The Ten Dollar Monday That Came Yesterday

• Ten Dollar Monday
• More Musings On The Identity Of Anonymous

It looked really deserted as I rode into the Quarter last night.
The Saints had played on Monday Night Football, but not here, so no seventy thousand fans potentially flooding the Lilly Pad.
But, I went out anyways because "you never know."
There were stretches where I was playing for nobody, but was getting some very good practice in.

Tim, My Caseworker
and more on "the comment..."

No, Tim, my caseworker didn't leave the comment, even though it might have made a parting shot at me, since he has been "layed off" by the Catholic Charities organization that he works for.

He is going to go back to Philadelphia to spend the holiday with family, and is not sure if he is going to continue to live in New Orleans.



Jeffrey From Building C

I can't say that I didn't ruminate a bit about the possible identity of the person who left the comment on yesterday's post, and nine others.
It wasn't Jeffrey from building C, whom I ran into in the hallway on my way out...
I'm convinced that it is someone who knows me but whom I haven't seen in over ten years.
Let's review the comment, shall we?

Hey Daniel, Be sure to tell your readers that you have been arrested in the past for Child Pornography. You sick fuck. Quite the collection of mugshots you have online. Mobile was it? Be sure to tell your guitar buddy about that. How much federal time have you spent in the past? You had what 20 arrests in Duval County, Florida alone...is that number correct? You have a rap sheet in other places that rival the length of the Bible (which is hilarious that consider yourself a Christian.) How many places are you wanted in? Wanted in Louisiana...Florida...anywhere else? How many times have you been convicted of Fraud? The truth is Daniel, you really are a scumbag. You put on this starving artist act and con everyone around to the effect you act as if they owe you something, when really you are too much of a piece of shit to get a job like everyone else. The stark reality is that you are a creepy, bottom feeding, disgusting old man. Go fuck yourself

Craig Nelson?

Craig Nelson has gone silent with his commenting here, since about the time that the comment appeared.

But, I think Craig, having read the blog for a while would take it with a grain of salt.

The person who wrote it was actually doing some kind of thing that politicians and advertisers do, which is to present data in such a way that an inference will inevitably be drawn by the reader.

If this guy were to have Googled my name and gotten the article about the charges being dropped in Mobile, Alabama then his determination that I was "a sick fuck" based upon that alone, is incredible.

Let's say the guy paid a small fee to one of those background checking type of websites, which spat out that arrest, as well as all the piddling stuff from St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Virginia, Washington and Massachusetts, going back thirty years..

That data should show that all the other arrests were for things like possession of marijuana, open container, trespassing and one "indecent exposure" charge in St. Augustine.

That charge, I blogged about at the time.

It was almost 2 in the morning when I stopped my bike along the side of the road, looked around to make sure I wasn't being watched, and then went behind a fence to urinate.

I hadn't even urinated before a cop, also on a bike, approached with his flashlight on me and barked: "ID. Urinating in public!!"

We were in between two fences, out of view of the public except for us.
Being a smartass, I said something like: Gee, next time could you at least give me some time to urinate before charging me?

Sensing that I was being a smartass, the cop responded with: "Oh, that's worse! If you're not urinating then you're just standing there with your genitals out; that's indecent exposure; that's a sex charge, now you're gonna have to register as a sex offender!!!"

I guess he showed me, excuse the pun.

So, that is how you acquire a rap sheet that "rivals the bible in length" and how a cop can throw a hurdle in the way of a homeless street musician by saddling him with the label of being a sex offender. Meaning that you are a bottom feeding disgusting old man, if you read between the lines...

And the person who left the comment...

Well what he basically did was tell my readers that I was once acquitted of the charge of possession of child pornography, (ignore the "acquitted" part, dear reader) and that I also have been arrested 20 times just in Duval County, Florida alone.

Ok, but he didn't say that those were for minor offenses, he only made it easy to infer that I had one arrest for child porn in Mobile, Alabama, and twenty more in Florida, as well as rap sheets in other states.

If he had gotten his hands on all this information, then why present it that way?
And then, the rhetorical question asking if I had ever done federal time.
This was another way to exaggerate things, implying that that must have been a pretty serious crime. It was the same arrest for child porn in Mobile, of course, a federal offense.

Have I ever been arrested for fraud?

Well, shucks. Sure, that's where I met John Tulip.

