A Lost Post From A Week Ago

• I Philosophize Even Though I Can't Spell That
• A Bygone Saturday Recounted
• Ben Lambie Flies Away

A quitter.

Saturday night was as weird as it gets; with Bobby telling me that he has quit smoking altogether, which would include pot; after he struggled through a night when he could hardly breath.

He may have gotten the same flu that I had gotten, and that Rose had gotten a couple weeks later, and that might have been where it attacked him -his lungs.

Nevertheless, it was surprising to hear that Bobby has quit smoking weed "for health reasons." It
had been one of his substitutes for heroin, along with the methodone that he has been
"prescribed."

But, he did manage to quit smoking cigarettes a few years ago because of issues with his lungs, and is, I
guess, ready to do the same with weed.

I don't know why he wouldn't look into a vaporizer, and smoke it that way.

But, that gave me something to think about.
But not for long, because the thought became "in the past" almost instantly.
I've heard that it's easier to kick a heroin addiction than it is to give up cigarettes.
I rode into the Quarter and walked to the Lilly Pad, seeing a lot of the usual things.

I was having trouble dealing with all the emotions and thoughts that I was having and realized that I'm a very
judgemental person, now that I am focusing upon that.

I tend to make an instant assessment of a person and label him, and even "discern" his motives and what he is thinking.

"Here comes a skeezer, he's gonna ask me for something for free at my expense, I know it..He's already affecting a fake limp, like he has some affliction that is preventing him from otherwise working." type of thing.

Now that I am reading a book that has taught me that this is a manner of living that is fraught
with pain and confusion, and I am observing my thoughts, like a person sitting at the bottom
of an ocean watching bubbles rise, looking at them objectively, I am realizing that I am
condemning a lot of people at the mere sight of them. I catch myself thinking, and even saying
aloud things like "ignorant uncivilized punks!" at the sight of young black kids who might
be wearing their jeans half way down their boxers, for example.

But that is not "me" thinking that.

Those are thoughts that are produced by my brain after it factors in past experiences along with worries about the future.
The essence of my being will outlive these thoughts, due to there one day being no longer a physical brain producing them. It is that part of you, that is a silent witness to the thoughts that are produced, but that needs not to identify with them. The thoughts are reflected in the emotions felt in the body. So now, when I see the at-risk youths and their boxer shorts, I am aware of the thoughts that
spontaneously surface, but am able to say "that's an interesting thought," and then, of course,
realize that my assessment of that thought as being "interesting," is yet another interesting
thought.
But, the emotion which is reflected in my body is anger and scorn and hatred, and a person does not want to "go there," if only because it's not a productive state of mind; so you look at the kid, knowing that your first impression of him was that he was a worthless punk, but that you became aware that
you had the thought, but let it go, and then found that the emotions of anger and scorn and
hatred went along with it, and you might even be smiling warmly at the kid when you greet him,
because you are tickled over having been able to work the "The Power Of Now," program and
been in the present moment, rather than having been ruled by memories of having been shot in
the face with a paint ball by, perhaps, the same kid about 6 months ago.
The kid, in turn, becomes very much less of an ignorant uncivilized punk, and maybe even nods his head back.
But then the feeling carries over until, at the Lilly Pad, it is suddenly easier to play, as if peace has
been somehow made on some level and...it's easier to play.

