The Problem With The Drinking
Serial Novel Painstaking
The Evil Television
Then, boost the level just a bit, adding a lot of reverb and echo, so that the amp will be mostly adding ambiance, while boosting just enough to be heard, without prompting any of the neighbors to object to Lillian: "I thought you said he wasn't going to be using any amplifiers!"
OK.
Why a glass of red wine is good for your gut
I have always been a spiritual person.
"The light of the world" is human consciousness.
A friend of mine in high school used to think that everyone else in the world were all actors.
"Like, right now, they are setting up, at the little store where I work, getting ready for me to arrive, so they can all play their parts. They're just standing around, waiting for me to show up. Someone will announce: 'Places, everyone...here he comes!" as soon as they see me.
Maybe God is using me like a periscope through which to gaze at the world, and experience being human, through a human being.
This would jive with Jesus saying he was the "only" son of God.
But, if His life was meant to be exemplary, then maybe the realization that I am the only son of God, would be the lesson to take from his life.
God is three entities, yet just one God...
I have always considered thought based "religions" to be these types of chicken and egg types of riddles.
In order to live, you must die, is a good one, which comes from Christianity.
There were times when I was in my twenties and doing my share of acid and smoking weed that I got the notion that if I were to jump off a high building after having said: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," or words to that effect, then I would not die at all, but the passing of time would begin to slow down, so that I would (to the rational mind, at least) start to fall more and more slowly, to the point that I would fear hitting the ground less and less, as my descent slowed.
I would become lighter and lighter, physically, as my mass decreased commensurate with the slowing of time.
The rational mind might even gain a new perspective on the E=MC2 formula as time slows to a crawl, with the forthcoming? impact with the ground starting to seem like it is further and further off into the future, and even that it won't matter (excuse the pun) because with the dissolution of body mass, it would be like a balloon hitting the ground at a very slow speed, at the worst.
But, more likely, at such a point in time when time itself stopped, then the body would have no mass at all.
So, it would become nothing hitting nothing, at some point in time that would technically never arrive, until such a point that there is nothing.
No mass, no time, no way to feel pain, because pain has to persist for an amount of time for you to feel it.
Then, truly, heaven and earth would have passed away. You would no longer be a physical thing subject to the laws of cause and effect, over a period of time. You would be reduced to the common denominator of pure energy, as solving the algebraic equation of E=MC2 might yield.
So, then, there would be rejoicing in heaven as you join with all the other "souls" in becoming assimilated into a universal pool of such energy.
So, I was harangued by these suspicions into feeling like a wimp, for not having the faith to transcend "the wisdom of man," which might indicate: "You'll fucking accelerate, due to gravity, and be doing about 240 miles per hour when you splatter like one of Gallagher's watermelons, and you might even land upon someone else, killing them and making you a murderer. Then, there will be a news story about the suicide in the next morning's paper; the world will soon forget you and go on without you!" and to exercise the kind of faith that would allow me to walk on water, or to move mountains around by telling them to do so, type of thing.
I guess the compromise that I settled upon was to develop the mindset that I was ready to accept "death" in full faith, but was not going to bring it about by my own volition. I will be the guy that some other wannabe Christian who has jumped off a building lands on, doing 240 miles per hour -never knowing what hit me, type of thing.
But, the upshot being that such thinking can just confuse one and produce headaches, like pondering; which came first; the chicken or the egg to such a point that you finally just conclude: I don't know; I just want to stop thinking about it.
It's kind of like trying to fall asleep with the TV on the Mystery Channel.
Maybe sleep would be impossible because of the tumult in a brain, engendered by being disturbed with questions, such as: "Could the pyramids be markers meant to guide flying saucers to a landing strip?"
And, the remedy would be to shrug, and ruminate: "Who knows?" while hitting the "off" button on the remote.
And, God forbid the seeker going to some church somewhere and asking them what the meaning of the scripture is. The poor soul would be referred to the "scholars" of the fold, who would explain it in such a way as to reaffirm their own model of the world, to condone their gluttony at the Sunday evening coffee and baked goods orgy in the basement of the church, and to suggest that the person who is "poor in spirit," start to religiously read the bible, relying upon them for the interpretation of such, and to start attending services at their particular church (no other, under penalty of hell) to tithe, of course, and to be added to the roster of members of that church, something the pastor could kvell over.
So, I felt like a cosmic wimp, in that regard, and the remedy was just to hit the symbolic "off" button on the symbolic remote.
But, before settling upon that, there were plenty of times, during meditation perhaps, when I was fully prepared to die, and had even relinquished my soul "God, take my life, if it is your will..." type of thing, with the only result, if any, being that, not only did I not die, but I wound up realizing more reasons to live, and having more pretty young girls come into my world.
The Blood of Christ
Which brings me to the wine.
My chief complaint right now, is that I am not getting nearly enough done.
I have been cleaning and rearranging my apartment, in an attempt to simplify things. To reduce clutter.
I have already thrown one coffee table away, and had just gotten rid of the TV that I had given up upon getting any stations to come in on, just before Bobby in building C gave me a replacement for, unbidden. So, I didn't make any headway in reducing the number of TVs in my place, but, at least I made the effort.
I have been trying to pay attention to everything, in every corner of the place.
Am I ever going to read "The Ambassadors," by Henry James from cover to cover? I know I would if I were spending a couple months in jail and it was one of the books floating around the cell block..
And to think that, were I a rhodes scholar, or an Oxford student of literature, I would have been required to sit up three nights in a row, not only reading it from cover to cover, but re-reading it thus, and then would have to read a few equally lengthy criticisms of the work, weigh and balance the opinions, reconcile them with my own, and then produce a paper pertaining to the work within a certain deadline.
