Too Busy To Blog

 

Eroding The Value Of This Blog

I couldn't find where I had written the number for the vaccination place that Lilly gave me; not even after ruffling through the pages of every book that I might have had open in front of me when I wrote it down.

So, I called her again, and I got it.

She reiterated that I would have to present a valid vaccination document before entering her pool this coming summer.

Other than that; I bought Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits Volume 2 on vinyl, for a dollar, without a scratch and, I can hear Streisandheads echoing what I know in regards to the music that sold the most not necessarily being a window into the soul of the artist; but it was a dollar and, what is the saying? The worst Streisand is better than the.....?

And I got an Elvis Presley album that dates back to where it came from. It has the RCA logo with the dog barking into the Victrola, and when you put it on, you think that someone probably listened to this in 1969.

And, given the pristine condition of the disc; they didn't like it, put it back in the sleeve, where it sat until just recently.

It is a weird science -how Elves Presley's albums wind up at the Goodwill Store 3/8ths of a mile from here, without a scratch on them...
It makes you think that some person who would have been at the age to be interested in that vulgar hip swiveling pervert (that's a compliment) back in 1969, has now just passed away, and had his vinyl records donated to the Goodwill Store. 

A guy who bought Elvis records but didn't listen to them.

Either that, or he was super careful and would return the record to the sleeve immediately after playing it, would hit the record with a device to remove static electricity from the vinyl, and would never touch the playing areal, because acids in our skin oil will promote vinyl eating bacterium that will eat holes into the record, which will then issue the tell-tale pops when the needle encounters their handiwork.

It may be that just the acid secreted by humans alone can bore holes and make those popping sounds, without any bacteria being involved, I am too lazy to Google it right now; another example of alcohol usage eroding the value of this blog....

Why Don't You Just Call Lillian?

 Lilly answered on the second ring and already knew who it was and so, went right into "Daniel, are you vaccinated?!" as a greeting.

Lilly has been vaccinated, as well as "the girls."

She has an appointment to get a second shot; she gave me the number of a place and advised me to ask for the Phizer (sp?) product, though said that one of the others was just as good.

The selling point of the Phizer one was that it is administered where Lilly went (her daughters, for some reason, got a different vaccine, from one of the other drug company's.

I think I understand the logic behind this, as well as I know Lilly.

She is a text book worry wart; and shrewd practitioner of danger avoidance.

She figures that, if one of vaccines works, it would protect that household member, from catching the virus from another, who might have gotten the one that doesn't work.

...starting to move stuff around a bit...

If Lilly's vaccine works, she is protected. And if that means that her daughters got the bum one, at least they are younger and far more likely to survive. That way, they all survive.

If Lilly gets the one that doesn't work, she still won't have to worry about getting it from the girls, because they would have gotten the other vaccine.

I guess Lilly feels the odds of both of the major manufacturers getting it wrong is not out of the realm of possibility, and hence worrisome, but nevertheless, she admonished me to call a certain number and ask for a certain nurse and then to go and get vaccinated. Monday (tomorrow).

She said that any chances of me swimming in her pool in the coming months would be contingent upon me showing my vaccination card at the gate... 

She also said that nobody has been playing on the street; although the street in front of her house was my main concern. That is good news.

One by day...

One by night...

  

 After I grabbed a watercolor kit at the dollar store, after stumbling upon some in their art supplies and school stuff section, I got to messing around a bit, and hopefully it will be a steep learning curve.

The lizard-like thing, most visible in the picture to the left, is about my first attempt at doing a watercolor, since I was living in a cave in the mountains of Phoenix, Arizona in 1999.

But, those were the solid type paints that you needed to wet in order to dissolve them and absorb them into the brush.

The stuff I got yesterday comes in tubes and are very concentrated in the tube, so that you can use them straight without adding any water at all; or you can dilute to your heart's content. This is a totally different painting experience from the ones I did of the city of Phoenix from my birds-eye view from "South Mountain" (elevation 2,330).

I used to stay up in the mountain, in my cave, for up to a couple days at a time, depending upon how much money I had made, driving a cab in the city below.

