Category: Music

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My Fantastic Journey: It’s In The Lyrics

This morning at my church service the Pastor taught from the latter portion of Ephesians 6 on ‘The Whole Armor Of God’. This is one of the first parts of Scripture that I ever read and studied in depth on my fantastic journey.

This week I’m celebrating the 4-year / 48-month anniversary of when my Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ rescued me from evil and darkness, saved me, and told me to believe in Him and follow Him towards The Light. I did, and 5 months later I went public with my faith by attending a church service for the first time in over 30 years. That was on Sunday January 21ST 2007. About 3 months after that I bought my very first Bible ever – “New Believer’s Bible: First Steps For New Christians” – at the Living Way Bible Bookstore in Downtown Homestead. About a month later the very first person that I formally met at that very first church service – Anne J. – bought me a really nice bible cover to protect my valuable investment in The Truth. Inscribed on the lower-right-hand corner of the front of the Bible cover is a sword pointing to ‘Eph. 6:17’. As soon as I saw that I went to the Scripture, and I let The Truth soak in to my heart and my soul. It read, “Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of The Spirit, which is the Word Of God.”

In an unloving and an uncaring secular world I knew that as an outsider of the world I would need His armor to protect myself from the persistent enemy and his legion of followers that lurk in the darkness all around me. While the world rejected me over and over again, that same world wants me back – so that it can use me all over again. I refuse to give in. I refuse to go back to the lies. I refuse to be a servant of this world. I stand before God The Almighty One. I walk in peace as a Disciple of God. I am in this spiritual battle until the very end, and I will ensure that ‘The Whole Armor Of God’ is ON !

I’m forgiven. Because You were forsaken
I’m accepted. You were condemned
I’m alive and well. Your Spirit is within me
Because You died and rose again

It’s In The Lyrics:

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Saturday Night Retro

On This 95TH weekly edition of my ‘Retro’ I take you back 22½ years ago to the Spring of 1988. I remember it well. I was a young 20-year-old USAF Airman First Class (two stripes) on the verge of becoming 21 and a Senior Airman (three stripes) at bustling Homestead Air Force Base Florida. My total annual salary was about $11,000, but I had no car, lived on-base in a dormitory, and all of the food was free. I rode my bike to and from work on-base through the heat, the wind, and the rain. I dreamed of someday owning a car and driving it all around South Florida. That day would NOT occur in 1988, but rather in January of 1989. So back in 1988 I had friends with cars, and that’s all that mattered. All I wanted to do was to eat and party – and so I did. I ate and partied so much that I ended up gaining a lot of weight. In fact I reached my maximum lifetime weight of approximately 185 pounds !  That’s about 15 pounds more than my stable weight of today. I was not very healthy back then, and the situation would only get worse once I hit the legal drinking age of 21 that June (of 1988).

Back then during what I like to refer to as ‘The Golden Age Of Miami Top 40 Radio’ we here were blessed with three competing hit music radio stations – Power-96, Y-100, and Hot-105. All three played the big hits of the day, and each station also specialized in its own genre. Power-96 was a bit more urban than the other two, and Hot-105 actually played American hard rock and European club dance back-to-back. Y-100 was the heritage mainstream pop station of its time.

As I rode my bike all over the air base – dreaming of tuning in to each of these three stations on my eventual new car’s radio – this smash was playing everywhere. It’s the Spring of 1988 here in South Florida !

‘The Awesome ’80s In August International Dance Party’ continues next week as we enter the wild and crazy world that was 1989.

Until then my friends – “GET OUT OF THE CITY !” (Balki Bartokomous from “Perfect Strangers”)

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God Life Music People

My Fantastic Journey: It’s In The Lyrics

A friend of mine (and fellow believer) recently stated that if your Life (as a believer) actually makes sense to a non-believer then you must be doing something wrong. That is as true as can be.

If you look and sound just like everyone else of this world then you must be a follower of this world. That’s serving two masters.

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 (NLT, 2ND Ed.)
26  Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you.
27  Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.
28  God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
29  As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.
30  God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made Him to be Wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; He made us pure and holy, and He freed us from sin.
31  Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.”

God created us in His own image. He sacrificed His One and Only Son – so that we can Live a full Life. He didn’t create us to be just like everyone else of this world. He created each and every one of us with our own mind, heart, and soul.

They conform
Un-individuality
They conform
Forget about variety
Yeah they conform
They don’t know what they believe
They conform
They conform
They conform

So I’m anticonformity
I don’t try too hard to be
I’m not what you think you see
Inside I’ve made a change
And I’ll never be the same
No way !

It’s in the lyrics:

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History Life Music News Television

Saturday Night Retro

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STARS

TODAY – the 07TH of August of 2010 – is the 29TH anniversary of the end of my very first job. On this date back in 1981 one of the two major daily newspapers in our nation’s capital – ‘The Washington Star’ – published its final edition after over 128 years. It went bankrupt, and most of its equipment was bought out by its longtime rival ‘The Washington Post’. I was a newspaper carrier for The Star (and The Post). As a rare afternoon big city newspaper I delivered The Star to the homes around my McLean Virginia  neighbourhood every day after Junior High School. That final edition of The Star was a collector’s item, and many of those newspapers that were delivered on that final afternoon by carriers just like me all around the Washington D.C. area were stolen. It was also sold out at all of the stores. An institution had ended.

Back in the Summer of 1981 a Dutch studio ensemble group was very popular in stringing along a medley of previously-popular TOP 40 tracks of the 1960s and 1970s. Known as ‘Stars On 45’ – their biggest “Medley” was their very first one that shot straight to the top of the American pop charts. Check out this 2008 television reimagining of the 1981 ‘Stars On 45’ “Medley”. Now THAT’S what I call a ‘Saturday Night Retro’ !