’ll outright cry. You know, and have to regroup afterwards. haha I have no reputation as a cryer.
You can search my past and only find 4 people who can make the claim of ever seeing me cry. In 64 years. And one of those was in the hospital, while in post surgery agony and begging to die.

Now understand all this is happening at home while all alone. Which makes it even creepier. I can easily ‘control’ my responses in public. I have absolute, total, emotional authority over every aspect of my public demeanor. A stoic sage. (it would appear)
In prison, this emotionally tender short fuse would be a real issue. I don’t think I have to elaborate on that. I was blessed to be able to suppress, hide, deny, fake, or ignore these emotions THEN, because doing so might have saved my life.
However, I was surprised to find there IS a high price for that behavior and the bill IS going to come due. IN FULL. And that’s the price I pay today, and will continue to pay on until I longer exist as a living, feeling, biological organism. Yea, I’m THAT deep ‘in debt’.

It is a life sentence without parole. It’s not mentally healthy to suppress your natural emotional responses to situational experiences as you are literally robbing yourself not of life, of living. BIG difference right there.
Which kind of brings me around to this post.
New shit. New experiences. Baffling and confusing. At 64. Stay with me here.

Last February I had a dear friend, Marie, on FB who had been reading my stories for years and like them. She saw how hard I was struggling with computer literacy and how it was hobbling all progress in my effort to get on Substack. She must have sensed my frustration, intent, and determination. So, she decided to break the self imposed loser mentality cycle I was in and graciously & bravely offered to fly me first class from Atlanta, Ga. to Grand Rapids, Michigan so she could help me get set up on Substack and begin writing my stories on this format.

And for 3 glorious days I was accepted into their home by her 5 little dogs and was an adopted pack member in good standing. I was given a crash course in computer literacy and general ideas on how to set my site up and get actual paid subscribers. Well, while all this is going on I meet her super cool artist husband, Ken. Brilliant dude with a real unique occupation. Specialty stuff.
He’s an established recording-musician-producer combo with 30+ CD’s to his name and 40+ yrs experience in the audio recording field. NOT a famous rock star, but a real niche segment of background musical soundtracks with a science fiction futuristic themes usually.

Or something for a specific, targeted, audience for a ‘musical surfing monster movie’ soundtrack bits, etc. So it’s far off the mainstream path of ‘popular music’ as most think of it. Very tight group community of specialists. Voice-over actors for skits, musical pieces, spoken intro narratives, etc. Literally every type of music everyone takes for granted. Anyway, that’s Kens gig, a great guy and he’s obviously doing pretty damn good at it too. Uh, I chilled for 3 days at their luxurious compound. So….
Ever since I returned to metro Atlanta from Michigan I’ve stayed in touch with Ken on FB. Who wouldn’t, right?
I get a message out of the blue from him last week. He’s offering ME a bit spoken intro narrative part of about 6 sentences for his latest musical creation idea for a CD that IS going to be produced, by him.

Ya see, Ken knew I was a dj in a strip club for a decade and was desperately trying to succeed in my ‘legal living’ experiment. And what better way than to offer me an opportunity to have my voice recorded and name mentioned, on a CD. As a voice ‘actor’. Once again, 64 and it’s all brand new to me. Unpaid of course but if I was 30 I would use this on a resume to get into the ‘industry’ as a voice actor. Potentially. But I’m 64.
Very small, humble, modest, part, just a spoken word into. Think Vincent Price at the start of Thriller-ish but with Monster Mash-like vibes.
Sounds like a scary cartoon script. Simple. 20 second phone call = job done.
It was laid out for me on a silver platter.
But, I had one major problem. Me.

There is NO WAY I’m going to tell this man ‘no’. I’ll die trying first. Not after the way I was treated like royalty in Michigan by him and his lovely wife, Marie, not a chance. But uh, I have issues now. Painfully embarrassing issues. Due to age and decades of relentless drug abuse I find myself a toothless old man and even though people who have zero reason to spare my feeling tell me time and time again that they can’t tell I’m toothless by the way I look when I talk OR sound.
And no matter how many times I’m told that by even my haters, I can’t get past the teenage, juvenile, self-conscious mental block of physical appearance that has robbed me of my self confidence. Very childish, not a mature outlook and something I struggle to deal with on a daily basis. It’s sort of an emotional kryptonyte for me.

