Oh. My. Gawd.

Ya know, Stephen, if you keep posting sexy photos of yourself like this on the internet, I'm gonna have some massive huge heart failure.  STOP THAT!!  You're KILLIN' me!!

God Bless You Sir....for lookin' healthy, and happy, and THAT HAIR HOLY BEJEEZUS THAT HAIR.......ahem....did I mention that I love your hair?!  Ohhhh you sexy troubadour, I just want to reach into this photo and pinch your cheeks, run my fingers through your hair, and then kiss you all over.  In that order.  Is it getting hot in here?!!

I got PALPITATIONS goin' on ovah heah!!!  STOP IT!!  Dammit man, you are gorgeous.

Okay, now that I've gushed my hormonal lust all over you....let's move on.

1. Filter – Take a Picture
2. Zep – Good Times Bad Times
3. Howie Day – Collide (Chris Lord Alge version)
4. Elton John – Love Song
5. Steve Perry – Running Alone
6. Journey – Mother Father LIVE from GH-2
7. White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
8. Run – Snow Patrol
9. Ray LaMontagne – Sarah
10. Imogen Heap – Daylight Robbery
11. Eels – I’m going to stop pretending
12. One Republic – Secrets
13. Journey – Don’t Stop Believin
14. Jimi Hendrix – Wait untill tomorrow

I like how you added some Journey tunes, and one from your own album too.  I've always loved "Running Alone."  I can also relate to "Mother, Father," because my own parents divorced when I was 22 and fresh out of college.  And of course, what would a Steve Perry DJ experience BE without "Don't Stop Believin'?"  That's just a GIVEN.

Unfortunately, with my extremely limited "cool" meter nearly at zero out here in Pittsburgh when it comes to music, I don't really KNOW any of those other songs.  I mean sure, "Good Times, Bad Times" is pretty popular, and Elton John, and Jimi Hendrix...yeah, I like those.  But I tried listening to the Imogen Heap song.....however, I'm sad to report that it wasn't doing much for me at all.  Sorry dude, I just wasn't too enthused.  She didn't tweek my twiddle if you know what I mean.  I'd rather listen to Norah Jones, or Adele, or Christine Aguilara.

But hey, I like listening to music that YOU think is cool, so it's all good.

Ya know what I was thinking last night after writing to you about Whitney Houston....there will come a day, in my lifetime, when you will die.  Yeah, that's not the epiphany though.  My epiphany was that, like Michael Jackson and now Whitney, all of the rotten no good radio stations in this country are going to inundate us with your voice, to rub it in that you're gone, to make it hurt even more, and then they'll play your stuff ALL THE TIME, instead of rarely or not at all, like right now.  That kinda pisses me off. Why izzit that magazines sell more with a dead person on the cover than they do with someone who is ALIVE?  And the same goes for music.  Why izzit that they only start playing DEAD singer's stuff, MUCH more often than they did when that person was still HERE??  I hate it.

I mean, I've got nothing against Michael Jackson----damn, I've loved him since he was a KID, in the Jackson 5.  I grew UP with him.  I felt like he was part of ME and my generation in a way, as a musical witness to my life.  When they reported that he was dead at 50, man, I lost it.  I miss him terribly.  But now they play his music CONSTANTLY, and before, (with all the court room drama going on), they BARELY played his stuff at all.  I find that to be abhorrent.  Now they're doing the same thing with Whitney, and it's awful.  I loved her voice.  I loved her beauty, her acting talent, her strength...her chutzpah...sure, she might have been criticized for being "too white sounding," but then again, Elvis was criticized for being "too black sounding." Instead of letting that criticism stress her out so much, she should have chosen to see that as an HONOR, because to be up there with The King with the same criticism......well, that's pretty damned amazing actually.  The thing that astounds me about it, however, is that nobody GETS IT.  They don't seem to GET the symbolism of that whole criticism in the first place...we are all ONE.  Everyone has their own unique voice, whether it SOUNDS "black" or "white," doesn't fucking MATTER, because we are ALL ONE VOICE in the end.

