Takin' A Chance--Hazel Scott

Issac Newton

 

From Heaven To Hell And Back

I blogged the day before about how my decision to not drink that night had put me in a position to receive blessings that just wouldn't have been at the end of the other fork in the road.

I had stayed in, instead, and had randomly flipped open a book on "literature" that was one of the ones strewn across my bed, out of the 112 books that I have cracked open and read some of, so I can say that I am in the process of reading them.

The Buddhist parable that I opened the book to, seemed to give me a pearl of wisdom, which lead me to realize that I had been beating myself up over trying to make music that was going to impress and silence my critics.

Why were these critics dwelling in my head, in the first place?

An Eckhart Tolle video which started to autoplay after having been "randomly" chosen by the YouTube algorithm while I was in the kitchen (being shunted there from a 1979 promotional video for the AS/600 operating system developed by IBM at the time) where the subject matter was just that; people -parents, work associates, "friends," critics- who can live in our heads.

I put the word "randomly" in quotes, behind the theory that everything happens for a reason. And, if you believe in the dynamics of the mind being able to conjure up such things, you would believe that I was being rewarded for having chosen not to drink. 

Enlightenment had been hiding right around the corner all the time, but I never would have found it, had I chosen to walk the half mile to the store in the middle of the night for a bottle of wine.

An Equal And Opposite Reaction

As a further test of that notion; last night I did decide to go to the store for what turned out to be a can of Hazy IPA beer.
Then, I decided to walk to Rouses Market, since it was only 9:15 PM.

And...

My email To Rouses (just sent)

I live about 3/4 mile from store #29, which I've always considered the local alternative to the chain store across the street.
My initial impression was that the staff cared more about me, and one of my best experiences at a grocer was when a large black man in a white smock  answered a question about marrow bones knowledgeably, then; seeing that I was looking at roasts, said: "What a minute," and then came back with one with the sale price on it, effective the next morning.
It was almost midnight, and his mind could have, instead been on getting out of there; but he was all about customer service right up to the closing bell.
Fast forward a year, and I was in produce, at the strawberry display; there was no price on them.
There was a skinny young black guy arranging things with earbuds in.
He pulled on of the buds out, with an annoyed look after I eventually got his attention.
"There's no price on the strawberries," I said.
"I don't know," he rejoined, and immediately put his ear bud back in.
Then as racial tensions gripped the world and the George Floyd incident happened, I began to notice hostilities directed towards me by the black employees.
One of them clipped me on the ankle with a pallet full of stuff he was pulling, although he had plenty of room to go around me; didn't apologize, but gave me a dirty look.
And then, more recently, I tried to strike up a friendly chat with a cashier who had Shyla on her name tag.
She stared coldly at me and never said a word.
"It's so windy out there, I might get home without my hat." -nothing but an icy stare.
I thought that so rude that I said: "I guess it's not your job to have to talk to the customers" -more staring with her mouth open.
"I get it, you must be shy. Is that why your name is Shyla?" She handed me my change without a word.
Then, last night I arrived at the store about 15 minutes before the 10 PM close. It was as empty of people as I had ever seen it.
A large black security guy left his post at the front door to apparently shadow me.
He entered an aisle just as I was helping a short lady reach the last carton of egg whites at the back of the top shelf.
He must have thought we were together.
The bandanna I was using as a mask kept slipping down off my nose.
By the time I had made it to the cat food, he walked up and told me I needed to keep the mask on.
"Yeah, sorry, I guess I didn't tie it very tight"
"What?!" he snapped, as if it had sounded like an insult to him.
I repeated it.
"That's the second time; the third time you're gonna be out there!" (pointing towards the parking lot).
Then, he added: "Both of you!" referring to the short lady, who was now nearby, doing her own shopping.
Apparently, if my mask slipped again, this nice lady, whose only sin was not being able to reach the top shelf, was going to be kicked out, along with me.
She was also white.
The store was almost empty otherwise, there was nobody else within 60 feet, never mind 6 feet.
After it was announced that the store was "now closed" the same guy came up to me and informed me that I needed to go straight to the register. "Now!" he barked.
I bit my lip and didn't say: "Yeah, I heard the announcement and I understand English."
I headed towards the front, but, seeing that the last few customers were in line at the last and only open register, I detoured to grab a bag of oranges. He started to pursue me, but I had gotten back to the line before we had any further interaction.
At the register, I told the cashier, a black lady, that I needed to get cash back.
I said this because, on more than one occasion the cashier had pushed some button which made the cash back screen disappear from under my finger before I could press a button.
This is exactly what happened again; she closed the sale before I could hit the button.
"I was trying to get cash back, that's why I told you," I said. She just stared at me; and then said: "You must have hit the wrong button."
This whole scene drew the security guard, who stood at the foot of the conveyor giving me a harsh stare. "You have to spend at least 5 bucks to get cash back," he said; even though the 29 bucks worth of stuff I bought was bagged up in front of him; surely looking like over 5 bucks worth.
There were still 2 people behind me, they wouldn't be closing until they were done, and so they begrudgingly let me go get a second bag of oranges to meet the minimum.
Security guy stood next to me, and watched me press the cash button this time. It went right to the "thank you" screen after the cashier pressed something.
She started to say "Oops, I think I hit the..." but was cut off by the security.
"It must be your card!"
The card that had worked for the purchase, which had now been charged for an extra bag of oranges.
I had to leave, though.
"We're trying to go home!"
There would be no manager called to help out; I just had to go.
It crossed my mind that the employees might be intentionally trying to drive customers away; those who weren't boycotting because Donny Rouse, or someone, went to peacefully and patriotically protest at the Capitol.
The odd emptiness of the store might be because the black employees are trying to hurt the business from within; what do they care; less customers = less work for the same paycheck..
I didn't get the guy's name because, like a lot of the cashiers, his name tag was reversed; but he was the one on "guard" February 22nd at closing time.
I still like Rouses better than Winn Dixie because of the few employees who are nice; and they just "happen" to be the white ones, for some reason...maybe it's time for a meeting to discuss tolerance, or at the least to tell the security guard that wearing a mask that say's "I can't breath" and harassing white customers is not in line with the store's values.. 

So, then, it was to the Walgreen's on the way home I went, to get cash back.
I was still sipping on the Voodoo Ranger IPA that I had gotten at Rouses Market (my second beer of the night) and so I paused in front of the place to finish it before going in.

And, making a beeline for me was what Alex in California would describe as a "zombie," but I'm pretty sure it was a skeezer.

He had a wild hairstyle, not unlike Jacob Scardino's, and was carrying 

a couple shopping bags.

I had picked up a snipe in front of the tattoo parlor on my way from Rouses Market, and was in the middle of lighting it. Surely he is going to ask me for "one of those," and surely I was going to say: "Dude, I just got this one off the sidewalk," which was going to serve me the dual purpose of indicating that I had no cigarettes and, hopefully, that if I had any money, I wouldn't be picking up snipes.

