Trump Flag Bit

® After about a 14 day slump, the traffic on this blog has gone back up to where it used to be, when an entire globe of monkeys randomly pecking keys would yield a bunch of stray visitors; an average of 45 a day.

"Yes!! Woohoo!!"

Google has a special bit set on all 3 billion users accounts. If that bit is set to 1, then the person can use social media, buy and sell online, have their blog visible to the search engine, get a job, share their music and basically be successful and prosperous at life.

If that bit is set to zero, well...they nicknamed it the "Trump flag" for a reason, I guess...

I think that Google (or more specifically, their bot) had put a shadow ban on Street Musician Daniel, so that it didn't appear in search results. I had heard that some companies like Instagram will do this, and the period of 14 days was mentioned for, maybe the first offense.

It must have been flagged as being "domestic terrorism," due to any number of reasons. 

Maybe because I will watch a Ben Shapiro video on Youtube, and then commit the sin of "liking" it; and then when something from CNN shows up in my recommendations, with a title like: "Watch what happens to these Trump supporters, at the hands of non violent protesters; a must see for all woke people!" I click the "cancel" button. (You can't cancel that video; cancelling is not in your purview. Cancellation is our department!).

The Crack Of Dawn

The addictive nature of crack shows itself in the form of causing people to "chase the dragon," or, try to get high again after coming down the first time.

It's kind of like dishwater. After you pour Joy® in a sink of hot water, it will suds up nicely. After you wash greasy dishes for a while, the suds will disappear. You might want to put more soap in, thinking that what is in there has been used up; but after you do, you still can't make any suds, even by stirring the water vigorously.

The brain is like the soap water and certain drugs, like crack, the soap. After you experience a cocaine high for about a half hour, there is no point in trying to make suds again in your brain; you need to drain the sink and refill it with clean hot water.

Which means you have to wait a period of time, at least 12 hours, before another hit would "work" on you.

Getting a good night's sleep would accelerate this process. After sleeping; the next day you will wake up with a head full of clean hot water; then you could, if you wanted,  make suds again, but you won't have a compulsion to. 

The drug isn't that kind of "addictive." You have gotten through "it," and come out OK, on the other side.

This requires paying the price of feeling somewhat the opposite of the high, and having to understand at the intellectual level that this is what is happening, and that it will pass in less than two hours, and that all the crack in the world isn't going to elevate you back to that golden state of bliss.

But, this is where the person who has a proclivity towards addiction for that particular drug (which is right near the top of the list of most addictive substances) is at risk. 

They will chase the dragon; trudging back out into the night for another 10 dollar hit that they know from experience will not do anything for them; but I guess rationalizing that "anything is better than this." It is all biochemical, and I have read about how it depletes the dopamine, or something, in the brain, making it chemically impossible for the person to experience joy. The emotion, not the dish washing product...

So, someone like me, lays down and focuses upon breathing and trying to calm the mind and appreciate the present moment, and wait for the bummed out feeling to subside; understanding that the hopelessness and despair's feeling permanent, is just an illusion. 

And then there is a feeling of blessed relief when everything calms down and you can once again appreciate just looking out the window at a bird in a tree or something.

Meanwhile, while you eventually drifted off to sleep, there was no rest for the types who struggle with addiction to the stuff.

So, I was not surprised when Bobby called me this morning, asking me to go over there, and then telling me that he is going to check himself into rehab tomorrow, once I got over there.

He then gave me his Snark® guitar tuner, about a 24 dollar value. He said that he wanted to do another hit of crack before turning himself in to the rehab people. From the looks of it, he had kept going, chasing the dragon, while I had gone through the coming down; the deep breathing exercises, and the eventual drifting off to sleep, with the help of the methadone and the sleeping pill, and the waking up, back to normal, and not really craving anything.

I thought he was telling me that he wanted to do another hit sometime before checking in to the place the next day at noon. But, I should have guessed, from the evidence that he had chased the dragon, running back and forth to and from the dealer until he was broke; that he kind of meant "right now."

I was in a slight dilemma, because I certainly didn't want to take a hit of that stuff two days in a row. It might not have my number, as much as it does Bobby's, who was giving me his Snark® Tuner because he has pawned his guitar and his amp; but there is something to letting sleeping dogs lie..

