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Description
“Live To Hear Another Song”

Have you ever driven right up to your destination only to hear your favorite song come on the radio?  What are you choices?

A. Turn off the car and get out because the idea people watching you sit and jam in your car is ridiculous.

B.  Keep on driving baby, because there is nothing better than music and an open road! (Oh yeah and drive it like you stolled it, even if it is a 1976 Chrysler New Yorker, 4 door, white with white walls and red leather interior screaming of old school Hells Kitchen Catholic.  That is the kind of car which commands respect when you are doing 90 down a freeway with no shocks, it is like parting the red seas; everyone just moves out of your way.  That car wasn’t a boat it was a freight tanker, but it didn’t matter it got me from point A to point B.  When your are living off of dry Malt O Meal cereal/ Cocoa Roos and the condiment stand at Roberto’s Taco Shop the style of your ride does not matter; it was a miracle I had gas in it.  Thank goodness for siphon hoses from Ace and the twenty heads that lived with me who chipped in couch change.)

I would choose “B”.  If pulling into a grocery store parking lot and an infrequent ditty comes blaring across the radio, I will sit in my parking space and sing into my thumb until completion.  My children enjoy my erratic behavior because I choose rocking out over getting out. (My 2 kids’ three favorites to make our car bounce around to are: The Clash; Should I Stay or Should I Go?, Ministry; Jesus Built My Hotrod, and The Offspring; Bad Habit.  I am so proud of their taste in music.  Whenever they tell me the bands name who is playing across the frequency is Rancid, Guns n’ Roses, or Radiohead, I smile like a job well done.  My 2 year old will scream like a banshee if you change the dial when The Misfits or Ramones are playing.  She will sing every song word for word; it is the cutest thing!  Both of my kids are very well educated in all forms of music and detest people singing through their nose in addition to poor arrangement as much as I do.  What is it they say, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree?)

Music has always been a key part of my existence.  My father played in bands from before my birth until present day.  I grew up with the sounds of The Beatles, The Eagles, Tom Petty, Queen, Cream, Jim Croche, and everyone else from his generation.  (My favorite songs of all time being “Time in a Bottle” and of course “Lovesong”. Underneath all of my everything louder than everything else hair-tossing, elbow swinging, I am a romantic at heart.)  I remember falling in love with the stage when performing as a toddler.  I thought it was splendid when I got a chance to sing with my father even if it transpired at family events.   I have very few fond memories of my childhood, so the little ones of watching my father play guitar or me singing with him, I cherish.

My love for cabaret and soul music developed through my grandparents.  They played a huge part in my  upbringing, as a result I acquired a taste for jazz, blues, classical, and show tunes.  I fondly recall my grandfather lying on the ground listening to his old hi-fi stereo for hours.  I will never forget recording and editing old musicals off of our television for my grandmother. (  I ostracized recording war and western movies for my grandfather.  I must have made a recording of South Pacific at least 10 times.  To this day I cannot sit through a war film, it does not matter if the picture has received numerous praises, I would rather watch Amadeus or a bag fluttering around on my screen.  No more war!)

Music played constantly in my fathers and grandparents house.  Today if you were to walk into my home you would most likely hear a reverberation of whatever compilation I am listening to.  Over time I have added to my eclectic tastes melancholic rock, punk rock, industrial, hard core, indie, electronica, folk, ECT.  I do not discriminate against any one genre.  If the song or album is produced well and vocalizing is not through the nose, then I can tolerate it.  I like to keep my options open because you never know what you might miss if you don’t.  When entertaining, I feel it is very important to set a mood with high-quality music, and of course proper lighting.  My favorite pastime is good food, good music, good friends, and good conversation.  Music always sets an excellent backdrop to an intriguing dialogue.  Even now with every stroke on my keyboard and sentence I divulge, I am listening to my AccuRadio/ Brit Rock/ Sour Times.  Music is in all of my surroundings.  (If I were given a choice between sex, drugs, or rock’ n roll I would undoubtedly choose sex…while listening to rock n’ roll.  I am going to very real when saying the idea of Deftones, dramatic makeup, black visquene and sweat are all the rage on my fantasies to act out list.  Oops was that naughty?  Tee he he.  It’s funny, to look at me you would never know what lurks in my mind, until I drop my devilish eyes and wicked grin.  How very cloak and dagger.  I love it so!)  When starting a new painting I will arrange a whole new compilation/ soundtrack which ranges from Depeche Mode to Angelo Badalamenti, Pulp to Leonard Cohen, Shirley Bassey to Love and Rockets, Tool to Pixies, Concrete Blonde to Snapcase, Echo and the Bunnymen to Danzig and everything in between.  (One of my favorite song lines is “Grab your baby by the ear, play upon her darkest fears.”  That sounds like fun!  Oh there are many lines I chuckle to when they sound like something I might want to have a part in.  In fact I am giggling right now when thinking of them.)  You could say my crutch is music; I cannot live without it.  Music saved my life.