My vaporizer, which I had just paid 14 bucks for, was in my pocket. It would last me almost 2 days, and keep me from craving cigarettes. But, I still get the urge for actual tobacco smoke every now and then, and, someone at the tattoo parlor, who most likely has to have Covid testing done on himself in order to sit right next to someone and stab them with needles; smokes American Spirits. He apparently takes short breaks to let the ink dry before returning to a breast to finish a butterfly or something; and so there are always half smoked ones on their sidewalk.

But, as I prepared, bolstered by the Voodoo Ranger IPA (it's the "Voodoo Tattoo" parlor that I snipe in front of, by the way) to be as snide and sarcastic as possible, the skeezer surprised me by producing a cigarette box.

"Security, Help; This Guy Is Harassing People!"

"Here, I have a gift for you," he said, approaching.

This froze me in my tracks from just gulping down the last of the beer and going inside, which is certainly off limits for him by now, if he is one of that neighborhood's resident skeezers.

Which one of 'em am I smoking behind??

Wow, here I was assuming he was going to try to skeeze a cigarette, when in reality, he saw me lighting up a snipe and was coming to my rescue with a free cigarette which hadn't been in someone else's mouth. How thoughtful, and what a lesson about judging people upon the sight of them.

Not!

He opened to box to show me that it was empty. He was on the other side of the railing that separated the landing in front of the door from the wheelchair ramp that he was on, a feature of almost every Walgreen's in the nation, probably.

The bags he held were full of cans of beer.

"I will give you beer for cigarettes," he said.

At this point, I produced my vaporizer, telling him: "Oh, I vaporize, I just picked up that butt because it was an American Spirit..."

"Well, can I hit your vaporizer; or can I have that snipe?"

I was trying to arrange the words in my head to tell him that I wasn't comfortable sharing my vaporizer with a random skeezer -what was to stop him from saying "thank you," then pocketing the 14 dollar item and walking off; it would solve his nicotine problem and then he could drink, rather than trade, his beers.

"Do you have any money?" he asked. This gave me the notion that he was the type of skeezer who was going to go through a checklist of items trying to get something -anything- from me. The food in my Rouses bags was to be next on the list, I was sure.

"Well, what about the food in your bags; would you have anything in there that I might enjoy?" type of thing.

So, at that point, I decided to play games with him.

"That's why I came here; I need to get 50 bucks cash back; then I'm gonna call my crack dealer; I want to get high tonight!"

This had the predictable effect of stirring his brain as if it were a hornets nest that had just been kicked.

"Crack, meth, weed -I can get it all; I know where to get stuff that will blow your mind!" he immediately piped up (excuse the pun).

...sure, I can go with you somewhere, where I'll hand you the 50 bucks and then watch you walk away with it; and then, before I know it, you'll be right back with stuff that will blow my mind....

"No, that's alright, I know where to get some killer stuff." kick-kick-kick...

Club Königlich

He then told me that he was from Germany, as if I might say: "Why didn't you tell me so before; I'll be right back out with the money, then we can go!"

Since I still had a few sips left in my bottle, I decided to play the game of: What Part of Germany?

He was from Berlin.

"Oh, really, what part of Berlin?"

Now, he was realizing that he may have picked the wrong city to lie about being from. He stammered something unintelligible.
"What clubs did you go to when you were there?"

He was apparently able to name a club, if whatever the German sounding words he said referred to one.
I decided to test him further with: "Have you ever been to Königlich?" This is the word meaning "royal," which I remembered off a bottle of beer (König beer?) but it sounded like a good name for a club.

And, what do you know, he had been there!

I drained the rest of my IPA, while casting a critical eye at him, and said: "I don't get high with gay guy's, nothing personal," before tossing the empty in the trash and stepping towards the entrance.

This was not before he began to berate me in garbled half-German, half-English, getting louder with each expression.

A young lady came out of the store and went to a bike that was locked to the railing a few feet away, while he was in the middle of this, and so he turned his attention to her, skipping the cigarettes for beer routine, but lowering his voice and becoming more "polite" and was asking her for money when the automatic doors opened for me, to reveal a portly, rather effeminate looking black man in a security guard uniform.

"Security, help, this guy is harassing people," I said.

He just smiled and kind of shrugged as if to say "I don't do confrontations, sorry." Or maybe it would be totally not "woke" to tell a skeezer not to skeeze, because of the fundamentally racist reasons that make him entitled to people's money, or something.

I gave him a "so, you're not going to even go outside to see what the matter is?" look.

As I was leaving my Rouses Market bags in the designated spot, I related some of what the guy had done. He just stood there smiling.

"Now, he's messing with that young lady..." He wasn't; he was already half way across the street walking towards the trolley stop; he didn't know that the armed guard was a pussy, I guess. But, at this, the guy went outside. A chance to be a hero to a white female, I guess, trumped him concern for me.

And, so this all proceeded from my having decided to go out to get alcohol that night.

It didn't occur to me until I was checking out and getting 20 dollars cash back that the skeezer might try to walk alongside me all the way down Canal Street; and I couldn't guarantee myself that I wasn't going to smack him over the head with my wine bottle at some point. I had a hair trigger, now that the IPA had entered my bloodstream.

But, I think I subconsciously led him to think I was going to have 50 dollars cash on me, so he would do something just like that; so I could blow off some steam. He wasn't a physical threat, was kind of pudgy looking; and I have been taking body building supplements the past couple months that have increased my muscle volume off just the little bit of weight lifting I've done.

After the bottle shattered against his dome, was I going to side-swipe his jugular vein with the jagged part still in my hand; in one swift motion? 

I had no idea really, only Voodoo Ranger IPA knew the answer to that, I imagined...when you snap, you snap...

So, here it is Tuesday night, and an opportunity to thank God that I'm not sitting in the Orleans Parish Prison holding cell, waiting to see the judge at 9 AM tomorrow morning, to be arraigned on aggravated battery, attempted murder, and brandishing a deadly weapon charges.

There can be no doubt that the analogy applied that Satan and his demons pounced upon me as soon as I stepped outside on my way to get the first beer.

The security guard, the skeezer, the second security guard; they had all become possessed at the given moments and saw in me someone who had attained a level of enlightenment and had been set back upon the path of righteousness, but who had willfully gone astray. Another thing that happened to occur was, Rouses was out of the alkaline water that I usually get, they were out of a certain pea protein milk that I wanted, the cat food shelf was almost barren except for a few flavors that aren't Harold's favorites, and even the oranges I wound up buying a double amount of, weren't the navel variety that I like more. I would have been better off postponing the trip a day to let them restock.

