Still Got a Heart?

Hey there, welcome to another episode of The Book of Donovan. I'm going to do something a little different in this episode, and I'm going to actually attach one, possibly two songs to it. And before you get your panties in a wad, this is not going to violate any kind of copyright or anything like that, and I will explain.

First, let me preface all of this by saying that I grew up with, I guess, two distinct tracks in my brain. One, of course, I loved technology.

I wanted anything and everything that had to do with computers. And you need to understand, remember, I was born in 1970. So, you know, our our first exposure to much of this would be video games like arcade games and then the Atari 2600, the Intellivision.

You know, there's probably some of you out there that's too young to even realize that, yeah, there were gaming systems before the NES. And we actually had this thing called the video game crash, 81, 82, 83, somewhere in there.

And it seemed like for a number of years that video games had gone the way of the Dodo. And, you know, we have to give Nintendo, oh God, I can't believe I'm saying this. We've got to give Nintendo credit because of the NES. And that kind of rejuvenated the video game industry.

And I, um, I wanted a computer. My original computer was an, an Atom, which was ColecoVision's attempt at creating a computer. And they did this split thing because I had a ColecoVision video game system. And at the time, compared to the Atari 2600, the Intellivision, any of those things that were out, quite honestly, um, the ColecoVision kicked ass.

It just had better graphics, a lot of the same games. And then when Coleco saw what was happening in the computer, especially the personal home computer sphere, they were like, well, we can do that. So they created these two versions.

They created an add-on to your existing ColecoVision gaming system, and then they made it self-contained. And unfortunately, it was riddled with bugs. It got delayed. It missed the holiday season. I think in 82 or 83, somewhere around there, it was a clusterfuck. Now, I actually still have one of those to this day. My dad, somewhere around the late 80s, early 90s, I don't know what possessed

him to do this, but there were companies out there that had taken the Atom computer systems and fixed them, refurbished them, what have you. They actually created external disk drives because the Atom, ColecoVision decided that they were going to use tape, but they called it a digital data pack. And so it was supposed to be a little bit different than your standard cassette tape.

Technically, you could actually use a regular cassette tape and not pay the exorbitant prices that they were charging for the digital data packs. I'm getting to the point, just bear with me, okay? So anyway, you know, wound up ditching the Atom, got a Commodore 64 eventually got a Commodore 128, you know, eventually got a Tandy 1000 TX and all of that.

So one part of me was all about the electronics and the computers and stuff like that. There was another part of me, which I think is a creative side that just tries its damnedest to break out and was trying to do it at that time.

I loved music. My dad was a musician. He played guitar and we had, we had a keyboard. I don't know if you would recall these things, but they were called a fun machine. It was a standard size keyboard that it was like the early synthesizers. Let's put it that way. You could make certain selections and then you could hit a key and it would start like a drum beat and stuff like that.

So it was it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And my dad, I forget which Christmas it was, had to be around 82 because it was before we had moved out of that old blockhouse into the double wide in 83 or 84.

But there was this big fucking box and I'm thinking, what could this be? Right. And my dad kept playing with me and was like, well, it could be a robot or, you know, some bullshit like that. because we did have Heathkit, the Heathkit catalog, and they actually had the Hero 2000 and the Hero Junior that you could build as robotic kits. Long story short, it turned out to be a

guitar. And I tried, I tried my damnedest to learn how to play a guitar. And as I'm sitting here in my office slash studio, I'm actually surrounded by one, two, three, at least five guitars in this room. And quite honestly, I think the one that my dad bought electric guitar years ago, it's the

oldest one, I think, or the next oldest one, but it's this baby powder blue electric guitar. And it's got these switches that you can push to make it sound differently. And I went to try to find online a couple of years ago. I thought about selling it. I thought about selling all of these. And I believe that guitar is worth somewhere between three and $5,000 now, I think. I haven't

taken it to a pawn shop, especially around here, because I don't think they know what the fuck they're looking at. But I'd need to take it to somebody that knows guitars and say, hey, how much is this worth? And of course, when I started talking about the potential of selling it, my oldest son is like, well, I'd like for you to keep it. I'd like to have it. Of course, He has no way of, you know, he lives in San Francisco right now with his significant other and their storage space is almost nothing.

