It's Easy To See The Problem There

Debussy is cranking from out of the speakers I found by the side of the road about 2 years ago; which sat around collecting dust until the turntable arrived, and then the Panasonic entertainment center was found in the Sacred Dumpster, missing its 2 speakers, and with at least one of the dual cassette bays damaged.

I holds 5 CD's which is cool, because I can pretend I'm putting in the 5 CD's that I would take with me on a 30 year space journey if I was only allowed the extra weight of 5 CD's to be playable on the solar powered Discman...

Or, if stranded on a deserted island with my own wind-powered CD deck, and a suitcase washes up on shore, and in it were 5 CD's (and the rest stuffed with marijuana). Which 5 would you wish they were, type of thing.

Ma Mabel's Family

I might have to make room for a "The Carter Family" one...

I have been binge listening to they, who were big in the 1930's and pretty much into the 1940's and beyond.

Recently, I stuffed the Panasonic with a 4 disc "American Roots" boxed set that I somehow have, in an attempt to force feed myself stuff that was the cat's meow when it came out; back when monaural speakers might have filled people's living rooms with it. 

Ostensibly this is music that the whole nation was grooving to, through the earliest syndicates of radio music.

The World Catalog

I suppose one could think more critically that it was music that people who could afford radios, along with the electricity to plug them in to, that nurtured this form of music, more specifically, a bunch of white girls singing, type music. 

And thus the group that validated this music and actually gave it its status, wasn't really really representative of America in the 30's and 40's. 

There were disproportionate numbers of people of color who didn't own radios back then, so I had better listen to as much as I can, in case Google disappears it from The Catalog. 

I derailed myself from the American Roots 4 disc set, to check out closer, The Carter Family and their music, having made it to only the 3rd song in that collection, before deciding to go off on the tangent. That song was "Wildwood Flower."

Somehow, as a kid, growing up in Massachusetts in the 1970's, I was aware that we lived in rock and roll country. The rock station was the hub of all things youthful, and the country station was for people who hadn't been born in town, but often had moved there from "someplace out in the country."

In the case of Mr. LaBelle, he was a truck driver, and so would have been exposed to a variety of stations that play music, and might have gotten to like it that way. I remember when driving from Massachusetts to Florida in 1993, I hit a stretch of highway in North Carolina where every station that I could get to come in on my FM radio was a twangy vocal piece with steel guitars and the snare drum being played by some "hick," who would be laying his stick down horizontally on the drum head and tapping the rim with the end of it -the sound that first grabbed my ear when I heard country music, coming out of the LaBelle's garage one morning as I was walking up their street for some reason.

Supposedly, it was Jeffrey LaBelle's father (who drove a delivery truck for Black Label beer) who was working in the garage and had his radio tuned to WFGL, and that was where the "tuck, tuck, tuck" of a horizontally situated drumstick was coming from.

But, Jeffrey had admitted to the other kids in the neighborhood that he would "listen to it" sometimes. It didn't take long for word to spread that Jeff Labelle liked country music, and he was looked at slightly askance by us all, after that.

I wanna hear some accordion!

So, for now, it is The Carter Family, and there is synchronicity in the fact that I had just order a Chet Atkins guitar method book from Mel Bay, which is on its way, while I listen to Chet picking his guitar on accompaniment...kind of funny to hear perhaps the number one guitar legend in the world, totally in the background...

My hope is that I will at least be able to do spoofs of that kind of music, and make a mockery of it. Before Youtube decides to take it all down; because there is no way to describe it without "white" coming up in the description; and it's easy to see the problem there...?

An Answer To My Prayer

First of all, this is a beach in Maine, and you notice the big rocks where there would be sand on a beach closer to the equator.

It's almost as if the earth's motion stirs things up at the equator, which equates to more finely ground sand.

Whereas, you can see the rocks here, and that is probably because these rocks were frozen in place for eons and thus, couldn't get ground down into sand.

I find this fascinating, and I found this on "r/beachporn" which is a group on Reddit dot com, and which is just thousands of pictures of beaches.

A lot of them have sand, and the ones in Wales, UK, for some reason have rounded shores, not jagged at all, but like the water in the harbor is swirling in a circular motion and has been for eons, and thus, the rounded shores, which I don't have a picture of...

And this is a place in Italy where I would love to live, especially the way the houses are built right upon the solid rock that juts above the water at least 80 feet, it looks like.

But the point of this post is that a great thing has happened and the very hockey game that I was prepared to search for is on free TV.

I can't write more, I have to watch the Bruins...
 

Siri; Who Do The Bruins Play Now?

 Saturday afternoon, and no sports on free TV. The hockey playoffs are being played off in cities all over America and Canada, yet, none of the channels I get are broadcasting the action.

I'm so far behind the times; I could probably get all the hockey games I crave through Youtube TV, by remitting a small fee. I just dropped 200 bucks on a portable amplifier, what's another $3.99 a month if I can see playoff hockey.

But, first...

And...

And, finally...

Left: an indelible stain upon the parties responsible; and a worry wart upon the collective consciousness of the white race for generations to come; and something that I don't condone in any way.

I mean, of course, little punks who punch elderly ladies...

So, where was I?

Oh, yeah, no hockey; I'm going to Google around and hopefully find a reasonably priced sports network. Football season is not far away; and the Patriots play against Tom Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, game 6, I believe...

Gearing Up For The Busk, Or A Career In Law Enforcement

People are traveling in droves, on this Memorial Day weekend, and it reminds me that I have finally gotten around to ordering a fine, heavy duty gig bag, for the acoustic guitar, one which has ample pockets, for say, a laptop.

I will soon have a portable busking unit that I can take with me on a Greyhound, provided that they don't implement some kind of "vaccination proving" protocol. 

I don't think Amtrack would follow suit; though; there's something American about the railroads, so I don't think that would be in their DNA.

The little Yamaha amp head, with its two 3 inch speakers that will put out a clean signal at a Lilly Pad appropriate 5 watts, can also be used as a microphone preamp, so I could use the headset microphone at home to record vocals into Audacity.

The amp also "models" a lot of different sounds, so when I record my acoustic guitar through it (using a pickup that I haven't ordered yet) I will be able to make it sound like a much more expensive guitar, by using a digital setting.

The headset microphone will capture the harmonica and vocals and then send it through the head, which will be hidden in the backpack, and I'm hoping the same mic will grab enough of the acoustic guitar to boost it a small amount. Then, with a little bit of effect from the amp, the whole thing should translate into me returning to the Lilly Pad, sounding 20 percent louder, and with a little ambiance to the sound.