Walgreen's was similar; they had no cat food at all; empty shelf. They had no nitric oxide boosting pills; sold out. In order to get cash back I had to buy a little Easter candy. 

"Out with Valentine's, in with Easter," I remarked to the cashier, who just stared back at me dumbly with her lips slightly parted; as if listening very hard for any "dog whistles" I might have been blowing.

Was that a code for "out with Trump, in with Biden?" Should I permanently bar him from the store?

"I guess they melted down the hearts, and reformed them into bunnies..."

"Racist, get out!" He implied that Trump had a heart; and that Biden is a bunny...I'm not stupid... 

Security guard: "I'll back you up on that one; he was talking some German Nazi stuff before he even walked in..." Cancel him!

I have a chance to do it differently tonight.

Meanwhile, having quit music has indeed reduced my stress level; I don't feel like I have to prove anything to anyone by having a piece of music go viral on Soundcloud, and I can listen to music without having to analyze it and try to figure how much compression was put on the acoustic guitar in the mix, and how I might get the same sound by doubling my vocals and panning one left and the other right, type of thing.

All the above being written, it is 10 PM a whole day later and I am dying for a rack of Heineken, and can almost taste tequila mixed with lime soda...

So, as evident from opening my email; at around the time I was laying on my bed thinking "I'll never do that again" and wishing I had back the money I spent on beer and wine, and how I can free myself from the prison of the mind; in comes the $814, followed closely by the notification from Eckhart Tolle about, you guessed it..
I guess God will have me back, if I go and sin no more.

I am ready to go to the store for some Cuervo Gold, though. Why fight my own self? Who would be telling "me" that "I" shouldn't do it?

With All Due Respect...

My email to a Daily Beast writer (just sent):

I'm not anything.

Not a Trumper.

Not woke.

...just an objective person who relies upon reason, like Socrates and Aristotle...
How is the Jews being persecuted because of their race and religion and their politics not analogous to a white Christian Trump supporter being persecuted because of his race and religion and his politics? 

You see no parallels?
The lady (if you can call a MMA fighter a lady) apologized face to face and explained herself; but the cancel culture's stance is: No, you said it; we got you, you can't take it back! Really; and the people who fired her are "supposed" people who might not exist? Perhaps it was a bot that scours the web looking for keywords to flag, regardless of the context, how can she put a name and face to that?
I am of the strong opinion that, regardless of whether Zuckerberg and others were able to sway enough voters to vote against Trump or for Harris so that she actually did tally more votes, or whether it was stolen, it doesn't matter.
There is no need for Americans to vote at all any more because the Zuckerbergs of the world are going to be choosing our presidents for us. If they decide they don't want Harris to be elected in '24 (or if Biden has a miracle recovery and is fit for office, and they don't want him) well guess what? The next president will be whomever they decide to put in.
Big tech is more powerful than the sitting president, at this point. Only the most level-headed could not be swayed by being bombarded every day from the morning show people all the way up until Seth Myers at night pusing propaganda.
Things like the Daily Beast and Newmax on the other side can turn politics into a Jerry Springer show, relying upon riling the citizens up, so that they are burning police stations on one side and storming the Capitol on the other; and you media types can say; look what we started, we've got them all fighting.
I would really like to know exactly what happened in the November election, because nobody really knows. And if you think "everybody" knows that the election wasn't stolen (no need to even investigate; audit the voting machines, etc.) Come on!
So, the mask wearing thing was a "conspiracy theory" after Doctor Foucci sp? said masks are necessary; and then wasn't one after he said they don't work; but now it's misinformation again, and three times so, after he went back to saying we should now wear 3 of them?
The MMA girl, there, accused them of being out to get her and she said they were silencing people and cancelling them; and so they silenced her and cancelled her because of that? Am I the only one that sees the humor? ridiculousness? in that...
As I started to pay just $1 for a trial subscription, I stopped and remembered that I'm not interested in Jerry Springer or any of those other shows that are all emotion and drama, and I'm not sure I would enjoy the subscription.
But, if that is what you are doing at The Beast; race baiting and rousing the people up so they will pay for more; then I wish you success; it's a good idea, actually; even the Australian networks are getting good ratings covering the drama...what did A.O.C. say? No way! and then Ted Cruz did WHAT?!?
But, how can you accuse someone of promoting a "falsehood" about something, for example, like climate change; which the top scientists in the world are in disagreement over; yet a Daily Beast writer can say "shame on you" for having an opposing opinion?
And, what's her name encouraged people to follow her on parler where right wing extremists are known to gather...Does that mean if I go into my favorite coffee shop, and it turns out that terrorists meet there too to talk about a drone strike on Pelosi's house in San Francisco or something, that I am a bad person for going to the same coffee shop?
Maybe I miss the point and you are just trying to make a buck -look, you got me to type all this; and you *almost* got me to subscribe..
My friend said that, if you respond to this mail it will be with the one word "racist!" and that will be all...
God bless you, and let's get Zuckerberg off his throne...remember MySpace!

Giving Up Music

 Waking up around midnight, grabbing my phone to see what day it was, I felt depressed for the first time in maybe 3 weeks.

I had eaten some Shredded Wheat™ type cereal, before going to sleep; giving me my first taste of sucrose (white sugar) in probably about 3 weeks. Hmm, that's interesting. I've read that there is a correlation between blood sugar levels and things like depression...

But, I woke up, ready to start my day at a little past midnight.

I found myself gearing up to brave the 46 degree temperatures, and go to the store for alcohol.

I was tying my shoes when it dawned upon me that this was an unconscious, robotic action. I was going to run for alcohol because I had started drinking again, and it had become a habit, and a subconscious one, at that...

Part of my depression involved thinking about how I have been spending money faster than it's been coming in, lately.

It seems that I will do things to benefit myself, like buy vitamins and nitric oxide boosters for energy, and glucosamine chondroitin pills for my joints and cartilage and buy a new juicer to make healthy concoctions with; kratom to help me focus, guitar strings, a new harmonica, books and data for surfing the web and gaining knowledge -often done, with the intent of putting the money to good use, while I have the will to, and before I might become tempted to spend it otherwise. Someone with an addictive personality has to be on guard.

Then I will be set up for success -blessed with not having to go out and busk every night, with all the free time that I could ever hope for, and will be on the verge of doing good things with my existence.

Then, I will start to feel so strong and bullet-proof that, what harm will getting a six pack of beer to drink while watching the Superbowl or something do me?

It's easy to make the decision to turn over a new leaf, clean up the place and go back to a routine of getting good sleep and good food and becoming productive again, after waking up hung over and dehydrated and with the thought: I'll never do that again in mind.

But, in the feeling great and bullet proof state of mind, there is danger.

So, here I was, lacing up my sneakers, preparing for my nightly...wait, my nightly? run to the store for beer...?

