Maybe *I'm* The Partially Braindead One

 

 Loftier Goals

I'm trying to break free of some of the "thought constructs" (as Eckhart Tolle calls them) that have been holding me hostage; things that have become "beliefs" of mine and are hindering me in my pursuit of the "loftier" goals that I am presently sloshing my way towards, as if up to my waist in quicksand.

I think of other people who were able to graduate from places like Oxford at the top of their classes because they could do things like digest an entire novel in one evening, then type out a paper in time for the next day's class.

I have heard that it was strongly advised that Ivy League students do an hour of homework each night for every credit hour of courses taken; in the hope of not flunking out. Five hours in school; five hours of homework; no beer; no Frisbee.

Some books I have read had in the back of them "further reading" lists which would take me about a year to read all of. Yet, the author supposedly read them as part of her research, and then wrote a book that might  taken me three weeks to read through. By then, she has already started her next one...

One of the limiting beliefs that I have uncovered in myself was that "people who are physically remote from me are hard to get access to." 

It used to require a long distance phone call with the assistance of an operator (think Lilly Tomlin) or pumping quarters into a payphone. But now it is as simple as punching a number into my smartphone and waiting maybe 8 seconds for the voice of the person on the other side of the continent to come through in crystal clear quality. At no extra cost over the monthly service charge.

One ringy-dingy...

So, Saturday evening I phoned my mother just to say hi and to have a short conversation, in the hope that if I make it a habit to call every couple weeks or so, then it won't have to be to catch up after not having spoken for ages. It's hard to call and just say "Hi, how is everything? Good to hear you're doing fine, well, OK; bye.." after not having spoken in a year.

A cynical ex-girlfriend of mine, Angela Washington (who was as black as the name suggests) once said: "When people call whom you haven't heard from in a long time, it's usually because they want something."

Tonight, after I discovered that the Patriots were playing on Sunday Night Football, I was reminded of how Howard Westra and I used to have an unwritten rule that I would materialize at his place whenever the Patriots were playing on TV. We left it to the network executives to schedule our get-togethers.

Howard is someone who reads so fast that he starts to grip the page to the right in preparation of turning it as soon as he has turned the last one. I have seen him read two and a half books in one day. He obviously has mastered the speed reading technique of not saying the words in your head. You are supposed to look at a paragraph and let it register so that the meaning is grasped and the action unfolds in your imagination with no vocalization at all.

I could never learn to do that myself, and even as I sit here I am hearing my own voice saying "even as I sit here I am hearing my own voice saying" in my head.

I'm starting to actually question just how "smart" I am.

I was never able to be hypnotized. Despite having had a hypnotist attempt it, and having read many "self hypnosis" books promising to teach me how to plant suggestions in my own mind that would program me for "success."

With the hypnotist, I kept getting caught up on the words he was using, wondering how exactly they were supposed to lull me into a trance.

The hypnotist told me he would use auto-hypnosis, for example, before going to the dentist and would save himself the cost of Novocaine, by planting the suggestion in his mind that "I won't feel any pain."

Another one of my high school friends was able to listen to the same cassette that I had, which would walk the listener through certain relaxation exercises, tensing and relaxing muscles etc., and at one point the speaker would suggest that your arm was becoming lighter and lighter, until (in my friend's case, at least) it would rise up off your chest, of its own accord.

I think it would freak me out if that happened. Maybe I have loss of control issues. I mean, who wouldn't be afraid that the guy is going to have you thinking that you are a chicken as soon as he snaps his fingers; and you will be walking around the neighborhood clucking and flapping your "wings" until he breaks the spell, type of thing.

That same high school friend had a habit opened mouth breathing whenever he was focusing intently upon anything, like writing something down on a piece of paper or drawing a picture; and would breath loudly through that opened mouth, apparently oblivious to it. Soon after putting a pair of headphones on and listening to music the mouth would come open. 