The cabs were leased for 12 hour shifts; easy to remember that you get off work at exactly the same time you started your shift, with the 12 hour shifts.

It often worked out that you didn't make your lease money ($57) until about four hours into your shift. Then it would, in effect, become an 8 hour shift of working where the money is going into your pocket and not the cab company's.

I was able to be a pretty upbeat and happy cab driver. I would hit a gym and shower and change into a clean shirt and tie. My hair was long, but could be gelled into a reasonably tame form.

 

Time To Go Back To Work

 Where are the butterflies in the stomach that were once a given on any given Saturday night, since I moved to New Orleans?

It is time to get back to work. If I don't, someone else is going to grab the Lilly Pad, and should Lilly come out to meet them and find them agreeable, she might just tell them that a friend of hers who used to play almost every night, has apparently quit doing so...

All these thoughts are counter to the ego disregarding ways of the true Christian, but there is still a part of me that wants to reclaim my stake on that storied street; and all these people walking around need to hear something "real."

Monday: Post Video Recovery

Monday, the day that it was promised that the laundry card dispenser would be reloaded with cards.

The time to busk again is fast approaching...

 

 

 

The machines don't take quarters anymore, and have recently stopped taking the Mastercard that my pandemic money comes on.

So, I left my heavy hamper full of clothes in the laundry room over the weekend, waiting on them to refill the card machine. It's kind of a test of the residents here; to see if they are low enough to steal other's clothing. Something like that would be good to know before I leave an expensive bike outside, or something...

If I think about it, while I am out, I might pop in on Bobby and see if I can borrow his laundry card. He doesn't live here anymore, but might still have his card in his wallet, if only for the fact that it might have some value left on it.

Having finished working for about 3 weeks on the "Buzz Is Right" video, the other side of my brain has been suggesting that I next to the video based on the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method books that I have been studying since the age of 15.

To truly master those pieces would truly make you a master of the instrument.

But, it was an urgency of mine back then to "progress" and "advance" to the next book, then the next, thinking that this would elevate my skill level along with it; or that the books would teach me advanced stuff, in turn making me an advanced player.

But, I wish someone would have stopped me and told me that, unless I can get the first few pieces in the book to sound pretty good, there is no use turning the pages and not really learning the rest of the book. That would just have me half-ass playing the songs in Grade 7.

So, I think the next video I do is going to be one of the first pieces in Grade 2, shot on video and then some kind of lesson to go along with it, pointing out the baby steps that are intended to be ingrained in the 12 year old student, but that might not be evident unless the student is a practicing maniac who, in the 44th hour of repeating the same piece might have a revelation. An, "I don't have to lift my finger up and move it to the next string right here; I can just roll the fingertip a bit over onto the adjacent string, and play the note more smoothly..." type of moment.

Youtube has disabled comments on my video; most likely just because youngsters appear in it.

I still have a copy of it on my hard drive, in the event that it disappears from the web.

It will probably be the Mel Bay video that gets my channel shut down...

The Buzz Is Right/(talkin' 'bout) White Flight

Thirty six hours, I would approximate, went into this work.

Along the way, I discovered time saving shortcuts that are going to shave about 20 percent of the time off of whatever the next project is.

Thinking of Migrating

I am thinking of taking this blog to a platform that hasn't shadow banned me because of my perceived beliefs.

I'm making new "friend"s on gab.com; and Rumble is just as good as youtube. Maybe I can ditch the whole lot of them, those too cowardly to even comment on a facebook status that I post out of fear of associating with someone who doesn't believe one hundred percent that the November 2020 election was absolutely bereft of fraud, in all its guises, whatsoever. And, one who hasn't believed in the necessity of wearing masks since the last time it was deemed necessary (not counting, of course, the brief period when it was deemed that they do no good, but certainly before then -the first time they were necessary).

If you think that the response to the virus is some kind of dress rehearsal for the powers that be to test how much control over the populace they can exert, and you voice this concern; then you can kiss your facebook friends goodbye. Not even the president of the United States could save you, once you incur the wrath of Big Tech; that is becoming common knowledge. Zuckerburg and friends will appoint that next president, anyways...the more brain-dead the better. 