The only remaining unpleasant vestige of my youth. I mean, Ken listened to me speak for 3 days nonstop. And if a professional music producer thinks I STILL sound good enough to actually use, that should be the end of it. Right? WRONG!!!
Not for this psycho. I could talk a man off a bridge if he was wanting to jump.
Hey, great at helping others with no hesitation. Key word: Others.
Not myself. Not so good at that. Yet.
Even when I was a d.j. I NEVER could listen to myself because it was constant CRINGE!! Slow motion, torturous, unbearable, CRINGE. So painful for me. Nails on a chalkboard. And I’m convinced that there’s some type convoluted official mental illness this qualifies as. The hatred of hearing yourself, but love to talk. ←-see what I mean. I’m nuts. Zero sense.

In my mind I was ‘safe’ because this was a sleazy ass, cheap, club and nobody ever gave a shit what the dj said. Who cares? Ya’ll have a dj? I assumed I was just a warm, walking, corpse who talks. So I never felt judged in the least. Except by myself. I could hide my low vocal self confidence behind hot, naked ladies! Fun and easy. I felt safe enough to last a decade. It’s like even at my peak of performance, I never really felt qualified. Never had a single complaint though. It is what it is.

I sent Ken a short sample and he said he liked it fine. But I still hated it. So I stall Ken and try to buy time during the delay as I try to figure this out. It was still incomplete. I’m feeling the pressure building and I happen look outside to see that my fellow guitar playing landlord-friend Jason, and his daughter, at the mailbox. I ease on out too because it’s a nice day and I hadn’t talked to this cat in 2 weeks. While we are kicking it I casually mention that I’m in a mad scramble to find a voice actor looking to break into the recording business, by speaking a short, FREE part on a CD. I can and will do it, but I’d really feel better if I could get a replacement. I was told I could.

And because of my own mental hang ups and because I’d love to really kill this for Ken, I wanted to give him a REAL voice. My friend Jason is astonished at hearing this. He’s known me for over 20 years and this was from left field.
He inquires about the dialogue. I recite a few sentences from memory, then look to the ground and shake my head in humiliation & disappointment. I turn to sadly slink away in shame and like a parrot this guy repeats it EXACTLY the way I wanted it to sound! I stop dead in midstep.

I slowly turn back around and go at him full force. YOU! You’ll do it!! Yes, that it! YOU. Man, he does have a great voice and I should of thought of it immediately because he sings when we play the guitar together. He’s far from shy and bashful. I push it on him hard because this is the answer! To MY problem! He’s a ham so it’s a good fit.
And this is where “it” happened. This is where I know I’m alive. This moment says it all for me to be convinced that there IS a purpose to life if you make that choice.

Jason has a little brother, Patrick, who I’ve met several times over the years. The dude has done VERY well in life and is impressive and bursting with potential. Clean cut type. I think he’s in his late 30’s now. About 3 months ago he had a widowmaker heart attack and damn near died. Jason was tore up over it. Patrick survived and apparently has recovered well. Thankfully.

But then Jason says these exact words and I’m never going to be able to get them out of my head because it gave me chills:
“Wow, Patrick has dreamed about doing exactly that because all his life it’s all he’s ever heard. Man, your voice IS a goldmine”. I didn’t have to do my usual full scale investigation and dissect this a bit. How simple. 1-2-3.
Contact Patrick by phone, offer it, (he accepted the next day) give him the script and Kens number. He called in disbelief me to confirm it was real and I was sold by the 2nd word he spoke. ZERO audition required. I had the right dude. He proved it in one call, that’s all. I wished him luck and thank him, which has been done already.
And I let it slip that even though Ken isn’t obligated to pay anyone a penny he DID make sure to tell me that IF this thing does blow up you WILL actually see some type of minor financial gain, depending on the CD sales. Ken is just that type of cat. Ya never know, ya know?

There WAS no decision to be made. It was all right there. Just waiting on me. The final piece of a convoluted life puzzle to what might prove to be a dream come true. Make that 2 dreams.
1. for Patrick, getting his first pinky toe in the door of a possible new career he’s dreamed of, with his first ‘connection’ to a solid, well established cat with professional experience.

