Afraid To Look

There Is Even A Roach In My Coffee

I am actually avoiding looking at this blog.

I had a pretty good day Sunday, the day I had decided to just say "no" to the first beer of the day. It had turned into a semi-productive one, with the 2,000 word blog post being one of the shreds of evidence of that.

The music I was doing was fun to work on; I saved it to my drive and couldn't tell you what it is, or what it is about; this is why it's important for a musician who has blackout issues to save stuff to his thumb drive. It will be a snap shot of how I was feeling at the time; even if what I was feeling was the urge to erase and delete everything I had done the previous 48 hours...

2 Steps Backwards, 1 Step Back

So, yesterday was another disaster that started with me finding two cans of beer in my refrigerator, left over from the 12-pack that I had gotten the day before from the Fresh Market. It was one of those variety packs that had 4 cans in each of 3 different flavors. 4 x 3 = 12.

One of the things I do remember is telling myself, in the store, that I would be sampling Elysian Brewing's line of products and that it would be an exploratory journey, and maybe elevate my status as a Yelp reviewer, in order to help humanity. 

I wouldn't be just getting s***-faced on beer. That's what the skeezers, sitting in front of Sacred Heart, swilling Olde English Malt Liquor do -nothing but a bunch of drunks, them...

I guess I had only drank ten of them the day before. What day before? Well, it's Wednesday, so there must have been a Monday in there somewhere.

So, by now, Alex in California may have read the whole of my last post. And he left a second comment (which I haven't seen yet).

Anything I post while drinking is risky business.

My dad used to tell me: "Never marry a woman until you have seen her drunk." 

I suppose if you have seen her drunk 237 times, then don't marry her either; no matter how graceful and lady-like she acted.

And so, never read a blog until you have read the stuff the blogger wrote while drunk.

Sunday was a good day. Jacob came over with some equipment and we set up and had one of our better jams, even though it was slightly marred by the now familiar set of factors.

I take the blame for firing up a joint to get myself in the mood to play. I had been maybe 60% in the mood; but I had the thought of running to the Fresh Market for beer too close to the forefront of my mind. I had only been 24 hours sober (again, like right now) at that point, and was kind of still sweating alcohol out of myself. Add to that the fact that I turn my loud air conditioner off while recording, and I was literally sweating it out.

The jam subsequently got a little bit silly after we both smoked. But, I think we did a very interesting take on The Papaya Song, which is the first and just about only video that Jacob and I have, I believe on Youtube, unless it was taken down due to the infringement of papayas being racist.

We then did run to that very Fresh Market in Jacob's car, where a splendid time was had, picking out a papaya, along with

Daniel McKenna · Primordial Papaya

a couple "white" peaches, a few mangoes, something else I can't recall now; and....what the heck, let me grab a couple of these (micro brewed beer in 19.2 ounce cans) why not; what the hell?

I am really getting tired of having to blog about messed up days that I wish I had a redo of. But the truth is, I do have a redo; it's today.

And I am very aware of the way the road forked ahead of me and which way I had gone, and where I wound up.

So, I shudder to go and read Alex in California's comment. I think Jacob stopped commenting here because he is afraid of what A.I.C. might fire back at him. Jacob doesn't seem to handle criticism very well (or at least doesn't take it in "stride" or "shrug it off").

I have changed the imaginary person, or invisible friend if you will; who is the target audience of these posts several times. It is currently David Veautour, my childhood best friend. What would Dave enjoy reading; chuckle over and come away from feeling that his old buddy is doing just fine, living an interesting life, or at least making interesting observations of a very dull life?

Whenever I imagine this thing being read by someone a thousand years from now, I always feel like I am short-changing them -not exploring the human condition deeply enough from my own unique perspective; basically not taking enough chances. Chances of being ostracized by the presently living; or worse, cancelled by someone.

It may just go back to the thought construct that I was introduced to in one of those therapy groups that I participated in, while incarcerated in Massachusetts, 28 years ago.

It was probably the Narcotics Anonymous group that I was able to eek my way into (and get the 3.5 days per month of gain-time knocked off my sentence) even though I only smoked pot in those days.

"Yeah, but it was really bad, I was addicted!" I had told them.

I had thought about lying about a narcotics addiction, but I wouldn't even have known any of the jargon which would have exposed me as a fraud.

But I was able to take my place in a circle of mostly heroin addicts and hear their harrowing tales of addicted life.

One guy got to the point where he would approach the dealer with no money and make "the buy" and then basically try to outrun and dodge the bullets of whomever other gang members were in the area, to "insure" against such a thing.

He said that sometimes they would catch up to him and beat him; but that despite busted lips and black eyes being inflicted upon him; they weren't able to knock him unconscious in the few minutes that it might have taken for the nearest cop to respond to the "One Adam 12; see the man getting the shit kicked out of him near Dunkin' Doughnuts" call.

So, when the cops arrived they would all run in different directions, with this guy hobbling along, dripping blood, but with his heroin fix still in his pocket.

The same guy also stole a Caterpillar front-loader tracker off a construction site. It was in the middle of the work day and the key was in it. So off this guy went, chugging down Boston Road in Springfield Mass, the proud new owner of a huge yellow machine. How he was going to manage to sell it for heroin was something that he hadn't planned that far ahead for, yet.

If people really knew me; they wouldn't like me

Oh, the point...

But the thought construct was that as heroin addicts (us all) we suffered from a self esteem issue that can be best boiled down to: "If people really knew me, they wouldn't like me."

This is the kind of self-defeatist B.S. that will drive a man to the needle (or the joint, in my case).

And, I think that is what I am up against as a blogger.

Dave Veautour knows me just about as well as any other human being; and hasn't unfriended me; has told me that the music I have posted is not very good but that he could tell what I was "trying to do," and for now, making my post as if a pen pal letter to Dave is working.

Picturing myself in space, looking at a distant planet Earth and addressing the post to all of humanity...mmm...doesn't work very well.

So, I have only come here to post this, and have yet to go back and proof-read yesterday's post and remove any remotely racist sounding rhetoric from the narrative.

And then to see what the second comment from Alex in California, who said that he hadn't read the post yet at that point, is.