You don't want to "like" anything that a pariah like myself might post, even if you actually like it. 

I could get a GoDaddy account for something like 30 bucks a year and have them host my blog. I would then be able to put my own neat little applications on them, written in Ruby on Rails. Of course, the only one I have thought of is one that would locate and direct homeless people to the best ashtrays to pick butts from in every city in the U.S. (worldwide would be too monumental a task, as I don't even know if people smoke in Mandalay, for example, or if they have homeless people).

But, Google has set a flag bit on my account, the "Trump" bit to "1" rather than "0" and so it is not my shitty writing, but a group of gen Z snowflakes that have decided that the world shouldn't see my blog.

I am planning a pretty good going away party. I want them to delete me with a vengeance; and that is not an easy undertaking in this culture.

I will think of something. I might start to advertise illegal immigrant Mexican girls for sale, including (random off of Facebook) pictures of them. I'll give them something to cry about, if they think that my mock up of the first Trump/Biden debate, where I made the latter look like a fool (even before it was cool to do so on the "right") is reason for disappearing all my posts, regardless of title keywords or "relevance" to whatever a person might be searching for.

If you want to know what it's like to make a living playing music on the street in New Orleans, you aren't going to get any information from a guy whom the algorithm flagged as "probably voted for Trump;" not through a Google search, not on their watch!

I can't think of her name, but some "opinion" journalist for CNN lambasted those who harbored the "conspiracy theory" that the people that stormed the capital on January 6th were not all Trump supporters, some of them might have been Antifa people who wanted the blame to fall upon Trump supporters.

Give me a break, it was about the smallest "insurrection" imaginable, 120 whole people who went into the building and did nothing useful, such as drag Pelosi out by her hair and whisk her away to be held for ransom (in the form of four more years for Trump).

So, this reporter, OK, I looked it up; Nicole Henner went on to point out that the right wing, or whatever, has a history of pushing conspiracy theories on the public.

She mentioned the ones, such as: a sitting president having foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, but letting it go down because he wanted to enter WWII, and, well, here it is...

Wow!

Finally inquiring minds will be able to satisfy their curiosity about the Kennedy assassination, for starters.

Surely Nicole is privy to some knowledge about those events back in November of 1963 and, thus, can say with authority that the Johnson "involvement" theory is utterly false and absurd.* No need to investigate any further into the Clinton's either -nothing to see here, move on...or get cancelled...

I'm looking forward to her publishing the "real" facts about the matter. How does she know all that about Roosevelt. It would be a public service for her to divulge what it is that she knows that the rest of us don't. I'm all ears.

Looking at her, I am instantly struck by her resemblance to one Louise Helton, whom I let stay at my place for what amounted to a couple of weeks.

She was a man hater; said she would have loved to have joined the military back whenever the last war was, so she could have killed "camel riding misogynists."

She couldn't join though, because of her Varicose veins. Of course she has Varicose veins. People like Louise always have something -something to be a victim of. Diabetes, sure. High blood pressure, sign her up...

She was such a misandrist, that it should have been a red flag for me, but it wasn't. That is all in a previous post from those days, but she wound up leaving my place, dragging her rolling luggage behind her and yelling: "He was probably going to rape me!" to anyone within earshot, all the way down Canal Street.

Her job was as a tarot card reader on Royal Street. She made pretty good money. Imagine that. She could tell the fortunes of and give advice to any and all, men included, who were gullible enough to sit at her table and ultimately plunk down anywhere from the minimum of 20 dollars to 100 or so for a "good" reading.

Well, I guess I was had by her, and that falls upon me.

She started to rage and yell after I left something on the stove that began to smoke, though not enough to set the smoke detector off.

I could have killed all of us; including the cat. "At least care about a defenseless animal!" she yelled.

Then she told me she was going to cook a good meal on my stove and then take a long hot shower, before leaving; because she didn't want to stay with such an irresponsible individual.

She didn't drink, and she blamed my drinking for my almost burning down the whole place.