And it would help me if I were familiar with James other 16 works, along with having a working knowledge of the works of Thackeray, Goldsmith, Shakespeare, etc., so I would comprehend the references to characters in them, plus, it would help me to have a minor in the French language, as "The Ambassadors," at least, is littered with phrases in that language, describing things that, I guess, have no equivalent in the English language, or can just be stated more gracefully in French, or whatever...
I am about to consider giving up on trying to become better read, to just let it go.
Maybe there is a whole world for people like Henry James, and then another one for most of the rest of us (and maybe a third one for people who listen to rap).
Does James just have a remarkable gift for conveying thoughts that are common to everyone, though most of whom are much less articulate than he, or, does the guy just draw parallels and conclusions that are beyond the intellectual capacity of most?
Don't ask me, I haven't gotten past the third chapter of "The Ambassadors..."
And, I am at the point now, where rather than let the books sit in my library, thinking that I might get to them some day, according to some logical order, I try to periodically crack each one open and read a bit from each one, starting from a random paragraph. This is as close as I can come to being "well read" -I've cracked open the spines of some of the worlds masterpieces of major quality, and dabbled a bit in them, at least.
The Oxford scholars have got to know how to speed read -to take in the James novel in less than 5 hours, while comprehending it- and that is a skill I have yet to master. I say the words in my head. I like the sound of them, often, and appreciate the order in which they are rendered, with, say, the placing of an adjective either before or after the verb being crucial to the conveyance of a deeper shade of meaning,
And so, rather than admit defeat, I continued to smoke pot in college, but shifted my course of study away from literature, and more towards poetry, in which mental state, I excelled at, earning me encomiums from my poetry professor (who probably smoked even more weed than me) and that kind of set the scene for the story of my life.
You can't smoke a joint, read and comprehend 250 pages of "Ivanhoe," then spit out a book report?
Hmm...well, I guess it's time to quit reading Walter Scott, then. It's interfering with the pot smoking, type of thing....
Fast forward to the present, and, instead of committing J.S. Bach preludes for the lute to memory and being able to play them on the guitar, it's more like: How about just smoking a bowl and jamming out on a few Grateful Dead tunes?
Am I ever going to become a computer whiz, able to host this blog on my own Apache server, on my own computer, using PHP and Ajax and JSON and a slew of other technologies, each of which I have of books on, to teach them to me "in 30 days?"
Am I ever going to host a podcast where I walk around the French Quarter, goofing on people, showing different spectacles, and garnering a big enough following to be able to make a living off it?
Am I ever going to get past Grade 3 of the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method books?
And, what about visual arts? The Oxford scholar would be able to become a competent cartoonist, if not a full blown oil painter, just by taking a couple electives in art, to round himself out.
And, so, the push has been to start to go through my place, throwing things away -becoming an anti-hoarder- if I really don't have an enormous interest in them.
Like the "DJ" console that I have, which has two turntable style dials on it and is designed to produce music which is way down on my preference list -stuff that I might just listen to once in a blue moon to remind myself of how much I hate it. Why would I even invest a minute in learning how to run that thing? ...I suppose I could get stoned and do it, though...
It's going in the dumpster, the DJ machine. Someone else can send away for the power adapter for it, so they can see if it even works..I've got too many other irons in the fire...
Oh, Yeah, The Blood of Christ...
Right now, I can brag about being 2 days sober.
The drinking kind of followed a predictable course.
There was the miserable experience of having broken a 3,188 day stretch of sobriety with the drinking of a 24 ounce Tecate lager on Halloween.
This gave me a shitty feeling which I hadn't had in...gee...probably about 3,188 days.
The next day I had the kind of eczema which I knew would leave my skin raw and red and flaky if I were to scratch it. The alternative to scratching it would be to deaden the itching sensation with another round of Tecate, and then, I guess, stay blissfully drunk, trying to sweep the problem under the rug, by drinking myself under the table.
But, instead, I learned a lesson and let it run its course, surprised that it took almost 5 days to feel free of it. During that time, around the third day, my scalp was itchy, causing me to brush extra hard, after which I discovered the brush to have a hockey puck sized wad of hair entangled in it, which had just been torn out of my head.
So, the predictable thing was that I vowed to never drink beer again.
But, a couple weeks after that, I bought a cheap bottle of red wine. This went so well with a return to my long forsaken diet of fish and vegetables, and made me feel so great in the morning, that I determined that there must be a beneficial ingredient in wine, outside of the alcohol, or in the combination of the wine with the garlic, olive oil, vinegar, tomatoes, broccoli, basil, etc.
Then, the darnedest thing happened...
First, I discovered some very cheap ($3.99 per bottle) wines which were excellent. These turned the evening meals into delicious feasts, and the bottles began to flow daily. I would wake up the next day with the excellent taste still in my mouth and would already be thinking of the next bottle.
Then, Bobby in building C got his hands on an expensive bottle of whiskey.
I had never known him to be a drinker, nor he I, but through providence, there was the excellent whiskey in his freezer. Having told him that I was no longer on a streak of almost 3,200 days of sobriety, and that I was having the occasional bottle of wine (which was fast morphing into the nightly one) Bobby and I were soon sharing frozen shots of that particular hard liquor. It was a rare opportunity for me to partake of such quality, after all.
The Greater Picture (No, not "Cats," the movie)
I know it had been a source of pride for me to have been over 3 years sober, but pride is of the ego.
And, I had counted all of the good things that had happened to me over those three years as being the blessings of sobriety. Even to the point where, about a year and a half into it, I discovered kratom.
It was as if God had sent me a comforter, once I had fully healed from the alcoholism. I really had never heard of such a thing as kratom and didn't even imagine that there could be anything like it. It was so incompatible with, and superior to, alcohol that I wondered if I hadn't brought it into existence through the creativity of my imagination.
Imagine walking into a store that you frequent, and noticing some weird looking packages wedged between the erection pills and the electronic cigarettes -something you figure you had just never noticed in there before.
