Friday, October 5, 2007

man am i glad that week's over

hey man phil cregg here.

that was like the week from hell i swear i didn't get no sleep like all week. people kept stopping by in the middle of the night. man i started nodding off this morning and drove the bus over the damn rumble strip the kids all started screaming it was funny as shit. i don't know when i'm going to get any sleep there's parties all weekend long. hell i aint complainin alot of people would love to have my life.

so anyways i'm supposed to talk about charlie and what my life was like before what happened and what my life's like now.

my life was a mess man i shit on all my chances at ever being anything that required any type of college. fuck all that i had stuff to do. i traveled all over the country lying cheating and stealing and rolling through peoples lifes like the world was my bowling alley. i wasn't the type of person you wanted to meet i'd knock you out in a second to get what i want.

what happened was i ended up in mexico with a bad case of the clap after spending a weekend in a mexican fetish whorehouse. i was in the worse spot of my life and i couldn't do anything about it cuz i spent all my money. i hitched up to el paso and that's where i met charlie singing about the snakes coming out at night and those words hit me in a way no 8ball or lude ever could.

i've been a changed man since that moment.

now i have a good life and am a productive member of society. i drive a school bus for a public school where i live and the kids all love me. i aint like their parents i'm more like a buddy. i feel what they're saying know what i mean? i still like to party alot hell yeah. i go through spells like this week it's been non'stop all week long i swear i've maybe had an hour of sleep. i still lie cheat and steal but i don't do it nearly as much and sometimes i feel bad about it but charlie always makes me feel better. he's awesome like that.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

My Journey to loving myself

Hi everybody! Raymond here!

Good afternoon and happy to make your acquaintance here on the Pride Parade! Hopefully everything is wonderful with you and yours. Firstly, I want to convey my deepest gratitude to my mom who helped me write this post (Hi Charley Pride fans! --Ray's Mom). I believe that my mother (of whom I am her pride and joy) and I share that love of writing and sharing our thoughts to other people, I think the gift of scribe is truly an inherited trait (Actually Raymond was adopted. --Ray's Mom).

Well, gee...how I got into this mess. Well, I was a bit of a bad boy getting mixed up in drugs and gangs (Raymond thinks that he got mixed up in drugs and gangs, actually he just listens to a lot of that gangster rap. --Ray's Mom) before I reached a revelation in my life and made Charles Pride my personal savior (Raymond's father and I hope this is just a phase. --Ray's Mom).


My endless fascination with the man who would be known as Mr. Pride began two summers ago, when I met a great man named Ian. Lost in my shoot 'em up, bullish lifestyle full of decadence and graft (Actually
Raymond was a very nice little boy, just mildly retarded according to his pediatrician. I think his last IQ test gauged him of having a score of 81. --Ray's Mom) and hookers. My brother-in-arms, Ian, showed me the way to salvation through the words of Pride. It is Pride who spaketh upon me to drop all horrific doings of my destructive lifestyle and follow him on the path to enlightenment (Raymond's father and I aren't sure what to make of this Ian boy. He seems nice, but a little odd. --Ray's Mom).

Everyday is a miracle of revelations and self-discovery. I have slept
upon mighty bales of hay in a remote cornfield (Well, Raymond did sleep on a bale of hay which is part of our Halloween decorations. But its located in our front yard and NOT a remote cornfield! I don't know where he gets these notions. --Ray's Mom), I have fought the bumblers first hand as they have tried to commandeer my corn bread, my Mountain Dew and my potato salad! (If he would just stop eating his lunch near the garbage can at the municipal park he would avoid all those yellow jackets. --Ray's Mom).

Yes, Mr. Pride has bequeathed me the weapons to become closer to the
earth, rooting myself into the Earth and growing like a bountiful stem. I am NOT a bumbler and shall battle the bumblers at every turn! I mean, honestly, why don't they just buzz around flowers instead of bothering people? (Because they are hornets Raymond, not honeybees. --Ray's Mom).

Thus, this post is a call to arms at sorts to drop your bumbling
habits, pick up a rolled up newspaper, a can of Raid and/or possibly a fly swatter if you can find one at your local hardware store, and march among us! The Pride Parade! Your pride is a weapon against the bumblers and a wormhole onto the path of enlightenment. Pride bless you all! And Pridespeed! (Thanks everyone! Have a great day! XOXO --Ray's Mom).

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

This is the This

When I was born to little folk I knew not what I missed. We worshiped Jesus and saw nothing but rain. Each morning I touched it and each night I thought that the rain would stop, but my parent's God told me things that were not true.

Later I bumbled. I had become angry at the ways of the little folk. They had shown me rain and I wanted sunshine or I wanted thunder. I put heroin in my arm, I played guitar, I worshiped David Yow. I saw thunder every day, and every night the lightning would chrash into my room and frighten me. I cheated on every woman that trusted me and all of them did.

Finally I was thrown out by my wife because I had moved in with someone else. This punishment seemed truly unfair and the spike moved from my arm to my groin. I soon was reduced to dealing meth outside the fairgrounds. Every night I would try and turn little folk into bumblers and every night I would succeed.