If she had just chosen to accept it in a positive light, maybe she wouldn't have gone into drugs to ease the pain...she was a highly sensitive person I think.  I know Michael Jackson was too.  I'll even go so far as to bet you a dollar that Amy Winehouse was one as well.  We know that Janis Joplin was uber-sensitive, and Jimi Hendrix had his own inner turmoil...everything these people had in common, besides awesome music that came out of them, is that they were all Highly Sensitive People.

And Stephen, you are one of them too.  So I don't want to see this same crap happen when you die.  Is there any way you can change that BEFORE you're gone from this earth?  Can you put some kind of clause in your will or something?  DO NOT EXPLOIT ANYMORE HIGHLY SENSITIVE PEOPLE WHO SING BY PLAYING THEIR MUSIC MORE OFTEN AFTER THEY DIE.  THAT IS PARTIALLY WHY THEY DIED---THE TORMENT OF BEING TOLD THEY AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH WHILE THEY ARE ALIVE OFTEN DRIVES THEM TO DRUGS AND ALCOHOL TO ESCAPE THEIR PAIN.  SO EITHER PLAY MY STUFF NOW, WHILE I'M HERE, OR YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO PLAY MY STUFF ANYMORE, EVER, AFTER I AM GONE.

I don't know if that's even possible.  But if it bugs YOU as much as it bugs ME, well, maybe there's something that can be done about it, I don't know.  The bottom line in every problem on the planet, as far as I can see it, is that MEN CREATE THEIR OWN MONSTERS.  And so it goes with the music industry.  They posthumously appreciate someone's music, playing it ad nausea, to the point where you start to think they were a "one hit wonder."  But they DON'T seem to appreciate it AT ALL when the person is HERE to enjoy that praise.

I guess that's why I don't play my flute very much anymore.  Nobody but me seems to appreciate it.  Though lately I have actually been feeling the "itch" to take it out and play it again.  I live right around the corner from a music store, so I might pop in there to buy some new flute music too.  I've been thinking about it, for several months now actually, but I'm not sure if anyone else in this house would give a rat's ass about it at all.

When I was a kid, (I started playing the flute in 5th grade), I used to get all kinds of grief from my dad because of "the squawking." So I would take my flute, and my music stand, along with some music, I'd  grab some clothes pins, get on my bike, and ride down to the creek to set up my music stand in the wide open field to pin my music on it to keep it from blowing away, and just squawk to the birds, the clouds above, and the trees.....that was my way of telling my dad to bite my ass.  I didn't realize that's what I was doing, at the time.  I just wanted to be FREE to play as loud and "squawky" as I wanted to, without criticism or condemnation or negativity.  I wanted to feel GOOD about it, to feel HAPPY about it, and most of all to feel FREE to make mistakes, to start over, to ad lib, and to just HAVE FUN with it.

So why do so many people gather 'round, and condemn, criticize and be so negative about something THEY CAN'T DO THEMSELVES---while you're alive and well---when I know GODDAMNED WELL if I died today, my dad would say, "Wow, she was an awesome flute player, I bet she got that musical talent from ME."  GRRRRRR.  Fucker never even attended ONE of my concerts, from 5th grade until high school graduation.  Not ONE.  So, I can honestly say, that would make me send a lightening bolt right down to strike him dead, if I ever heard that bullshit from his mouth.  Seriously.  (oops, are my Daddy issues showing? Pardon me).

Men really do create their own monsters, and that's the common denominator of every problem on earth. Most of those problems didn't exist until men started messing around with shit that didn't need messing with at all.

Anyway, I'm off to start the week....I hope you have a wonderful week too, and even though I didn't get to hear your DJ stint, I am very hopeful that somebody will post it to YouTube or something soon, so I can finally get to hear your gorgeous voice again.

Damn I love you so much.  More than you'll ever know.

Bye for now.  Love, Rebecca