That's how the kingdom of heaven is "at hand" -in the present moment.
Activities that help one focus on "the now," such as music in my case, are thus, the ones worthy of pursuing.
On The Advent Of Humanity
If you were to stretch a tape measure out for a mile and mark one end with "the formation of the
earth," and the other end: "The present moment" you could then write "the appearance of man"
about one inch from that end.
My point, of course, is that I look at the big picture.
For example, the New York Yankees have retired the numbers of players like Babe Ruth and Lou
Gehrig, the Boston Celtics have, I'm sure never let another player wear number 33 since Larry
Bird.
Are these people looking at the big picture?
Let's assume that major league baseball will go on for another 25,000 years.
Sure, why not?
I mean, according to history, we have made it from like 10,000 B.C. to the present, that's not
even counting "prehistoric" times) and so, why wouldn't baseball still be around 25,000 years
from now?
I know. We are going to screw up the planet by melting the polar ice caps with emissions from
our hairspray bottles; coastal cities will be under 24 feet of water, and the added weight of the
oceans will put stress on the earth's crust causing major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
everywhere.
California will finally (geez, they've been talking about it for so long) break off from the continent
and slide into the ocean, maybe doing a Titanic kind of thing with the San Diego end going
straight down and the Redwood end lifting high out of the water before the state breaks in half
and it all goes under.
Then, they will cancel major league baseball, because you can't run a league without the
California Angels, The Los Angelos Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics.
But, in 25,000 years we are still probably going to have major league baseball. Yes, the players
might have some bionic parts, like the 6 million dollar man (who will seem cheap by comparison
to them) or might all be robots, programmed by the coaching staff, but, my point is that ol'
number 7 (or whatever number "the babe" wore) was retired back in the 1940's because "there
will never be another player like Babe Ruth (who hit 710 home runs and is, 75 years later,
already something like 3rd on the all time total home run list)."
Really? Not in the next 30,000 years.
Babe Ruth drank at least a 6 pack of beer before the games, I have read somewhere. Not exactly "sports nutrition," the way a Tom Brady might see it.
The Yankees are going to run out of numbers relatively soon, due to shortsightedness.
Consider that "the greatest player to ever play the game" is probably on the field somewhere.
Labron James, Tom Brady, Wayne Gretski a couple decades ago.
This would indicate that the human race is "improving" exponentially. Like yeast in a
fermentation lock. The players that have come along in the past 20 years are better than all their
predecessors. The ones on the field today are the tip of the iceberg of the players to come.
It stands to reason that, were you to go back to the original Olympics in Greece, centuries ago,
you wouldn't find anyone who could outrun that Bolt guy, who is around now.
So, what are they going to do when they are out of numbers, switch to bar codes on the
uniforms, so that, with a smart TV, you can scan it and the guy's stats, along with other
interesting information and links, will pop up on your screen?
My point is that, the one thing that remains constant throughout, though, is the present moment.
That would be the same for the guy 25,000 years from now, as it was for Jesus.
So, the Power Of Now book is both ahead of its time (because we are living in an age that's
darkness will become apparent centuries from now) and right on time, because it is always the
present moment.
I had wanted to put new strings on my guitar, but didn't want it to usurp from the time I would have
to blog in Starbucks, so I just went out with the old strings on. That was a mistake.
Starbucks was closed, due to the parade, and so, I hadn't saved any blogging time at all.
Then a string broke after I had only made 3 bucks, and before I discovered that my replacement
"set" was minus exactly the one string I had broken. I was playing across from The
Quartermaster, driven a couple blocks down by the blaring music coming out of Lafitt's
Blacksmith Shop Tavern.

No String Of Hit Songs Possible

I wasn't in the mood for creating music for guitar minus that string, fearing that people were
going to be requesting songs they are familiar with, and that the handicap of not having that
string could easily rear it's head.
The familiar introduction to "Stairway To Heaven" minus the top "e" string...not so familiar,
after all -missing a step.
"Smoke On The Water," without the "a" string? Make that "Nope On The Water."

Doing "Miss You," by The Rolling Stones? Might as well sing it for your "b" string, etc...

It didn't feel like a music-pulled-out-of-your-ass type of crowd, besides, I had been shaken to the
core, and had momentarily forgotten that I was reading "The Power Of Now" and living in the
present moment, when a young man dressed like a teen age girl came by.

It was just before the string broke when I was visited by that worthy, who is a trans-sexual of some kind, having the most feminine of faces on which the eyebrows have been tweez-ed and sculpted. The pallid skin on it looked like it had been rubbed raw in an unsuccessful attempt to scrub makeup off of it, as there was a reddish-blue tint to it.

He acted like a female -not just a female in general, but a prissy, stuck up, selfish and arrogant
type of female who feels entitled to the world in exchange for being pretty to look at. An extremely
disillusioned heroin skeezer he is, perhaps.


He is the guy who came by me at the Lilly Pad once, and had no tip money it turned out, but
stood annoyingly close in front of me as I played.

I tested him musically a few times to see if he was even paying attention to what I was playing,
by substituting ridiculous words here and there, looking for any kind of intelligence; he failed.
I could picture him telling his friends: "I love to just invade people's personal spaces, just to see
how they react! It's fun!"

This time, I made the mistake of not recognizing him, and seeing the danger, until after I had given the customary nod to him, or some other welcoming gesture.

A Displeasing Skeezer

He acted like he just then remembered me and gushed: "How have you been?!?" with a big smile on his coquettish face, like we were old friends.

That out of the way, he then asked me if I would do him "a huge, huge favor..."


I have heard other skeezers use this very same foray, and they had all wanted me to do them the
favor of handing them some of my money. The "favor" seekers seemed to be of the more persistent
variety that wouldn't "take 'no' for an answer," as a matter of fact.

I stopped short of saying: "As long as the favor isn't giving you money, I might could help you..."
I was giving him the benefit of the doubt; thinking he might just want me to go across the street
and buy him alcohol, as he appears to be in his early 20's and might not have had his ID with
him.

He then asked me for 2 dollars and 50 cents, so he could "get something to eat." He said he was
"starving," and held his stomach for the visual effect.

I felt anger and disgust flood over me.


Fuck him. He's lying about the starving; and he chose the amount of 2 dollars and 50 cents
because it is a plausible amount for something to eat, an amount which implies that he doesn't
want anything fancy, beggars can't be choosers, just a 2 dollar and 50 cent hamburger from
McDonald's, OK?