And then, after inquiring about them, being told by the cashier that he had no idea what the stuff was (but that only white people ever buy it) and then trying it, to find that it helped you concentrate, and reduced your anxiety, and, as proof of that, you write a 14,000 word story in one sitting, at one point losing all of your work at around the 6,000 word mark, but instead of becoming angry, you just shrug and say "I'll rewrite it better this time, no biggie..."
And then, you go out to busk and find that you are able to picture the notes on the neck of the guitar in a whole new light, and string notes together as fast as you can think of them...
That was what the experience of discovering kratom was like. It was possible for me to think of the adage: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear," and amend it to "When the student is ready, some strange substance hitherto unbeknownst to him will appear, which will help him."
But, on the other side of the coin, it was possible for me to think; that was all in my imagination, just magical thinking, that's all, and then chug down a bottle of wine.
The wine brought me back down to earth; took my head out of the clouds -maybe all that "spiritual" stuff was just a bunch of bullshit. Maybe I'm starving at the banquet of life, missing out on a lot of excellent wine at $3.99 a bottle...
Well, one thing that I thought about was how my friend Bobby in building C has always been kind of a devil's advocate. Even though he has given me a beautiful electric guitar, along with strings and things, and has always made sure that I had a bud of weed for "tuning up" at the Lilly Pad, has also offered me methadone (which I just didn't like) doloxene (ditto) crack cocaine (which I refused) heroin (which I thought was a line of [brownish?] cocaine until after I had snorted it, and he then Bobby told me what it was*, but which also didn't do anything for me).
*what kind of friend does that?
There was also the gabapentin.
This, I found to be an anti-anxiety drug that made me a little wobbly on my bike as I rode to the busking spot, but took away any anxiety over whatever the result of the night might be; will there be someone on my spot, will there be a PA set up outside the bar playing loudly, will I be attacked and have my guitar smashed, will I catch a stray bullet? who cares...
It helped me to be a pretty awesome guitarist once I became stationary; but, alas the stuff seemed to take about 3 days to get out of the system, and required a little more on subsequent days to produce the same effect -like so many other drugs, it seems.
I was careful about it, and Googled it intensively before swallowing any.
I eventually stopped taking it after one evening when I went into the kitchen to swallow down a pill of it that I thought was on the counter, only to discover nothing there, and to realize that, gee, I must have already taken it...but had no memory of doing so. That would have been pill #3 of the day that just vanished.
So, the first bottle of cheap wine was followed a couple days later by a little 187ml bottle that I bought at The Quartermaster on a night when Jacob and I had busked but hardly made anything. I had decided to take what little I did have and get the little bottle of pinot grigio.
This produced an exasperated sigh out of my busking partner when he saw me placing it on the counter.
I suppose the AA people have a label for the mild rush of anger that I felt, and how I wanted to say something like: "What's it to you, if I want to drink a little wine before going back to busk on a night that has been pretty dismal so far?!?"
I had pretty much gotten a handle on my feelings of anger, at some point during the 3+ years of sobriety. I started to become aware of the chip on my shoulder that I had been going out with each night. I was defensive, and ready to give any skeezer who approached me a piece of my mind.
This had dissolved away to the point where I could look at one bad night in the context of a long career of busking, knowing that a $180 night could be right around the corner. And, more importantly, that the odds of it being right around the corner were greatly increased if I could gracefully handle the lousy nights.
Mostly, it was the non-concern over money that seemed to be a magnet for it. Many were the times that I was so into what I was playing that I didn't see that someone had thrown a twenty or a fifty dollar bill in my basket.
It was instead Jacob who often became angry when we weren't being tipped, and who would intentionally play out of tune, as if trying to make it impossible for them to ignore us.
But, I felt kind of a flash of anger. After all, Jacob had drank beer on a few occasions when we busked.
"I'm not going to sell this to you," said Michelle, the cashier.
She had known me since I was a heavy drinker, before 2016, and had seen me quit for 3+ years, and, at the risk of sounding pretentious, had seen a positive change come over me through the whole process.
I told Michelle that I had broken my absolute abstinence already and that I wasn't, just then, throwing 3,188 days of sobriety out the window (she didn't want to be a party to that). It was already laying in the front yard.
But, then, when we returned to the busking spot was when I discovered that I had left my harmonica on my milk crate, and that someone had taken it.
I couldn't blame that on drinking, since I hadn't drank yet, but, the timing was odd. I mean, if I'm going to believe in magical things like kratom having metaphysically appeared in my life, based upon my imagination, then why couldn't a harmonica just disappear, based upon the same principle?
A few days later, when I went to get a bottle from The Brown Derby store, which is down the street from Sacred Heart, it could have been my imagination again, but I thought I detected a disappointment of sorts among the staff there.
They are all Muslims of some kind and, again not to sound pretentious, but I think they had somehow categorized me as being above the common skeezer who was in there every day buying cheap alcohol.
Going in there a few times a week for a couple years and never buying booze might have led them to respect me, at some level.
Plus, I was always upbeat; in good spirits and usually getting a Bang energy drink to mix my kratom with.
This time, though, I felt like a dog with its tail between its legs; feeling slightly ashamed, as I placed the wine on the counter.
For their part, one of them barked something in Arabic, which was echoed by the other two, with the one who rang up the bottle doing so with aggressive stabs at the keys of the register, who then barked the total price at me, as if getting ready to spit at me to punctuate it further.
I left there thinking: "I guess now I'm just like all the rest..."
Then, the next time Jacob and I went out to busk, one of the employees at The Quartermaster freaked out after I took a milk crate to sit on while I played.
I have taken one from there almost every night over the past 5 years. I use it for 2 or 3 hours, and then I return it. They all know this.
But, this time, for some reason, the guy, who is one of the bicycle deliverymen, said: "Don't be taking our milk crates!," and then added "They're not your property! The Coke man counts them!," as he snatched the things from me.