I wasn't feeling that great, was worrying a bit about money, it was past midnight and I had already started to intuit that I was pushing my luck walking a half mile through the dark in a city that has de-funded its police; where the viral videos of black people just randomly attacking whites on the street have become such an inspiration to so many of the "woke" people of color here; and it was all for...beer?

Beer that was going to do the job of making me feel great again?

I thought of a concept that was introduced to me by one of the priests at the high school I went to.

He was very learned in music, theology, scripture and psychology, and, although he was one of those Catholic priests who liked to fondle young boys; there was; like almost all the shitty people I have encountered in life, a silver lining to him.

He would ask these Zen Buddhist type questions like: "What will happen if you don't run to the store for beer?

I thought about it, and it all seemed positive. I, at least would spend less money than what came in that day; wouldn't be in a viral video being beaten by uncivilized savages; but probably most importantly, I would have caught myself in a thought-construct based unconscious habit, and curtailed it. No more: Well, I'm awake and ready to get on Youtube, time to run to the store for beer and nicotine, here we go again.... type of stuff.

Those are the times when something rears its head to smite you and you wind up thinking: It happened so fast; I was walking to the store and all of a sudden these guys in hoodies just jumped me...type of thing..

And so I stayed in and decided to grab one of the 88 books that I have scattered around, and lo and behold, came across the following parable.

 The First Principle

When one goes to Obaku temple in Kyoto he sees carved over the gate the words “The First Principle.”

The letters are unusually large, and those who appreciate calligraphy always admire them as being a masterpiece. They were drawn by Kosen two hundred years ago.

When the master drew them he did so on paper, from which workmen made the larger carving in wood. As Kosen sketched the letters a bold pupil was with him who had made several gallons of ink for the calligraphy and who never failed to criticize his master’s work.

“That is not good,” he told Kosen after the first effort.

“How is that one?”

“Poor. Worse than before,” pronounced the pupil.

Kosen patiently wrote one sheet after another until eighty-four First Principles had been accumulated, still without the approval of the pupil.

Then, when the young man stepped outside for a few moments, Kosen thought: “Now is my chance to escape his keen eye,” and he wrote hurriedly, with a mind free from distraction. “The First Principle.”

“A masterpiece,” pronounced the pupil.

And in it, I gained knowledge and moved one step closer to enlightenment.

In this, I realized I have been Kosen.

When I have been working on music, or even writing this blog, I have been distracted by the creation of an imaginary audience in my head. I have gone about the business with the intention of showing up my nay-sayers (Alex in California) or trying to impress the other musicians in New Orleans by trying to capture my best performance on tape, like catching lightning in a bottle.

And have decided that doing music is off limits for me; it is keeping me bound to some kind of karma, or whatever the Buddhist term is.

I don't ever have to touch the guitar again.

"What will happen if you don't do any more music?" type of thing. Is it all positive?

Unburdened by the distraction of trying to show people like Alex "what I can do" I am sure I'm going to have less suffering, as the Buddhist put it...

 We see in other people either A: something we admire and want to emulate or B: some fault in ourselves that we need to work on.

Alex is apparently burdened by approval seeking. It seems like he is the runt of his family and feels like an embarrassment to his sisters, who are like lawyers and doctors or something, I forget.

This is the fault in myself that I need to work on. Other people's approval is like dirty rags, it goes away as they do. When they are on their death beds, they might say: "Yeah, he made some really cool songs, but, so what?" and then die.

I'm putting all my music stuff in a closet, which will create a simple open space where I can live a simple life, like a monk.

That will help rid me of intoxicants, because catching a buzz and then playing music is like love and marriage, you can't have one without the other. Just ask Miles Davis, or Janis Joplin...

A Coming of Age Story

 Pushing Back

The first of the posts that are scheduled to post well into the future -the last of which being slated for sometime in the year 8150, I believe has its posting date fast approaching.

It was about 4 years ago that I got the idea to schedule things to continue to periodically post  all the way up to 7,000 years after I am dead (unless I live to be 7,059...how to deal with the birthday cake candle thing, then, I wonder) and the first one of those is scheduled to post this coming April.

I am going to have to push this one back; which was just insurance in case I got killed before then. I don't want one of my "I am dead now, but I have a message for humanity" posts to pop up while I am still alive, that would be embarrassing.

And so, I will have to not procrastinate upon resetting the date on that. I should also make mention of when my next post is going to appear in each one, so that humanity can await them, like the arrival of Haley's Comet every 110 years or whatever its orbital period is....
I should also throw some Nostradamus type of stuff in there. I could be pretty ambiguous there, and I'm sure people will divine "hidden" meaning from it. But, what are people going to be like in 8,000 years -all organs replaced by synthetic ones, all just keeping the brain alive like a hydroponic plant for centuries?

It is such an enigma; if at some point mankind learns how to time travel, then it is possible that there are those among us who have traveled back to here from some point way in the future. This could explain Jesus...

1979

I encountered a gaggle of about 8 deadheads at the Ticketron at Searstown Mall in Leominster, Mass, in early September, 1979 and it made an impression upon me.

Little did I know what a foreshadowing that was.

A half dozen hippie-looking types, maybe 6 guys and 2 girs, stepped to the window in front of me, very interested in Grateful Dead tickets.

That's the band that did "Truckin'" and that "driving that train" song, I remembered thinking; and why would they want to see them as badly as they apparently do?

The guy behind the glass was initially trying to find blocks of 8 seats all in a row, but the hippies made it clear that they didn't care where the seats were; they would take 3 for each of them, for each of the 3 shows to take place at the newly built Worcester Centrum, regardless of how far apart from each other they were.

The concerts were selling out fast, and the blocks of 8 contiguous seats were disappearing.

The hippies didn't care, they all just wanted to get in.

I think they left there, visibly excited, in possession of something like 24 tickets, one for each of them for all three nights, scattered like the spores blown off a dandelion stem.

My curiosity was piqued. Why were they so adamant about hearing that "drivin' that train, high on cocaine" band that sounded on their records like the equivalent of today's auto-correct tools had been used, especially on the lead vocals?

I didn't know how much of a foreshadowing that was, at the time. For, within 4 years, I would go from looking like I was in the market for tickets to see The Cars (which I was) to looking, and smelling, like the very same deadheads in front of me.

After waiting my turn, I stepped up to the window next, unconcerned about all the Grateful Dead tickets having been already sold; and bought three tickets to see The Cars, at Boston Music Hall on October 1st, 1979.

The Ticketron guy didn't ask me why I wasn't in school, which was a relief. 

I had sneaked out of my high school, in order to be at the ticket place the minute it opened, so as to get the best possible Cars viewing seats. Only the Grateful Dead people, whom I now assume had camped out on the sidewalk in front of the place, wrapped in their hippie blankets, were in front of me.