Then, since I ordered the wrong gig bag the first time, and got the electric guitar version, which is way too thin to squeeze an acoustic into, but which I decided to keep anyways, because my electric guitar has no case or bag for it, I will be able to go to a different part of the French Quarter, such as Canal Street not far from the hotels, with the electric guitar instead of the acoustic, and crank the Yamaha up to its full 5 watt output and do something "completely different" from a musical standpoint.

So, the possibility of me traveling this summer is looming. I just want to look into some kind of video camera so I can "vlog" as I go...

I'm not sure I want to carry an extra 4 pounds around with me, I'm sure it would be the thing I contemplate taking out of my backpack during 10 mile walks that I might find myself taking, such as last week, after the driver of the #39 bus mis-informed me of the departure spot of the very same bus for the return trip.

Now, I understand that some bus routes modify their route based upon the time of day; maybe a lot of residents leave for work out of certain neighborhoods, but then, during the business hours, the bus cruises by stop after stop with nobody waiting at them, so, maybe they cut out that part of the run and save fuel, while giving the rest of the line better service...

But, after giving me directions to Guitar Center, at a certain point that he informed me was the closest he was going to get to that place that is out of headset microphones, Yamaha amps, Suzuki harmonicas, and children's piano piece books...and he dropped me off, pointing the way, being polite, but then adding, for the private amusement of a middle aged black woman that he had been chatting with the whole way, I thought: "It's not far..."

It turned out to be approximately 3 miles.

To someone who drives around everywhere, it wouldn't seem "far," but he had to have had some idea, being on the obese side, mind you, that he sure as hell probably wouldn't want to walk it; he who sits all day and rotates a big wheel in front of him.

But, there was some kind of intelligence passed by him to the black lady, to whom he had been talking about the chicanery of people they seemed to mutually know, and about the tricks they had been playing on each other; and which girl left which guy as soon as the money ran out, type of stuff.

Then, when it came to my stop, the driver changed into his "talking to white people" tone of voice, to tell me to walk all the way up to the bridge that could be seen on the horizon and didn't, in his defense, look 3 miles away. And then he told me that, after I came out of Guitar Center, I could catch the returning bus right at a McDonald's nearby there.

It was hard to imagine a bus that came no closer than 3 miles to the Guitar Center on its outbound run, winding up passing right by it on the way back to Canal Street, but I took his word for it, thinking that it might be a different line; one that I hadn't traced the route of, when hunting for a way to get to Guitar Center for $1.25.

I guess my point is, apart from having to buy ammunition and to take the thing way out on the railroad tracks towards Slidell, LA, to just walk along shooting things for practice, there is the added concern that I really wouldn't be able to drink anymore, as soon as I got some used .22 for $350 off the dark web...

After I went into McDonald's and talked to a couple employees who said they had never seen any bus stop outside and "I think there would be, like, a bench or something.." I decided to just retrace my 3 mile walk to get to the music store.

That would have me back on the #39 route for sure; and there would be about a one-in-six chance that the same driver who had sent me off to East Bumfuk to wait for a non-existent bus, would be driving the thing.

I had stopped for beer a few times along the 3 mile walk, and then it had started to rain during the 10 minutes I waited there, reducing visibility in the area. I was only pissed at the driver about 6 on a scale of 10, not as bad as the one time a driver literally closed the door in my face and drove off one time in Gretna, after I had paused only a second to shove my laptop in my backpack before advancing towards the bus.

All I could think of was that he shared the black consciousness that is so prevalent down here in Louisiana which would have him viewing the laptop as something that I had weaponized in order to make my fellow passengers feel "less than."

This can also be accomplished by pulling a book out and reading it. You (the white man) are showing off your literacy and rubbing it in the faces of your fellow passengers from the black neighborhoods, whom the buses are intended for, more than for a white man, who could get a car if he wanted one; the color of his skin can get him a car, or a house, or anything.

So, you are suspect for even taking the bus, and then to be sitting there, pecking away on a laptop, like you just think that you're better than "them" -you know "computers," you can read...so why you taking the bus, if you're all that?- type of thing.

So, the black driver is going to use the excuse of you taking 3 seconds to fold the laptop and put it in your bag, before taking a step in the direction of the bus, that had kind of come to an abrupt halt and had opened its door rather quickly to admit one older black lady (whose business of swiping her ride-for-free card at the turnstile and then seating herself before the bus lurched forward, should have given me ample time to bag up my laptop). She hadn't even put her money in the machine when the doors slammed in my face and the thing accelerated away, with the old lady hanging on to the nearest rail, for life.

That was a time, about 5 years ago, now, that I thought seriously about waiting at that stop late some foggy night with a .22 pistol, instead of a laptop.

But, registering a gun here is going to expose me to unwanted attention, perhaps from the federal agencies that are providing me housing where firearms aren't allowed. My registering a pistol might cause a contradiction on some computer system. Most of the residents here, I'm sure cannot "carry" because they signed away that right in exchange for their "crazy checks" that come the first of every month. It's in the fine print; if you are mentally disabled so as to require the government to take care of you; then they will take care of that pistol for you, while they are at it, type of thing...

And, if the GPS and Google place me near the scene of a gun related homicide, through my "Obama phone," which I get free service from, through a government sponsored program, then, whose door gets kicked in, and, with my luck, right when I'm in the middle of watching kiddie porn...?*

*haha

I don't put it past the, F.B.I. for example, to keep tabs on such things as the phones of all people with "carry and conceal" permits, so they can have a map full of lit up orange dots, showing where all the guns are in their particular city. More than 50 all in one place; red flag, type of thing.

In fact, I have thought about starting my own business of a DNA database. I could walk around all day collecting DNA off of cups, cigarette butts, straws, etc. and then could log them all into an "unofficial" database that could be consulted (for a fee) by law enforcement agents who may have evidentiary DNA that they couldn't match against their own data.

I could hire crews to work at the trash recycling facilities and to farm the trash from an entire city in order to bolster the database. Matching the street addresses to the trash collected could be a fast way to add a whole family to the list of "collected" DNA. Eventually, I would have to hire teams like the Google Maps workers, to go nationwide and get everyone's DNA into the database.

Maybe I could have a business on the side that sells lock-tite trash cans (keep your trash free from DNA snoopers, type of thing) and those proceeds could be pumped back into the main project.

It would be illegal for law enforcement to do such a thing. But, as a private citizen with a hobby of collecting DNA samples rather than, say, butterflies, I should be allowed to grow my collection.

Then, detectives could query my database, and even though the results wouldn't be admissible in a court of law, having the exact address of a guy who's DNA matches that found on a victim, might help them obtain some more "solid" evidence.

