Wow, I got about 4 times as many hits on the post entitled "The Tipping Point," from a couple days ago, than I get on the average post.
When I look at the traffic sources for any post which draws heavier traffic than usual, there are usually some that look like government agencies, or bots that monitor the Internet for certain "keywords" in hopes of catching terrorists, over the past couple decades, but, more recently, I suspect that it is the Cancel Culture on the prowl.
"The Tipping Point" most likely drew attention because it sounds like I might be close to thinking about inciting an insurrection.
Around ten years ago, I entitled a post: "Things Are About To Explode Around Here," which meant that I was here in New Orleans, right before the carnival season, and was anticipating the boon in tourism and its possible effect upon my tip jar. Back then, I had so few regular readers that I noticed that I had garnered a new one. And I had time to check on the traffic source to learn that the new reader had been directed here through some Homeland Security type URL with a ".gov" extension.
Homeland Security dudes: I know you guy's are probably very busy these days, and so I will try to avoid using provocative blog post titles, that you might be required to investigate manually, after your bots call them out.
But, I must honestly say that; if I were actually trying to rouse the rabble and organize and insurrection, I would probably use blog post titles like "Just Another Day In Paradise," and would probably name the blog something like "Mock Apple Pie," or something equally innocuous sounding. It would certainly be a term that only 2 or 3 people on the entire planet might ever care to Google. I would even go so far as to begin posts with lines like: "I was up by 3 PM, had my chicory coffee and then checked a nearby dumpster for lettuce," type of thing, to lull the agents to sleep...
I woke up this (Wednesday) afternoon in a much smaller pool of my own sweat than the previous day when I had immediately showered and gotten dressed and walked to the front desk to request maintenance on my heating and air conditioning unit.
My thermometer was reading 91.7 degrees that afternoon and I felt like I hadn't gotten the deep REM cycle sleep that one needs to remain sane.
My Dream: Still Alive
I had had a disturbing dream which integrated the (pretty loud) music that I had chosen to sleep to, or more accurately, the music that I was listening to when sleep had chosen to do me.
I think I have something like 8 days worth of continuous music without repeating anything, on my hard drive.
So, I select the root directory, named "music" and then hit the shuffle button represented in my player by the icon of a pair of dice.
I like this representation because it implies the game of chance, or the gamble, that I take when shuffling my 8 days worth of music. There's some Taylor Swift in there, are you really sure you want to cast those die??
But, this leaves things in the hands of God, and He didn't disappoint.
I dreamed that there was a funeral being held for my friend, Jacob Scardino in the Sacred Heart church that is attached to our building (which is where Louis Armstrong married his first wife in the early 60's by the way)
Somehow, 5,000 people had shown up, including Bob Caravajal, who was Jacob's legal guarding from the age of 14 until he recently turned 21. Bob was the one who had given me the figure of 5,000, as he was the keeper of the guest book and had collected the autographs of all the attendees.
I saw, in no particular order, David Bowie, Elvis Costello and his wife, Diana Krall, Jeff Beck, my London friends the Lidgleys, Elton John and a lot of non celebrities like Jacob's church friends from the First Baptist Church where he used to play the keyboards on Sundays
There was an altar set up with musical instruments that equally became Jacob's studio at Bob's house where the former and I jam, in the way that things can happen only in dreams -the altar being also Jacob's studio, and somewhat like a studio that was only a few houses from where I grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
Bob is a hoarder and his house is full of collectibles, crammed with them would be a better term, with the overflow cramming the garage that sits at the rear of the property. If his yard was a lot bigger, I'm sure he would collect garages. It would be the "garages of the world" display, on 40 acres, and each would be stuffed full of things: this one full of suits of armor from each medieval century; that one full of stuffed and mounted birds with only the pedestal labelled "dodo bird" unoccupied, type of thing.
Thus, it made sense, as much as dreams could, that Bob had gotten the signatures of all the guests, and that a lot of them were celebrities.
But then, I was up on the altar/stage/studio singing "We're All Alone," the Boz Scaggs song which I knew, through being able to read the mind of one girl named Leah Dupree
(who is the girl featured in a Jacob produced music video called "Cocoa Soap" that I was referring to the fact that Jacob and I are "all alone" as far as being beyond categorization artistically, given the music we produce (with the possible exception of Tom Waits joining us). That is what the song meant at the funeral.