I was kind of non committal, and told him that I first had to walk to the Shell to get another nicotine vape and a bag of kratom. He said that he would walk with me.

Thus, I started walking towards the store with Bobby in tow. I could feel the weight of his condition as if through osmosis. It reminded me of how Leslie Thompson used to follow me the mornings when he knew I had money; and knew that, whenever I decided to start drinking that day, I would be considerate enough to buy him something.

So, he would follow me; just waiting. I wasn't as bad an alcoholic as him, if the fact that I usually didn't have my first drink until the sun was going down was any indication; while Leslie had his first drink at one minute past whenever the liquor store opened, if he had money.

But there was just something off kilter about being followed, step for step, by someone who is praying to God that you are going to want some whiskey, the sooner the better...

Bad enough to feel guilty about the drinking that you do from sundown until black out time 'round midnight; but here's someone who is encouraging and wishing you to be a worse alcoholic; and that you would just fall in line, and resign yourself to drinking whiskey as the sun is coming up.

And, Leslie would mope, and be a drag, in the sixties sense.

Miserable and not really even hearing anything I said. Responding mechanically with "really?" to every utterance I made, and just putting out the vibe of misery. Looking at me with eyes like a mal-nourished kid on a Feed The Children poster.  And, then there were the times when his ploy, as I have to think of it as such -the machinations of a diseased mind- worked on me.

Those times, feeling like I was babysitting a fussy child, and guessing that the only thing that was going to make him stop fussing (and give me some peace of mind) came in half pints and pints, I went ahead -well before I would have normally drank- 

"Well, I suppose I could pop in here and get a pint of whiskey..." a proclamation that caused an instant reaction in Leslie, with the utterance of an elated cry, lifted to the sky, of "Yes!" accompanied by a little jig.

My gloomy, bump on a log, friend had morphed into a chipper, happy-go-lucky guy, with the weight of the world lifted off of his shoulders; and a spring in his step; all because of me! 

You see, that wasn't so hard to figure out -spend your money on whiskey for Leslie, and you will have a happy friend, who will be the life of the party and a pleasure to be around. Don't do so, and your mood will be brought down, just from standing near him, by the shear gravity of his morose self.

As I walked towards the store, with Bobby tagging along, it brought that memory back so strongly that I stopped and said: "Hey, I'm not going to take another hit; I'm not really Jones-ing for one, and so why push it; why flirt with the stuff?"

Bobby fell back a few paces, and then, when I turned around, he had done the same and was trundling back towards the apartments, looking utterly lost in this world.

I continued walking towards my nicotine vape; feeling like I had kind of punished Bobby for the sins of Leslie Thompson.

I thought about the guitar tuner he gave me; evidence that he had no money and was trying to offer me anything he could, in trade. I thought about all the things he has done for me and given me; the red electric guitar I play was given to me by him.

I decided what I would do would be to get some cash back at the store and just give him the money so he could chase the dragon, and that way I wouldn't have to do any. I have to go to Whole Foods to get cash back because my debit card for unemployment doesn't work at certain other ATM's, so I set off for that place almost a mile away.

I thought about the fact that, by the time I got the money and got back home, he would have had an extra hour of coming down time, and might be just seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and feeling like he could get through it and come out on the other side. He might even conclude that he was glad that I had reneged on doing a hit; maybe even admire my "strength" and resolve. Then I would knock on his door and hand him a 20 dollar bill and tell him to have fun.

But then I thought that, as a friend, I should help him out regardless of what he is going to spend the money on. He has given me countless things, including money, those times that I had had a bad night busking.

I didn't want to stand in judgment over him and go with the notion: "I know that you're gonna buy crack with this money and so I'm not going to give it to you!" But, I did feel a bit of a responsibility. 

I kind of was deciding whether or not he was going to get high -withhold the money, and he would have to suffer through the withdrawals.

But, in his suffering, he would probably dwell on the fact that he has helped me so many times, and given me so much stuff, and he would have a right to be resentful to a degree...

So, I got the money at Whole Foods, deciding that I wasn't going to make any moral judgments or whatever...

It just put me in kind of a spot, because I needed at least a degree of "strength" to not want to join him in his debauchery. I certainly couldn't get any beer at Whole Foods, because then I would be at risk for: "Are you sure you don't want to hit it just once?"

Many times, the first mistake I've made in what would turn into a series of them, was "to have a beer."