And so anyway, I say all of that to say this, part of something that I've always wished that my mom had pushed on me and apparently I fought back on was I wanted to learn, I wish I had learn the piano because I took up at a very early age, I took up touch typing. At one point I could

type 105 minutes, 105 words a minute rather, quite easily. They wanted me to go into competitions and I was a pussy. I was like, hell no, you know, I'll freeze up. I'll make the school look bad. I'm not doing that. So I never did. And I feel like that if I had taken the time and really put my mind to it and done the effort, I could have learned how to read music. I could have learned

to play a piano. And there would have been this creative outlet that would have allowed me to really express my feelings and quite possibly could have prevented me from going so heavy and hard into alcohol. But then again, music and alcohol and drugs are kind of like joined at the hip, right? So I don't know, could have made things worse for all I know. Well, now we have

advancements in artificial intelligence. And there's, I know there's a lot of people out there that will give me shit for this because it's taking away from the artist and things like that. And trust me, I get it. I do get it. I'm, you know, for those of us in the IT industry, especially those that run MSP style businesses, which is what I am.

We are constantly looking at how AI could potentially just do away with the need for our services, right? Larger corporations out there offering, you know, here's a piece of software, download, it'll diagnose everything that's wrong with your computer, and then it'll fix it for you.

Well, that's what we do. And quite honestly, me and my cohort, if you will, you know, we run two independent companies. We don't compete against each other. We do the same thing and we help each other. We just haven't merged our companies yet.

Something that we keep bouncing around. But we're also using artificial intelligence in our day-to-day business. We're both building our own MSP dashboards so that one day we can stop paying these companies like Datto and Enable and all of that.

But another thing that I've started playing around with, of course, is, you know, AI can can make really good images now, can make really good videos now and music.

One such service is Suno. And I've been working on this other little project because there's a bunch of damn streams on YouTube, especially for Halloween, that have these videos that constantly loop and they've got this nice jaunty or macabre style music behind it.

And so, you know, this week I started playing around with that kind of stuff and thought it would be fun. And so far, the results have been pretty good. And I've been using Suno to make some of the Halloween music. And then this morning, because this is more of a personal thing, and this podcast is kind of a raw inside view of me sometimes.

I was like, okay, this is something that I've been feeling. I've not been able to convey it. can't, I can't get it out there. And I like to think that I'm a pretty decent writer. I've actually published two books in my lifetime. They were back in 2012. If you're listening to this podcast and you want a copy of either one, I'll send you the PDF because it's been so long. I'm never going to make any money off of them. One is, was a how-to for podcasting

when I first started out. So it's really, really, really dated. And the other one was a fictional story, almost therapy, if you will, that I wrote after I was let go in 2012 from a job, my dream job, one where I was making $72,000 a year in 2012 in South Georgia.

And suddenly I was faced with a what the fuck moment because I figured I was going to retire with this company. So anyway, I keep trying to write and I don't know, I keep getting writer's block or whatever. So this morning, I just sat down with ChatGPT and I said, look, here's the

message that I want to convey in a song. Can you help me write lyrics and a prompt for Suno? And actually, I didn't ask it for the prompt. It gave it to me because I told it that I was I was wanting to write lyrics so that I could create a song or two in Suno.

So ChatGPT said, I got your back, gave me some lyrics, gave me a prompt. I read through the lyrics. Honestly, they were fucking good as far as I could tell. I could probably tweak it here and there. But I was like, this is a proof of concept for me.

And so I took the prompt, I took the lyrics, and it generated, Asuna generated two songs. And then ChatGPT was like, now, if you want something a little darker or what have you, I said, sure, let me see what you got.