So, that barista, snatching up the cup you just left, off the table before she wipes it down; she works for me; earning extra $$ on the side, by collecting samples, bagging them up, along with copies of credit card receipts, and then sending them off once a week, to DanieLabs, Inc.

Just As I Had Feared

 Soundcloud stuff doesn't play through this blog, nor my browser, in general..

All the more reason to start another identity, with a new phone...

I have been surfing around using the tor browser that is completely anonymous, and I had to smile at the things that have disappeared from my surfing experience. There are no notifications at all, and when I go to e-bay, for example, it is suggesting totally generic products. But; no soundcloud stuff for right now; and I don't think I care that much.

Testing Ability To Embed Song on Blogger Blog These Days

Daniel McKenna · You Retarded

Soon To Be Aquarium?

 

• I Finally Try Cartoon Beer
• Tchaikovsky Encounter Prolonged
  

I got up a few birds short of Jeopardy this morning. I had to open the blinds to let daylight in, so the birds on the Singing Bird Clock would chirp; in case I fell back asleep.

The thing has a photo sensor in it, which stops it from chirping when it is dark in the room, when you might be sleeping.

And, frankly, the birds chirp at appropriate times, during the day, with, the morning dove right on time at 7 in the morning. The Robin at 1 in the afternoon is definitely a: "Alright, lunch break's over, let's get back to work!" chirp. But, you probably wouldn't want that at 1 o' clock in the morning.

1 Minute Sober

I gulped down a swallow off a can of Catahoula Common lager that was sitting on the counter, when I went into the kitchen; but that was over a minute ago, now.

This is a very good lager that has kind of the syrupy heaviness of a Red Stripe, has just a tad more alcohol at 5%, than that Jamaican brew; but comes from a nearby brewery. Those breweries were recently featured on one of the local news shows. I figure I've always ignored Catahoula because of the cartoon-ish looking cans. Neither the hues of wheat, nor barley, are represented. I guess the same could be said of Budweiser, with its red and white can.

The can above represents just one of about 2 dozen local "micro" breweries. And, they are in some kind of competition over the can artwork. The whole section of local beer at the supermarket looks like a boxcar splattered with graffiti, from a distance.

I always ignored them, I believe after thinking about it, because of all the other products that come in loud colors. Call it the 4 Loco effect.

Unless its spiked with liquid LSD, the colors don't work, IMO. I'm always afraid that in the fine print it's going to say "sour gummy flavored malt beverage" after I paid 10 bucks for a 6-pack.

Chain cutter.

In other news, the Sacred Heart Church, which sits about 60 feet from where I now do, is where Louis Armstrong married, I think his first wife, Lucy, in the early 1960's

I have always wanted to cut the chain that is the only thing keeping me from recording my music in a huge ass church, with maybe 120 foot ceilings.

Once I get inside, I will turn around and chain the door from the inside.

That way, no skeezer who might have seen me go in; from under his rock nearby, will be able to go in after me, and try to rob me of my guitar, laptop, microphone and Jesus candle...

The cops would only show up if some genuinely concerned citizen called, thinking I was about to bomb the place.

They would find the door chained shut from the inside, and maybe believe that nobody could have gotten in there past that deterrent. What would be the punishment for trespassing in a vacant church?

But, it would have to be a one-time thing, because, after I cut the chain, there is no putting it back together. 

I think I would feel an exhilarating sense of freedom, to be locked in that impenetrable fortress, which I guess the Catholic Church still owns. Maybe they are looking to sell it cheap to someone who might turn it into an aquarium.

They could leave Jesus hanging from his cross; and that could be the "theme" of the aquarium. "Yeah, this used to be a church before it was an aquarium; they left the Jesus there, you know, like when they make a diner out of an old boxcar, they might keep it on rails, or something....

But, talk about freedom and safety to experiment with vocals. The only horrific outcome would be if they had some kind of alarm in there; or, security type stuff is so cheap these days, some guy who's job it might be to physically check up on the place, routinely, may have automated that task just by installing a webcam with a motion sensor.

I may be talking myself out of it; maybe I can just find a priest or a pope or someone, and then just ask them if I can "record my Christian rock music" in the glorious ambiance of a big, empty church, soon to be aquarium.

95 Points

But, I tried the Catahoula after listening to brewers talk about how there is indeed a competition for the most outrageous can art, and excusing them on that count. They seemed like they knew what they were doing, and had some high-end looking brewing equipment.

So, other than a beer recommendation (I have no idea how far this stuff that they make 5 miles from where I sit now, ships. Are there "1001 Beers" stores in Oregon that send for a couple cases a month? I might investigate that...) this post has not much substance.

Tchaikovsky continues to spin on my turntable.

It's hard to find anything wrong with the music. Maybe his strength with ensemble composition is offset a tiny bit by his compositions for solo instruments? After being blown away by everything I've heard, including one really famous piece that I recognized, from a Mel Bay book, or something, became a wonderland of textures and different ways to play that melody that I plunked out as a 16 year old.

Amp On The Way; On Being In The Shower

 The Yamaha battery powered amp is on the way; I'll get an adapter so I can plug it in at home.

It will fit inside my backpack, so as to give me an invisible boost in volume, and then I can use it in the studio to simulate all kinds of classic guitar sounds; but it also has a microphone pre-amp built in; good for doing vocals.

I am in the process of interacting with one of the "gear heads" at MusiciansFriend about getting a microphone that will plug, through a cheap adapter, into the Yamaha amp.

I kind of look forward to recording with an analog microphone again, as it is easier to monitor all the effects you're putting on the vocals, which can inspire one to sing better; I guess the way being in the shower does..

2 Hours and 16 Minutes 'Til Jeopardy

 12 Hours Sober

"Who is Peter Ilyich, Alec?"

Time To Order Busking Gear

Yesterday, (Sunday) I only got a 4 pack of Red Stripe Lager in the 16 oz. cans. And then returned home to watch the end of the golf tournament on TV.

At some point, I became ravenously hungry, even though I had consumed all the green super foods and the mushroom concoctions, along with all the body building supplements, nitro-oxide boosters, etc.

This hybrid lifestyle had me breaking into a jog along the way to the beer store. "I've got to get some decent running shoes," I thought, as I ran along in the ones I have, which are a half size too small but which have nice springy soles."

Maybe soon, I'll be jogging towards the GNC and not the beer store in the mornings, I also thought.

The Red Stripe didn't make me do anything stupid like leave something on the stove, or God forbid, call the crack man for "one little bump." But, I made 2 trips to the candy machine, for apple pies and a honey bun; something that put a bit of sluggishness in my step this morning, as I awoke 3 hours before Jeopardy.