Like most young teens with traumatic abusive memories or lives, I realized peace within the haunting plague of suicide.  I did not want to live anymore; my psyche and soul were too heavy.  I hated my past, present and did not see a bright future.  Everything was desperately imploding and there was no hope for those doomed from birth.  My friends could not relate to the tremendousness of my suffering, and my family did not care. (I know a lot of teenagers selfishly and naively say their parents don’t care/understand, when the parents actually do, nevertheless in my case I was and still remain truly by myself; for those who know me know it to be undeniably true.  I am a lone wolf; it saddens me.)

Every day was a chore; even breathing was tiring.  I questioned the reason for my existence.  I queried that if there were an all-powerful God who loved me, then why was I forsaken by him and everyone else I knew?  I reviled being me, so misunderstood.  I tried to express myself to counselors although they just sat there with a dumb look on their face and gave me worn out lines taught in schooling. (It would have made me laugh if one of them said John Candy’s line, “It’ll all be better in the morning, it always is.”  I love that movie.  Nat bug do I detect a similarity?)  I talked to older age groups, but it seemed I had experienced, in my short time if living, just as much grief as they had and they could not offer clear advise.  I knew from their eyes they really felt bad for me, but there was nothing they could do.  There was nothing anybody could do.

I lived everyday in pain and wanted out.  I had choices.  Suicide seemed like a realistic option.  I made my halfhearted failed attempts, even though I did not crave being found surrounded by a bloody pool in a water filled bathtub.  I did not want to go back to counselors.  I did not yearn for people’s indifferent sympathy or for whisperings of my not being happy.  I did not aspire for attention.  What I wished for was to not wake up ever again, to feel the last breath of air leaving my desolate body as I expire in solidarity akin to how I had always lived.  While lying on my bed pondering my next fatal move, I would surround myself with music.  In my state of misery I found myself needing to hear the next song.  I had to hear another next song as my CD player spins its revolutions.  Listening in somber silence gave me time to think, to work out my resolution.

After ages of tears and writings in my journals, I found my key.  I am Sarah Lester, built to last, not a pathetic maggot.  So what if everybody tries to bring me down, I have gargoyles on my neck to keep rain waters off my back.  I am stubborn and expect to go out in a barrage of gunfire or in a complete position of levitated Zen whilst meditating in a Buddhist temple, not in a state of weakness.  I will only shame myself if I give in.  I decided to stick around and see the universe work itself out allowing all those who hurt me to get theirs. (Of course I cannot revel in their comings up, only take note when it does happen and learn from it.)  I reject getting pulled under the drama chain.  Sure I am Byzantine, maybe a little jaded, but I am still here.

With each days passing I grow stronger, more connected.  I have answers to my teenage ponderings however they are still unperfected.  I am closer to my desired level of enlightenment than I was years before, even though I am still a novice of learning.  One fact I know for sure, as cliché as it sounds: Giving into depression is not going to make any situation better. (Hello you’ll then be prescribed drugs, get addicted to them and have another reason to hate yourself. Better yet, you’ll pull the trigger not complete your job and live out your days as a salivating vegetable, stuck to a bed pan, unable to move until you finally die of natural causes or of infections from bedsores.  That sounds like fun, give me another dose of la verdadera verdad. For every action there is a reaction.  Think about it whiz kid; you have a choice of flipping yourself off or flipping everybody else off.  They only want you to break down and be at their level so they can feel better about themselves.  What would happen if you didn’t break, would you become an illustrious vocalist known for authenticity in lyrics, would you become a celebrated artists known for honesty on canvas, would you become a great wizard of anything?  You’ll never know if you fail to give them the bird and stick around.  FTW over again and again, give them what they gave you.)

