Sunday Thoughts: Don’t Confuse God With Wrong Prayer Words

How can anyone forget Hamlet’s dilemma as he stood looking at his father-in-law wanting to murder him but fearful if he did when he was praying he would go straight to heaven. The king was bent over in prayer but was not thinking. He was lamenting: “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” If Hamlet could only have heard his thoughts he might not have stayed his hand.

That is one thing that those who pray have to wonder about. How much attention must you pay to your prayers. If you are just mumbling the words you learned by rote without paying attention to each word are you praying or just wasting your time?  If you think about it, what is the prayer that you most recite? Do you understand the words you are uttering or just saying them as if reciting the alphabet.

Now it seems if the prayer you say is the Lord’s Prayer then perhaps you’ve been saying it wrong all these years. You start by addressing God by stating “Our Father” and then go on. You eventually arrive at a point where you say, “and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

What if I told you that is wrong. You probably would not believe me but what if Pope Francis said you were wrong. Well that’s what he is now saying. He says the words “lead us not into temptation” are not proper when directed at God. The Pope says that God does not lead us into temptation but the Devil or Satan does.

That sort of presents a quandary. If we don’t want to be led into temptation and it is Satan who is the one who does that do we want to be praying to Satan? I think not. First, I don’t think one should be asking Satan anything; and least of all if you asked Satan not to lead you into temptation Satan surely would.

Pope Francis says that lead us not into temptation is not a good translation. The words we should be saying are: “do not let us fall into temptation.” He noted about the French Catholic church that: “T]he first Sunday of Advent a new translation of the Our Father will come into force in all forms of liturgy. The Catholic faithful will no longer say: ‘Do not submit to temptation’ but ‘Do not let us enter into temptation.’ ” 

Not being much of a theologian myself I cannot but think this sounds like the disputes that some say at one time or another happened in the Church over the question of “how many angels could dance on the head of the pin.” It seems to me too many people have too much time on their hands to be even thinking of these ideas. It’s sad to say that it seems to me Claudius had a better grasp on theology than the  Pope.

I’m sure God is not concerned whether we say “lead us not into temptation” or “do not let us fall into temptation.” Whatever we say He will understand our intentions and what is in our thoughts and our hearts. He’s concerned with our deeds and lack of deeds. If as the Church teaches God is omniscient then the Pope should understand that God understands what we mean when we ask not to be led into temptation even if it is not an absolutely correct translation of the prayer from the Bible.

 

30 Comments

  1. Great Balls of Fire . . . was Jerry Lee Lewis related to C. S. Lewis or our dearly departed friends from the Hill, the brothers Eddie and Wilbur.

    The question is the answer, said Philosopher Bernard Lonergan, S.J.!

    • Since I was surrounded by Catholics my whole life, (and I can’t figure it out for myself), I ask; Why didn’t Jesuits make it onto so many people’s dance cards? Was it something they said? And why am I now seeing so much dislike for the New Pope? This guy down here that I met, the guy that will only attend a Mass in Latin, can’t even tell me. He gets way to emotional and his wife has forbid him to talk about it. She thinks he will go to Hell if he keeps it up. Is Pope Francis really the Antichrist?

  2. Another mountain of mysticism, the Seven Story Mountain, by Merton . . .

    As a Catholic, the nuns and priests taught us (I went to public school) that we don’t worship icons, but we use icons to focus and elevate our consciousness.

    I read all of Pierre Tielhard de Chardin (sp) in college and afterwards, the evolutionary paleontolgist, The Phenomenon of Man, the Divine Milieu, the Omega Point, and we studied slowly liiine by line a guy named Bernard Lonergan, S.J., a philosopher, who was a bit too deep for my blood then, but his book Insight, with a lot of mathematical formulas, and dense text, boiled down to this, as explained to us: “The Question is the Answer.”
    But then of course, we had to figure out what a question was and from where the Questions or Quest came from and why our eyes could see distant galaxies . . . you know the Jebbies, like the Rabbis and C. S. Lewis guys of the World like to dazzle and scramble our brains and leave us, like, dizzy, Ms Lizzy. Good Golly, Ms. Molly.

