the album is out!

Well, at long last, my album "Sojourner" is now a reality.  It ended up taking quite a bit longer than I thought it would - like 3 months longer - but it's done and I'm pretty happy about it.

Now, while it's true that I have played on about 200 recordings and produced a whole lot more than that, I've never put out a record of my own songs and poetry before.  It's all very exciting to me, and I do plan to do it again and soon.

Every song on this record is autobiographical in nature.  Most of the experiences in this have to do with either my deconstruction from an Evangelical Christian to a more Progressive Christian, or it has to do with my death on December 13, 2023.  I have to say in all honesty that both of those subjects were equally traumatic, in that both of them were death-related.  What is interesting to me is that both experiences have made me a far better human being- I like this guy now, and I really didn't before.  As such, these tunes expose a pretty personal point of view of what makes me tick- but moreover, I want to show people that one can change meaningfully and still keep their heads up and contribute to society in a meaningful way.  The things that I have been thru on this record are things that a lot of people go thru, and my fondest hope is that the songs will resonate with someone and give them a glimpse of what could be in their lives- and hopefully they won't have to die for 8 minutes to achieve this.  

So, with that, I thought I might dive deep here and tell you what each tune is really about.

1. AROUND OUR SKIN

Some time ago, I got to thinking about the fact that fish require water to live.  It is the key requirement for their existence.  They live in it, on it, it's all around them, they breath it, and yet they are completely unaware of it.  It struck me that people are the same way, only we need oxygen to live, and we treat it the same way= we're not cognoscente of it.  But that wasn't the real head scratcher.  What was is that God is very much in our requirement for life as well- or at least the belief of something greater than yourself - but 99.9% of the time, we aren't aware of it.  That is, until it's gone, of course.  How much better off would we be if we could be adequately thankful for the environment we have?  I'd like to find that out someday.

2. Halfway Home

After my death in 2023, I spent almost 4 months (in and out) in the hospital recovering.  When I finally made it home "for good" in March of 2024, I couldn't relate to anyone in my home.  I still felt like I was still fighting to stay alive and my depression seemed endless.  I was pretty much 100% disabled and lost my job (that made $200K annually) and we had just bought a new house.  (We subsequentially lost that house because of my lack of pay)  Everything was wrong all the time.  It took my wife telling me that we'd be ok if we stayed with each other, and that she was willing to do the work of being my caregiver because she loved me.  We've come a long way since then, but there is still much to do.

3. The Way

A long time ago and during seminary classes I decided that the central message of Christianity and the measure of someone professing Christ is their adherence to The Beatitudes (Matthew 5-7, Luke 6:17-46), meaning if they can't follow the actual words of Jesus, then they are missing the entire point of His message.  In this day and age, there are people who profess to be Christians, but they don't feed the hungry, the y don't house the poor and they contribute to the marginalization of certain classes of people.  Those aren't the acts of a Christian, and it's been normalized in our society now.  What happened?  How can people ignore such a message?  It's maddening.

4. Sojourner

"Sojourner" (the title track) is about when I realized that precious little about life's journey is actually under any kind of actual control.  You can choose directions for your life and plan out what you want to have happen, but life rarely, if ever, ends up following that plan.  And, in order to viewed as "normal" in society, you have to just roll with those punches.  Further, in lots of cases, it's taken as a sign of weakness when /if you don't.  I didn't plan on getting sick, abd when I did my life changed immeasurably- and for some reason, some people felt like they needed me to just take it and smile.   I didn't do that- I accepted my fate, but I sought therapy to deal with it, and it was the best thing for me instead of "toughing it out" as some people would have had me do.

5. How Far

How Far is a more modern take on the Book of Job.  If you remember, Job was a man afflicted by God, but Job stayed loyal to Him.  I've always been an admirer of Job, but when I found myself so sick that there were nurses in the hallways flipping coins to see if I'd still be alive in the morning, my admiration faded, and I found my self asking God, "how far do I have to take this before you doing something about it?"  I was angry with God, and so was Job at times.  I had friends that would tell me, "I told you to stop smoking" for instance, and that made me angrier.  For months, God and I were not on speaking terms, and even today, I still find myself being angry about what has happened to me. I'm working thru it, but it's a long process.

6. When Nothing Answered

My near death experience is something I've already written about in detail (you can read it here) and this is the song about it.  During that period of time that I was dead, those 8 minutes were like 3 months to me, and that whole time I was looking for God or Jesus or something I had been taught about, but absolutely nothing divine ever appeared.  There were, however, billions and billions of people, all on the same mountain-side I was on, and they were all pretty happy to be there.  And get this- there were other religious faiths represented there, too- Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists- no one was left out.  Now I know that wrankles all the Christians out there, but that's what I saw.  I learned at, at that moment that the God I had been taught about in church doesn't exist- there is a God, tho- but He's absolutely nothing like what you've heard.  The people I saw bore that out in their faces and their demeanors.  We know NOTHING of God, and I'm afraid that we've made many very simple concepts into some overly complicated topics that serve no purpose except to allow us to discriminate against each other.  I mean- think about it- we're all arguing about where we go when we die, and we are ironically ok with killing people over that.  It's so STUPID.  When I was resuscitated, my first thought was, "I am not wasting another nano-second  telling people about a God that doesn't exist" - and my deconstruction was complete.  And I am a much better person for it, too.