My senior year had just begun -it was something like the 2nd day of school, but that was the day the Cars tickets were going on sale, and so that was the morning that I had to be there to get the best possible seats.

I had to sneak out of the school on the same day that the principal, Sister Joan, was giving the students her "beginning of the year" speech to all the students.

The seniors and juniors were treated to this first, which took up the first couple periods of the morning, and then it was time for the underclassmen to get what probably amounted to the same spiel, adjusted somewhat to their ages and naivety. 

During the speech, Sister Joan had stressed that "No one is to ever leave the building, for any reason, under any circumstance!" with concerns over "insurance" being the prime reason. If we were to leave the building and something were to happen to us, the school could be held liable and the diocese (with their deep pockets, at the time) could be sued, or something. This was about her most emphatically delivered point, eclipsing even gum chewing and not wearing the uniform.

I had parked my moped under the steps which led down from a kind of side-stage exit of the auditorium. This may have been by the design of architects, who might have foreseen the need to have perhaps large groups of actors enter "stage left" at some point in a production. They could all gather in the parking lot, and then file in at the appropriate point in the action of the play.

But it was the door I had chosen to park my moped by, and out of which I planned to slip during the period right after we got our speech and (supposedly) returned to class.

I had purposely not gone to my 3rd period math class, knowing that after the roll call was taken, my absence wouldn't jive with the list of kids, whose parents had called them in sick, and I would be summoned to the principal's office. If I wasn't absent, and wasn't in class, then, where was I? type of thing.

I went to the office, where the assistant principal, Sister Lourdes, was holding down the fort while Joan was giving the spiel to the underclassmen.

"And, why aren't you in class, Mr. McKenna?!"

I told her that I had had trouble opening my locker. She scolded me somewhat and implored me to get to my math class on the double.

Now, she thought I was on my way to class; and my math teacher had heard my name called over the intercom and must have assumed that I was either still at the office being scolded, or that maybe I was absent but my parents had neglected to call in sick for me. Probably the former.

That freed me for one 45 minute period, to make the 7 mile ride on the moped to the Ticketron and back.

The only thing was, in order to go out of that side door, with the principal at the podium on the stage at the time, it involved me sneaking past her behind the heavy curtain that was draped right behind her, as she spoke to the underclassmen.

Within Eight Feet of Joan

So, I tiptoed across the stage, passing to within 8 feet of her, behind the curtain and got to the door.

Honest to God, I was reaching for the handle to the door right as she got to the part of the speech about kids leaving the building. When she said "No one is to leave the building" my hand was on the handle. As she said "for any reason, under any circumstance," I was opening the door. As I closed it behind me, inserting a wad of paper to keep it open, so I could get back into the building under any circumstance, she was talking about the serious insurance related matters.

That was, I believe, when some kind of cosmic ball was set in motion. I would indeed be expelled later that same year for publishing an underground newspaper, an expulsion that could qualify as an equivalent to the modern-day "cancellation" by the cancel culture, 40 years before that term would find its way into the lexicon, and ostensibly because my newspaper had depicted the arch bishop of the diocese as Uncle Fester of Adams Family fame, in one cartoon, along with a few other journalistic atrocities.

That is a story for another post, but, out the door I went, under the circumstance of wanting Cars tickets, I guess enough to risk my enrollment at St. Bernards Central Catholic High School.

Again, there was some kind of foreshadowing there. I was willing to be expelled from my school, in order to get as close to Elliot Easton, in order to watch his fingers as he played the excellently crafted guitar parts that were the hallmark of all Cars songs. 

So, I ditched my sports coat (as we called them) in one of the janitor's closets near the back of the auditorium stage, so it wouldn't be flapping wildly, as I flew down Airport Road at 25 miles per hour and showed up at the Ticketron still wearing the shirt and tie, double-knit slacks and nice shoes, and took my place behind the long haired, tie dyed shirt wearing, patchouli oil, but still a little bit pot smelling hippies who were all about getting Grateful Dead tickets. One look at me, and the might have been thinking; well, at least we're not depriving him of Grateful Dead tickets by buying them all out from under him; he's probably here for Cars tickets....or John Denver...and, shouldn't he be in school right now?!

As things worked out, I made it back to the school and parked my moped in the same spot, and went to the same door, relieved that it was still ajar from the little shim of paper that I had wedged between the door and frame, and slipped inside right as the bell sounded for the end of my math class, and just before students flooded into the halls, where they might have espied me entering stage left. It all seemed so perfect. My mission had been blessed.

Not completely blessed, though, as the janitor's closet had been locked while I was away. I had to go back to my locker that was supposedly giving me trouble opening and grab one of my other jackets (I think I had two extra ones in there -talk about white privilege- but neither matched very well with the shirt and tie and slacks I was wearing, and so that was a source of slight embarrassment for me, but one I was willing to endure in order to see The Cars. And, oh yeah, the pope...can't forget him...

Within 12 Feet of John Paul II

The date of October 1st might be easy for almost one million people to remember, as the day they saw the pope; and for myself, as the day a girl rubbed her breasts against my back, as I was filing my way out of the Boston Music Hall, after seeing a Cars concert.

I was there alone, because, ironically, the two friends I had risked my whole darned education in order to procure tickets for, were disallowed to go with me.

Their mother was afraid that they would be in danger from the million or so people who were expected to turn out for the papal mass on Boston Common. Imagine that; she thought her dear twin boys, Jeffrey and Joseph might be trampled to death under the weight of a crazed bunch of Catholics trying to get close to the pope. The levels of irony there (and foreshadowing) are beyond any words I can conjure up now.

Jeff and Joe would never have come out alive...

At least if Jeff and Joe had been trampled nearly to death, they could have had the "last rites" administered by the pope himself...not too shabby, but not enough to move their devoutly Catholic Italian mom from her resolve to not let them anywhere near the scene.

Myself, I didn't really pay much attention to the mass, but after it ended, and I started making my way towards the music hall, and the pope's "cavalcade" started making it's way towards wherever popes go, I arrived at a street corner, right as he was approaching. He was in something like a convertible limousine, holding his right hand out in front of him in something like a peace sign, or the sign of a cross...or maybe a "V" for Vatican.

And, along he came.

The streets were so narrow at that point that the long vehicle had to kind of cut the corner a little to make the turn. The corner that I was standing right at the edge of.

I actually had to scoot back a few steps, to make room for the vehicle to make the turn. To hop over the edge of the curb where I had just been standing. In the middle of its turn, as the left side wheels bounded over the edge of the curb, after the driver had slowed way down to make it less jarring, I would estimate that I was no more than 12 feet away from his holiness. Gosh, if I could just get this close to Elliot Easton, I thought. There has got to be some more irony here, that still escapes me; me having to get out of the way of the pope...