  3. some erratum
    perhaps from to much ergotum
    certainly from having been
    exposed to Bill St Crispin…….ing me

    https://erowid.org/culture/characters/leary_timothy/leary_timothy_concord_prison1.shtml

    Gunther Weil got his PhD in 1963-64
    and was part of the Harvard team that
    evaluated the MCI Concord Prison
    pcilocybin experiment
    Report later cast a shadow over recidivism rates
    in report

    Kyriacos Markides book

    https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-50091-3

    THE MOUNTAIN OF SILENCE: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

    Kyriacos C. Markides, Author . Doubleday $22.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-385-50091-3

    MORE BY AND ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
    Markides, a Maine sociologist who was raised in the Greek Orthodox faith and later drifted into agnosticism, continues his spiritual journey homeward in this collection of captivating conversations with the monk Father Maximos. The book is set on the island of Cyprus, where the author and his monastic mentor spent extended periods of time together due to unexpected circumstances that moved Father Maximos from the “Holy Mountain” of Mount Athos. Markides (Riding with the Lion), his interest piqued by an earlier pilgrimage to Mount Athos, used a sabbatical from the University of Maine to further explore the body of Christian mysticism that Mount Athos’s monks have preserved since the ninth century. Here, Markides and others pepper the charismatic Maximos with questions on a wide range of topics from angels, saints and demons to the role of icons in worship and the place of hell in Christian belief. Markides is a skillful and skeptical inquisitor whose queries surely must have tried the patience of his mentor. But Maximos rises to the occasion, providing gentle, thoughtful answers that by necessity often transcend the Western mind’s reliance on logic in spiritual matters. Markides’s work is an excellent resource for spiritual seekers of all levels, answering questions about Christianity in general and Eastern monasticism in particular. It will be of special interest to those who may be unaware of Christianity’s deep roots in mysticism. (Sept.)

  4. now if we can get matt to bi locate from Florida
    to Flying Pond Variety

    in other fly the friendly skies newessssss

    https://www.ewtn.com/padrepio/mystic/bilocation.htm

    Padre Pio The Mystic – Bilocation – EWTN.com
    EWTN.com › padrepio › bilocation
    Among the most remarkable of the documented cases
    of bilocation was the Padre’s appearance in the air over
    San Giovanni Rotondo during World War II. While southern
    Italy remained in Nazi hands American bombers …

    Interviewed Kyriacos years back about his books
    including Mountain of Silence (Mt Athos)
    where bi location occurs along with other
    manifestations of sidhis.(miracles)

    • Funny, you know, I read a lot about Padre Pio when I was a teenager . . . late teens… talk about the magical mystery tour….. really psychedelic, very pious and devout, and healer of minds . . . a true mystic . . . with stigmata, as I recall. . . the holy signs

  5. in other news

    https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/dec/08/fbi-kkk/

    FBI leadership claimed Bureau was “almost powerless” against KKK, despite making up one-fifth of its membership
    Deputy Director James Adams testified that the Bureau had three times as many “ghetto informants” as they did those targeting white supremacists
    Written by Emma Best
    Edited by JPat Brown
    In testimony before the Church Committee, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Deputy Director acknowledged that the Bureau at one point made up as much as one-fifth of the Klu Klux Klan’s total membership – but were still powerless to curtail the KKK’s violence. His testimony also acknowledged police participation in said violence, and that the Bureau had three times as many “ghetto informants” as they did those targeting white supremacist domestic terrorists.

    In response to a FOIA request filed several months ago for the SENSTUDY 75 file, pertaining to the Church Committee, the FBI recently released a preprocessed file (apparently unable to provide even preprocessed documents within the time period required by the law) that includes excerpts of testimony from Deputy Associate Director James Adams addressing the Bureau’s involvement with, and failure to curtail, the KKK. Before finishing his first sentence in the excerpted testimony, Adams had offered somewhat misleading information in stating that the COINTELPRO efforts had been discontinued in 1971.

    In actuality, all that was discontinued in 1971 was the centralized program. According to the memo commonly cited as discontinuing the program “for security reasons,” COINTELPRO efforts would “be considered on a highly selective individual basis with tight procedures to insure absolute security.”

    The Church Committee would note that the efforts had continued in several known instances, and that the effect of ending the centralized program was simply that it was impossible to understand the full scope of those efforts without manually searching over 500,000 case files.

    After providing this technically-true-but-entirely-misleading statement, Adams admitted to the Committee that the law had been “ineffective” against the Klan. He also argued that local law enforcement should be the primary tool used against groups like the Klan.

    This argument fell somewhat flat in light of the following paragraph in Adams’ testimony, where he admitted that local law enforcement officers had been “participating in Klan violence.” Stating that “the FBI and the Federal Government were almost powerless to act,” he nonetheless defended the Bureau’s actions against the testimony of one of their informants, Gary Thomas Rowe, by pointing out that they had provided his information to local police departments.