This pissed Jacob off, who insisted that we double back and take the thing to spite the guy.
"He'll probably ride by my spot to see if I took them, if he sees them gone," I said.
But, it crossed my mind that word had gotten out that I had bought wine there, and this guy might be a veteran of AA who holds all drinkers in disdain and he might have reasoned that, if I was going to be a drunk, then he was going to treat me like the rest of them.
I happen to know that any milk crate left outside that store has an expectancy of about 2 hours of remaining there, and that most of them are grabbed by skeezers, who might just want to take a load off their tired begging feet, and I can imagine the same employee going off on them.
And then, finally, Bobby in building C gave me a couple bucks Sunday, to help cover a bottle of wine.
I wanted just to watch football on my TV and drink the wine, like any other red blooded American (if you substitute Budweiser for the wine) out there might do on Sunday.
In exchange, Bobby wanted me to get him a bag of sugar (not white sugar, though) some grits and some eggs off my food stamp card. He was totally out of food, and had given me the last of his money, and he was starving, according to him.
I went and got the wine at The Brown Derby, and then popped the cork on it nearby there.
I decided to go to the Dollar General, a little bit out of the way, but I figured he could wait a few minutes more for my return. I took a few gulps off the bottle as I rode.
I had some eggs at home in my refrigerator, and was sure I could get the grits there, while being able to grab myself some coffee and frozen fruit.
Wouldn't you know that the Dollar General was out of grits, specifically; and they only had flavored coffee, which I can't stand?
Just a coincidence, I suppose; nothing to do with any spiritual repercussions from my drinking, right?
I mean all the good things in life, I had chalked up as being the blessings that flowed my way, once the alcohol stopped flowing my way. But, when the shoe is on the other foot...
These would have to be curses upon me because of my drinking. You can't have it both ways...
I knew a guy who was schooled in psychology and philosophy who told me once that the simple fact that I was having thoughts like that -the shame over buying alcohol; the superstitions about curses and such, were valid enough reasons to quit drinking.
"Why don't you just quit, then?"
"Why don't I just learn how to buy booze without feeling shame, and renounce my superstitions?"
"But that would be refuting that everything happens for a reason and would take a powerful tool away from you in that regard..."
"Well, I'll think about it. In the meanwhile, do you have a corkscrew?"
I wasn't really keeping track of time, along my trek to the Dollar General.
I grabbed some fruit bars like the kind that I had seen Bobby eat before, as a substitute for grits, and then returned to my place, where I grabbed the eggs from the refrigerator, put them in a bag with the fruit bars and the sugar, and was just taking a few more sips off the bottle and watching a few football plays on the TV when he knocked on my door.
Apparently he had been keeping track of the time. I guess the clock moves more slowly when you are "starving," than it does when you are lollygagging on your bicycle, sipping wine.
Bobby was outraged.
It seemed like, since he could tell that the eggs came out of my refrigerator (it was a 24 egg carton with about a dozen left) he saw it as me being chintzy (because I didn't have to spend more money on more eggs because I already had them?).
The sugar, while being "pure cane sugar" which was a brownish hue in color, was too white for him.
The fruit bars, while like the ones I've seen him eat, were not exactly that kind, and were thus, inedible to him.
"This isn't cool," said Bobby.
And then, he added something about "That fucking alcohol!" as he walked away. "It's turning you into..."
I couldn't make out the tail end of what he said.
But it was obvious that he was being over critical of my every action in light of the fact that I was drinking.
It reminded me of a time when I was working with a guy who was very anti-marijuana who, after learning that I had smoked a joint with some other guys during lunch, made a point of interjecting things like: "That wasn't funny," or "That didn't make sense," after almost every thing I said.
He hadn't been doing the same thing that morning, after I had arrived there probably just as baked -then he was laughing at my jokes and holding interesting conversations with me- but, only after he knew I was stoned.
The pot that I smoked was clouding his thinking, I remember thinking.
Then, the last time Jacob and I busked, it was another dismal night when we only made 9 bucks.
We went to Rouses Market, where I should have split the money with him before we even went in.
We walked around the store, with him making a point of saying something like "Yeah, the alcohol..." as I was grabbing a can of alcoholic seltzer water.
Then, once we were outside, he said: "I guess I just won't eat tonight," implying that I had just blown all the money on alcohol.
"So, why don't you just quit?"
"Those friends, you mean?"
"That wasn't funny."
TV
What a bunch of garbage on TV.
Almost every single commercial is for a slip and fall attorney, an insurance company, or for some new drug that the pharmaceutical company is probably going to wind up being sued over one day by slip and fall attorneys. I guess that's why they need to carry insurance.
"Are you brain dead after taking Fukitol? You may be entitled to monetary compensation! The call is free, what have you got to lose!?"
The majority of people watching free TV are over 50, as they are the only ones who would even know what rabbit ears antennae are for.
And, since 70% of New Orleans is African American, it stands to reason that the advertisers think that older black people are all about prescription drugs and lawsuits against other drivers, who have insurance, and trying to get something for nothing, in general.
Why not just get a friend to intentionally wreck his car into yours, inflicting whiplash upon you, then, after settling with their insurance company, split the money with them. Then, it could be your turn to crash into them, and on and on.
That must be what the racket is...
I wish the president would put the kibosh on that, by closing a few loopholes.
Now that would indeed be giving them something for nothing!
Serial Novel Painstaking
The Evil Television
I'd say, stay at the Lily Pad or whatever quiet, higher-quality places you like to play, but get an amp, not too loud but enough so people can hear you and you don't have to push your voice and guitar so hard, and work on quality while the people over in the "crowded mall lobby" work on being the loudest. -Alex In CaliforniaMy thoughts, exactly, Alex. I can hide the little amp in my backpack, and sing through a clip-on mic that will also capture the harmonica.