2. for ME. Oh hell yea, for ME especially. Because I have the ability to feel this way about it all in the first place. Big deal, you sort of maybe helped somebody. Right? It’s so tiny and insignificant, that for it to have this kind of powerful effect on me is nothing short of breathtaking.
I get to assist not one, but 2 people. By accident folks. All the tiny pieces of the interconnected universe somehow aligned at exactly the right time, for the right reason, and TO the right people. For once! That’s 3 accidents? Not in a million years am I gonna believe that for a second. Not at 64. Not now after all I’ve seen and know.

Remember that look of wonderment in the eyes of that baby gorilla? I look at this outcome in EXACTLY the same way. I have that look in my eyes as I type right now.
Because it IS magical. And it’s just as ‘moving’ when it happens in real life, because it did. And man, I can’t get over the feeling. I know I blow shit up way out of proportion to its magnitude, but that’s ONLY if I validate someone else’s metric of MY personal emotional measurement. And I just don’t. Mine is organic and natural. I can only use the metric I have. Magnified and amplified as it may be.

And the range and reach of that emotional metric, increases by the day, not the month. It’s gotten my undivided attention for so long now that I actually tried to figure it out in my usual, detached, cold, analytical psychological self evaluating & diagnosing clinical ways that I love to conduct. You know, on myself. Mad scientist tyle. What could go wrong. Right? hahaha
I’m not only my best subject-patient, I can also be my worst one. So let’s see what I think I’m dealing with by the book.
Empath:
”someone who is highly attuned to the emotions of others, often experiencing those emotions as their own. This goes beyond simple empathy, which involves understanding another person's feelings, as empaths tend to absorb and internalize those feelings”
And what it says about age induced organic empathy:
“age can influence different aspects of empathy in various ways, with some aspects potentially increasing with age and others decreasing”.
Guess which one infected me with a lethal case?
ALL eyes in the room slowly turn to focus on me alone as the room falls silent. Looking for an explanation.

Uh,…….crickets,………..red face,…….hard blush,………….hard swallow, uh,……Yea well, don’t forget, I did 10 yrs in VIOLENT maximum State and Federal prisons, a list as long as my arm, surrounded by serial killing axe murderers and I promise you I did NOT pick any of those habits up from them playing cards and making shanks. ←-great save!!

I mean I understand the technical & biological aspect of this being a perfectly reasonable explanation of age induced testosterone loss = empath.
I do comprehend it from an intellectual point of view, but when it’s actually happening to you, you’re no longer an observer. Like me. Watching it.
No longer even thinking in the same patterns and reacting to different & new stimuli. Each one a surprise. The psychological side effects of this biological process it incredible. I’m fully aware of WHAT is happening to me. I have no doubt. I’m not blindsided. I’m looking for the WHY and HOW. The shit you can’t measure with our current scientific methods, of even detect. (*although IMO quantum entanglement and quantum mechanics are on the right trail)

So wtf are we dealing with? And by ‘we’ I mean me.
It feels like humanity. And if it is, I want to know where it was. Where IS it when I see it’s needed most? And shown less. The current daily absolute torture of existing in the socially vulgar & obscene “maga-verse” is a source of nonstop sickening nausea to me. A rage inducing, self inflicted, soul crushing, spirit draining, emotionally toxic, mentally unstable and now socially dangerous mass drunk, ignorant quasi religious lunatic cult grotesquely masquerading as a white supremacist political hate party. THE lowest this nation has EVER gone. Maga. The glorious 4th Reich. PUKE.

That’s why I went for something a bit more, uplifting to write I guess. I’m leaving a piece of the real me, instead of piece of filth like tRump & maga.
So with this in mind you’ll understand how and why I opted OUT of the political commentary option as a post to write. This time anyway.
Call it cowardice, I call it self preservation and common sense. Yes, I look for the lastest news on tRump daily, but in the obituaries ONLY. Where it’ll be full of lies, deception, misdirection, blame and made up fake, accusations.
Much love to you all, and from the lips of an ex convict, holy shit, can’t we be a little better to one another? ←—the fact that I felt the need to write that says volumes.
What is happening to our country? How did that monster hypnotize half the nation?
See, I have plenty of other stuff to write about.