The Song of Life.

My Journey continues to bring things to light that attract my attention.

Having the fortunate gift of seeing and hearing the things, God has placed in my way to explore or ignore, I feel the responsibility of bringing about a more universal observation of the things that I have recognized as gifts all around us.

More specifically, the music we make with our voices.

When I listen to a voice expressing the experiences of the singer, I immediately feel the impression on that part of me that I can only call my soul.

I feel the passion of the person who feels the necessity to share the music of their soul.

The beauty of the soul is wrapped in the sound of the voice,  presented to the soul of the listener.

There is so much of life that we do not see, feel or hear in a very real sense, that effect us most powerfully.

If we do not like how things are presented to us, we are likely to turn away from those things.

Placed in our path, things intended for the growth of the soul that we expose to life.

The soul, by its nature is a thing of beauty, searching for the beauty in a life that can be very unpleasant.

The sound of the voice of our mothers, validates the soul. From the moment of birth the soul continues to seek out the things that will send it happily on the long journey through life.

A lullaby is one of the first gifts our mothers give to us (if we are lucky).

Song of the joyful soul of the mother, comforting the soul of her newborn child.

"Song" is an invitation from our soul to anyone who cares to listen to the story of the soul of the singer.

"Three is a Crowd"A Video

http://youtu.be/2641_IJFqsQ
The link above will take you to a video of me singing a song that my sister wrote.

She asked me to write the lyric for this beautiful tune, after she had exhausted ideas of  what to write?

Years after her death, I found the original score written in her own hand.

I was inspired to take on the task of  writing the words to this melody. By itself, the music is a plea for the listener to understand the pain of a heart that finds itself  viewing the infidelity of a lover.

Told by someone who happened to see this shameful act, to the broken hearted listener. The emotion explains how this knowledge leads to the fact that "Three is, indeed, a crowed"!

My sister Roberta was living the truth of the story her music was trying to tell

Years later I found myself triangulated in a similar situation, where all parties involved felt the pain of infidelity.

"Three is a Crowd"!!!

From Where I Came, to Where I Am!

Someone told me a few years ago that, as we get older( after sixty and on), we become more joyful.
I think it depends on how much joy you have practiced in our earlier years.
Joy is born out of the choice you make to be positive during events that, if left to the decadent nature of life, might leave us convulsing in a tearful lump of flesh.
If we do not deny our true emotions in the face of sadness and pain, we are in a good position to understand that we do have choices.

Maybe only two, but choosing to see the positive over the negative, can really lead us to the better attitude, while life tries to serve us our own poop on a platter full of it!

The poop served by a host of past poorly chosen offerings!

If we are lucky, we have learned that being objective is a great tool for life. To be able to stand back at look at any situation from an unemotional position.

I have learned from a teacher that I hated, that the best thing that anyone can learn is to understand
objectivity.

This link is from a notice on Facebook announcing a date held on August first. This will be the fourth time at Parma 8200. I consider each gig a gift from trying to maintain a positive attitude.

To understand what that is, is more than just knowing the definition of the word!
Practicing objectivity can be the most effective tool to leverage your choices to give more positive results!

While feeling old and useless, I chose to be objective and told this old useless man (me) to get busy and take advantage of the mental and physical mobility I had left at that point, to be as young and as useful, as I had energy for!
I chose to audition for a show!
I dared, and to my surprise I got a part in a show that, ordinarily I would not have tried out for, feeling old and  useless.
While enjoying playing the part of a singing monster in a show where I sang, growled, fell and rolled, and ran after actors who were much younger than me.
There was a young film maker in the audience who was making a film for her senior project.
She chose me ( formerly the" useless old man") to play the part of an old man dying of cancer, who wound up being very useful in the life of a young woman who needed to move on from her negative feelings around the death of her young friend.
I present for your approval, the idea that being objective and making choices from that point of view, can lead to better results and possibly JOY!

Check out the short film by Nikki Jackett "the Last Gift"!

https://vimeo.com/69446373
Singing has always been something that I have loved since I was a child. It has taken me quite a while to get up the nerve to get out into the world of singing professionally.

Pass: magichat

Creating A Life Alone.

                                                                   Focus Happens!


It has been a while since I posted anything, and it has not been because I have not been busy.

67 is only a number and at this point has little to do with how I feel.

Work is good and I even started a new blog about what I do, which is things related to styling hair.

However, there is a subtle image of an aging man who is watching a clock that seems to be going faster.

My mind has not stopped creating scenarios for a better life, which seems to be just the thing that keeps me in the game.

My clients unknowingly fund the ideas that drive this feeling of perpetual youth.

Some of the money that I earn doing hair goes toward helping my efforts to do the other interests I have that for anyone else might be overwhelming.

My sister Roberta Davis and I wrote a song that I put on youtube. I love the song, but it's difficult to watch myself, but I hope you like it?