    This defense also fell somewhat flat immediately following his admission that some of those police departments had members “participating in Klan violence.” In light of that testimony, it’s hardly surprising that Adams’ also admitted that the information “was not being acted upon.”

    Adams then re-emphasized this by restating it, seeming to validate some of the things Rowe had said shortly after impugning the depth of Rowe’s knowledge and ability to speak on the subject.

    Adams’ testimony bemoaned the legal obstacles preventing the Bureau from acting as they wished they could, an ironic complaint given the illegal behaviors that COINTELPRO (the program under discussion) is infamous for. Adams also noted that the groups being monitored had greater numbers than ever before, which made it difficult for the Bureau to fully monitor them and counter their efforts, as well as increased the danger of these groups. This latter point might have been more impactful if Adams hadn’t also admitted that approximately 2,000 members of the KKK were working for the FBI.

    The testimony then noted that the Bureau was almost singlehandedly responsible for the impressive growth in the KKK’s membership which Adams had just lamented. According to the Bureau’s numbers, not only were 20% of the KKK’s members working for the FBI, the FBI was responsible for 70% of the recent growth in the KKK’s membership and that rather than having the effect of reverting violence, it resulted in “the tail wagging the dog.”

    Adams disputed the number of FBI employed KKK members by stating that the 2,000 informants included all “racial matters,” and that the FBI only accounted for “around 6%” of the KKK’s membership.

    Adams proceeded to contradict his earlier statement that the FBI had been powerless against the KKK by claiming credit for a decrease in violence from the group by inducing paranoia in them. In virtually the same breath, he reaffirmed that “the Sheriff[s] and other law enforcement officers” had been “in on” the violence and murders of civil rights workers, while also repeating the 20% figure he had just disputed.

    It was then brought up with Adams that there was “considerable evidence” that “no attempt was made to prevent crime when [the FBI] had information that it was going to occur.”

    Adams defended the Bureau by saying that they had passed the information on to the local police department. In response, it was pointed out that the FBI knew the department “was an accomplice to the crime.” Adams, having previously admitted that this was the case, simply responded they did “not necessarily knew [sic]” despite having been told this by their informants. As a result, the questioner noted, they “weren’t doing a whole lot to prevent that incident by telling the people who were already a part of it.”

    Adams’ denied that the Bureau had encouraged informants like Rowe to participate in violence, only to have his statement contradicted by both Rowe and the Agent in Charge.

    The testimony excerpted in the file ends with Adams’ denying that the Bureau became involved in anyone’s sex life and that such a thing would not be “of any value whatsoever.”

    Adams’ blanket denial is contradicted by the FBI’s own memos on COINTELPRO, such as one discussing the possibility of informing the public that an actress was pregnant to “cause her embarrassment and tarnish her image.” The memo notes that this wasn’t part of the COINTELPRO effort against white supremacist groups such as the KKK, but against a white woman for supporting an enemy of the KKK – the Black Panther Party.

    While Adams attempted to deny many of the accusations made against the Bureau and citations of the Bureau’s failure, he was just as often forced to admit them either just prior to or just after those denials. Regardless of whether the Bureau had made up 6% or 20% of the KKK’s members, the Special Agent in Charge instructed their informants to allow the acts to happen. When the Bureau did take action, it was to pass the information onto the local police departments – who in at least some instances were known to the Bureau to be among the perpetrators. The Bureau justified its behavior by citing legal restrictions and the sudden growth of the KKK, which the Bureau itself had been responsible for approximately 70% of. Adams’ testimony also misleadingly claimed that the Bureau had discontinued COINTELPRO efforts, a fact which the Church Committee was able to contradict.

    However, what has been recently discontinued is funding to counter white supremacist groups like the KKK with the Trump administration “turning a blind eye” to white supremacists groups in what they have welcomed as “a signal of favor” to them. If the FBI was, in their own words, powerless against the KKK even while making up a large percentage of its membership through informants and agent provocateurs, it’s hard to imagine how effective the Bureau’s ongoing individual investigations against white supremacists will prove any more effective.

    Despite relatively recent reports that the FBI has 1,000 ongoing investigations against white supremacists, this number actually includes all types of “domestic terrorists” – a label that the FBI has applied to anyone from protesters who vandalize cows made of butter to people who had pro-peace bumper stickers or were labeled suspected terrorists simply because of the people they knew.

