I’m really not one of those people that lives in the past. In fact, I am just the opposite. I’m all about the NOW.
 
This being said, as you progress through life, there are certain events that cast an anchor to a certain point in your time. We all feel those moments. A place and a time and a living experience where the current now situation(s) send us back to remembering.
 
Somehow/someway, YouTube has really lost my algorithms. Like I’ve said a million times before, sometimes in the late night I like to let YouTube run me through music videos—give me a chance to relax to forget and to just be in the moment of the music. Now, Prime Music, on the other hand, has my musical tastes down to a science. One hundred precent Right On. YouTube, I don’t know… Something got lost in the translation.
 
Anyway, lost here in the late night, YouTube dishes me out this long-lost Duran Duran music video. Now, my lady, that was her era. She’s all into them. Me, not so much…
 
The video, it was old and grainy. Very much like an old-school video tape transfer.
 
Now, I know that’s the thing for some people in that time of NOW. One of my disciples, they speak of how and what they do to achieve just that distorted quality.
 
Me, again, that’s just something from a time gone past. Like my lady and I joke, all that is, is a video that her brother taped over way back in the day. But, I get it. That’s NOW a thing. A look. To each their own.
 
Next up, for some unknown reason, was the video of Pete Yorn, Stange Condition. Great song. Interesting video. But… When I see music videos like that, I often question, it must feel very strange to have had such a big hit of a song a million years ago, on your first time at bat, and then nothing. Sure, you’re still writing and creating and playing music. But, all anyone remembers is the past. I’ve known so many musicians like that. Once a star, then a ???
 
That’s one of the whole reasons I stopped playing live music. I just did not want to end up being some old guy loading in and out his own equipment.
 
But, all this takes me to the moment of the THEN. I also saw the video of George Michael, Faster Love. Great song! That music video was the more obscure version where they show some of the behind-the-scenes takes. It sent me into remembering how so much of what is shot—so much of what is experienced within the shoot is never known by the people who watch it. I mean, truly… It’s a completely different ballgame. Creating it verses watching it. But, who is whole and intelligent enough to even think of this?
 
This is why I have such a distaste for critics who throw shade at film creations. Or really, any creation. They weren’t there. They weren’t part of the creation. They weren’t part of the process. So, how can they pretend to know anything about anything?
 
I don’t know why? Maybe it was the vintage Ladytron video that came up next. But, I was thrown back to the time and the space when I was living in Shanghai in the mid 1980s. A lot went on back then. I lived a lot! I’ve written about it in some of my poetry and my novels. For the few of you who actually care about all of that kind of stuff, you can read it and weep.
 
But mostly, it cast me to thinking about this one young lady. Young lady, way back then. The first time I saw here, I was floored. She was just so fucking beautiful! I guess, she thought something similar about me because we were immediately drawn to one another. Then, she did all/anything she had to do to escape the PRC and get to me, which she did. But, by then, it was way too late. Too late for me, anyway…
 
I’ve written about all of this, as well. You may have to dig a bit and do your research, but you can find it.
 
She made it to me. Made it to me. Too late…
 
When she got here, I had a friend, who I thought was a friend. What did he do? Backstab me big-time. Then what? Then, what could I do? Actually, there were two. Two of my so-called friends who backstabbed me in association with her.  One, if I ever saw him again, I would just take him down. Knock him out. The other… Well???
 
The point to all this being… We all have moments in our life that truly mean something to us. We all encounter people in our lives that really shakes us and take us to that next level of experience where we become totally lost in the moment. And, in the somewhere between the then and the now, here we all exist. There is the once was. The moments that call us back to a time gone past. And, then there is the now. The place where we are living.
 
The question: Where do you find yourself in life? Living the past of the that which once was? Or, are you lock into the now?
 
The thing is… The now becomes the past very fast. So, where is your NOW leading you? And, is your now leading you to a tomorrow that you will wish to remember and/or to be defined by? Or, is your now so enthralling that it keeps you locked into and truly living this moment of time?