I always interpreted this, perhaps a bit superciliously, as him being partially brain-dead, neanderthal, or at the very least, unaware of his surroundings and kind of "out of it." 

But, maybe Jeff (as that was his name) had a gift for concentration, and the ability to put himself into productive brainwave patterns, like alpha or beta or whatever the technical terms are. Maybe I'm the half brain-dead one. Although, at least I never had anyone have to tap me on the shoulder in the library when I had headphones on and say "Dude, we can hear you breathing all the way across the room...knock it off!".

So, I am changing the way I think about long distance phone calls. I called Howard's number as the game was kicking off and got one of his housemates (who answers his phone for him because he [Howard] is deaf).

I was notified that Howard now cannot walk, to go along with being deaf. He was starting to have problems with his legs the last time I saw him last fall when the Patriots were playing the Ravens on national TV, and I guess the situation deteriorated. His housemate did say that he had lost a lot of weight in response to my reaction to the news being: "He needs to lose about 80 pounds."

"Mission accomplished," said Ken, as that is the guy's name. "He's thin as a rail now.."

I am also addressing the issue of spreading myself thin. The sixty or so books that I have stacked up everywhere because I wanted to become well read, I am going to start to take with a grain of salt. If I start to read something and am not enjoying it, I'm not going to try to plod through it, merely because it's "a classic" or "a must read" or it won praise from Oprah Winfrey (I mean, so did Joe Biden. I rest my case).

The same goes for music.

Speaking of Howard again, he once said that the best concert he ever went to, back when he could hear, was a John Prine concert, back when he (Howard) was a student at the University of Colorado (and a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War).

John Prine on Soundstage (link)

This led me to seek the guy out, which I did, and gave him more than his due of a listen; while trying to figure out what Howard might have seen in the guy. 

I did initially really like a Youtube of him from the "Soundstage" show from 1981 -so much that I went back to it the next day. 

But after two listens; his songs wore thin. The guy was just too much of a simpleton, albeit a likable one, to hold my interest past those two viewings. 

I did get the notion that I could probably write a few songs in his style with little effort at all. But, then, how much interest could I hold from people by doing so?

Paring Down

So, I am going to make a push to pare down a bit. I'm going to donate a bunch of books that I might have read enough of to know that I don't enjoy reading (Do I really want to read the whole biography of Governor George Wallace? Maybe, but what about the one about Teddy Roosevelt? I can always go and re-claim them from the Sacred Heart sacred book vault, where I'm sure it will still be on that island surrounded by the sea of illiteracy that is Sacred Heart...should my interest in the bigoted former Governor of Alabama become rekindled...

And the same for the CD's. I know they don't take up much space, but they contribute to the clutter and sometimes one just has to choose between music of cultural significance like The Meters, and any one of the five Modest Mouse discs that I came into possession of through some "box by the side of the road" accident.

The focus will be on making a video now. I already have the smartphone and the basic tracks are done.

My idea is to use a metronome click track, set to the tempo of the piece. That way I can film myself in various places and keep my movements in time with the tempo so that they can be superimposed over the music using the OpenShot Video Editor.

That should keep me busy enough so that I will only have time for one book, one other music listening endeavor (old time blues, like Robert Johnson et. al.) and maybe one Youtube video a day; one half hour on Facebook, and pretty soon; busking again at the Lilly Pad for two and a half hours, three or four times a week.

Not In George Wallace' State!

All they have to do is charge you,

and you might as well leave town...

Maybe I can point tourists to my Youtube channel. After I pare, that down too, to just a few of the best videos and get rid of stuff like the Miley Cyrus "Virus Song" (which I think single-handedly drove away Craig Nelson, who used to visit this blog before I posted that hastily slapped together production).

A video has to be pretty bad to get someone to stop even reading the aritst's blog (unless he Googled my name looking for more music and was taken to the article about the "child pornography" charges that the Mobile, Alabama police trumped up against me, trying (successfully) to run me out of town, along with the rest of the homeless population there...