7. I Wish I'd Known

In August of 2025, I started bleeding internally.  I managed to lose 4 whole units of blood before they caught it, and I was immediately admitted to Overlake Hospital for emergent transfusions, as well as an emergency endoscopy and colonoscopy.  The whole experience really scared me because of the lack of symptoms- I felt fine, but I was actually slowly dying.  One night at 3:30AM, my thoughts turned to my wife and my kids and all the regrets I had about my interactions with them.  There were things I really wished I'd done, and I'd never get to do them.  The lyric for this song was written in under 3 minutes by me as a "goodbye letter" to my wife and kids initially, but I turned it into a pretty powerful song.  I'm extremely proud of this song, but every time I hear it, I still cry like a baby.

8. Smile Thru the Fog

Like many people these days,  I have a close family member who is firmly ensconced in all things MAGA and Q-ANON and the like.  They have told me things like since I worked at Microsoft, I'm in league with the anti-Christ, Bill Gates; that since I got the COVID vaccine, that's why I have health problems and on and on.  To make matters worse, she leads a huge Bible study over Zoom several times a week where they spin off their strange beliefs to others, casting judgements like "Democrats can't be Christians" and other nonsense.  The whole time they are spreading the fog of bad information, they smile and say things like, "I'm only telling you what the Bible says"- which is the hallmark of the Uninformed.  This song is for that person in my family, but it's also for anyone else who has had to become estranged from someone they loved because of toxic ideas in their heads.

9. Gale of Love

Everyone has a guardian angel in their life- that person who just "gets you" and you  can talk to them about absolutely anything.  They are wise beyond measure (or at least beyond you...) and many times, they end up as the voice of sanity while you're busy trying to put the "cute" in "execute".  That person for me is my father's sister- my Aunt Gale.   As long as I can remember, she has been in my corner for just about anything I undertake.  She is without a doubt the kindest person I've ever known, and she has suffered terribly from the loss of her 4-year old daughter to cancer, to a child who won't speak to her (for absolutely no reason) and still she has the best disposition of anyone I know.  She has saved me more times than I can count.  This song is for her.

10. The March of the Mango Monarch

I've always wanted to write a bonafide protest song, but I never felt strongly enough to really put my heart into it.  That all changed after  the 2024 election.  I have never seen a bigger buffoon or someone so ill-equipped in the office of POTUS in my entire life other than Donald Trump.  As an ardent student of history, I have no trouble saying that he is the worst President this country has ever had- and we've had some DOOSIES over the years.  (Harding, Grant, Jackson, etc.)  Many of the late-night talk show hosts have taken to using interesting names for DJT, and I wanted to put those all into a song about a circus clown who cannot do anything else but be a clown in charge of other clowns.  So here we are.

11. Hold On to the Light

"Hold On To The Light" was actually recorded way back in 1998, live off the floor at Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington where I attended for a number of years.  It was a song I had written for the choir, and was originally sung by Y'vesay Dirrell, but the vocal got messed up during the service, so it never saw the light of day.  I wanted to use it on this record because it's a good Gospel tune with a good message (Hold on to the light in the darkness and be a light to others in the dark) so I had the great Seattle vocalist and firned of mine, Carl Kelley fly in the vocal and added Mr. Kelly Carpenter (the writer of the CCM hit, "Hold Me Close To You") on Hammond B3.  It also features Seattle guitar icon, the late Walter Finch.  I really love this song and thought others would, too. 

12. The Road Home (for Steve)

Steve Dooley was arguably the very best sound engineer in Seattle.  He started out during the early grunge era in Seattle and worked with all the greats, and he was one of my best and dearest friends.  Steve had a hard life early on, but he turned it all around in 2003- got clean and sober, met the love of his life, Beth, and really started living.  Until late 2011, when he was diagnosed with Stage 4 colo-rectal cancer.  He was given 3 months to live.  Instead of bemoaning his lot, he said, "Let's play it out" and he kept right on going like nothing was wrong.  Me made it 18 months and finally passed away peacefully in February of 2013.  Not a day goes by that I don't think of him and that goofy smile and what a great and kind friend he as to so many here in the Seattle music scene.  I miss ya, buddy.  Every damned day.  #FuckCancer

13. Shattered Light

I have always been a big fan of Trent Reznor and NIN.  So when the lyrics of Shattered Light popped in my head, I knew this was my chance.  The song is about learning that the most profound pieces of faith wisdom and hope come in small whispers rather than a big shout.  And, you'll find these little things when you least expect it or when you try to disqualify them in your head- they persist and nag at you until you're forced to acknowledge them and only then can they have the desired effect.  They usually come in the form of small course corrections, but over time, they will point you in a completely different direction for the better. 

So, there you have it.  This is where the album will take you if you let it.

I want to give a very special THANK YOU to Gary Zdenek for the illustrations.  Gary has been a dear, dear friend to me for 35+ years- we have toured together in the bands Fair Exchange and Crimson Fable from the late 80's to 1995, and we've stayed close all these years that I've been in Seattle from Los Angeles.  If you have graphic design needs, you should contact Gary.