She didn't want to stay with a "stupid alcoholic" any more. But she was going to get a long hot shower, and then cook the rest of her food and eat; then she would go, yelling "He was probably going to rape me!" as she went.

You, see, because I have a voucher to pay for my rent as a veteran, and because she was totally willing to enlist for the killing of camel loving misogynists, and since it was no fault of hers that she had Varicose veins, and thus, no fault of hers that she wasn't a veteran like me; she had every right to my apartment.

"Just because the government is stupid enough to give a place to a stupid alcoholic, when I am just as deserving doesn't mean I'm not entitled to a good hot meal and a long hot shower. You're not going to begrudge me a shower!" she said.

That is just a thumbnail sketch of Louise Helton. I heard from Johnny B., a street musician who played right down the street from where she gave her "readings," that the police had turned a deaf ear to her constant complaints about men who had allegedly "tried to rape her." 

It seems that, one time, Johnny was playing on the spot where she usually gave her readings because some other musician had beaten him to his regular spot.

She confronted him, probably telling him that she was entitled to that spot somehow.

Johnny stood his ground, telling her something pat like: "I don't see your nameplate or anything on this spot," and that, as far as he knew, it was first-come-first-serve for street musicians in New Orleans (unless you have a benefactor like I do in Lilly, who owns 14 million dollars worth of property and rents 2 restaurants, one of them a "5 star" one).

And so, Louise decided to fight for "her" spot by marching right to the police station to file assault and attempted rape charges against Johnny B. in some machination. That would get rid of him; if she had to play hardball, so be it.

"If you let me stay at your place,

you'll be doing God's work!"

"The officer came and kind of said under his breath: 'You're about the 5th person in the past year that she's claimed has assaulted her; we believe you; (between you and me) who would even think about raping that? "

And so, as soon as I saw the picture of Nicole Hemmer, I got the same vibe as with Louise Helton.


I think I have a pretty good sense for these things, as, since I have so much trouble recognizing faces, I have had to lump new acquaintances into categories populated by people I've already met.

Utterly False

It's as if they are the same spirit, embodying themselves anew, but not being very good at disguise, so that I can tell that it is still them.

I was struck by the resemblance of Nicole to Louise.

And, I wasn't too surprised to see, at the top of her website, a link that people could click on so they could support "women owned businesses" -not businesses that provide the best products and services -if there is an all women owned outfit competing with them. No, we all need to "lift up" the all-woman owned businesses, even if it means compromising a bit on goods and services. We need to strike a blow at the patriarchal system that has been in place for so long.

We all need to ascribe to what is true about Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, and especially the election of 2020; just ask Nicole Hemmer, she will set you right; She just knows. She is woke.

Gee, that sounds a lot (the all women owned thing) like something that the Louise Helton that stayed at my place would champion on her website, but wait...

...she has every right to my shower...

I tried to go to Louise's Facebook page, for a picture of her to put here -I remember just recently her having a birthday "send her a birthday wish," or something, but, I was taken aback at first because her page had undergone a "facelift" of sorts.

 

 

 

 

It's just that, a little while ago, I was notified that it was Louise's birthday on Facebook; now, she has disappeared from my friend list, but there is a new "Louise Helton" in New Orleans, who apparently went to the same high school as the tarot card reader...

 Note: The above picture appears twice because I can't delete the one right above; as if facebook embedded some code into it. The one at the top doesn't show the name Louise Helton, which was the point of me pointing out the page...

I even went into the html editor and manually deleted the code to render the picture; but it is still there. Maybe one more reason to leave facebook alone...

Maybe she dyed her hair darker and got some kind of skin treatment; lost a few pounds; went back in time....

She is probably roughing out the Covid lock down thing, where she can't ply her trade on Royal Street by becoming a meat puppet on Facebook.

"Friend me because I'm beautiful; then send me money because I'm in an abusive relationship and I will use it to buy a plane ticket to fly out to wherever, to be with you," type of thing...

If those stupid camel loving misogynists are stupid enough to fall for it, then, they're just getting what they deserve...

Well, look at the time; I had better go and get some pot and deal with my own lock down...