It is also an amount that he had sized me up for, which was insulting, having seen the 3 dollars in my basket and probably assumed that I kept that amount in there (and stashed the rest) because it's
chump change to me and if someone want's to run off with it...no great loss.

And thirdly, it's an amount that might prompt a tourist to ask: "Where can you eat for 2 dollars
and 50 cents?," which could be an inroad for him to skeeze more: "Well, I really need about 5
dollars, but I didn't want to ask you for that much; I was trying to get half of it.." type of
skeeze.

"As long as the favor isn't giving you money, I might could help you..."

I could imagine, too, that he probably sets goals for himself: A 30 dollar heroin fix sounds like a lot,
but if I can just get a dozen people to help me out at 2 dollars and 50 cents each....it sounds much more do-able.

There is also the factor that the average person on the street is unlikely to have exactly 2 single bills and 2 quarters on them, and so to "help him out," they would have to round up to some higher amount.

Everything about him said "skeezer!" as he stood there.

My partner in crime...

He was utilizing the 2 dollars and 50 cents strategy like a real pro, but I wasn't impressed. I was offended that he seemed to expect me to believe him in the first place.
"I haven't made 2 dollars and 50 cents," I said.
His neck craned towards the 3 dollars in my basket. The lying skeezer was questioning my
integrity.
"Those are my own 3 dollars that I started out with" (No need to mention the 235 bucks that I had made over 3 preceding nights).
I Become A Death Metal Composer
He didn't budge. He could see the 3 dollars, just a skeeze away; his path of least resistance.

It was as if he was contemplating snatching it and running off -painting me as someone who deserved that for not having helped a starving man out; when people just come by and give me money for nothing.

"I don't have it!," I yelled (in the present moment).

I started to play very aggressively on the guitar.

I envisioned being in a movie scene where my character strikes a few loud and aggressive chords
on a guitar and then smashes it in the face of the skeezer's character.

He must watch a lot of movies and been able to figure out what was probably going to happen in this kind of "b" movie, because he walked away; at last.

"I hate that guy's guts," I thought -a small setback with the "The Power Of Now" program, to be identifying with my emotions like that.

But, I had impressed myself with my own ability to compose "death metal" songs when needed, at least.

I decided to call it a night, as if the effeminate guy was a harbinger of worse things to come.

I saw him later, further up Bourbon Street. He was sitting where young gay men who sell their bodies for heroin money sit. They've got a little section there near St. Ann Street.
Lambie Visit A Wash

Ben Lambie was due to fly out of New Orleans at 5:38 AM this morning, according to the plans that I had taped to the wall by my kitchen; the plans upon which the times were written in Eastern Standard Time, which had made me an hour late to meet him at the airport.

He never came back to pick up the frozen pizza that had been in my refrigerator since he had placed it there 4 days prior.

I prepared to eat the thing, as a symbolic gesture, if nothing else.

I worried that he would knock on my door at 7 in the morning and say: "I missed my flight, and I'm starving, where's my pizza?!"

There was evidence that, while here, and when I had been out, Ben had vacuumed the rug in my bedroom, and cleaned the bathroom, somehow.

All of this, I had done, in anticipation of his arrival, but as a self styled "O.C.D." sufferer, I guess that was due to some of the baggage that he had brought along with him.

The little clip on toilet deodorizer, I found, not in the bowl, but sitting on a shelf nearby. The vacuum cleaner, he had left sitting out, still plugged into the wall. It was as if he wanted me to know that he had cleaned the place. Why else would he contradict himself by cluttering up a room that could never ever be clean enough for him by leaving the vacuum cleaner out? Unless his attention drifted away from it and never returned.

(left) The coffee maker that Ben bought for me looks on helplessly as I prepare to eat the pizza that he left behind.

Pizza is not in my particular diet, but, this one actually had olive oil listed as the 2nd or 3rd ingredient and not the partially hydrogenated soybean oil that might have made me change my mind about consuming it (I would have knocked upon Rose and Ed's door and offered it to them).

Ben stopped texting me after he had gotten weed from Bobby, except for the one's about his "za." Could I hop on my bike and deliver it to him 2 miles away?

So, I watched the clock, pre-heated the oven, and when I was pretty sure that Ben was 5,000 feet in the air, baked and ate it. Sure did. It was payback for any and all discomfort that his visit had engendered.-pretty delicious payback. It bore a price tag of $5.99.

Now
Now, it is after 10 PM on this Friday night, the 23rd of February.

Then, there's the mug that Travis Blain left behind...

A good busking night money-wise would be timely. I still have about 90 bucks left from Mardi Gras and have been procrastinating upon ordering a new harmonica and strings.
The Uxi Duxi now has for sale 5 ounce bags of kratom for $40. That is about half the price of what I pay for it by the shot, and I would be saving myself money in the long run if I buy it; provided that it comes with a measuring spoon so that I can mete out the shot and a half that I usually do, so I don't go through the half-priced bag twice as fast...