I had been in the middle of swapping ID's and becoming Mark Palermo at the time.

My pizza delivery job manager had informed me that my Daniel license had been flagged by the computer as having been suspended, and I was just going to activate the license of my old deceased friend Mark.

I had gotten as far as having sold my car to myself by going to the registrars office with the title to my '96 Saturn having been signed by myself on the "seller" line and the amount of "gift" having been entered on the "price" line.

This was done so that I would pay the minimum sales tax of $65 on the "purchase."

Not that I didn't think that the state shouldn't collect a tax on the sale, but, I was selling the darned car to myself.

This was another case of being arrested on another flavor of the month crime, identity theft; second only to child porn in its ability to make officials sit up and take notice. A billion dollar industry, it is the yang to the yin of Sins of the Flesh.

With the Daniel license being pretty expensive to un-suspend, I was dusting the mold off of the Mark license that I had used when I drove a cab in Phoenix. This was so I could continue working, like everyone else.

When using that particular license of that deceased friend of mine, who passed away before he was able to accrue many moving violations, and who had no criminal history, etc., I was stopped by a cop, who spent only a couple minutes in his car before coming back to me and saying: "You're 36 years old, and you've never gotten a ticket?! That's outstanding, here, I don't want to spoil your record, have a nice night, Mr. Palermo!

The "Daniel" Treatment

This was an additional incentive, the alternative to the experience that Daniel had after being pulled over when the cops would sit in the car, perhaps calling and waiting for backup. Then they would perhaps make me step out of the car and place my hands on the back of it while they asked me the "Any drugs any guns any weapons, any knives?" litany of questions.

I would be asked if I was ever arrested before and what for. If I answered that I had been arrested for pot then I would wait with my hands on the back of the car while they searched it, since they would then have probable cause to be looking for pot.

Then, after waiting until their computer confirmed that I wasn't wanted in any other states or territories, I would be issued a citation for whatever it was that they pulled me over for. All of this because Daniel has a "record."

They would have to carve their names into that tree and say: "We were here."
Just as the rich get richer, the goody two shoes become more squeaky clean.

But, after having aroused the suspicion of a cop for just sitting in my car in a parking lot at Ponte Vedra Beach, and then having that car (illegally, technically) searched and the paperwork found that indicated that I was two people, I was tossed in a cell with John Tulip, the man convicted of having paid a fourteen year old boy to make obscene videos for him.

Once again, a charge that seemed like it could have been the tip of a huge iceberg of fraud, dwindled to something on par with a college kid using his dorm mates ID to get into a club, and I was released after a grueling 4 months with Tulip as my cellmate.

Tulip, who has a computer, probably. Tulip, who might have somehow found the story about himself and read it, since things catalogued through Google using very specific terms like "John J. Tulip, Jacksonville" tend to be easier to be stumbled upon by someone like he, who would probably eventually get around to Googling himself, maybe just to see exactly what his neighbors have all read about him, or "I wonder if I show up on that damned sexual predator thing I saw on the side of that bus..." type of thing.

The thought crossed my mind that it might have been Tulip, if he read that story, trying to lash out at me. Seeing that I was doing great in New Orleans and trying to wreak it for me. Tulip, vintage Tulip... The fact that he would be being a hypocrite in doing so would just be in character.

I am leaning towards thinking that the motivator for the comment was envy.
It may have looked to someone who saw the photo and heard the Primordial Papaya song that I had risen to some sort of status, maybe from being fooled by sounds that are easy to produce with a digital studio, but that to someone naive might sound like I was in a cutting edge band, on the cusp of something big.

This would be someone who is very much in the dark about certain technologies so I'm going to say that the person is older, perhaps even Tulip's age.
Tulip would spit "Your guitar buddy," with venom. And it would fill the bill of having been said out of envy. I have little doubt that Tulip, the teenage boy aficionado, would envy me and my guitar buddy.

Anyone that knows Jacob, would know that we talk about everything, and that telling him that, well, I already have told him the story a few months ago would not sabotage our relationship.

The line about me conning "everyone around" makes it seem like it could be a local person who is referring to literally everyone around here.
But, coupled with his mentioning places far and wide, like Florida and Louisiana, he might have been talking about that; everyone around the nation...

This would be uttered by someone who had lost track of me, but who once was close enough to me to call me Daniel, but not close enough to have had a meaningful conversation with me...outside of conversations about how to change identity, maybe.