And so then I generated two more songs. And I got to tell you, you know, I don't know about you, but I'm I'm one of these people that certain certain songs, honestly, whether they've got lyrics in them or not, will elicit an emotional response from me because, you know, I don't consider myself an emotional person, honestly.

But, you know, and that's one of the things I noticed that whenever I would imbibe, whatever was blocking those emotions, whatever that gate was, whatever that locked door was, would suddenly just come crashing open, right? And I mean, there were there were times that I would just turn into a fucking puddle of tears for no apparent reason, whether I felt like the world was just crashing into me.

There was no hope, no future, whatever it was. And even after, you know, not having had a drop of alcohol for over three years now, there's certain movies, especially with the with with the musical score that I'll just I'll well up and, you know, just stop short of a good old cry, as they say.

And so I've got to admit, you know, I didn't I didn't do the music. I honestly did not write the lyrics, but this is what I keep trying to tell people that this is this is what I view AI as now.

I may have mentioned this on a previous episode of the Book of Donovan, but I view the way we can interact and use artificial intelligence to help us either in our business lives or our day to day personal lives or just our creative sides of our lives is the way they use the computer in Star Trek like TNG.

Geordi and Data knew what it was that they wanted to build, knew what it was that they wanted to fix, and so they utilized the computer to build the pieces and the parts and put it all together.

And the thing that you need to keep in mind is they may not, well, data probably could, but Jordy would not necessarily have the expertise to build the widget, but he knew enough to be able to tell the computer, build this widget and this widget needs to do X.

And that's the way I view AI now, that you may think I'm being naive and that's fine, but that's the way I approach it today. And so what I wanted to do with this episode is attach these two songs after I'm done running my mouth and just, you know, just listen.

Give me feedback if you want and know that if I could play the music and I could have written these lyrics, this is pretty damn close to what I would have done based on the way I was feeling this morning. So anyway, I'm going to get off here.

Stop jabbering on about the two songs. I'm going to attach them at the end of this. I hope you enjoy them. Maybe they'll bring a tear to your eye. Maybe they'll touch some part of you that is feeling the same way I am. You know, I'm a 56-year-old man that's coming up, you know, May of next year being married 37 years.

And these long-term marriages can be tough. That's all I'll say. Other than the fact that I love my wife. Don't ever let that go without saying, I love my wife. which is the reason why I felt like it was so important to try to get these songs created this morning. And then the results I was astonished by. I don't know. Maybe my bar is low.

You be the judge. Anyway, that's it for now. Take care of yourselves. And here are those songs. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you the names of the damn things. The first one you'll be listening to is called Still Got a Heart and the second one is How Long Can a Good Man Hold On. Okay, now to the songs.

We built a life from sweat and tears My silence fills up all the space we used to use I put the bottle down for good Left those old demons where they lay I did the things I knew I should Funny how the good man still gets lost along the way I thought giving up the things that hurt me Might give me back the man I used to be

But these days I don't feel much of anything And that's the part that scares me I just wanna be happy I just wanna feel alive I want somebody to reach for me like they did once upon a time I don't need another young man's life Don't need to turn back thirty years

I just want something left inside me That can still feel something here God, I don't need much I just wanna be happy There's a mortgage on the kitchen table Power bill and groceries in a stack

Everybody knows that I'll be able So everybody lays another something on my back And I carry it, cause that's what I do Keep the lights on, keep the whole damn thing afloat Then I hate myself for keeping score When I know there's men out there with nothing left at all I got a roof, I got a family I got more than some men ever see

So what kind of bastard looks around at all of this And asks, what about me? I just wanna be happy I just wanna feel alive I want somebody to reach for me Like they did once upon a time I don't need another young man's life Don't need to turn back 30 years

I just want something left inside me That can still feel something here God, I don't need much I just wanna be happy There was a time she'd look across the room And I knew exactly what that look would mean Now I could disappear beside her

And I wonder if she'd notice I had gone unseen I'm still here, and I'm still faithful Even when temptation whispers low But honor gets a little heavier When you're starving for the touch you used to know And I'm not asking for perfection I'm not asking her to save my life I just want to know she still can see me