    You can read the initial release below, or on the request page. The second half of the file consists of the Department of Justice’s report on their decision not to prosecute anyone for the illegal mail opening programs. That report is discussed here

  6. mission accomplished
    kirk over and out
    did you feel the Trojan Horse insert ?

    nah!

  7. Msfreeh:

    We few, we privileged few, we band of brothers (and sisters) to be from Southie or Dorchester and raised in such privileged neighborhoods as Savin Hill, have had the great pleasure to know first hand as a friend and neighbor the “Grand Boo-Hoo and Holder of the Toad” in Doctor Timothy Leary’s Neo-American Church, which preached peyote and not hallucinogenic LSD. Well, the Grand Boo-Hoo was an MIT grad, a Masters in Electrical Engineering or Physics or something, a Vet, a great weightlifter and a ballroom dancer extraordinaire. He made a big mistake, once: he was caught . . . this is public knowledge . . . with the largest LSD factory on the East Coast of America around 1970 in the cellar of his Savin Hill abode.

    He was a very brilliant, talented man, and didn’t need “enhancement” or “enlightenment” and, in truth, he had set a good example for all of us, including by studying hard and being dedicated to sports and the arts, and by joining Doctor Timothy Leary’s Church (remember the Moody Blues’ paean: “Timothy leary’s dead, oh no he’s outside, looking in . . .” You know the song!)

    Well, the only heretical mistake made by the “Grand Boo-Hoo and Holder of the Toad” was substituting man-made LSD for naturally occurring Peyote, God’s manna, hence and henceforth he was burned at the stake as a heretic, figuratively speaking. The Feds incarcerated him, and the Neo-American Church forgave him, for it is greater to forgive than to forget . . .

    The irony is that LSD is . . .I repeat myself for emphasis; I say LSD IS a natural substance; it is naturally produced by an ergotamine-generating fungus that grows wild out West as a rot on certain grains, like amber waves of wheat, which cows feed upon (no wonder they’re weird), and the theory goes that many of them cowboys gone plum loco crazy, shooting up places, were “spaced out” (historical malaprop; anachronism) on the LSD produced by the ergotamine generating fungus rotting out the grain . . .

    In other words, the cowboys were naturally high on an LSD-like substance while the Indians were naturally and religiously high on Peyote and everyone else from George Washington to the State of Washington grew the marijuana plant which was good for making hemp; that is hemp, like in a rope; and marijuana hemp is also not bad smelling if you lit it on fire and not bad tasting if you took a toke or two.

    In other words, since this country’s inception and before, the whole darn nation of red men, black men and white men have been stoned . . . and Bob Dylan was biochemically certifiably sane when he sang “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Let’s go get Stoned.”

    For the truth is, it’s inherent in man’s nature to eat, drink and inhale, and to experiment: that’s why the bear, a sensate mammalian creature with an inquisitive, curious brain, went over the mountain: To see what he could see . . . to see what was on the other side, like Columbus or Madame Curie, or William James, the Pragmatist, or his brother, the writer, who wrote about psychadelics . . . or was it he who did?

    And the rest is history! Or biology or biochemistry?

    The point is, if you play with fire you might get burnt, but if someone didn’t start playing with fire, it’d be a pretty cold world. Like someone sang, “We didn’t start the fire. . .” but thinking that over, “Yes, we did!”

    The moral is: If you are white and from a white privileged neighborhood like Uphams Corner or Savin Hill or Andrew Square or Old Harbor or Old Colony or Fidelis Way or Oak Square or Dudley Street or Bluehill Avenue (Yuh, “I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill”, sang Fats Domino) . . . just listen to the names of those white neighborhoods back then and you know the type of white privileged people who lived there in the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s and 1960s and 1970s, then you’ll realize that white folks who drink white lightning or who trip the light fantastic are asking for it and deserve whatever they get, to the last drip, drop or dip. Really.

    I remember growing up there was a very wise man who stood on the corner who used to say stuff to us, like this: “Say what you mean, and mean what you say!” and “Whether your white or black, or rich or poor, it’s nice to have money.” and “Wherever you go, there you are.” and “The greater the few, the fewer the less . . . or was it the fewer the many?” “The greater the few, the fewer the many.” Well you get the drift.

    Can you dig it, Man?