A funny thing about that was, when I went to school the next day, our religion teacher, one Father Nichols, regaled us all with a story about how, as a nave-clad* Roman Catholic priest, he had been allowed to attend a special, private mass by John Paul II, which was exclusively for men of the cloth.

"For just a few seconds I could see him, obstructed, about 45 feet from me!" -father Ed Nichols

He gushed with excitement as he related that, at one point during the mass, the pope walked over to the side of the large altar, to get at the tabernacle, or something and "I could see him; unobstructed, about 45 feet away from me!"

Geez, I could almost have high-fived the guy, from where I was standing, I thought with amusement.

It had been no problem scalping Jeff and Joe's tickets, a half hour before the show, in front of the music hall. I had only asked the printed price on them; thinking that it wasn't illegal "scalping" to do so. 

Unobstructed!

Of course, once I had made it inside and found my seat, I found, sitting next to me, not the people I had sold the tickets to at face value, but another couple of people who informed me that they had paid three times that amount for their tickets from some guy out front, about 20 minutes before the show.

The Cars played their songs just about note for note the way they did on their records; so much so that I didn't see much of a difference between their concert and cranking their albums up over a really loud sound system. And they hardly moved -they all stood pretty much motionless, except for their arms and fingers and their mouths. That must have been choreographed as part of their shtick; usually at least one guy in a band is jumping off the drum riser and doing splits in the air; well, maybe not during songs like "My Best Friend's Girl," or any of their other songs, now that I think of it.

All the machinations to get to the ticket place as soon as it opened had placed me in the 23rd row, next to a couple people who had paid 3 times as much as I had paid for their same tickets, but not really close enough to gain any insight into any Elliot Easton guitar solos. Add to that, the people who had wound up with Jeff and Joe's intended tickets had passed me a joint at some point during the show, and I was in a fog, intensified by the fact that that was probably the third time in my life that I had ever smoked weed, and it had given me an altered sense of reality. That made it especially bizarre when, after the concert ended and everyone was filing out, using a center aisle (as the music hall was set up like a typical movie theater with one wide aisle down the middle) the girl who had been sitting in either Jeff or Joe's seat, on the other side of the guy who had passed us the joint, wound up right behind me as everyone tried to push their way forward.

Pressed Right Up Against Some Girl

I don't know if it was her own personal reaction to marijuana (mine was to lose track of Elliot Easton's fingers) but she started to press her rather copious breasts against my back and rub them side to side. I could feel both of them. I was just stoned enough to think; is this really happening?

Maybe my having been so close to the pope meant that he had imparted some of his Christ-hood to me, and the girl was just trying to soak it up- maybe so her babies would be blessed one day...I don't know.

After Father Nichols had excitedly told us students his astonishing tale, I thought about raising my hand and adding to it, my own personal account of the papal mass; but I suppose I didn't want to brag, or try to outdo him. 

Besides, a priest probably doesn't want to hear about a girl having rubbed her breasts against my back. Yeah, I was probably wise to remain silent...

So, that is the story of...I forget what the story was, but that was part of it...

The end.

*isn't that what they call that white collar thing, a nave? I guess I could Google it...

Putting The Blog Last

One Huge Jerry Springer Show

Updating this blog as the last thing of "the day" has not worked out too well, and has brought about the 11 day lapse in posts.

One problem with that is, it seems trivial to resume with a mundane post that would not be worth waiting 12 days for. Someone who posts only once a month might be successful if he were to put a month's worth of insight into the post, but a "not much happening today" type entry every 12 days, begs the question of: then what was so special about this particular day that not much happened, that made you want to blog about it?

There is actually a lot not going on -stuff that has piled up over the past week, which I spent working on a video that is 90% ready to appear here (and maybe on Facebook).

I had one stretch where I started working on it at around noon, right after watching Jeopardy -one of a few things that give me some sense of the order of time; the other one being Harold the cat's appetite- and worked on it until the sun went down and continued until the sun came up; then wound up working all the way through another night; eventually going to bed at my "regular" time; only one whole day late.

I learned a few things. One of which is that it is better to knock off from a project and catch some sleep, rather than to try to function on no sleep.

In the past, I might have posted up the video after determining that it was "not bad," partly just as a way to get out of having to work on it more.

But, the past couple weeks, watching the thing after having slept helped me see it with new eyes and I noticed things that could be improved, and then spent up to 48 straight hours working on it.

Then, last night, after having used the OpenShot Video editor for about 5 years, I searched for some kind of manual for the thing, and discovered that a tutorial had been there all along, hiding in the -go figure- help menu.

But, now the problem is I now know all the things I can do with OpenShot, and have gotten ideas that could take months to bring to fruition. I did learn that the biggest reason I had nicknamed the program "OpenCrash," is because I have a paltry 4 gigs of RAM on this laptop. 

12 is recommended. 

I am getting around that by working in stages; loading the project and then making minor changes before exporting it again, adding one bell and maybe a whistle each time, and then saving it. That way the memory doesn't have to store all the files for undoing things. Every change you make, the system saves the previous file, so it can snap back to it if you hit undo. And if the video is 1 gigabyte, like mine, this only leaves room for 4 changes, not 27 or so, like I had been trying to do. I wound up having to unplug the laptop and pull the battery out then reboot it every time it froze...

Would I like to put the video on Youtube tonight, or maybe spend at least another day putting a rolling credits type thing at the end of it, and maybe a title at the beginning? That would just require that I read a Wiki, or something, about "SVG" image format, and learn how to do the above.

Some might say: Just put all your work into the music portion, and just use a still shot photo -just throw anything up there.

But, in order for the video to tell a story (since the lyrics are ambiguous), this could be done using pictures.

So, today, Thursday, I plan on redoing a section of vocal where I don't like the vibrato on my voice, and exploring how easy it would be to add the credits and title.

The first will require me to double all the instruments on other tracks, starting with the drums. It is easy to see where they hit by the spikes in the waveform, and is actually an opportunity to use a different snare and bass drum for just that section, which might be a good contrast to the rest of the track.

Then I just sing over it, using the vibrato that I want and then paste it over the existing stuff. This is at least a 5 hour job, I know from experience. 

Meanwhile, I need to take a shower, put on clean stuff and go down to the Family Dental place right down the street which is on the list of participants in the Dentaquest plan that I am somehow enrolled in, through the agency of some forces working invisibly on my behalf. It might be because I am "on" medicaide. It smacks of the Biden administration and that entitlement program, where us citizens become like children getting an allowance from our fathers, as long as we behave. Behave "woked," that is.

I think I would give up all of my benefits, just to see a lot of other people likewise deprived. Maybe I should check that attitude...

I need to fix my eyeglasses, as one of the arms has broken off. This would just require picking up some glue at the Dollar store next to the dental place...