Then, boost the level just a bit, adding a lot of reverb and echo, so that the amp will be mostly adding ambiance, while boosting just enough to be heard, without prompting any of the neighbors to object to Lillian: "I thought you said he wasn't going to be using any amplifiers!"
Why a glass of red wine is good for your gut
I have always been a spiritual person.
"The light of the world" is human consciousness.
A friend of mine in high school used to think that everyone else in the world were all actors.
"Like, right now, they are setting up, at the little store where I work, getting ready for me to arrive, so they can all play their parts. They're just standing around, waiting for me to show up. Someone will announce: 'Places, everyone...here he comes!" as soon as they see me.
Maybe God is using me like a periscope through which to gaze at the world, and experience being human, through a human being.
This would jive with Jesus saying he was the "only" son of God.
But, if His life was meant to be exemplary, then maybe the realization that I am the only son of God, would be the lesson to take from his life.
God is three entities, yet just one God...
I have always considered thought based "religions" to be these types of chicken and egg types of riddles.
In order to live, you must die, is a good one, which comes from Christianity.
There were times when I was in my twenties and doing my share of acid and smoking weed that I got the notion that if I were to jump off a high building after having said: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," or words to that effect, then I would not die at all, but the passing of time would begin to slow down, so that I would (to the rational mind, at least) start to fall more and more slowly, to the point that I would fear hitting the ground less and less, as my descent slowed.
I would become lighter and lighter, physically, as my mass decreased commensurate with the slowing of time.
The rational mind might even gain a new perspective on the E=MC2 formula as time slows to a crawl, with the forthcoming? impact with the ground starting to seem like it is further and further off into the future, and even that it won't matter (excuse the pun) because with the dissolution of body mass, it would be like a balloon hitting the ground at a very slow speed, at the worst.
But, more likely, at such a point in time when time itself stopped, then the body would have no mass at all.
So, it would become nothing hitting nothing, at some point in time that would technically never arrive, until such a point that there is nothing.
No mass, no time, no way to feel pain, because pain has to persist for an amount of time for you to feel it.
Then, truly, heaven and earth would have passed away. You would no longer be a physical thing subject to the laws of cause and effect, over a period of time. You would be reduced to the common denominator of pure energy, as solving the algebraic equation of E=MC2 might yield.
So, then, there would be rejoicing in heaven as you join with all the other "souls" in becoming assimilated into a universal pool of such energy.
So, I was harangued by these suspicions into feeling like a wimp, for not having the faith to transcend "the wisdom of man," which might indicate: "You'll fucking accelerate, due to gravity, and be doing about 240 miles per hour when you splatter like one of Gallagher's watermelons, and you might even land upon someone else, killing them and making you a murderer. Then, there will be a news story about the suicide in the next morning's paper; the world will soon forget you and go on without you!" and to exercise the kind of faith that would allow me to walk on water, or to move mountains around by telling them to do so, type of thing.
I guess the compromise that I settled upon was to develop the mindset that I was ready to accept "death" in full faith, but was not going to bring it about by my own volition. I will be the guy that some other wannabe Christian who has jumped off a building lands on, doing 240 miles per hour -never knowing what hit me, type of thing.
But, the upshot being that such thinking can just confuse one and produce headaches, like pondering; which came first; the chicken or the egg to such a point that you finally just conclude: I don't know; I just want to stop thinking about it.
It's kind of like trying to fall asleep with the TV on the Mystery Channel.
Maybe sleep would be impossible because of the tumult in a brain, engendered by being disturbed with questions, such as: "Could the pyramids be markers meant to guide flying saucers to a landing strip?"
And, the remedy would be to shrug, and ruminate: "Who knows?" while hitting the "off" button on the remote.
And, God forbid the seeker going to some church somewhere and asking them what the meaning of the scripture is. The poor soul would be referred to the "scholars" of the fold, who would explain it in such a way as to reaffirm their own model of the world, to condone their gluttony at the Sunday evening coffee and baked goods orgy in the basement of the church, and to suggest that the person who is "poor in spirit," start to religiously read the bible, relying upon them for the interpretation of such, and to start attending services at their particular church (no other, under penalty of hell) to tithe, of course, and to be added to the roster of members of that church, something the pastor could kvell over.
So, I felt like a cosmic wimp, in that regard, and the remedy was just to hit the symbolic "off" button on the symbolic remote.
But, before settling upon that, there were plenty of times, during meditation perhaps, when I was fully prepared to die, and had even relinquished my soul "God, take my life, if it is your will..." type of thing, with the only result, if any, being that, not only did I not die, but I wound up realizing more reasons to live, and having more pretty young girls come into my world.
The Blood of Christ
Which brings me to the wine.
My chief complaint right now, is that I am not getting nearly enough done.
I have been cleaning and rearranging my apartment, in an attempt to simplify things. To reduce clutter.
I have already thrown one coffee table away, and had just gotten rid of the TV that I had given up upon getting any stations to come in on, just before Bobby in building C gave me a replacement for, unbidden. So, I didn't make any headway in reducing the number of TVs in my place, but, at least I made the effort.
I have been trying to pay attention to everything, in every corner of the place.
Am I ever going to read "The Ambassadors," by Henry James from cover to cover? I know I would if I were spending a couple months in jail and it was one of the books floating around the cell block..
Strether told Waymarsh all about it that very evening, on their dining together at the hotel; which needn't have happened, he was all the while aware, hadn't he chosen to sacrifice to this occasion a rarer opportunity. The mention to his companion of the sacrifice was moreover exactly what introduced his recital -or, as he would have called it with more confidence in his interlocutor, his confession. His confession was that he had been captured and that one of the features of the affair had just failed to be his engaging himself on the spot to dinner. -except from "The Ambassadors," by Henry JamesKind of makes you want to read on, to get to the bottom of what his "confession," is eh?