There was other weirdness, like the fact that, when I was playing the song, I looked over to see that Jacob was accompanying me on a keyboard that was out of sight behind a bunch of speakers (and probably stuffed birds) and that he was hiding from the 5,000 people; probably because he was supposed to be dead.
But then, I awoke in a puddle of sweat with no dry spot left on a pillow that had already been flipped over a few times, with music playing loudly.
I was able to determine by reviewing the playlist that Boz Scaggs had indeed sung "We're All Alone" about an hour before I woke up for the final time and got out of bed, to go directly to the front desk to complain about my air conditioner.
But, where the dream blurs with reality has to do with Leland Sklar, whose videos I have been watching every morning upon awakening.
Leland is a 60 something studio bass player who has played on something like 25,000 songs and was a cohort of "The Wreaking Crew" whom you hear backing up the artists on almost every record produced over about a 20 year period.
So, given the 3 hour time difference between New Orleans and Los Angeles, it is quite likely that, while I was dreaming a dream that was been influenced by Boz Scaggs singing "We're All Alone," Leland was probably taking his dogs on their morning walk, and pondering which song, out of all those that he played the bass on, that he wanted to feature for that day's Youtube post.
That evening I checked his channel to see that he had posted "We're All Alone," the version of the Boz Scaggs song done by Rita Coolidge, which he played the bass part on.
Was I dreaming? Nope, it's still up there and the timeline matches...*twighlight theme plays for a few seconds*
So, that is just one of a dozen such freaky occurrences of just the past couple days.
The other one involved my having gotten in touch with an old high school friend named Ted Broughey whom I spoke with for over an hour during a couple separate calls.
When I happened to mention Leland Sklar, he piped right up.
He has a friend, named Gus Miller, who had been the lead singer in a band called Peer Pressure, that Ted was in.
I knew the guys.
They all pitched in and rented a house about 10 miles outside of Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
In June of 1984, I was fired from a job at Wang Labs, in Tewksbury, Mass.
Wang Labs was then the third largest computer manufacturer in the world, behind IBM and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) but since they were stalwart makers of "mainframe" systems the size of refrigerators, which were shipped with 256K -or about 1/16th of what is in my smartphone- of memory, they were quickly put out of business when personal computers came along. Well, that, and the fact that they no longer had me there to help them, I guess...but I digress.
I was still living with my parents and I didn't want to break the news to them about my situation until after I had gotten another job, so I would leave home at the usual time, and then go hang out with the Peer Pressure guys at that house for about 8 hours, pretending I was at work.
But, Ted mentioned that Gus had, just that morning, played on some thing with Leland Sklar, using some kind of software that splits the screen into separate views of each guy playing.
So, I went to Leland's latest post and; there was the friend of the guy I was on the phone with; doing a cover of Phil Collin's "Easy Lover," occupying one pane of a screen that was split 5 ways.
I didn't recognize the guy because, by the time he had joined Peer Pressure, I had gotten another job and was no longer in the picture, excuse the pun...
But; that would be synchronicity number 2, out of about a dozen freaky occurrences, within the past few days.
Add to that the fact that I have been getting poor quality sleep in my 92 degree room lately, and it all seems pretty dream-like.
So, here it is Thursday, and I have been fasting for a whole 24 hours and am about to send a half dozen apples from my refrigerator through the juicer, to produce my dinner...
The urge to eat is strong; but that is the tipping point of any successful fast and cleanse. I look forward to more of the kind of energy that has fueled the writing of this post. Had I been sipping wine, this post would be about one third its current length.
But, I am going to ride down to Banks Meat Market for a can of food for Harold; and there will be the wine bottles, asking the tacit question: "Forgetting something, Daniel?"
Update:
Leland has e-mailed me (through the agency of Ted?) to say that he would be willing to add bass parts to any of my "projects."
He has posted a similar invitation to any and all who read his daily Youtube postings...so, that kind of tempers my hopes a bit...
But, within 48 hours, I have gone from contemplating suicide to living on the enthusiasm that comes from thinking about having the bassist who played on "Running On Empty," by Jackson Browne and "Susudio," by Phil Collins, not to mention "We're All Alone" by Rita Coolidge, putting a bassline on "The Carcass Song," and then Hightailing the .flac files back to me...
Ted must have told him I was good, or something, LOL!
It's amazing what just 24 hours of returning to fasting and cleansing can manifest in the real world....!