*that's kind of funny because one of my other friends (on facebook, as a matter of fact) whom I met in Mobile, Alabama, and whose father happened to be one of the "three hobos" who were detained after the shooting of the president; told me quite a different story. 

While it's true that his father was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and dressed the wrong way -train hoppers don't usually wear business suits- he

seemed to have some inside scoop about the incident -said that the gunman who fired the fatal shot was in the sewer under the street, firing up through the grate (back and to the left; back and to the left).

He didn't tell me which tramp was his dad; I don't think it was the one that is Woody Harrelson's brother; if even that is true.

  Left: Does this look like someone who would fabricate stories?

Like, that his buddy who took the picture is a professional photographer, or something?

White Flight

 I've been working at everything; waking up right at the start of Jeopardy lately; sometimes switching on my set right as the first clue is being displayed.

I appear as a 4 year old somewhere in the above mosaic

Alex Trevek is still the guy, so these must be the pre-recorded shows from when he was still alive. Do you think?

Quitting music has led to some revelations, such as that I still had not totally killed the dragon of "what other people think of this" while in the middle of working on a music piece.

I used to think more on the lines of: Look, I can be just like the Grateful Dead!" rather than: "Hey, be impressed by how good I have become; take back anything critical you may have said and everything is good...

It's just that, when you are an artist, you feel like you are pregnant with a creation of yours. I can remember always vowing not to work on another piece for a long time, after finishing one.

There is the ebb and flow between conceiving of a sublime piece and trying to transpose it from mind to recording, knowing that, if you took 5 months off to take a crash course in The Oboe, you could return to the project five months from then and really lay down a killer reed part; and the wanting to complete and move on from, a song before getting tired of it.

If that happens it turns into "going through the motions" which is 

Then, switch to other activities that might be equally leisurely, without the trying to right the wrongs inflicted in youth when, you knew you had it in you, but that it would take a lot of hard practice to bring to fruition, which you were procrastinating upon getting to..

So, yeah; I am back to work on whatever it was, to where I go back to now...

I'm Joining The Bikers

I finally found myself situated with a little bit of cash in my pocket, and so I grabbed the flat back tire from the red bike

and carried it with me down to the Brown Derby, where I bought a 20 ounce bag of green Maeng Da kratom and got a dollar in quarters back for the air machine.

It's the same tube and tire that I used to have to put air in every couple days, as it had the slowest leak that I have ever encountered; it would be just a little softer each day.

And that has been what has kept me from putting 4 good quarters worth of air into it every couple days, feeling like I was wasting air and money.

But, the time saved by riding it has to be factored in, and so I am really saving probably 45 minutes of walking every couple days, for the price of putting air in the tire.

And, not knowing whether the tube was the problem, or if the tire itself had some kind of sharp spot in it that I couldn't detect by running my fingers around its inside, but was enough to put pinholes in any tube that I might spend 7 bucks for as a replacement. I couldn't get any air bubble to escape after immersing the tube in water and squeezing it, so, I am back to bike riding and monitoring the hardness of the tire every morning.

It may just be that I bought 2 defective tubes in a row and I'm bound to get a better one, now that another lot of them has probably arrived at Walmart.

It will be good to ride a bike, so as to change the dynamic of my traveling around, as the past 7 weeks or so that I have been walking everywhere has given any mugger out there the establishment of some kind of pattern.

I'm aware that alcohol is detrimental to a person and can reek wholesale havoc on a person's life, but walking to the store at 3 a.m. to get it, and being an easy target that way doesn't help matters.

At least on a bike you can reach speeds unattainable by a skeezer on foot, who can only yell something like: "Hey, do you want a free cigarette?" to try to get you to stop, before you fly by at 20 miles per hour, and proceed out of his life.

No worries that a guy a few paces behind you might be following you, when you are riding your bike everywhere.

I also got some super glue for the eyeglasses that have had the temples attached by Scotch tape the past few weeks, out of my forgetfulness over getting the glue, behind the idea that I might run into someone who has some and could spare me a couple drops. That didn't seem to be materializing, so I plunked down $3.50 for a whole bottle of the stuff; and now I guess I can go crazy, gluing stuff together around the house.