If life were easy then how could we learn?  Sure if everything were perfect, we would have wisdom at birth and not have to gain it through painful experiences, but then would it be appreciated or taken for granted?  Would we even grasp the concept of it?  Just like if money grew on trees, it would not be worth anything; nothing is for free, even self-realization.  I hate to look at my scars, although like Lector says, “Scars remind us that the past is real.”  I do find insufferable, memories that are difficult to think of, especially ones I have shared with no one.  However heartbreaking it is to recall my past skeletons and closed doors, it is a necessity to recognize how human I am.  I found in an old art tablet hastily written words saying, “My pain is my strength.”  How true this rings.  Never will I allow raping of my innocence again albeit I can in no way disregard it.

Now, while I sit in my comfortable home listening to Wild Mood Swings, Lost Highways, and Downward Spirals, eating rice, burning Champa, drinking Tazo Chai, I feel evermore remorseful for those who so heinously damaged me.  It is not their karmic kismet that saddens me; it is what they see in their mirror.  I doubt if they make out the monster I had esteemed privilege of laying eyes on.  I question if they can catch sight of what lies beneath their flesh.  I sometimes wish it could be like The Neverending Story and they would have to look in the mirror of truth everyday.  Most of these poor saps are blind anyway, it would not matter, and nevertheless I still feel sorry for them.

However, I do not waste all of my energy on feeling pity for unchangeable fools, I focus on progression through knowledge, knowledge through unlearning all that has been taught.  I continue to keep music as my life source, as my lifejacket.  I am forever in debt to all artists who dared to live their dream and make inspiration happen.  Oh the tidal waves that can occur with a simple butterfly wings flickering.  To me everything is connected and fate works in circles.  The magik created by song gave me a reason to live and work.  My work is inspired by my life, which has an awesome soundtrack.  It is reflected in my paintings as well as writings. (If you don’t get it read between the lines, check lyrics, I pay homage to all I admire.)  I don’t know what my exact future maps out; nevertheless I do know I will always live to hear another song.  Misery will sing sordid songs of sorrow.  Nunca deje a la musica morir.

“Live To Hear Another Song” ~ will be featured in the book “Young Life Old Soul” by Sarah Lester Do not use any part of this without expressed permission from the creator.

Description
“Live To Hear Another Song”

Have you ever driven right up to your destination only to hear your favorite song come on the radio?  What are you choices?

A. Turn off the car and get out because the idea people watching you sit and jam in your car is ridiculous.

B.  Keep on driving baby, because there is nothing better than music and an open road! (Oh yeah and drive it like you stolled it, even if it is a 1976 Chrysler New Yorker, 4 door, white with white walls and red leather interior screaming of old school Hells Kitchen Catholic.  That is the kind of car which commands respect when you are doing 90 down a freeway with no shocks, it is like parting the red seas; everyone just moves out of your way.  That car wasn’t a boat it was a freight tanker, but it didn’t matter it got me from point A to point B.  When your are living off of dry Malt O Meal cereal/ Cocoa Roos and the condiment stand at Roberto’s Taco Shop the style of your ride does not matter; it was a miracle I had gas in it.  Thank goodness for siphon hoses from Ace and the twenty heads that lived with me who chipped in couch change.)

I would choose “B”.  If pulling into a grocery store parking lot and an infrequent ditty comes blaring across the radio, I will sit in my parking space and sing into my thumb until completion.  My children enjoy my erratic behavior because I choose rocking out over getting out. (My 2 kids’ three favorites to make our car bounce around to are: The Clash; Should I Stay or Should I Go?, Ministry; Jesus Built My Hotrod, and The Offspring; Bad Habit.  I am so proud of their taste in music.  Whenever they tell me the bands name who is playing across the frequency is Rancid, Guns n’ Roses, or Radiohead, I smile like a job well done.  My 2 year old will scream like a banshee if you change the dial when The Misfits or Ramones are playing.  She will sing every song word for word; it is the cutest thing!  Both of my kids are very well educated in all forms of music and detest people singing through their nose in addition to poor arrangement as much as I do.  What is it they say, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree?)

Music has always been a key part of my existence.  My father played in bands from before my birth until present day.  I grew up with the sounds of The Beatles, The Eagles, Tom Petty, Queen, Cream, Jim Croche, and everyone else from his generation.  (My favorite songs of all time being “Time in a Bottle” and of course “Lovesong”. Underneath all of my everything louder than everything else hair-tossing, elbow swinging, I am a romantic at heart.)  I remember falling in love with the stage when performing as a toddler.  I thought it was splendid when I got a chance to sing with my father even if it transpired at family events.   I have very few fond memories of my childhood, so the little ones of watching my father play guitar or me singing with him, I cherish.