Eckhart Tolle was spot on, on that head..
 |
Ted Broughey, along with the sister of his that "unfriended" me... |
When I look at the traffic sources for any post which draws heavier traffic than usual, there are usually some that look like government agencies, or bots that monitor the Internet for certain "keywords" in hopes of catching terrorists, over the past couple decades, but, more recently, I suspect that it is the Cancel Culture on the prowl.
"The Tipping Point" most likely drew attention because it sounds like I might be close to thinking about inciting an insurrection.
Around ten years ago, I entitled a post: "Things Are About To Explode Around Here," which meant that I was here in New Orleans, right before the carnival season, and was anticipating the boon in tourism and its possible effect upon my tip jar. Back then, I had so few regular readers that I noticed that I had garnered a new one. And I had time to check on the traffic source to learn that the new reader had been directed here through some Homeland Security type URL with a ".gov" extension.
Homeland Security dudes: I know you guy's are probably very busy these days, and so I will try to avoid using provocative blog post titles, that you might be required to investigate manually, after your bots call them out.
But, I must honestly say that; if I were actually trying to rouse the rabble and organize and insurrection, I would probably use blog post titles like "Just Another Day In Paradise," and would probably name the blog something like "Mock Apple Pie," or something equally innocuous sounding. It would certainly be a term that only 2 or 3 people on the entire planet might ever care to Google. I would even go so far as to begin posts with lines like: "I was up by 3 PM, had my chicory coffee and then checked a nearby dumpster for lettuce," type of thing, to lull the agents to sleep...
I woke up this (Wednesday) afternoon in a much smaller pool of my own sweat than the previous day when I had immediately showered and gotten dressed and walked to the front desk to request maintenance on my heating and air conditioning unit.
My thermometer was reading 91.7 degrees that afternoon and I felt like I hadn't gotten the deep REM cycle sleep that one needs to remain sane.
My Dream: Still Alive
I had had a disturbing dream which integrated the (pretty loud) music that I had chosen to sleep to, or more accurately, the music that I was listening to when sleep had chosen to do me.
I think I have something like 8 days worth of continuous music without repeating anything, on my hard drive.
So, I select the root directory, named "music" and then hit the shuffle button represented in my player by the icon of a pair of dice.
I like this representation because it implies the game of chance, or the gamble, that I take when shuffling my 8 days worth of music. There's some Taylor Swift in there, are you really sure you want to cast those die??
But, this leaves things in the hands of God, and He didn't disappoint.
I dreamed that there was a funeral being held for my friend, Jacob Scardino in the Sacred Heart church that is attached to our building (which is where Louis Armstrong married his first wife in the early 60's by the way)
 |
| Dream of Jacob's demise grossly exaggerated |
Somehow, 5,000 people had shown up, including Bob Caravajal, who was Jacob's legal guarding from the age of 14 until he recently turned 21. Bob was the one who had given me the figure of 5,000, as he was the keeper of the guest book and had collected the autographs of all the attendees.
 |
| Jacob's hoarding guardian, Bob |
I saw, in no particular order, David Bowie, Elvis Costello and his wife, Diana Krall, Jeff Beck, my London friends the Lidgleys, Elton John and a lot of non celebrities like Jacob's church friends from the First Baptist Church where he used to play the keyboards on Sundays
There was an altar set up with musical instruments that equally became Jacob's studio at Bob's house where the former and I jam, in the way that things can happen only in dreams -the altar being also Jacob's studio, and somewhat like a studio that was only a few houses from where I grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
Bob is a hoarder and his house is full of collectibles, crammed with them would be a better term, with the overflow cramming the garage that sits at the rear of the property. If his yard was a lot bigger, I'm sure he would collect garages. It would be the "garages of the world" display, on 40 acres, and each would be stuffed full of things: this one full of suits of armor from each medieval century; that one full of stuffed and mounted birds with only the pedestal labelled "dodo bird" unoccupied, type of thing.
Thus, it made sense, as much as dreams could, that Bob had gotten the signatures of all the guests, and that a lot of them were celebrities.
But then, I was up on the altar/stage/studio singing "We're All Alone," the Boz Scaggs song which I knew, through being able to read the mind of one girl named Leah Dupree
 |
From Leah Dupree and The Doodz: "Cocoa Soap" |
There was other weirdness, like the fact that, when I was playing the song, I looked over to see that Jacob was accompanying me on a keyboard that was out of sight behind a bunch of speakers (and probably stuffed birds) and that he was hiding from the 5,000 people; probably because he was supposed to be dead.