Tchaikovsky +.45

Peter Ilyich's music has appreciated in my esteem, as, in playing through the 75 or so classical vinyl's I have, I have hit a vein of Tchaikovsky albums from the "Great Men of Music" series from Time/Life that Jacob gave me.

I now think that there are things that he did better than any other composer, after initially assessing his music as having "something wrong with it." I might have been thinking that he intentionally harmonized certain melodies as a dog whistle to other gay men, and to irritate the ear of the straight man. Most gay's have a chip on their shoulders, and I don't doubt that there might have been a stubbornness in some of his arrangements, intended to subject strong, tough, masculine, red-blooded heterosexual men to overtly effeminate passages that evoke flowers and fairies dancing; just to watch them squirm and twirl their mustaches, type of thing.

I guess the radio to heaven was wired to Peter's piano, in that sense, and he had a rich world of flowers and fairies to draw out of his imagination from.

But, I am upgrading the guy so that he is now, at least, hovering around my top 10 favorite composers list, like a butterfly fluttering about (poised to alight upon the #10 spot, supplanting Gustav Mahler?! We'll see...) the list.

His genius is in the blending of the ensemble, knowing which instruments, in which combinations are going to seamlessly carry the melody. I get a sense of anticipation over what is going to happen next; which instruments are going to come to life, "out of nowhere," either in the background or foreground and change the whole texture of the piece.

The only drawback, if it is a drawback, is that I find my mind drifting away from intently listening, to perhaps staring out the window and being transported into a daydream, to which the music becomes a background. Maybe this is good, though. Maybe that part of the mind that will ask "Is that an oboe d' amore?" in the middle of me listening to music; needs to shut up, or go away entirely.

 

A Petting Zoo Story

Jacksonville, 1995

I remember having some fun once with a couple young African Americans who worked at the petting zoo in Jacksonville, the parking lot of which I had parked my cab in, to sleep, after having brought a couple Navy guys all the way to Blount Island from nearby some ship downtown.

So, 25 miles out of town, and definitely at the end of a day that had probably started at 5 a.m. on Jacksonville Beach, when the sun started shining brightly enough to wake me, and/or the temperature inside the cab had eked it's way above probably 83 degrees. That has always been my "sticky" temperature, the point where the skin become slightly tacky and enough so to wake you up.

Then, I would have popped the trunk open and grabbed my "trunks" and my soap and shampoo and towel, and maybe tried to change in the back seat of the cab into just the trunks, and I would then start wading out, into the shark infested ocean of Jacksonville, Beach...

At some point when the water was already up to my chest and the first rogue wave had already slapped me in the face, I would go under, and maybe open my eyes for a second, always seeing something that I couldn't rule out as being a hungry Great White Shark.

Then, grateful for the fact that there aren't many people on the beach at 5:30, and that the few who were there were being distracted by the sunrise, I would walk back towards the beach until I was just up to my ankles, and lather myself from head to toe with the soap and shampoo (note to self: invent a soap that lathers up really well in salt water) and then, I would go into the deeper water and dive under, and swim under water, surface, and repeat.

How attractive must that be for a shark; a human swimming underwater and leaving a long trail of foam and suds, which is coming out of its trunks?

But, I would have started my day that way, and at 2 in the morning, would be ready to "book into a zone" and catch some sleep. Depending upon how much sleep I wanted, I would choose the zone that way. If I wanted the fare box to rudely buzz in just 3 hours, I would book into one of the downtown zones, and I would probably be 11th in the zone, behind other cabs, but they would go kind of fast.

The hospital zones are different, and you might get a good 8 hours of sleep, booked into one of those zones.

People come from way out in the sticks to receive care from the specialists, who work at the big hospitals. They even pay (or maybe insurance does) for the patients transportation through a voucher.

If it's a guy who comes in from, say, Kingsland, Georgia because he has a condition so rare that the nearest specialist is a hundred miles away, in Jacksonville; then, he is just as rare for the doctor, who specialized in the treatment of the rare thing; and so, perhaps a voucher for $210 is printed and the guy becomes a prize of a passenger.

After a while, the cab drivers all have their calendar books filled with fares "So, when do you have to go back for dialysis, Mr. Turnip? " type of thing...You can even cloak your question in mock concern if you're the driver trying to get his $210 trip "Gosh, hopefully you're feeling better now; it must suck having to go in there, what, every month, or something?...?

But, I digress, for the purposes of this story, I booked myself into a fine St. Luke's Hospital zone, and was content to sleep the eight hours, while other cab drivers did the same thing, perhaps in the parking lot of St. Luke's where they had nothing better to do than to hold their position in the zone, while the specialist took all the time he needed with the patient, whether that be a 2 hour nap, or a 5 hour one; not a problem. He will be right there, ready to give the guy another $210 ride back to rural Georgia.

And, I would be fast asleep in the parking lot of the Jacksonville Zoo, safeguarding the 50 bucks I had made off the Navy guys (which I would have immediately deposited into the nearest ATM using envelopes I kept for the purpose; had I not been in the safety of Blount Island where animals of all kinds would probably alert me, by going bonkers if someone was coming around the cab, type of thing.

So, in the morning, I was surprised to learn how early animal feeders come in to work, as the crunch of their tires on the gravel stirred me a bit. But, I was still booked into the hospital zone, and had gotten about 3 and a half hours of sleep, and had moved down the queue so that I was something like the 5th cab in line to get someone coming out of a hospital that I was 30 miles from. I had time to sleep more, and awoke probably at about 8 in the morning.

I wouldn't be starting this day with an ocean bath; but rather, with a visit to what is technically a petting zoo, wherein goat-like animals are very interested in the ice cream cone full of brownish pellets that actually smell pretty good.

And, well everyone knows what a petting zoo is...

The young African Americans who had the summer job of selling ice cream cones full of pellets, among other things, seemed appropriately bored, despite the best efforts of the developers of the primitive cellphone apps of the day.

And, so after seeing some cool animals and some cool college girls carrying buckets and mops around to different cages, I decided to have some fun with the staff of the petting zoo. And, so I went to them and accused one of the goats of having put his nose "right in my privates" and I remember their astonished looks at first.

"It sure did, I'm an emotion wreck; I think I'm traumatized..." they could tell it was a joke now, it was a guy and a girl; both wearing brand new looking zoo tee shirts; a fringe benefit, I thought. "I'm going to go home and wash myself over and over and then take a wire brush; and..."

At this point; they had been kind of laughing, btw, the girl chimed in with: "Oh, no a wire brush is a little extreme..."