And to think that, were I a rhodes scholar, or an Oxford student of literature, I would have been required to sit up three nights in a row, not only reading it from cover to cover, but re-reading it thus, and then would have to read a few equally lengthy criticisms of the work, weigh and balance the opinions, reconcile them with my own, and then produce a paper pertaining to the work within a certain deadline.
And it would help me if I were familiar with James other 16 works, along with having a working knowledge of the works of Thackeray, Goldsmith, Shakespeare, etc., so I would comprehend the references to characters in them, plus, it would help me to have a minor in the French language, as "The Ambassadors," at least, is littered with phrases in that language, describing things that, I guess, have no equivalent in the English language, or can just be stated more gracefully in French, or whatever...
I am about to consider giving up on trying to become better read, to just let it go.
Maybe there is a whole world for people like Henry James, and then another one for most of the rest of us (and maybe a third one for people who listen to rap).
Does James just have a remarkable gift for conveying thoughts that are common to everyone, though most of whom are much less articulate than he, or, does the guy just draw parallels and conclusions that are beyond the intellectual capacity of most?
Don't ask me, I haven't gotten past the third chapter of "The Ambassadors..."
And, I am at the point now, where rather than let the books sit in my library, thinking that I might get to them some day, according to some logical order, I try to periodically crack each one open and read a bit from each one, starting from a random paragraph. This is as close as I can come to being "well read" -I've cracked open the spines of some of the worlds masterpieces of major quality, and dabbled a bit in them, at least.
The Oxford scholars have got to know how to speed read -to take in the James novel in less than 5 hours, while comprehending it- and that is a skill I have yet to master. I say the words in my head. I like the sound of them, often, and appreciate the order in which they are rendered, with, say, the placing of an adjective either before or after the verb being crucial to the conveyance of a deeper shade of meaning,
And so, rather than admit defeat, I continued to smoke pot in college, but shifted my course of study away from literature, and more towards poetry, in which mental state, I excelled at, earning me encomiums from my poetry professor (who probably smoked even more weed than me) and that kind of set the scene for the story of my life.
You can't smoke a joint, read and comprehend 250 pages of "Ivanhoe," then spit out a book report?
Hmm...well, I guess it's time to quit reading Walter Scott, then. It's interfering with the pot smoking, type of thing....
Fast forward to the present, and, instead of committing J.S. Bach preludes for the lute to memory and being able to play them on the guitar, it's more like: How about just smoking a bowl and jamming out on a few Grateful Dead tunes?
Am I ever going to become a computer whiz, able to host this blog on my own Apache server, on my own computer, using PHP and Ajax and JSON and a slew of other technologies, each of which I have of books on, to teach them to me "in 30 days?"
Am I ever going to host a podcast where I walk around the French Quarter, goofing on people, showing different spectacles, and garnering a big enough following to be able to make a living off it?
Am I ever going to get past Grade 3 of the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method books?
And, what about visual arts? The Oxford scholar would be able to become a competent cartoonist, if not a full blown oil painter, just by taking a couple electives in art, to round himself out.
And, so, the push has been to start to go through my place, throwing things away -becoming an anti-hoarder- if I really don't have an enormous interest in them.
Like the "DJ" console that I have, which has two turntable style dials on it and is designed to produce music which is way down on my preference list -stuff that I might just listen to once in a blue moon to remind myself of how much I hate it. Why would I even invest a minute in learning how to run that thing? ...I suppose I could get stoned and do it, though...
It's going in the dumpster, the DJ machine. Someone else can send away for the power adapter for it, so they can see if it even works..I've got too many other irons in the fire...
Oh, Yeah, The Blood of Christ...
Right now, I can brag about being 2 days sober.
The drinking kind of followed a predictable course.
There was the miserable experience of having broken a 3,188 day stretch of sobriety with the drinking of a 24 ounce Tecate lager on Halloween.
This gave me a shitty feeling which I hadn't had in...gee...probably about 3,188 days.
The next day I had the kind of eczema which I knew would leave my skin raw and red and flaky if I were to scratch it. The alternative to scratching it would be to deaden the itching sensation with another round of Tecate, and then, I guess, stay blissfully drunk, trying to sweep the problem under the rug, by drinking myself under the table.
But, instead, I learned a lesson and let it run its course, surprised that it took almost 5 days to feel free of it. During that time, around the third day, my scalp was itchy, causing me to brush extra hard, after which I discovered the brush to have a hockey puck sized wad of hair entangled in it, which had just been torn out of my head.
So, the predictable thing was that I vowed to never drink beer again.
But, a couple weeks after that, I bought a cheap bottle of red wine. This went so well with a return to my long forsaken diet of fish and vegetables, and made me feel so great in the morning, that I determined that there must be a beneficial ingredient in wine, outside of the alcohol, or in the combination of the wine with the garlic, olive oil, vinegar, tomatoes, broccoli, basil, etc.
Then, the darnedest thing happened...
First, I discovered some very cheap ($3.99 per bottle) wines which were excellent. These turned the evening meals into delicious feasts, and the bottles began to flow daily. I would wake up the next day with the excellent taste still in my mouth and would already be thinking of the next bottle.
Then, Bobby in building C got his hands on an expensive bottle of whiskey.
I had never known him to be a drinker, nor he I, but through providence, there was the excellent whiskey in his freezer. Having told him that I was no longer on a streak of almost 3,200 days of sobriety, and that I was having the occasional bottle of wine (which was fast morphing into the nightly one) Bobby and I were soon sharing frozen shots of that particular hard liquor. It was a rare opportunity for me to partake of such quality, after all.
The Greater Picture (No, not "Cats," the movie)
I know it had been a source of pride for me to have been over 3 years sober, but pride is of the ego.
And, I had counted all of the good things that had happened to me over those three years as being the blessings of sobriety. Even to the point where, about a year and a half into it, I discovered kratom.