But then, I awoke in a puddle of sweat with no dry spot left on a pillow that had already been flipped over a few times, with music playing loudly.
I was able to determine by reviewing the playlist that Boz Scaggs had indeed sung "We're All Alone" about an hour before I woke up for the final time and got out of bed, to go directly to the front desk to complain about my air conditioner.
But, where the dream blurs with reality has to do with Leland Sklar, whose videos I have been watching every morning upon awakening.
Leland is a 60 something studio bass player who has played on something like 25,000 songs and was a cohort of "The Wreaking Crew" whom you hear backing up the artists on almost every record produced over about a 20 year period.
James Taylor, Carol King, Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Karla Bonhoff, Phil Collins, The Beach Boys, The Association, Hall and Oates... The list goes on, but I will stop here before Google thinks I am trolling -trying to draw viewers to this blog by prostituting names, type of thing...
So, given the 3 hour time difference between New Orleans and Los Angeles, it is quite likely that, while I was dreaming a dream that was been influenced by Boz Scaggs singing "We're All Alone," Leland was probably taking his dogs on their morning walk, and pondering which song, out of all those that he played the bass on, that he wanted to feature for that day's Youtube post.
That evening I checked his channel to see that he had posted "We're All Alone," the version of the Boz Scaggs song done by Rita Coolidge, which he played the bass part on.
Was I dreaming? Nope, it's still up there and the timeline matches...*twighlight theme plays for a few seconds*
So, that is just one of a dozen such freaky occurrences of just the past couple days.
The other one involved my having gotten in touch with an old high school friend named Ted Broughey whom I spoke with for over an hour during a couple separate calls.
When I happened to mention Leland Sklar, he piped right up.
He has a friend, named Gus Miller, who had been the lead singer in a band called Peer Pressure, that Ted was in.
I knew the guys.
They all pitched in and rented a house about 10 miles outside of Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
In June of 1984, I was fired from a job at Wang Labs, in Tewksbury, Mass.
Wang Labs was then the third largest computer manufacturer in the world, behind IBM and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) but since they were stalwart makers of "mainframe" systems the size of refrigerators, which were shipped with 256K -or about 1/16th of what is in my smartphone- of memory, they were quickly put out of business when personal computers came along. Well, that, and the fact that they no longer had me there to help them, I guess...but I digress.
 |
| Ted Broughey, circa 1983 -the Peer Pressure era |
I was still living with my parents and I didn't want to break the news to them about my situation until after I had gotten another job, so I would leave home at the usual time, and then go hang out with the Peer Pressure guys at that house for about 8 hours, pretending I was at work.
But, Ted mentioned that Gus had, just that morning, played on some thing with Leland Sklar, using some kind of software that splits the screen into separate views of each guy playing.
So, I went to Leland's latest post and; there was the friend of the guy I was on the phone with; doing a cover of Phil Collin's "Easy Lover," occupying one pane of a screen that was split 5 ways.
 |
| "Your smile showed your spirit; like a crystal cut in half" -T. Broughey |
But; that would be synchronicity number 2, out of about a dozen freaky occurrences, within the past few days.
Add to that the fact that I have been getting poor quality sleep in my 92 degree room lately, and it all seems pretty dream-like.
 |
| The kind of gear I could afford, had I persevered in the computer industry... |
The urge to eat is strong; but that is the tipping point of any successful fast and cleanse. I look forward to more of the kind of energy that has fueled the writing of this post. Had I been sipping wine, this post would be about one third its current length.
Update:
Leland has e-mailed me (through the agency of Ted?) to say that he would be willing to add bass parts to any of my "projects."
He has posted a similar invitation to any and all who read his daily Youtube postings...so, that kind of tempers my hopes a bit...
But, within 48 hours, I have gone from contemplating suicide to living on the enthusiasm that comes from thinking about having the bassist who played on "Running On Empty," by Jackson Browne and "Susudio," by Phil Collins, not to mention "We're All Alone" by Rita Coolidge, putting a bassline on "The Carcass Song," and then Hightailing the .flac files back to me...
Ted must have told him I was good, or something, LOL!
It's amazing what just 24 hours of returning to fasting and cleansing can manifest in the real world....!
Eckhart Tolle was spot on, on that head..
Your blog is very popular here in Harlow, UK
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