My love for cabaret and soul music developed through my grandparents.  They played a huge part in my  upbringing, as a result I acquired a taste for jazz, blues, classical, and show tunes.  I fondly recall my grandfather lying on the ground listening to his old hi-fi stereo for hours.  I will never forget recording and editing old musicals off of our television for my grandmother. (  I ostracized recording war and western movies for my grandfather.  I must have made a recording of South Pacific at least 10 times.  To this day I cannot sit through a war film, it does not matter if the picture has received numerous praises, I would rather watch Amadeus or a bag fluttering around on my screen.  No more war!)

Music played constantly in my fathers and grandparents house.  Today if you were to walk into my home you would most likely hear a reverberation of whatever compilation I am listening to.  Over time I have added to my eclectic tastes melancholic rock, punk rock, industrial, hard core, indie, electronica, folk, ECT.  I do not discriminate against any one genre.  If the song or album is produced well and vocalizing is not through the nose, then I can tolerate it.  I like to keep my options open because you never know what you might miss if you don’t.  When entertaining, I feel it is very important to set a mood with high-quality music, and of course proper lighting.  My favorite pastime is good food, good music, good friends, and good conversation.  Music always sets an excellent backdrop to an intriguing dialogue.  Even now with every stroke on my keyboard and sentence I divulge, I am listening to my AccuRadio/ Brit Rock/ Sour Times.  Music is in all of my surroundings.  (If I were given a choice between sex, drugs, or rock’ n roll I would undoubtedly choose sex…while listening to rock n’ roll.  I am going to very real when saying the idea of Deftones, dramatic makeup, black visquene and sweat are all the rage on my fantasies to act out list.  Oops was that naughty?  Tee he he.  It’s funny, to look at me you would never know what lurks in my mind, until I drop my devilish eyes and wicked grin.  How very cloak and dagger.  I love it so!)  When starting a new painting I will arrange a whole new compilation/ soundtrack which ranges from Depeche Mode to Angelo Badalamenti, Pulp to Leonard Cohen, Shirley Bassey to Love and Rockets, Tool to Pixies, Concrete Blonde to Snapcase, Echo and the Bunnymen to Danzig and everything in between.  (One of my favorite song lines is “Grab your baby by the ear, play upon her darkest fears.”  That sounds like fun!  Oh there are many lines I chuckle to when they sound like something I might want to have a part in.  In fact I am giggling right now when thinking of them.)  You could say my crutch is music; I cannot live without it.  Music saved my life.

Like most young teens with traumatic abusive memories or lives, I realized peace within the haunting plague of suicide.  I did not want to live anymore; my psyche and soul were too heavy.  I hated my past, present and did not see a bright future.  Everything was desperately imploding and there was no hope for those doomed from birth.  My friends could not relate to the tremendousness of my suffering, and my family did not care. (I know a lot of teenagers selfishly and naively say their parents don’t care/understand, when the parents actually do, nevertheless in my case I was and still remain truly by myself; for those who know me know it to be undeniably true.  I am a lone wolf; it saddens me.)

Every day was a chore; even breathing was tiring.  I questioned the reason for my existence.  I queried that if there were an all-powerful God who loved me, then why was I forsaken by him and everyone else I knew?  I reviled being me, so misunderstood.  I tried to express myself to counselors although they just sat there with a dumb look on their face and gave me worn out lines taught in schooling. (It would have made me laugh if one of them said John Candy’s line, “It’ll all be better in the morning, it always is.”  I love that movie.  Nat bug do I detect a similarity?)  I talked to older age groups, but it seemed I had experienced, in my short time if living, just as much grief as they had and they could not offer clear advise.  I knew from their eyes they really felt bad for me, but there was nothing they could do.  There was nothing anybody could do.