Beside doing my day job keeping me busy, I also maintain a two web sites(Thomas Bruce Jazz) and (American Gift Resource), and another blog(Good News For bad hair).

Some people might call me a media whore, but I'm really not sure why that should apply to me because what I am really doing is having fun with the technology that is available to me on different media platforms. If that makes me a media whore I happily confirm that it might be true, but most people with this title are more successful at being seen being whorish.
Critics be damned, I will not stop trying to sell my wears, old whore that I am.

I am excited about music and finding an audience who wants to listen to me sing the music I love, what's wrong with that?
I am excited about having an online store, and the possibilities of making a living for the rest of my life.
I am also excited about bringing knowledge to anyone who needs answers to issues related to practicing healthy options with regards to hair.

All this is possible through the media that I present to all who can hear, and see.

Reading is importan too!

Success is rated by how I feel about what I'm doing with the tools I have before me. Toys! I love to play with techy toys!

As long as I can get online I will consider my time spent online as successful time spent.

There is also the possibility of monetary gain, which is probably the driving force in all this playfulness.

May I help you? I have so many things for you to see! Like these pretty things!

Have a look?

An article about Thomas Bruce

SALON SINGER

Hairstylist Tommy Bruce on jet-setting with Diana Ross and singing jazz.

Mike Mullen
Updated 12/26/2012

Tommy Bruce got into the hairstyling industry thanks to a recession not unlike the one we're living through now. Bruce, a St. Paul native, moved to New York for college in the early 1970s, hoping to break his way into fashion or music.

Instead, Bruce got distracted by the bright lights of the disco scene. His social life forced him to skip out on New York University, but it also brought him close to the white-hot light of fame. Bruce became friendly with Diana Ross, and she invited him and a friend to follow her to a movie shoot in Los Angeles, where he worked on costuming.

"She's supposed to be a diva," Bruce said of Ross. "But she was always sweet to me."

As the economy double-dipped under Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter, Bruce returned to Minnesota. There, he resumed work that he began as a young boy, when -- working on what he now calls "the worst hair" -- Bruce used to help his mother fix her appearance on her way out the door. She told young Tommy he'd someday be a hairdresser, which he resented.

"I've known I was gay since forever," Bruce said. "But there was still sort of a stigma [to hairdressing]."

Stigma or not, Bruce needed to find work in a down economy. At his first salon job, he apprenticed under a stylist who had worked with Vidal Sassoon. There, he learned a system that was all about angular cuts and geometric shapes; precision was everything. The rigorous standard served him well.

A criminally youthful-looking 66, Bruce said someday soon he will put down the scissors and pick back up the microphone. He moonlights as a jazz singer and plans to devote his retirement to booking more gigs.

He doesn't regret choosing the safety of styling over the possible heights that could have come in the fashion or music businesses. Bruce, who plies his trade at Salon Intrigue in St. Louis Park, has enjoyed steady, interesting work for more than three decades.

Working with hair is intimate, and relationships with clients are not unlike that of a marriage. Bruce has "broken up" with clients in the past. Often, though, these clients realize they'd rather not live without Tommy's services

"I am a servant," he said. "But I am a servant who is -- it's more like, your hands are your servant. You're not going to chop your hands off."

TOMMY BRUCE

Age: 66. Occupation: Hairstylist.Employer: Salon Intrigue. Start date:2000. Education: Maxim's Beauty College.

The World as I See It.

The dilema of continuing to write a blog is constant, especially if you want to write something meaningful.

Something that pulls the reader along through the ideas and feelings your trying to express.

Realizing for the reader is what writers do.

The ideas that are being read are not really new and for the creative mind may have already been played with in the imagination.

I do not want to give a lesson on how to keep the reader interested in what one writes, but as I write this particular entry I am concerned with the fact that no one may care about how I feel about events that are pulling me along through the rest of my life.

So! Playfully I will role along through terrain of my brain, and share with you the things that keep me excited about the life I have created.

Speaking of sharing I have always loved sharing things that I feel passionate about. When I was much younger I remember giving away a coat to my best friend.

My parents were not rich and did not see that giving my coat to my friend was a good thing. So I had to ask my friend for my  coat back that was bought just a few weeks before I gave it away.

The joy I felt watching my friend receive this coat was worth more than the cost of the coat that my parents paid for. I still have the desire to give to people who might appreciate what I'm sharing with them.

Lately the idea of sharing things that I can share freely is the puzzle that I'm trying to fit together.

Singing is, for me, seems to be a bottomless pit of what I can to share for little or no cost.

To me that is.

The problem is getting paid to do it. I have recently realized that, if I intend to go on sharing, I have to get help to help the thousands of people who need help.

Tough thing to do!

I am not rich, but thanks to many hours of mulling over how to maintain a healthy life, of eating and staying comfortable, I have created a system that should satisfy my desire to sing and share.
Deciding to record two CD's did come to mind that it would be part of a plan to do anything but share the confidence I had in my talent of singing.

