Unapologetically Keith: Helping Those In Crisis : When you can see the Joy and Pain in a singer and it becomes a mirror to your soul.

This post was hard to do, but I wanted to share who I was and how my book "From Gigolo to Jesus" uncovered who I was.

For once in my life- sung by Paul Williams

formally of

The Temptations

There aren't many songs where you can watch a singer sing and feel the joy and pain as they make their way through the song, knowing they are singing to someone and through their personal demons. Paul Williams was a victim of his own drinking. His last performance here allows you to see the devil he was dealing with. He has placed his hands on his wife, he was struggling to remain a Temptation, the group he helped form.
I was so moved to see this performance. Paul's type of talent and passion is missed. This would be his last performance.

In watching the video, it reminded me of how I felt with creating my book "From Gigolo To Jesus." When I worked on the manuscript, it morphed into something else. I started recording my words because at the time I didn't like to type so putting on some headphones allows me to get my thoughts out quicker than sitting at a computer. The book started to take on a different feel. With each chapter I was re-living so much of the dirt which was my life, I was growing depressed. I even stopped recording at a time or two to decompress. This actually causes a delay in the production back in 2010.

I was trying to be transparent about who I was so people could see the beauty in who I grew into as I evolved from whore to man of God. I am attempted to offer hope to readers who didn't feel there was any out from being who they were. It was desperate to do. Standing under the weight of your past is difficult at best, but you have to be transparent for the people you want to read and support your work. The whole process brings you back to the surface of pain you haven't felt in a long time. But looking back from changed eyes you feel the pain more intensely.

This is why this video touched me. When I was at my worse in how I was living, I was torn between what was right and what I wanted. I was addicted to wanting sex from different women, not just for sex itself but the idea of misogyny. I was torn between misogyny and monogamy.
Here I had a beautiful woman at home and I out chasing anything in a skirt. I was laying with women I had no business being next too. Then I would come home and be scared to lay next to my lady. To even think about touching her the same night after whoring with some other woman eats at your soul.

The duality stabbed at my soul, I didn't sleep. I spent hour after hour staring at a computer screen which didn't help free me from the guilt. The computer only assisted in mainlining the drug of attention from women, right back into my system. The minute I thought I had quieted the voices here comes another email, text message, instant message. Before I could finish, reading began laying back enjoying the high which came from internet pimping with the next sexual victim.

This song speaks to my feelings because when you look at Paul Williams face, you see his pain but you can hear his talent. I can see him begging the Lord to allow him to have use of the expertise he was given just one more night. Paul was going to sing this song with all he had to get out what he felt while his soul was clear. He had quieted the pain if only for this moment. You can tell by the way he starts off and builds as he pushes past the pain and his talent takes over. Anyone who is fighting with any internal demons needs that type of release, or you feel you're going to die. In this case, Paul would later commit suicide.

Like Paul Williams's demons, I had my own. For him it was the bottle and mine was women. When I read about Paul's life and like many of us who watched the Temptations movie, was touched by how Paul fell from grace, only to take his own life. I do understand why suicide seems like the way out because I didn't care if I died or not when I was at my worse. A few times even thought of really doing it but like the coward, I was back then, I folded up and got scared to death.

Men were designed to be a hunter, so there is a level of toughness which comes with the masculine genes. However, when addiction, ambition, greed, and denial take their place in your life it serves to carve away that hunters edge so we look for coping agents. Paul's pain in his singing is an inside look at what his coping agent had done to him. Look at his eyes and see the sweat as he fights through the pain to hold on the fading of his talent and his soul.

There is one thing I want you to look for and listen to with this video. Please pay close attention towards the end of the video as the pain is evident as he sings as if he is signing directly to his wife and God begging each for their forgiveness. Damn, do I know what that feels like in every form? From time frame 2:44 on to the end, his face shows it when he says "Lord knows I need her!!". Too often men will indirectly put out to the world who they need to save their lives or what they need to protect their souls. Sometimes the request is honored by the Lord, and sometimes Death has been given your ticket, and no begging in the world will change your faith.

If nothing is done many slips into the abyss of despair, do what they can to end their pain.

I was on the brink and thank God for allowing me to hear his voice and leading me back to Tiffany to save my life. If not, I would have been as dead as Brother Paul, having taken my own life from the way I was living.

Videos of others tell us more about ourselves then we realize and this video speaks on why I needed to write "From Gigolo To Jesus." My book is my snapshot of the world, and I hope it saves someone's life or at least holds a mirror up the way Paul Williams's video did for me.

"From Gigolo To Jesus" www.BravinPublishing.com

To contact
Keith K. L. Belvin,