So, I changed tack with: (lowering my voice a little, and sounding like I was a little nervous) "I, um, actually liked it..."

I went on with: "Do you have more goats like that one; like maybe...3 of them, that you know (a quick nervous glance around) for a few cones will, you know, have a little fun...if you know what I mean?"

It seemed like they were getting a good laugh; they knew I was kidding and it was a splendid time; I got back to the cab with only a couple cars ahead of me; and so figured I should at least make the 40 minute ride to the hospital; so as to be right there, ready to grab the patient, whose voucher then becomes like a scratch-off ticket in the driver's mind. 

"Valdosta, Georgia, whew hooo!!!; er, I mean, how are you feeling, Mr. Turnip; gee I bet you hope you don't have to go through with all this every week, or..." type of thing.

But, that is my story of how 2 young and smart African American probably college students working at the zoo between semesters because they are probably down to earth, and like animals; were able to see the humor in the goat thing.

Not so much for the driver of the bus that brought me back from the Guitar Center trip debacle.

I was standing at the stop, but the bus had to stop behind a few cars and was 40 feet short of the exact spot of the stop. I started to walk towards the bus anyways. This is because I have seen some drivers who are happy to open the doors to scoop you up rather than having to wait for the light to turn green and for the cars to pull up and get out of the way, and then to pull up to the actual stop spot, and stop. The light may be a quick one, and the driver might lose his greenlight...

This particular driver, a black guy, motioned with his hand towards the actual stop. No problem; he pulled up and I got on.

Then, to make conversation, I told him of how "I heard that it was a bus driver who let a passenger off in a place that wasn't the actual stop, and that person either got hit by a car, or broke his ankle in a pothole, but that's why it's a rule with the bus company's, so I guess I shouldn't have walked towards the bus; I was encouraging you to break the rules."

To make a long story short; I was just making conversation; then I sat down and was kind of quiet, and before I knew it, the ol #39 was right back near the Shell station. So, I walked to the front and stood behind the yellow line.

We were stopped at a red light in front of the Brown Derby, where I wanted to go and I thought it would be funny to say: "I can get out here..."

But, the driver actually seemed to get pissed and said: "I can't be around you!" Then repeated it, because of the plexiglass muffler. "I can't be around you, man, just get off!"

So, it just goes to show you the vast difference between different African Americans. I guess he just wasn't understanding what I was saying. His loss. I was going to tell him some of the interesting things I know about goats...

23 Minutes Til Jeopardy Comes On (updated)

 I'm listening to Barbra Streisand and weeping for all the Jews who were killed during the Holocaust. Her voice is sweet enough to make one weep, but it has to be that other undertone that makes the tears flow as soon as the red-labelled Columbia album spins on the turntable. 

Of course, today, the 10 a.m. songbird sang right on time, right on pitch, during "Songbird."

I am ashamed of the Aryan connections I might have in my bloodline. 

I'm ashamed of the rednecks down here, in the bible belt, and any connections to their bloodlines that I might have.

I'm thinking of doing one of the "23andMe" DNA tests, where I might have to send off $125 and some of my saliva, or however it works, so I can find out what my "roots" are.

I might finally get around to Googling "How to cure or avoid procrastination," or "what are the psychological causes of procrastination?"

Jeopardy starts in 9 minutes.

Yesterday, I tried to shuffle things up, by starting my day in an entirely different way. Instead of making a kratom tea and getting on this laptop, I was going to run up to the GNC and get a high potency energy drink, then go to Eyes on Canal, so they could take new measurements and send off for another set of bi-focal lenses.

I did so; making it there just about 20 minutes before they were to close; after having left the apartment with about 3 hours to spare.

I stopped at the Ideal gas station, where I had seen nicotine vapes for sale before, because it is kind of on the way to the eye place.

There I made the ill advised decision to get a large Guinness Stout. Those things are 5.8% alcohol, the bottle now states. The last time I drank that was 1985 and no bottles of beer had the alcohol content shown on the cans/bottles.

Then, I must have stared at the vapes in the glass case for about 20 minutes; which gave the stout enough time to warm up in my hands, as stout becomes most delicious at probably about 58 degrees.

Then, I started walking the mile to the eye place, becoming more cantankerous and sardonic with each sip of stout.

Jeopardy time....to be continued....

OK, this just in...it's Saturday and Jeopardy doesn't come on today. Not to worry, I can go on Youtube and watch countless re-runs, some of them even featuring Ken Jennings, who holds the record, I believe, of winning something like 45 games in a row. There is a "Ken finally loses" episode in the queue, which I may or may not have watched already.

So, yesterday, I walked the bike path and drank the stout, and took to cussing under my breath towards all the "Ignore-leans" whom I passed who, true to form, neither returned my head nod or wave, nor seemed to even notice me.

Then, I went into GNC to grab more than one energy drink, to put on my refrigerator to have in the mornings, without having to walk the mile every day for one. The days that I decide to go that route, instead of the alcohol route, that is..

Yesterday was a hybrid, as I drank the stout, and then wound up drinking one of the L.I.T. drinks "on top of it." This is probably a discouraged practice. I can remember about 10 years ago, the outlawing of drinks that combined vodka with high amounts of caffeine or other stimulants.

I remember buying them, thinking: I want to be wide awake when I fall on my face from the vodka.

I feel sorry for the GNC employees, as the world has been weaned off of physically going to stores, and now just checks the front porch for Amazon packages containing everything they need. The GNC guys are trying to get people to sign up for such a thing. Instead of paying $3.50 for one L.I.T. drink, I could have bought one case, and gotten one free, but then would be subscribed to receiving one case on my doorstep every month, to be automatically billed to my debit card.

I couldn't do that, because I don't trust such arrangements, after having been bitten once. I was getting some supplement delivered every month, after having gotten the first 30 days "free." Once that bottle ran out and the first one arrived, and I was billed something like $89, I said "Oh, hell no," and called to cancel, as I was informed I could do any time.

I could cancel, but the next 3 months worth had already been "processed" and moved from the warehouse and boxed up and labelled and were ready to ship, and there was no way they could be stopped at this point, or some equally lame b.s. argument.

I had been particularly disillusioned because I had a certain amount of trust for the host of the radio show that the supplements were incessantly advertised on. "I use it myself; give it a try; you won't be disappointed; you can cancel any time.." type of thing. I think it was Jim Rome the sports guy whom I assumed wouldn't tolerate his audience being scammed in any way.