I never expected to be a Grammy winner, but much of what we do that might be appreciated by our loved ones is lost in the confusion of stories passed down from generation to generation.

Very often the stories cease to be told at all.

I am content that there are two records that will let my family know that I was here!

My gift to the family that I will never know.

www.thomasbrucejazz.com.

The link goes to the web site where examples of my singing will be found. I don't do a lot of gigging and don't feel the need to be adulated by the current public.

If I did my heart would be made to sour.

So many mediocre singers who, like crabs in a barrel, try to reach the top only to be ignored by a market that has already chosen a pre selected crab that had what it takes.

My drive for recording has always been about family pride.

The talent in my family is truly God given and I hope that if one of my future relatives is chosen by the larger music industry, that they do it with the full knowledge of the industry's benefits and pitfalls.

Now that that is understood I want to give you the rest of the plan that is pulling me along.

I did not see at the time of recording that it might be a part of a greater purpose to help me do more sharing.
With the help of Google, and Hostbaby I learned how web sites can be used to create a motion that gets you to a point where you can reach all kinds of people with all kinds of ideas.

Stay with me as I go though the "Empower Network" Marketing program.

http://www.empowernetwork.com/twomas/

Follow the link and see exactly how to make it all possible!

On a Mission to Help the World!

To this point I have only eluded to the idea of the need to change my mind to change my life, but since I have joined the 'Empower Network 'I have begun to understand that most of us need to do this same thing.

The post that I'm sending out today is from my "Empower Network" program where earning an income while I blog is giving me the ability to bring my ideas here where I have a bit of a following.

My earlier posts were about trying to get people to my online store, and that has not changed. however I also wanted to use this blogging place to tell my family stories.

I have had some success with the story telling part of my blogs.

I fear that since I'm changing my focus from family to finances, that I will lose the audience who enjoyed my efforts in story telling.

Please stay tuned because the stories will only become more current! It is still the same person writing these stories. ME!

The purpose has changed though!

If I can convince at least one person to change how they procede through life, I will have completed my intension to help life get better for that person.

Who ever you may be?

If more people have success from my intention to help the happier I'll be!

Read on please!

Being Empowered by this network! Just do it!

I'm having a little trouble wanting to spend the money getting to the Austin event. Just do it!

Even though I do need to "just do it" as Nike tells us all to do. The issue I have always had around spending money is the instant gratification trap.

Investing has always felt like a gamble to me. When you spend your money on an item of solid material, at least you have something in your hand giving you happiness for that moment.

So, the idea that I have to change my mind, if I'm going to change my future, is an important concept to take on as a characteristic that I have to acquire.

Now that I am thinking about change I have an idea about how to get going on this journey with the Empower Network.

If I don't go to Austin I will not be truly committed to doing this blog about the  growth in my senior years, and becoming financially more responsible, and saving my future from discomfort.

Psychology is a big part of this program! Getting the same message over and over really does get the juices flowing to move on the ideas that we have to blog about and get busy just doing it.

Of course hearing the words that encourage us to "think right" makes it more possible to start to "think right". I feel empowered when I listen to the Monday night webinars.

It is these sessions that also give me the desire to succede. Hearing the experiences of the people who have had breakthroughs in their lives give me the feeling that I can do it too.

I am lucky that I like to write about the things that I am interested in. Because that is what blogging is all about. The trick is if you are going to make money at i,t we have to find a topic that lots of people want to read about.

If  you are in the Empower Network and you are wanting to blog to earn an income you succede by doing these two things and they are #1 being inspired by something and #2 being consistant at blogging about it. The more passion we have the easier it will be to write about it. We are not alone in the need to express our passion while doing a blog.

Having a need to change for me is the passion that is getting me blogging. It may be the same for you. Please! If this is what you are passionate about, even though I'm doing it now does not mean that you can not do it too. Copy my process please?

We all have our own way of telling a story. There will always be an aspect of each of our stories that will be different simply because we are different.

WE CAN DO IT!

In the beginning it feels strange telling the world your life story, but what better authority is there about your life. YOU are the authority you can be the author, as a matter of fact you are THE author. If we have nothing else to give to the future we can leave our legacy to the world that we have been here and trying to do something great.

We can leave proof that we are here at this place in time. It is our duty to help those who come after us. Those who might be in your shoes. To shed light on the road that you have paved to get there yourself.

What an opportunity we have to leave a legacy, create your story, and possibly earn a good living doing it. The possibility that the return on the investment of 25 dollars is limitless into the positive dollar income amount that you can earn. Hopefully this fact gives you the inspiration to get busy and start blogging your way to a better life.

Just do it! JUST DO IT!

By

Thomas Bruce

/twomas/?p=52

http://www.empowernetwork.com/twomas/