Blog Entries tagged 'fear'

No Pair. A Song For Gamblers.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

No Pair is an allegory that condenses a lifetime into a poker game. The "dealer," in the story (and usually in life on earth) is the Devil. The reader (or listener) may not believe in a devil, but anybody who experiences this earthly existence has experienced temptation.

Joe F., my neighbor and friend in the mid-'80's, taught literature and writing in a southern university. Joe wr [...]

Out In The Cold. A Song for Lonely Cowboys.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

My friend, Kit Johnson at Kansa Records, an- independent label in Nashville, asked me to write an old fashioned cowboy song. Her exact words were "...Ken, I want the saddest, loneliest cowboy song you can write...something that might have been sung by the Sons of the Pioneers." Some of you really old cowboys may remember this group as the harmonizing cowboys who originally launched a guy named Roy Rogers.

&n [...]

See 'Ya Next Time." A Song for Divorced Dads.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

See 'Ya Next Time. A Song for Divorced Dads.

Posted by: KenP in trust, society, social capital, shutting down, Men, Masculinity, Isolation, fear, costs, battle of the sexes on May 29, 2008

We [...]

How 'Ya Do. A Song for Honky-Tonkers

kenandjody@comcast.net — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

It all starts with the first date. There are always expectations as a man and a woman First meet. This nice country duet explorers the expectations most common TO men and women when they meet in a honky tonk.

How Ya Do.

[...]

Easy Does It (A Song For Frustrated Women)

kenandjody@comcast.net — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The first rung of our mental awareness ladder to disappear when we swallow alcohol is the rung that holds up JUDGEMENT. That fact has caused more human suffering than most of us can imagine. One form of sufferring is the sufferring that happens when a lack of judgement is mixed in with an all-too human emotion...lust. That mixture often results in unwanted pregnancies, jail-time, shame, STD's, or maybe a lifetimes of marriage between two people who barely know [...]

I'm Losing Me For You (A Song for Codependent Men)

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

This song for codependent men explores the thoughts experienced by every man I ever met, codependent or not, about what it feels like to give yourself away entirely for the love of a woman.

That is on one level. For every man who has ever given himself away to a woman...who has long ago given herself over to alcohol, there is another level of abandonment altogether. That is the level every codependent man knows, and has to [...]

Corporation Fool (A Song for Lonely Codependent Men Married To Their Jobs)

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Corporations absolutely love codependent men! Codependent men are the hardest workers (one of our favorite personal addictions is work-a-hol-ism), the most loyal employees (we have no marriage at home, so we marry the company), and we never complain!

What do we codependent men get in return for being such "company men?" Well, we all need recognition, respect, at least some social life, [...]

The First One To Leave Was Her Own Dad (A Song for Single Mothers)

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

There are so many ways that alcoholism and addiction lead to single-parent families that I don't know where to start. For example, about 88% of the people in prisons...men and women alike, are there because of crimes they committed while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. Then there are just the numer of people who kill themselves (and others) on the road every year while under the influence of some chemical...about 50,000.

Love At Any Price (A Song for Codependent Wives of Addicts and Alcoholics)

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Note; if you are not able to download the digital recording of this song, please enjoy the lyrics as a poem.

I attended an Al-Anon meeting one night led by a woman with a great "program." This lady led on the topic of setting boundaries. She struggled and struggled during her "lead" to describe how she felt when interacting with her husband.

That night I [...]

Long Damned Gone. A Blues for Battered Wives.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Any man who attends Al-Anon meetings on a regular basis will hear stories of abuse told by women. These women speak in barely audible tones as they effect a vacant look...a sort of common glassy-eyed stare into the middle of the room. When this happens it always gets really quiet in the meeting room.

Yes, we learn that alcoholism is a disease, and we work hard at accepti [...]

We Codependent Men, We Mute Coyotes

kenandjody@comcast.net — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

We Codependent Men, We Mute Coyotes

By Ken P.

The coyote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The coyote is a living, breathing alle [...]

Isolation and fear, wolves and coyotes

kenandjody@comcast.net — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:41:56 +0100

An Al-Anon man lives in a state of heightened diligence. He sees the other men as wolves running in their chosen packs. He sees the jocks, the golfers, the professional organizations, the fraternal clubs, the Little League Dads, and the men in his suburban neighborhood dressed in their crisp shorts.

But the disease of alcoholism has isolated him. He has no pack for protection. His preoccupation with an alcoholic wife has robbed him of the time and [...]

My First Meeting

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Scott Peck's first sentence in his seminal work , The Road Less Traveled was "Life is difficult." Program people understand this. Only those of us who have finally been reduced to desperation understand the internal forces that have to work against a codependent man that finally drive him to surrender and seek help.

I must have really looked like the "deer in the headlights" as I sneaked into my first Al-Anon meet [...]