The singing bird clock, I felt was going to help me to regulate my life. I felt like, if I had a compass in my apartment, it would randomly spin one way and then the other, and never settle anywhere. Waking up and not knowing if it was 6 in the morning, or 6 in the evening.

This, I used to settle by going to the door facing the parking lot and seeing if Harold was there, hungry and trying to come in to eat. That would make it 6 in the morning, type of thing. Of course I could always turn my phone on to find out what day it was.

But, even when I ordered the singing bird clock, interacting with a robot, the robot initially informed me that there were 2 "upgrades" to the bird clock, one of which was the clock in a genuine walnut wood casing for "just an additional $12.95," and another one that I think was beautiful mahogany wood for 16 more dollars.

This was presented immediately after I had entered my credit card information, so I felt like I had to stay on the line to complete the transaction. At that point I was worried that they might have some kind of policy whereby, if the person hangs up on the robot, then they would assume they want the mahogany singing bird clock, and would charge the $43.95 and send it; knowing that the average person isn't going to go through the trouble of returning it for a refund, type of thing.

The robot had said "Please respond, press "one" for the walnut, or "two" for the mahogany" and then silence.

The only thing I could think of, intuitively, to do then was to press "zero" for "none of the above." 

Then the robot said: "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that; which upgrade would you like?" and repeated the choices again, but this time, appended "If you don't want to take advantage of this great offer to get a beautiful hardwood finish on your bird clock," press "zero." At least my intuition had been correct.

But, it wasn't over. Next, they had an outrageous deal on a bird feeder that you could stick to your window with a suction cup..."zero"

And a 64 page field guide to the birds of North America..."zero"

"OK," said the robot in a very disappointed sounding tone. "Thank you, (in a 'for nothing' tone) your singing bird clock will ship soon..." type of thing.

So, I didn't even want to open that can of worms at GNC and sign up to have all my favorite products automatically billed and shipped to me.

I told the guy about the time I was thrown in the East Baton Rouge "Parish" jail for 45 days, back in 2011, because I had been busking downtown right before the LSU homecoming game was scheduled, when alumni were arriving in town, whom the city didn't want to be bothered by skeezers, and thus ordered a sweeping of the streets of, which I had gotten caught up in. I blogged about that, August of 2011, if my memory serves me right...

But, I could just see something like that, maybe getting hit by a car and being hospitalized for a couple months, while the energy drinks pile up "on my front porch" for the benefit of "porch pirates" and then getting out of the hospital or jail to find my debit card had been drained, and the drinks nowhere to be found.

The guy, a young black kid, then sealed the deal by "assuring" me: "Aw, come on, that's not gonna happen!" I hate it when people act like they have a crystal ball and know what is or isn't going to happen, for their own convenience, of course. I thought that to be a duplicitous statement. "No, I'll pass on the subscription, just let me buy these few drinks and get out of here," type of thing.

The lens situation remedied, I went to Winn Dixie, where, among other things, I bought a 12 pack of Modelo Negro beer, because it was on sale at what amounts to about $1.50 a bottle. They are $2.79 each, out the door, at the Shell.

So, I started carrying a few heavy bags holding Alkaline water, a marrow bone beef shank, fresh salmon, food for Harold, the energy drinks, and the 12 pack, using the handy thick cardboard handle, which did break before I had walked a quarter mile. None of the bottles broke, but I was then faced with the daunting prospect of carrying it a different way, like cradling it in my arms, while managing the bags at the same time.

I usually walk the almost mile back home, no matter how much weight I'm carrying, just to save the $1.25 on the street car. I look at it as earning a buck and a quarter in exchange for the work of carrying it.

But I decided in this case to get change and wait for the car.

Since the 12 pack was torn open at the handle, I took one out and started drinking it. The street car immediately appeared.

Not only that, it looked like the driver sped up to make it through the green light, just so he could make me get rid of the beer before letting me on. There have always been incidents of the all-black crew of drivers going out of their way to throw obstacles in front of white passengers; even to the point of flat out riding right past a lone white guy waiting at the stop; who might throw his hands out in a WTF? gesture.

If the would be passenger complains, the driver will say that the guy wasn't standing right (exactly) at the boarding point. Even though every other indication, like him picking up his baggage at the approach of the thing, should have told the guy to stop.

So, he stopped. I had stuffed the opened beer back into the case of 12 and was holding that in a way to keep it upright. But, he had seen me do that.

He opened the door and started with "Step back; you need to have a mask!"

"Oh, yeah, my Biden mask..." I said.

Then he went on to say that I needed to take the opened bottle out of the case and get rid of it.

"I'll just wait for the next one, sir, thank you for your service..." I said, then added sarcastically: "Can I do that?!"

He closed the door and drove off. 

I wound up walking the mile back, carrying all the stuff, muttering something under my breath that I can't print here; even though I've been shadow banned as much as is possible. Anyone who wonders if there is a Street Musician Daniel blog and does a Google search for exactly that, may see this blog appear in the results, maybe on page 2, out of immediate sight....

My Name Is

 Daniel, and I'm an alcoholic...

I have caught myself in the delusion that, since I don't drink nearly as much as I used to, before the stretch of 1,387 days when I didn't touch a drop -an amount that had me blacking out nightly, so that in the mornings, I would have to reconstruct the previous evening by piecing together clues- "I must have stopped at Burger King and bought a Whopper, because the wrapper, along with some half eaten fries is crumbled up inside my backpack," type of thing, then I don't really have a problem.

Back in those days, I might have all my busking stuff packed and be ready to push the bike out the door, and only then notice, and remember, that the back tire is flat. "Oh, yeah, that's right, I got a flat coming up Canal and wound up pushing the bike the rest of the way; and that's when I stopped at Burger King along the way...now I kinda remember...but why is there a carnation inside my guitar?" type of thing.

The delusion is that, because I drink only half as I used to, I have found a happy medium and have it all under control. I hadn't considered that, perhaps being ten years older now, it might only take half as much alcohol to wreck me.

That is because to drink or not to drink has become The Great Fork In The Road, with one sign pointing towards "a fulfilling life" and the other, "regret and shame" for lack of better phrases that might come to me if I ponder longer.

And there is a glass of whiskey at the entrance to one portal, and maybe a freshly juiced carrot, kale and beet drink at the other entrance.

My nicotine vaporizer had run out at about 4 in the morning. This, after I had been up since midnight, after waking a second consecutive night at that time, full of energy and unable to go back to sleep.

So, I made a morning walk to the Shell station, once the sun had come up.