It was as if God had sent me a comforter, once I had fully healed from the alcoholism. I really had never heard of such a thing as kratom and didn't even imagine that there could be anything like it. It was so incompatible with, and superior to, alcohol that I wondered if I hadn't brought it into existence through the creativity of my imagination.
Imagine walking into a store that you frequent, and noticing some weird looking packages wedged between the erection pills and the electronic cigarettes -something you figure you had just never noticed in there before.
And then, after inquiring about them, being told by the cashier that he had no idea what the stuff was (but that only white people ever buy it) and then trying it, to find that it helped you concentrate, and reduced your anxiety, and, as proof of that, you write a 14,000 word story in one sitting, at one point losing all of your work at around the 6,000 word mark, but instead of becoming angry, you just shrug and say "I'll rewrite it better this time, no biggie..."
And then, you go out to busk and find that you are able to picture the notes on the neck of the guitar in a whole new light, and string notes together as fast as you can think of them...
That was what the experience of discovering kratom was like. It was possible for me to think of the adage: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear," and amend it to "When the student is ready, some strange substance hitherto unbeknownst to him will appear, which will help him."
But, on the other side of the coin, it was possible for me to think; that was all in my imagination, just magical thinking, that's all, and then chug down a bottle of wine.
The wine brought me back down to earth; took my head out of the clouds -maybe all that "spiritual" stuff was just a bunch of bullshit. Maybe I'm starving at the banquet of life, missing out on a lot of excellent wine at $3.99 a bottle...
Well, one thing that I thought about was how my friend Bobby in building C has always been kind of a devil's advocate. Even though he has given me a beautiful electric guitar, along with strings and things, and has always made sure that I had a bud of weed for "tuning up" at the Lilly Pad, has also offered me methadone (which I just didn't like) doloxene (ditto) crack cocaine (which I refused) heroin (which I thought was a line of [brownish?] cocaine until after I had snorted it, and he then Bobby told me what it was*, but which also didn't do anything for me).
*what kind of friend does that?
There was also the gabapentin.
This, I found to be an anti-anxiety drug that made me a little wobbly on my bike as I rode to the busking spot, but took away any anxiety over whatever the result of the night might be; will there be someone on my spot, will there be a PA set up outside the bar playing loudly, will I be attacked and have my guitar smashed, will I catch a stray bullet? who cares...
It helped me to be a pretty awesome guitarist once I became stationary; but, alas the stuff seemed to take about 3 days to get out of the system, and required a little more on subsequent days to produce the same effect -like so many other drugs, it seems.
I was careful about it, and Googled it intensively before swallowing any.
I eventually stopped taking it after one evening when I went into the kitchen to swallow down a pill of it that I thought was on the counter, only to discover nothing there, and to realize that, gee, I must have already taken it...but had no memory of doing so. That would have been pill #3 of the day that just vanished.
So, the first bottle of cheap wine was followed a couple days later by a little 187ml bottle that I bought at The Quartermaster on a night when Jacob and I had busked but hardly made anything. I had decided to take what little I did have and get the little bottle of pinot grigio.
This produced an exasperated sigh out of my busking partner when he saw me placing it on the counter.
I suppose the AA people have a label for the mild rush of anger that I felt, and how I wanted to say something like: "What's it to you, if I want to drink a little wine before going back to busk on a night that has been pretty dismal so far?!?"
I had pretty much gotten a handle on my feelings of anger, at some point during the 3+ years of sobriety. I started to become aware of the chip on my shoulder that I had been going out with each night. I was defensive, and ready to give any skeezer who approached me a piece of my mind.
This had dissolved away to the point where I could look at one bad night in the context of a long career of busking, knowing that a $180 night could be right around the corner. And, more importantly, that the odds of it being right around the corner were greatly increased if I could gracefully handle the lousy nights.
Mostly, it was the non-concern over money that seemed to be a magnet for it. Many were the times that I was so into what I was playing that I didn't see that someone had thrown a twenty or a fifty dollar bill in my basket.
It was instead Jacob who often became angry when we weren't being tipped, and who would intentionally play out of tune, as if trying to make it impossible for them to ignore us.
But, I felt kind of a flash of anger. After all, Jacob had drank beer on a few occasions when we busked.
"I'm not going to sell this to you," said Michelle, the cashier.
She had known me since I was a heavy drinker, before 2016, and had seen me quit for 3+ years, and, at the risk of sounding pretentious, had seen a positive change come over me through the whole process.
I told Michelle that I had broken my absolute abstinence already and that I wasn't, just then, throwing 3,188 days of sobriety out the window (she didn't want to be a party to that). It was already laying in the front yard.
But, then, when we returned to the busking spot was when I discovered that I had left my harmonica on my milk crate, and that someone had taken it.
I couldn't blame that on drinking, since I hadn't drank yet, but, the timing was odd. I mean, if I'm going to believe in magical things like kratom having metaphysically appeared in my life, based upon my imagination, then why couldn't a harmonica just disappear, based upon the same principle?
A few days later, when I went to get a bottle from The Brown Derby store, which is down the street from Sacred Heart, it could have been my imagination again, but I thought I detected a disappointment of sorts among the staff there.
They are all Muslims of some kind and, again not to sound pretentious, but I think they had somehow categorized me as being above the common skeezer who was in there every day buying cheap alcohol.
Going in there a few times a week for a couple years and never buying booze might have led them to respect me, at some level.
Plus, I was always upbeat; in good spirits and usually getting a Bang energy drink to mix my kratom with.
This time, though, I felt like a dog with its tail between its legs; feeling slightly ashamed, as I placed the wine on the counter.
For their part, one of them barked something in Arabic, which was echoed by the other two, with the one who rang up the bottle doing so with aggressive stabs at the keys of the register, who then barked the total price at me, as if getting ready to spit at me to punctuate it further.