I lived everyday in pain and wanted out.  I had choices.  Suicide seemed like a realistic option.  I made my halfhearted failed attempts, even though I did not crave being found surrounded by a bloody pool in a water filled bathtub.  I did not want to go back to counselors.  I did not yearn for people’s indifferent sympathy or for whisperings of my not being happy.  I did not aspire for attention.  What I wished for was to not wake up ever again, to feel the last breath of air leaving my desolate body as I expire in solidarity akin to how I had always lived.  While lying on my bed pondering my next fatal move, I would surround myself with music.  In my state of misery I found myself needing to hear the next song.  I had to hear another next song as my CD player spins its revolutions.  Listening in somber silence gave me time to think, to work out my resolution.

After ages of tears and writings in my journals, I found my key.  I am Sarah Lester, built to last, not a pathetic maggot.  So what if everybody tries to bring me down, I have gargoyles on my neck to keep rain waters off my back.  I am stubborn and expect to go out in a barrage of gunfire or in a complete position of levitated Zen whilst meditating in a Buddhist temple, not in a state of weakness.  I will only shame myself if I give in.  I decided to stick around and see the universe work itself out allowing all those who hurt me to get theirs. (Of course I cannot revel in their comings up, only take note when it does happen and learn from it.)  I reject getting pulled under the drama chain.  Sure I am Byzantine, maybe a little jaded, but I am still here.

With each days passing I grow stronger, more connected.  I have answers to my teenage ponderings however they are still unperfected.  I am closer to my desired level of enlightenment than I was years before, even though I am still a novice of learning.  One fact I know for sure, as cliché as it sounds: Giving into depression is not going to make any situation better. (Hello you’ll then be prescribed drugs, get addicted to them and have another reason to hate yourself. Better yet, you’ll pull the trigger not complete your job and live out your days as a salivating vegetable, stuck to a bed pan, unable to move until you finally die of natural causes or of infections from bedsores.  That sounds like fun, give me another dose of la verdadera verdad. For every action there is a reaction.  Think about it whiz kid; you have a choice of flipping yourself off or flipping everybody else off.  They only want you to break down and be at their level so they can feel better about themselves.  What would happen if you didn’t break, would you become an illustrious vocalist known for authenticity in lyrics, would you become a celebrated artists known for honesty on canvas, would you become a great wizard of anything?  You’ll never know if you fail to give them the bird and stick around.  FTW over again and again, give them what they gave you.)

If life were easy then how could we learn?  Sure if everything were perfect, we would have wisdom at birth and not have to gain it through painful experiences, but then would it be appreciated or taken for granted?  Would we even grasp the concept of it?  Just like if money grew on trees, it would not be worth anything; nothing is for free, even self-realization.  I hate to look at my scars, although like Lector says, “Scars remind us that the past is real.”  I do find insufferable, memories that are difficult to think of, especially ones I have shared with no one.  However heartbreaking it is to recall my past skeletons and closed doors, it is a necessity to recognize how human I am.  I found in an old art tablet hastily written words saying, “My pain is my strength.”  How true this rings.  Never will I allow raping of my innocence again albeit I can in no way disregard it.

Now, while I sit in my comfortable home listening to Wild Mood Swings, Lost Highways, and Downward Spirals, eating rice, burning Champa, drinking Tazo Chai, I feel evermore remorseful for those who so heinously damaged me.  It is not their karmic kismet that saddens me; it is what they see in their mirror.  I doubt if they make out the monster I had esteemed privilege of laying eyes on.  I question if they can catch sight of what lies beneath their flesh.  I sometimes wish it could be like The Neverending Story and they would have to look in the mirror of truth everyday.  Most of these poor saps are blind anyway, it would not matter, and nevertheless I still feel sorry for them.

However, I do not waste all of my energy on feeling pity for unchangeable fools, I focus on progression through knowledge, knowledge through unlearning all that has been taught.  I continue to keep music as my life source, as my lifejacket.  I am forever in debt to all artists who dared to live their dream and make inspiration happen.  Oh the tidal waves that can occur with a simple butterfly wings flickering.  To me everything is connected and fate works in circles.  The magik created by song gave me a reason to live and work.  My work is inspired by my life, which has an awesome soundtrack.  It is reflected in my paintings as well as writings. (If you don’t get it read between the lines, check lyrics, I pay homage to all I admire.)  I don’t know what my exact future maps out; nevertheless I do know I will always live to hear another song.  Misery will sing sordid songs of sorrow.  Nunca deje a la musica morir.

“Live To Hear Another Song” ~ will be featured in the book “Young Life Old Soul” by Sarah Lester Do not use any part of this without expressed permission from the creator.