I exited the building and walked past the alcoholics who sit out front every morning, consuming their first cans of cheap malt liquor. They are drinking first thing in the morning because they are hopeless alcoholics, I thought. For me, the morning is kind of the end of my day..because I often stay up all night, and then go to sleep soon after watching Jeopardy at 11 a.m. so I am capping off my day with a few beers right before noon. I'm not as pathetic as they, who toast the rising sun with a Steel Reserve "511."

Besides, I was going to get Heineken, something that elevates me in stature, and distinguishes me from Freddie and Arnold and "Pops" (an elderly black man who is always in an electric wheel-chair/buggy thing, cheap malt liquor in hand.

Heineken is a little more expensive, but is a reward for the discerning man who drinks because he enjoys the flavor of a well crafted beer; not just to get drunk, like those guys.

The day before, Monday, it had been raining pretty hard. My new glasses had come in at Eyes On Canal, the optometry place. I had walked through the rain, getting my feet soaked, because I didn't have the $1.25 on me to take the street car. I would have, had Freddie paid me for the beer that I had gotten him, like he had promised to do.

"Are you going to the store?" he had asked, as I was leaving Sunday morning at the usual time. No, I'm going to church, where do you think I go every morning before returning after about the time it would take to walk to the store and back, carrying beer and other items from the store? I thought, but didn't say.

"Get me a beer; I'll buy you one...I'll buy you one..." he had said.

So, I took off my debit card, one 24 ounce can of Bush beer along with my 4 pack of Heineken, nicotine vape and Zebra Cake for the lady working security at the front desk, as is my tradition. I think I have gotten the security ladies to the point where they salivate like Pavlov's dogs at the sight of me returning from the store. I choose Zebra Cakes as a symbol of unity as, black and white get along just right, on a Zebra Cake, which I point out in a song I wrote called "Zebra Cake."

But, Freddie had just taken the beer from me and said "Thank You," with a little smile that I wasn't sure didn't mean "sucker." He hadn't even reiterated that he would buy me one, and certainly didn't hand me a couple bucks.

This might have seemed a petty, trivial and frivolous matter until the next morning when I had to walk through a pretty heavy rain to get my glasses. I had prepared to sarcastically say: "Thanks for giving me the money for the beer I got you yesterday, so now I can take the street car instead of getting soaking wet!"

Freddie is infamous in our building for getting, the rumor is, $1,800 on the first of every month, and then begging for beer and cigarettes no later than the 6th or 7th of that same month. "He get eighteen hundred dollars, and he out of cigarettes?!" I have heard exclaimed by more than one person.

Freddie has managed to attain the status of being both mentally and physically disabled, with blindness somehow also "attributed" to him, hence his monthly check being bigger than most residents here, who get a paltry $743, I think is the figure I've heard. This amount of free money is grounds for a lot of derision, directed at the United States by a lot of the residents, who see it as an insult to them, and think that it is clear evidence that the government expects them to live shitty lives. "Thanks a bunch, assholes!" being the sentiment. "And you wonder why we vandalize the building at every turn, or plug up our toilets on the 4th floor and then sit there, flushing them over and over until there is a foot of standing water on the whole floor, causing the ceilings of everyone below to start raining toilet water on them, dripping through the air vents. $743 a month; there's your answer!!"

So, I got to the Shell and bought a new nicotine vape, grabbed a 4 pack of Heineken, almost without thinking, and a Zebra Cake.

I was still struggling with the lenses on my new glasses. They had made a mistake, I had been informed, and made the bottom lens of the bi-focal "2 millimeters too high." It was suggested, though, that I try wearing them anyways, to see if  I might get used to them, and be alright. Otherwise, I have 30 days to call them to complain, whereupon they would order another set. 

After wearing glasses held together by duct tape throughout 3 months of procrastinating in Googling "optometrist near me," another 2 weeks would seem like 2 shakes of a lamb's tail. I just need to make that call today, and not procrastinate, I guess.

I was ready to leave a good review of Eyes On Canal on Google, and told the lady so, as I was leaving.

But, after I left, and started to struggle with the bi-focal, and then noticed that the frame sat on my face a little bit tilted, I began to reconsider that. The lady hadn't made any adjustments, and, outside of telling about how the lab had screwed up, and saying "They look good on you," had sent me on my way.

Maybe they don't make much money through Medicaid on people like me; maybe we are a burden on them; perhaps they feel like attorneys who volunteer at a clinic that provides free legal aid to the poor, as a public relations move. Maybe Eyes On Canal is required to take x amount of Medicaid people, in order to keep their license...

But, I sure was whisked away, "Off with you!" and sent out into the heavy traffic of Canal Street wearing lenses that were 2 millimeters too high.

A curious thing had happened on Friday. When I checked my voicemail there was a message from them, telling me I could pick the glasses up "at your convenience" etc. and then there was the sound, not of a phone being hung up, but apparently of one being placed down on a surface, and, after that clunking sound, the voice continued "I just remembered who he was..." and then something that sounded like "Because he was singing in his greeting."

It seems that my "custom" voicemail greeting, which is me striking a chord on my guitar and singing: 'He doesn't seem to be answering.." called to her mind who I was in real life.

As I stood at the counter at the Shell, in front of the plexiglass, I noticed a skinny black guy, in his fifties and wearing camouflage type clothing, whom I had seen before.

He had been in line behind me another time. I had swiped my debit card, and was waiting for the next prompt, and took the few seconds to open the box that the vape came in, remove its wrapper and the rubber cap, and test it. I've gotten so many "duds" that I have made it a habit of testing them right after I buy them. One time I got 3 in a row of a certain flavor which didn't light up nor emit steam. This was enough for the clerk to set that whole box aside, to be returned, or whatever.

The first time I got a dud, I had brought it all the way home and was sitting on my couch saying "You've gotta be s****ing me!" after puffing on it.

My concern then became: What if I walk all the way back there and they refuse to replace it "'cause it already left the store," or because of "How do we know that isn't one we sold you a few days ago and you smoked the whole thing, and are now trying to scam another one for free?"

I was "painting it black" and fearing the worst as I walked.

I remember preparing to be really pissed at them, not sure whether or not there was a ray of hope in the fact that the staff there speak Hebrew. 

Would Hebrews do me like that? Are they even "Hebrews" or is that just the language that Jews speak, alongside maybe some Yiddish? I wasn't sure, feeling suddenly very uneducated. I felt more hopeful than I would have, had I bought it at The Brown Derby across the street, where Arabic is spoken, and where I had been rudely treated before deciding to switch to the Shell.

I had asked them what language they spoke, so that's how I knew. Then I had Googled "Saying 'hello' in Hebrew," so I could greet them with "Ma Shlom Kha!" whenever I went there. Maybe that would be my saving grace.