  8. After Richard Alpert got fired from Harvard in 1963,
    for giving LSD to undergraduate, and graduate students
    at Harvardthe Merry Prankster crew of Timothy Leary,
    Richard Alpert,Ralph Metzner,Gunther Weil and Ralph Schwitzgabel
    began their mitosis or as we say down in the word salad whisper
    stream mitosing god.

    At the time I was happily and legally stringing harpsichords
    at the harpsichord shop of William Dowd where the smells
    of hide glue , quarter sawed sitka spruce and freshly sprayed
    lacquer gave us a contact high that lasts till today.
    Of course this nasal jones always gets exacerbated by
    listening to Scarlatti performed on a Wlliam Dowd harpsichord
    on youtube.

    God was always there at the drop of turntable tone arm needle.
    god how god could manifest in a Bach Invention,Rameau gavotte,
    Haydn allemande or Telemann fugue.
    But I digress….
    Where did the Leary – Alpert crew disperse to?

    Leary Tuned In…..

    Alpert went to India and met Neem Karoli
    (backstory…Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg went to
    India in 1973 to meet Neem Karoli after reading about
    him in Richard Alpert’s books. They were too late)

    Schwitzgabel pursued psychedelic research

    Metzner went on to become a new age pop star

    Gunther Weil became my thesis advisor when I
    started my M.A. studies in Criminology in 1972.
    hint Andrew Vachss was my co-thesis adviser
    Gunther began his life long studies of Gurdjieff
    after getting his PhD at Harvard in 1973.
    He recorded the hit song Leaving On A Jet Plane
    at his recording studio Intermedia Sound, co-founded
    the Chi Qiong Society of America and introduced
    Iron Shirt Kung Fu to the US.

    John King McDonald remote viewing Howard Stern is fairly
    common.
    For a much fuller exposition on the nature of god
    remote viewing and King Jamesing…..
    read about the man who impacted Alpert , Jobs and
    Zuckerberg , Neem Kaoli.

    see

    By His Grace Dada Murkhjee

    Miracle of Love by Richard Alpert

    • The riotous Ms. Fresh :

      Will not harp on it , but Stern experience did not satisfy the sine qua non of Remote Viewing , imaging . There were no images associated with
      the VOICE .

      Will not speak to Remote Viewing .

      Have had experiences of bi-locality .

      Yep, two places at the same time .

      Rat-A-Tat-Tat-Tat .

    • HALEAKALAH : Summit To The Sea

      On stillness and silence . Ram Dass , who lives in Maui , speaks on several occasions.

      Documentary Film

  9. In electing a Jesuit, the cardinals were not thinking about world order. You know their motto: “Set the World Aflame!” Jim Morrison and the Doors said it slightly differently: “Light My Fire.” So of the thrice, I’d say smoking, which reminds me of the poem: “Some say the world will die of fire; others ice; from what I know of desire; ice will suffice.”

    Weren’t our beloved Jesuits thrown out of most countries they visited . . . was it they or another clerical order that helped bring the potato to Europe, thus averting or at least alleviating famine in 17th, 18th, and early 19th century Ireland, before the Great Famine. I remember the famous words of one English King dying of malaria and only quinine would cure it . . . (the powder from the bark of the South American quinona tree (sp?) was crushed into a drink and effected remission or cure; the Jesuits were involved in exporting it to Europe………and the King said he’d sooner die of fire than drink the Jesuitical brew (words to that effect); he died shortly thereafter.

    What was the question? Oh yes!

    Remember very few official acts of the Church are considered “infallible” and electing a Pope is not one of them.

  10. Whatever were the cardinals thinking about, smoking or drinking when they elected a jevvie as Pope?

  11. Which language do you prefer? Aramaic? Hebrew? Syriac? Koine Greek? Latin? 1600’s English?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_the_New_Testament

    This is not exactly like Bill Clinton stating to a grand jury “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/1998/09/bill_clinton_and_the_meaning_of_is.html

  12. True, very true. Matt, I always took Lead us not as help us stay on the straight and narrow and “deliver us from evil” as help keep us out of Satan’s hands. Of course, I liked the “forgive us our trespasses” part the best.

    I may be old fashioned. or I may be right, but I preferred the King James Version of the Bible . . . it was way more poetic. The modern versions are like someone “modernizing” Milton or Dante or Shakespeare. But I also learned as a teenager to “roll with the punches”, forgive and forget, life goes on, don’t sweat the small stuff, and from the Bard, “the robbed who smiles steals something from the thief.”

    My advice to the revisionists: Leave good enough alone!

    Finally, if you think philosophers and theologians are quibbling over semantics, read lawyers.