I left there thinking: "I guess now I'm just like all the rest..."
Then, the next time Jacob and I went out to busk, one of the employees at The Quartermaster freaked out after I took a milk crate to sit on while I played.
I have taken one from there almost every night over the past 5 years. I use it for 2 or 3 hours, and then I return it. They all know this.
But, this time, for some reason, the guy, who is one of the bicycle deliverymen, said: "Don't be taking our milk crates!," and then added "They're not your property! The Coke man counts them!," as he snatched the things from me.
This pissed Jacob off, who insisted that we double back and take the thing to spite the guy.
"He'll probably ride by my spot to see if I took them, if he sees them gone," I said.
But, it crossed my mind that word had gotten out that I had bought wine there, and this guy might be a veteran of AA who holds all drinkers in disdain and he might have reasoned that, if I was going to be a drunk, then he was going to treat me like the rest of them.
I happen to know that any milk crate left outside that store has an expectancy of about 2 hours of remaining there, and that most of them are grabbed by skeezers, who might just want to take a load off their tired begging feet, and I can imagine the same employee going off on them.
And then, finally, Bobby in building C gave me a couple bucks Sunday, to help cover a bottle of wine.
I wanted just to watch football on my TV and drink the wine, like any other red blooded American (if you substitute Budweiser for the wine) out there might do on Sunday.
In exchange, Bobby wanted me to get him a bag of sugar (not white sugar, though) some grits and some eggs off my food stamp card. He was totally out of food, and had given me the last of his money, and he was starving, according to him.
I went and got the wine at The Brown Derby, and then popped the cork on it nearby there.
I decided to go to the Dollar General, a little bit out of the way, but I figured he could wait a few minutes more for my return. I took a few gulps off the bottle as I rode.
I had some eggs at home in my refrigerator, and was sure I could get the grits there, while being able to grab myself some coffee and frozen fruit.
Wouldn't you know that the Dollar General was out of grits, specifically; and they only had flavored coffee, which I can't stand?
Just a coincidence, I suppose; nothing to do with any spiritual repercussions from my drinking, right?
I mean all the good things in life, I had chalked up as being the blessings that flowed my way, once the alcohol stopped flowing my way. But, when the shoe is on the other foot...
These would have to be curses upon me because of my drinking. You can't have it both ways...
I knew a guy who was schooled in psychology and philosophy who told me once that the simple fact that I was having thoughts like that -the shame over buying alcohol; the superstitions about curses and such, were valid enough reasons to quit drinking.
"Why don't you just quit, then?"
"Why don't I just learn how to buy booze without feeling shame, and renounce my superstitions?"
"But that would be refuting that everything happens for a reason and would take a powerful tool away from you in that regard..."
"Well, I'll think about it. In the meanwhile, do you have a corkscrew?"
I wasn't really keeping track of time, along my trek to the Dollar General.
I grabbed some fruit bars like the kind that I had seen Bobby eat before, as a substitute for grits, and then returned to my place, where I grabbed the eggs from the refrigerator, put them in a bag with the fruit bars and the sugar, and was just taking a few more sips off the bottle and watching a few football plays on the TV when he knocked on my door.
Apparently he had been keeping track of the time. I guess the clock moves more slowly when you are "starving," than it does when you are lollygagging on your bicycle, sipping wine.
Bobby was outraged.
It seemed like, since he could tell that the eggs came out of my refrigerator (it was a 24 egg carton with about a dozen left) he saw it as me being chintzy (because I didn't have to spend more money on more eggs because I already had them?).
The sugar, while being "pure cane sugar" which was a brownish hue in color, was too white for him.
The fruit bars, while like the ones I've seen him eat, were not exactly that kind, and were thus, inedible to him.
"This isn't cool," said Bobby.
And then, he added something about "That fucking alcohol!" as he walked away. "It's turning you into..."
I couldn't make out the tail end of what he said.
But it was obvious that he was being over critical of my every action in light of the fact that I was drinking.
It reminded me of a time when I was working with a guy who was very anti-marijuana who, after learning that I had smoked a joint with some other guys during lunch, made a point of interjecting things like: "That wasn't funny," or "That didn't make sense," after almost every thing I said.
He hadn't been doing the same thing that morning, after I had arrived there probably just as baked -then he was laughing at my jokes and holding interesting conversations with me- but, only after he knew I was stoned.
The pot that I smoked was clouding his thinking, I remember thinking.
Then, the last time Jacob and I busked, it was another dismal night when we only made 9 bucks.
We went to Rouses Market, where I should have split the money with him before we even went in.
We walked around the store, with him making a point of saying something like "Yeah, the alcohol..." as I was grabbing a can of alcoholic seltzer water.
Then, once we were outside, he said: "I guess I just won't eat tonight," implying that I had just blown all the money on alcohol.
"So, why don't you just quit?"
"Those friends, you mean?"
"That wasn't funny."
TV
What a bunch of garbage on TV.
Almost every single commercial is for a slip and fall attorney, an insurance company, or for some new drug that the pharmaceutical company is probably going to wind up being sued over one day by slip and fall attorneys. I guess that's why they need to carry insurance.
"Are you brain dead after taking Fukitol? You may be entitled to monetary compensation! The call is free, what have you got to lose!?"
The majority of people watching free TV are over 50, as they are the only ones who would even know what rabbit ears antennae are for.
And, since 70% of New Orleans is African American, it stands to reason that the advertisers think that older black people are all about prescription drugs and lawsuits against other drivers, who have insurance, and trying to get something for nothing, in general.
Why not just get a friend to intentionally wreck his car into yours, inflicting whiplash upon you, then, after settling with their insurance company, split the money with them. Then, it could be your turn to crash into them, and on and on.
That must be what the racket is...
I wish the president would put the kibosh on that, by closing a few loopholes.
Now that would indeed be giving them something for nothing!
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