50 different ways to disintegrate

..and i should know.

realizing this blog has been around for a year.

and there are some other uncovered items.

such as


Samtsirhc icons: "The Godfather of Soul"

and "The Man in Black.

We listened to the classic Johnny Cash album "Live at San Quentin" at the Samtsirhc party. We listened to his gospel tune "He Turned the Water Into Wine" several times, turning it back to the beginning to listen again. This made me realize that this holiday needed some attributes and so I deemed Johnny Cash a patron saint of this rebellious holiday.

...and following the news, to discover that James Brown passed away on the first post-samtsirhc, it had to happen, that both of these extremely significant figures of music, whose long, influential careers forged themselves a permanent place in history.

What is remarkable about these two men were the things they had in common. For instance although contrasting in the most general sense, each of their individual styles of music, had strong roots in gospel....and although the success of their careers in music is undeniable, they both had troubled personal lives affected by serious bouts with drug abuse and run-ins with the law. On the internet, you can easily find mugshots of these men that were published shamelessly by the press. Despite the questionable morality of their behavior, the public continued to worship these men as heroes.

Perhaps the reason why I would treat these less-than perfect- individuals as saints is their courage to live and act as they wished, and at times at the expense of others who were, unfortunately, hurt by their actions. What these men represent is rebellion, and a resistance to authority figures no matter if they were right or wrong.

Although some aspects of Samtsirhc don't really seem to make sense (intentionally) this does.

Christmas has Jesus and Santa Claus, Satsirhc has Johnny Cash and James Brown.