Right now, though, it is approaching 5 p.m. and the dental place will likely be closed by the time I get there, given that I need to take a shower after having gone 48 hours on a lot of coffee and then slept in the clothes I am wearing...

So, the dentist will have to wait one more day.

The eyeglasses might be doable, along with putting air in the bike tire, so I can end this 6 week period of walking everywhere. It is the same tire that went flat over the course of 2 days, but I wasn't able to see any bubbles after putting the tube underwater and squeezing it.

So yeah, not much happening today.

I have just now decided, though, to take up to an additional week to improve the video. Maybe after fixing that one section I will repeat the process and redo all the music. There is a voice over that I used the autoduck effect on to reduce the volume of the music when the guy speaks, which has to be done precisely so that it doesn't swell up in an unnatural way when the guy pauses. I'm not exactly pleased with the results I have gotten on that section, either. So, what, another 3 hour crash coarse on how to use the autoduck effect, and then back at it?

Probably.

It seems that I am at the stage of learning how much I don't know.

Youtube can, and probably should, take the video down for copyright infringement, because I am using clips off the Dance Moms website, and they are smart; they've got that pesky watermark prostituted all over it, in almost every frame.

They should take into account that I am not trying to make money off of their work. If that should happen, I could always have it hosted on gab, the free speech site, for which I would just have to pay a small fee for a "pro" account. It's amazing what you can get for just a little bit of money online -the huge gap between the free stuff and all you can get for just 5 bucks a month.

Hell, I could buy a domain through GoDaddy for something like 30 bucks a year, and then be able do stuff that I can't on Blogger.

I could do a lot of things, but instead I am sitting here, all sweaty and crossing things off the list of what I might accomplish today. The dentist is struck-through as of now.

That leaves glue for the glasses, air for the tire and litter and food for Harold.

I hope I don't just wind up drinking beer and yelling "ignorant n****r!" at videos of Don Lemon, or Maxine Waters all evening, and not getting anything else "done..."

The fact that the above could get this blog removed from the "worldwide web" regardless of the context it is being used in, is just wrong. And despite the asterisks, because cancel culture can fill those in for everyone, thank you...

It's been hard making new friends on gab and parler; they should really just divide facebook into left and right, with maybe a red or blue background, depending upon which community a user is in.

I might just be blogging soon on a platform that the likes of Alex in California could never find.

It's mind blowing to see these people talking about the problem of "misinformation" and its roll in instigating the horrible riot at the Capitol building, and how all these people that disseminate it need to be basically not allowed to post anywhere. Mind blowing because most of the subjects that they are on one side of are open to debate. Like, there are some of the world's most brilliant scientists who outright disagree over matters such as climate change, but half of them have been branded as misinformation mongers and are being targeted for cancellation.

The sad thing is that, our generation of "boomers" wouldn't go for any of that, but this latest generation of mass shooters of school children seems to be blithely dealing with the problem of how to exterminate all the people who voted for Trump, just because they have been deluded by someone or thing (an algorithm) more powerful than the ex-president. They just can't step outside themselves long enough to examine the thoughts in their heads, and how they got there, and if they are helping them or anyone else.

It's ironic that the fallout from having a reality show star as president is that the whole world is on the verge of turning into one huge Jerry Springer show.

It's also ironic that Trump really did spawn hatred; I now hate Seth Myers; but mostly because he just isn't funny; with his jokes that the the punchline is" Is this guy an idiot or what?!" which I suppose causes the applause sign in the studio to go bonkers... 

But this isn't my format; I need to save this energy to put into the music video...

The Attack of the Bloggerhead Turtle

 I was just going to post up some pictures, since I have already burned the first 3 hours of this day "touching up" a few that I took..

Before I know it the biggest event in the world will kick off. I have had this Sunday marked on my calendar a long time; the magnitude of fan that I am.

For, on this most super of all Sundays, Maddie will be dancing solo in the National's in Las Vegas on Dance Moms, available only on Lifetime Channel. 

The world's eyes will be upon her; except for some people who are going to be watching a stupid football game...

Ok, back to the pictures I wanted to post.

I have moved my "work area" around a bit, so now I blog from in between the two rooms of my place, having not decided which room should be for left brain activities and which for right.

There is the music and art room, and then the reading and studying room.

Of course the jigsaw puzzle is in the left brain room, which I'm not sure is correct.

But, due to considerations like my neighbor's bed being right on the other side of the wall from where my bed is; that room is less appealing as being the music studio..

A more "birds-eye" view, created by holding the phone as high as I could and aiming it generally downward, shows that the music studio now houses the turntable (rear left) seen at the rear left on a table alongside the entertainment center that I took out of the dumpster a couple days ago.

The karaoke box drives a pair of small speakers pretty well, but it's headphone output into my big system might be the way to go, which is another reason rearranging furniture has been on my mind...

That, and running to the store for some Dancemoms, er, I mean Superbowl, beer.

And some nicotine. That is about what the unemployment benefits cover, quelling the common man from rioting, by making sure he has beer and cigarettes.

 More clutter, as the speakers are added to the fray, stuffed in a flower pot with the remainder of a bag of potting soil.

Behind that is the picture from China that Howard Westra gave me.

This is just an easier way for me to look at the clutter and put it into some sort of perspective.

Everything will snap together like a jigsaw puzzle; when the time is right...

My cartoon plants have been ravaged a bit by the bol weevils that come in through the floorboards.

I spent some time doctoring this picture, so am including it in lieu of actual writing...

Eggs In A Dead Man's Pan

 

Food And Data

I am Listening to Fiona Apple, and thinking about...apples...about getting a bag of them, to juice with my newest juicer, which I got for $12.78 at the Goodwill Store.

The previous juicer was a Black and Decker brand and was heavy, giving the impression that it was heavy-duty. It probably was and probably had a strong motor. Only, there was a slight wobble to the thing. When the motor was spinning fast, it became evident. I knew I should find the screws to open it and tighten down whatever was loose. But, I didn't and the thing finally seized up, with the rotor becoming jammed, and then the motor burning up in short order, complete with whitish-blue-green sparks, and a smell that reminds me of the transformer that came with the electric train set I had as a kid. You could get a good dose of that smell by shorting the tracks together with a piece of wire, I recall.

I had gone on a bit of a binge, these past few day, on the free "good meal" packages of food that I have been finding; discarded by finicky other residents.

A good six pack of beer, such as Modelo "Negro," and 2 or 3 of those microwaveable meals, and all I am dirtying is a fork, when it's all said and done. The beer gives me a don't care attitude about the dry, flaking skin I might wind up getting from any hydrogenated soy oil that might be in the good meals.

But, it is time for at least a day or two of juice fasting.