There's something more than the man who makes things right More than the paycheck and the problem solved More than the one who's always standing strong I wanna lay these shoulders down beside her And feel like somewhere I still belong Cause time ain't waiting Neither am I getting young There's fewer summers out in front of me

Then all the one's already gone And I don't want another woman I want the woman who wanted me I want the two of us from years ago Or whoever we still have time to be I just want to be happy I just want to feel alive

I want her hand to reach across that bed And remind me I'm still on her mind I don't need to chase my younger days And drown myself to disappear I fought too hard to get this far Just to go numb standing here I wanna laugh until it hurts again Wanna wake up wanting one more day

I want to look at everything I've built And I'd wonder why I feel this way I don't need much I don't need everything I just want to feel something

I just want to be happy Coming up on 40 years Still sleeping in the same old room I'm not ready to call this living If living means I've got nothing left to lose So if there's still a fire between us Even one small ember in the dark

Come a little closer And remind me I've still got a heart

I gave up drinking, gave up running Gave up nights I couldn't remember I buried every selfish habit That ever burned the ones I loved I learned to wake up clear each morning

Learned there's debts a man should pay I thought becoming someone better Would make me happier someday But the house is quiet after midnight And she's sleeping inches from my skin Funny how a bed can hold two people And still feel empty as it's ever been

How long can a good man hold on When holding on is all he's got How long can you live without being wanted Before you start wanting what you should not I don't want somebody else's woman I don't want to tear this whole thing down But I'm scared one day somebody might see me

And I've forgotten what it's like to be found I've been strong for everybody for so damn long Tell me how long can a good man hold on I keep the mortgage paid on Friday Keep the groceries in the fridge

Keep the water hot, the lights on Keep repairing every broken thing there is If somebody needs it, I will handle it That's the role I've always played Somewhere I became the answer To every problem anybody ever made And I know that sounds ungrateful Hell, I've called myself much worse

I got a home and I've got people Who'd probably say that I've been blessed But blessings don't make loneliness disappear And gratitude can't make you whole Sometimes having everything you're supposed to want Makes the emptiness harder to explain How long can a good man hold on When holding on is all he's got

How long can you live without being wanted Before you start wanting what you should not I don't want somebody else's woman I don't want some stranger in my arms I want the one who used to pull me closer Like losing me would break her heart I've been strong for everybody For so damn long

Tell me how long can a good man hold on I'm old enough to know that passion changes Young enough to know I'm not quite dead And there's more to love than tangled sheets But there's more to marriage than sharing a bed I miss a hand upon my shoulder

A kiss that isn't habit or goodbye I miss walking through the door and knowing There was someone glad that I'd arrived I miss being somebody's hungry God, that sounds selfish when it's set But I can't pretend I don't remember What it felt like to be wanted in that bed And maybe she has reasons

Maybe there's hurt I never saw Maybe she's as lost inside this marriage As I've been feeling all along But I can't fix what won't be spoken Can't rebuild what we won't name And every year the calendar gets shorter While every night feels just the same Sometimes I wonder what would happen

If somebody looked at me that way If she laughed a little too long at something And found some reason she should stay Would I remember all my promises?

Would I turn around and walk away? I like to think I know the answer But I'm more afraid of that question every day Cause I'm human, cause I'm lonely Cause there's only so much time Because I spent half a lifetime being needed And somehow stopped being desired And I hate myself for thinking it

Like wanting love makes me unkind But there's a difference between being faithful Slowly dying inside I don't want to leave her I don't want to betray her I don't want another life I want this life I just want to feel alive in it

How long can a good man hold on When holding on is breaking him apart How long can he keep carrying everybody While nobody carries his heart I don't want somebody else's woman I want the woman I came home to all these years

I want her to look at me and really see me Before there's nothing left of us but years Before resentment turns to anger Before loneliness turns wrong Before somebody else's kindness Feels like somewhere I belong I'm trying to be an honorable man

But God, I'm tired of being strong So tell me How long can a good man hold on?