    2. On that point someone suggested, since the Feds accused Brian Joyce of helping his relative get a job, I want every Fed in Boston investigated to see if they helped any of their relatives get a job. Did these Federal prosecutors ever write a letter on recommending any relative for a job on letterhead or while employed as a Fed or identifying themselves as a Fed.
    Secondly, since the FEDs have defined Joyce’s law office/senate office as “An Enterprise” for the purposes of RICO (racketeering) aren’t their offices in the FED court house an “Enterprise” and have they ever contacted anyone from their offices to help a relative get a job or get any other benefit like coffee, tickets, free parking, and (3) as an Enterprise since it’s known that they have falsely prosecuted people in the past and withheld evidence from people in the past, it seems certain that they too are RACKETEERS. Something about that finger pointing that can come back to haunt the finger pointer. Maybe that’s why Jesus who taught us to pray the Our Father also warned us against throwing stones.

    • In the deliver us from evil vein,there is a name today in the Globes Irish sports
      Page that might be of interest.

    • Lucifer’s ? … So that was you ! Always the Gentleman . You kept saying ” So What ” as I recollect .

      • Just replied to Bill C. and missed queue. Bill C. is the wicked one !

        • I mean not true, I was the guy saying so what! I deny the other allegation and I deny the alligator, as the Kingfish used to say . . . one of my nicknames in Savie growing up, because a lot of time when I talked loud, I didn’t know what I was talking about.

  13. ” If as the Church teaches God is omniscient . ” … Had a funny experience in ’77-78′ … Coming out from back of Kenmore Square’s Rathskeller Bar to head across street to Lucifer’s , a Vara Brothers … Concern … I had worked in as a … Floor Man …when 18 . Howard Stern , the DJ who is now a worldwide celebrity , was standing in front of the Rat . He could not get arrested at that point in his career , but the BU co-eds adored him . It was a warm and rainy July afternoon . A steam and sizzle of a recent rain on the road and a car full of co-eds bombing through on a gale of laughter and hysterical screaming as they saw Howard , stoned and happily giggling ( he liked his weed ) standing,, he is rather tall , just to the side of the Rat ‘s front door .

    He gave them an ecstatically incoherent hail back and at that moment I looked back over my right shoulder at him .

    A VOICE… SPOKE … in my head . It said : HE IS GOING TO BE REALLY FAMOUS SOMEDAY .

    That was it’s extent. I had , on unique occasions , heard that VOICE before . On unique occasions I have heard it since and expect to hear it again .

    Howard Stern was a local college DJ with a following on campus . There was no context for eerie prophesying voices as to his phenomenal personal success and fame , notoriety ( ? ) at that time .

    That VOICE in ’78 proved omniscient .

    Was it therefore God’s ?

    If Howard Stern ‘s DESTINY is already being psychically pre-figured in ’78 , then what does this indicate about FREE WILL .

    Is our DESTINY FORETOLD ?

    GOD !

    • That was * its extent .

      • So, you’re the guy who threw me out of Lucifer’s?

        I remember very well the Rat et al. and the haunts in and around Kenmore Square, even Billy Crowley’s dive across from B.U., in the late ’60s through the early 1980s, even after I got sober. Good hangouts! Hip and psychedelic and beatnik and country and folk and glam and glitter and Joe Cocker live at the Boston Tea Party, was it, near Fenway. The heyday of . . . Rock & Roll crossing over into disco; mellow grass crossing over into schizoid coke and crack . . .and during and post-Vietnam, the junkies. We only drank beer till our twenties.

        I remember, too, in 1965 or earlier sneaking into the theater …. where was it?
        across from today’s Wang or maybe it was the Savoy or Orpheum or Donnelly Memorial. . . where we heard Bob Dylan transform from folk to folk rock.

        I also remember taking a young date . . . I was say 18-19, she was 16, but mature for her age, to a coffee shop on Charles Street, where someone with a name like Eric Erickson or Eric Anderson, was playing the guitar. She fell for him, couldn’t take her eyes off him. He smiled at her. Of course he did, she was very lovely. It was a long lonely drive home.

        The ’60s, nothing but heartaches!
        The 70s-80s nothing but headaches.
        But I was happily married for four or so years along the way.

        Howard Stern was a character, quick witty, funny, bizarre sense of humor. His T.V. and talk shows were run more like circuses or carnival freak shows, but they made him millions. Trump appeared on his show once . . . as himself.