I went to the Goodwill Store earlier this afternoon, with the intention of buying one vinyl album (50 cents) which would become "the first album" in my collection of them (not counting the boxed sets of Beethoven and Brahms albums that I found by the side of the road -the thing that made the idea of getting a turntable a feasible one. I had a couple hundred bucks worth of classical music, and would only need some $25 turntable from the thrift store to cash in on them.

One regret about the turntable that I have now is that there is no "repeat" function that would make the same side play over and over. I think it would be cool to have one classical piece on repeat for a few days; in order that I would become very familiar with that symphony or violin concerto (as of today's find) and maybe even some of the compositional skills would worm their way into my head over time.

And, if I were to ever go on that "Name That Tune" show; classical version; I might be able to name that violin concerto in D by Mozart in just one note.

The listing of this album on Amazon's website has a price of $14.95 for one in used, but "good" condition.

The same can be said of the condition of the one that I got for 55 cents, tax included, after I was unable to find any totally random album by some band that I had half-forgotten exists (at my age, it is when one of the members passes away that I am reminded of a lot of them) in order to make it the first album in my collection.

I just think that it would be cool for the people who live on my floor to walk by in their daily routines and hear the same B-52's album, from 1979, playing non-stop. It has to be an album that I could pick up the guitar and play right along with, note for note (eventually).

There was hardly any pop music at all there (although. A James Taylor disc without a scratch was tempting) and that is probably because people regularly go there with some app loaded in their phones that allows them to swipe the bar codes on stuff to determine how drastically the Goodwill has discounted them.

At least one such guy owns a "used goods" store across the river, where he transports merchandise to, from the Goodwill Store, and then triples the price tag, over what he paid for it.

I've seen them in there doing that, especially to the books, minutes after the place opens on a Monday morning, after being restocked over the weekend. I guess the app rates books, and gives their "worth." It is discouraging to see someone pushing two carts full of books out the door as I am on my way in, to look through the new book arrivals.

Of course, a brand new Charles Dickens paperback, of great interest to me, might still be on the shelf at 55 cents, with the Stephen King, James Patterson and Harry Potter ones having gone out the door in one of the two carts.

I learned a lesson once, after I found a Linux Certification manual, which had a $39.99 price on the back, but was only 50 cents. It would have been cheap enough at a dollar, had it been a hard cover, but it was flexible, and hence 55 cents. How many people are interested in technical manuals about the Linux operating system? I thought. I'll come back and get it tomorrow,..

But, the book wasn't there the next day. It surely had been grabbed by someone who knew he could put it on E-bay to advertise it world-wide and reach an audience much larger than the 40 or so people who might see it in the Goodwill Store. He probably bought it for 55 cents and wound up selling it for like $19.98, or around half price -quite a good deal for some student in Estonia, who might not know what a Goodwill Store is.

But, Alex in California would probably warn that "there is a lot of b.s." involved in selling stuff on Ebay -procuring shipping materials, shipping things, and then probably the one-out-of-twenty people who are going to want to return the thing for a refund, so that, the next time you sell the item, you are just about breaking even.

Speaking of Alex in California, who was probably hoodwinked by the radical left California Snowflake ideology that flows there like a mudslide, into avoiding this blog, for fear that he will be doxed by Amazon, Ebay, Google and Facebook, and outed for being a party to a misinformation campaign, and then getting cancelled. No more posts about green beans and sake from him...

But, speaking of Alex, I thought it might be fun to look through his blog for clues as to his whereabouts, and then try to zoom in and find him, like a needle in the haystack of San Jose, CA...

I have at least made note of the busking spots out there, in case I ever wind up there, on a vacation, or something. I'll be playing Dylan out in front of Whole Foods, near the Amazon lockers; especially if there is a Sharks game that night, LOL!

Where Is Alex?

That bugger is in there (the above map) somewhere..

A couple of hours ago, my food stamp card should have been reloaded, helping to grease the wheels of the economy, that relies so much upon petroleum products, and also, my data is down to something like 30 megabytes, which is just enough to be able to post this when I hit "publish."

It is already Friday (again). Time is flying so fast, geez, Trump will be back in the White House before we know it. I keep my ears peeled for phrases like "even the democrats think this is a bad policy" as being a harbinger of hope, that in 4 years there will at least not be an empty suit spouting platitudes from a teleprompter on the evening news. Hopefully, CNN will have been sold to a home shopping network by then, too.

In a mere 3 hours, the grocery stores will be opening, and I will go after some stuff to juice. That leaves me time to listen to Mozart's violin concerto no. 4 in D major a couple more times.

Upon returning from the Goodwill Store with that record, I noticed an entertainment console in the dumpster. It has a 5 disc CD changer, dual cassette decks (damaged) AM/FM radio (with the bonus of antenna jacks in the back for improved reception) and I made a mental note to fish it out of there, plug it in and see what happens.

As soon as I got in my place, there was a knock at my door by Bobby, who wanted back the powered speaker that he had come into possession of, and left here, wanting me to plug in to see if it worked.

I plugged it in, and it did work. It even had a single RCA input, that accepted one half of the stereo signal coming from the turntable. That allowed me to listen to the albums that I had found. I gave Bobby his speaker back, and then immediately went and fetched the entertainment console out of the dumpster, to replace it, finding that the turntable plugs right into the back of it, and runs through the auxiliary channel.

I can either attach a couple of the speakers that I have a half dozen of (whenever someone dies here, their speakers often wind up in the dumpster, as this is the Land of the Forgotten, where homeless people go to die, and there seems to be a superstition among these mostly "of color" people about appropriating the goods of a recent decedent, so they leave the stuff there. This extends to cookware -they don't want to be frying eggs in a dead man's pan, I guess (that was supposed to be witty, but I guess my delivery wasn't dead-pan enough). 

I don't harbor the same taboos myself, except when it comes to the clothing that invariably gets thrown out. I draw the line at sallying forth from the building, sporting a sweatshirt or something that everyone has seen the dead guy "always wearing").

This is where he gets his yakitori!

Or I could run the headphone output into my good amplifier and speakers, which put out about 4 times the wattage of the console (with all the features of the thing, to include karaoke capabilities, they had to cut corners somewhere, I guess). 

Radical Left Leanings

 I am alive and well and working on a piece of music; I am more specifically sliding things around in time, so that I am trying to match the guitar to the drum track in the exact instant it was played.

The trick there is to recognize when you were in the groove and then slide the timeline of the guitar either to the left or the right.

Left will move the guitar ahead in time relative to the drums, which are computer generated, and hence, unwavering..

The thing you have to experiment with is finding a time when you played your note so perfectly on the beat that the difference is only the amount of time it takes sound to travel a foot.

And then you slide your guitar track to line up with that one instant of near perfection and so at least you know that if the guitar falls off the beat it was the guitarist and not a bad time spotting in Audacity audio editor...

But, I have been sliding the guitar to the left and think I might have gone too far; the guitarist sounds like he is in a hurry...