One night I heard a sound and I stopped in my tracks. It was Charlie (Charley). HIs voice was strong and kind and as he sang the words "I got a ticket to Misoury" my mind cleared and I knew that I must meet this man, this prophet. This leader.

The story of how we came to meet is for another day, but since that moment I have walked beside him but never in front, you little folk may walk beside me until you are in his presence and then you will crawl, once you crawl you float, until you can walk again. I am the speaker and the conduit. Your money touches my fingers before it reaches Charlie's (Charleys) pocket. If you are a woman you will meet me first and when you do you may feel pain, but nothing compared to the pain of your God failing you. Fuck your God. He lets you be sick. He gives you diseases. He takes your children.

Charlie will teach you the way. Your children will die, but you will understand it. His soft hands will touch your face and you will learn.

We have 200,000 members in Europe. We have 150,000 members in South America. We will soon have America.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Hello my friends

My name is Akbar and I am a proud member of the pride parade. Prior to meeting Charley I was lost in a life of the filthy devotion of Islam. My mind was polluted with thoughts of killing white people and blowing shit up but now I am free.
No longer does my wife have to wear a burka to cover up the bruises of my past muslim rage and my sons are no longer required to fight in the Jihad and grow fuzzy beards.
Charley is a great black man of power and wisdom. He taught me that it is ok to hit my wife with the palm of my hand as long it is on her backside and I say "dizam girl what you been eatin!".
I have also learned that eating pork is not a crime to eat as long as it is on the rib and you pour honey mixed with ketchup on it. He also taught me that a slice of white bread can be used as a napkin and watermelon is a divine desert.
My friends in the pride Parade have taught me many things in way of enlightenment and I am learning the path of not bumbling.

Praise Charley.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Greeting, Little Ones

Chuck Pride here!

Inhale deeply and exhale all of your troubles! Why? I'll tell you just why. The Great Spirits are showing you favor. If you are reading this, you have obviously found your way here. 50 million blogs, and you have found yourself here at this place of hope and glory. You are among the little ones! It is a beautiful day indeed.

Welcome!

I will give you a bit of an introduction. I have much work to do yet today so I must keep it brief. I'd like to get into the studio some this afternoon and I still have groceries to purchase.

Folks, we live in a troubled time. Fear-based anger runs rampant today. We don't understand each other. We kill each other. We commit sex crimes. We photograph fatal accident scenes and post the carnage on the Internet for all to see. We cheat on our spouses. We lie. We take our comfort in fast food and booze and prostitutes and television. We give our children toys that resemble weapons...I could go on and on.

The Great Spirits work through me. I give to you what is given to me in form of song.

I will provide a quick example.

These are the lyrics to my song, "Are You Going to San Antone?". I will explain the words with commentary in red text.

Are You Going to San Antone?

Pain dripping off the brim of my hat (this line is from Great Spirit Hughie. Hughie is explaining how the troubles of the world today just keep dumping on him like rain)

it sure is cold today (it's cold today = there's no love today)

and here I am'a walking down sixty-six
Wish she hadn't done me that way (Hughie was actually walking down 1966. The Great Spirits can do that. "I wish she hadn't done me that way" = Hughie used to be in love with this other Great Spirit, Claudia. When he and Claudia broke it off, Claudia took a bunch of Hughie's things in a fit of anger. One of those things was what you all know as Pandora's Box. Pandora's Box fell to Earth when Claudia tripped on a comet. I'm leaving out part of the story, but the end result = trouble today)

Sleeping under a table at a road side park
A man could wake up dead
But it sure seems warmer than it did
Sleepin in our king size bed (I actually didn't have any help with this verse and I was pretty drunk when I wrote it. I have no idea what I was talking about.)

Chorus
Is anybody goin to San Antone
Or Pheonix Arizona
Anyplace is alright as long as I
Can forget I've ever known her (Does anybody have any idea how to get out of this stinkin' mess? HA! Claudia had Hughie all tore up for awhile.)

Wind whipping down the neck of my shirt
Like I aint got nothing on
But I'd rather fight the wind and rain
than what I've been fighting at home (Hughie still just trying to express his feeling what with all the Earthly troubles and Claudia running off and all.)

Yonder comes a truck with the US mail
People writing letters back home
Tomorrow she'll probably want me back
But I'll still be just as gone (At this point Hughie has accepted that things are the way they are. He's figured out which direction his head is pointing and he's started moving. This was the beginning. This was my first song and my first message.)

Chorus
Is anybody goin to San Antone
Or Pheonix Arizona
Anyplace is alright as long as I
Can forget I've ever known her

Anyplace is alright as long as I
forget i've ever known her

I decided to share these lyrics with you today because this is a beginning for us. Blogland is a new world for the Pride Parade, and I wanted to give you all a look at what was the first chapter of the journey we have been on for the past several years.

The lyrics you have just read may not have a specific answer spelled out, but the lyrics are the answer. The voice and the ear are the answer. The fact that it is.

The answer is not the words, the answer is the book. The more you read, the less you will learn. The harder you listen, the less you will hear.


Your pal,
Chuck