Darrell Williams a/k/a YammY

Sunday, 9:12 am, a moment in time that will be remembered at least for the next 5 minutes . I was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. I was listening to and trying to play music since I can remember - starting with cardboard boxes as drums and pencils for drumsticks. I Played the violin for 7 years but quit in 6th grade because it wasn't 'cool'?. I can only imagine what might have been if I had stuck with the fiddle. A concert violinist? A member of the Dixie Chicks? An extra in the movie “Deliverance“?

Music has been playing steadily in the background of my life - a continuous soundtrack always playing the perfect song for each mood. Growing up in the suburbs of KC around friends of various ethnicity, I was exposed to all music genres. Some friends listened to Run DMC, some to Depeche Mode, others to Twisted Sister, a few to New Edition, some to Alabama, some listened to Missing Persons, & a few to NWA. So, you get the point. My parents exposed me to the likes of the O'Jays, Al Green, and George Benson. My aunt was a gospel singer and pianist. I can still hear the choir singing my favorite gospel hymns every Sunday at the Baptist church I attended.

I was baptized at the age of fourteen. Unfortunately, the Baptist church I attended helped to establish a skewed perspective about God and His ways. I was under the impression that God was always watching and judging us, waiting for us to make a mistake so we could be punished. Every sin committed was another dollar towards the purchase of a one way ticket to hell. God always seemed to be angry and distant. Don't do this, or you'll go to hell. Don't do that, or you'll go to hell. Don't even THINK about doing that, or you'll go to hell by Fed Ex over-night 'priority' shipping. For the longest time, I believed Satan had red skin, horns, hoofs, a long tail, huge bat-like wings, and carried a pitchfork just in case he suddenly had to bail some hay. I thought Satan was like that dude in the movie "Legend" (flick with Tom Cruise and the actress in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"). At age 18, my parents stopped making church attendance mandatory. I stopped going because it was not a place of comfort for me, but condemnation. I thought if I ever needed to be reminded of how sinful and evil I was, I could always go back and visit. My late teens and my twenties were spent trying to slip under God's vision and judgment. It seemed as if everything that was fun in life was a sin. I had a lot of fun too.

All the while, music was always playing in my home, heart and soul. If it wasn't on vinyl, it was on cassette, radio, a cd, or MTV (back then they actually played music videos). I missed out on the 8 track era, but I've seen and even touched an 8 track tape or two. So, unlike Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, extraterrestrials, non-alcoholic beer, Menudo and Michael Jackson's common sense, I know they do exist.

After years of overindulgence in unhealthy and self-destructive behavior, I realized that nothing I was doing could or would ever make me happy. God, through contact with good people, good books on Christianity and spirituality, the Bible, and pure circumstance pointed me in the right direction again. I resumed my Christian walk but with a clearer, yet still skewed, perspective about God. I still do unhealthy and self-destructive things, but they aren't as fun as they used to be. The use of phrases like "One more won't hurt!" or "I did what?" or "Crap, the cops! or "Well, if he wouldn't have looked at me funny, I wouldn't have hit him" are few and far between. I've been singing since I could talk (seems logical since singing does require the ability to talk), but I wasn't inspired to play the bass guitar until I listened to the album 'Moving Pictures' by Rush. Then 'Sailing the Seas of Cheese' by Primus sealed the deal. Then, I heard Victor Wooten play and almost threw my bass in the trash because, like reality TV shows and pork rinds, a person with that kind of talent should not exist. I've been playing ever since that fateful day.

I wanted to be a rock star (I really like that Nickelback song), receive all the perks of rock stardom and be worshipped as a music god. Then I realized, through divine intervention and a lot of suffering, that my talent was not of my own doing. I was not the God nor a god, and I was not the one to be worshipped. Once I realized that God was, is, and always will be the Way to peace, love and everything worth having in this life and beyond, I have been much more stable and content. God has opened doors to places I never thought I could enter, and closed doors to places I no longer needed to be (and from which I may have never left). I can now express myself musically and spread the Good News! I can feel great about the music I play because it's inspiring and motivational, not superficial and objectifying. Jesus is a big music fan, and unlike Pamela Anderson's body parts and Spam, I know He is real.

Just FYI: Daffy Duck is da bomb. So is Chilly Willy, Droopy, Foghorn Leghorn, Woody Woodpecker, Tom & Jerry, and Popeye (not the newer ones, but the ones when him and Bluto beat the crap out of each other. I still don't understand why they were so attracted to Olive Oyl. She was like the road between Dallas and Ft. Worth - no curves). Don't know why I just divulged my cartoon affiliations, but I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency. Peace and love, and just like my friend Daffy would say, “Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin.”


Peace and love...

YammY

The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1