Plus the fact that the Israelite Shell employees seem to favor white customers, almost as much as they seem to favor Latinos. They evince disapproval of the brusque mannerisms of blacks, and I have seen them in shouting matches with more than one of them. One time that seemed to be over something that a fat black lady took offense at, which was that the cashier counted out a handful of change she had handed him. This provoked her to ask "What, you don't trust me?" and then to assure the guy that it was all there.

Well, as fate would have it, it wasn't all there. Had the guy just thrown it all in the drawer, the store would have been short a dime or a quarter. The corpulent woman practically threw the delinquent coin at the guy; and seemed to have the attitude that the guy was holding her to some ridiculous standard, or perhaps just looking for a way to deny her her pack of Philly Blunts (used to roll marijuana by a whole tribe of them. It's another gesture of "solidarity," along with smoking Kool brand cigarettes, and voting for Biden.

As brazen as she seemed to think he was for holding her to account by tallying the the change, which included pennies, it was as if she thought he should have forgiven her shortage, as "reparations," perhaps, rather than publicly shaming her and insinuating that she was scamming when he said: "This is only $1.61" or whatever the case was. She had made an honest mistake, but he was making her out to be a shyster, type of thing, and maybe a schmuck, to boot.

"I ain't never shopping here again, I can tell you that!" she yelled on her way out.

"Good; you no come back!"

He might have thought she was trying to "jew" him out of some money, LOL!

Regaining his composure as I stepped to the plexiglass, he said: "Yes, sir, how may I help you?"

"Ma shlom kha! Could I please have a blueberry flavored Flow vaporizer?" His day had gotten better, already. 

"Trump would have blown those hamas guys all the way to Mecca, soon after they launched the first rocket, by the way..."

"Ma shlom kha!"

But, they replaced the vape with another one, and started my habit of checking them right after I buy them.

But, the black guy in the camo outfit had felt it necessary to say: "This motherf****er is taking forever!" when he was in line behind me the first time. Yesterday, he was about 10 feet to my left, getting a couple bottles of Wild Irish Rose out of the cooler, as I swiped my card.

While the "processing" was showing, and before "approved" appeared, I unboxed the vape and tested it. I had assured the employees during a prior visit that I would never do that if I didn't have cash in my pocket to pay for it, should the card be declined.

The black guy seemed to be picking up his pace, scrambling to get a hold of the bottles and get behind me in line, as if he was looking forward to complaining loudly again, maybe for catharsis.

The vape was working fine, and I was already taking the plastic bag with the Heineken and the Zebra Cake off the counter as he reached it, and I had already taken a step towards the door when camo guy said "You done yet?" I hadn't delayed him a second.

Before I could think of anything to say, or decide if he even deserved a response, he lost his grip on the the bottles of Wild Irish Rose, as he was fumbling for his free-money-from-the-government card in his wallet, and the whole mess landed on top of the candy on the shelf in front of him. It seemed that, in his haste to get behind me in line so he could start his bitching, he hadn't secured them. His focus had been upon me. I guess this particular (but not every) black man has nothing better to do.

I stood there for a second saying nothing, letting his folly speak for itself.

For those of you who might be thinking at this point: "How were you paying for your beer and vape and Zebra Cake, huh, how were you paying for your s***?"

Well, with my free-money-from-the-government card! I wasn't judging him on that; plenty of other things to judge him on...

I stopped outside and cracked open the first Heineken. I realized that the whole scene had kind of charged me up. I felt wide awake, and was gulping down the beer, as if preparing for a fight -power drinking the thing.

I had felt only mild amusement, as I watched him trying to catch everything as it cascaded down; but, after a few sips of beer, I started to feel anger, like flipping a switch on.

I remembered a time when I was about 12 and caddying for a guy who was playing at Oak Hill Country Club as a guest. He had a pronounced limp, as if one of his legs was shorter than the other, but he was a pretty good golfer. This was something, he explained to me, that he used to his advantage when it came to wagering on his rounds.

"They see my handicap and it's easy to get them to play for money."

He wound up kind of taking me under his wing, and lecturing me about many facets of life, as we walked the course. He ncouraged me to go to college, at one point. "College is the way, young man; there are plenty of people too dumb to even make it to college, and so it's a way to rise above them in the world!" type of thing..

The better he played, the more he cussed under his breath about not having found a sucker to play him for money. It was kind of humorous to see him knock a 5 iron within 6 feet of the pin from 175 yards out, and then shake his head in dismay, as if it had been a bad shot. 

This culminated with him totaling up his score on the 18th green and groaning "Uhh, an 86, and no money on the line, damn!"

But, the lecture he gave coming up the 16th fairway, was about anger, and I paraphrase it as something like: "The worse thing that can ever happen to you on a golf course is getting mad. Once you're mad, you're Gonesville!" The Gonesville part, I'm not paraphrasing. Some words stick with you for life.

And, that is what came to mind, watching the camo guy dropping his stuff in the candy. "He's Gonesville!"

And, gulping down the first Heineken, I had made the turn at the fork in the road. My choices were literally in opposite directions. I could go in the direction of the optometrist, and while in the neighborhood, drop in on the dental clinic that has been assigned to me by my "plan" and maybe save a tooth or two, in the long run.

I decided to go in the other direction, towards Whole Foods, thinking I would get some cash and then maybe walk to Bobby's new dwelling a mile away, to perhaps buy some weed from him. And that was when my whole day went south.

The other option would have had me going into GNC and getting an energy drink. They've go some pretty souped up concoctions that would have gotten my day off to a flying start.

I bought some changa mushroom powder at Whole Foods, not knowing anything about it, except that it was on sale. Lion's mane, shitake, turkey tail, reishi, and now changa; these are the shrooms of my life.

So I count this as one day sober, if I make it through. Everything changes as the sun goes down. I could go to the store for beer, but the weather forecast is for heavy downpours with flash flood warnings, and I'm pretty sure if went to get beer, I would get drenched.

It's going to take something like 8 to 10 days of a cleansing fast, something which would put me through all the withdrawals in one fell swoop to change my lifestyle. At least that is the proactive way to do it; rather than waiting for the withdrawals and discomfort to come. It's hard to quit one thing while keeping other things going. The fast could get me off of alcohol and maybe even the nicotine. It just feels like I'm going to look back at this time and realize that I had everything I could dream of; all the free time in the world, and the resources to upgrade all my busking gear, so I could go out there and have a lot more fun. I don't want to blow the opportunity.

The headset microphone with a little Roland Micro Cube in my backpack would make it so I wouldn't have to use that harsh raspy Tom Waites style of singing that so many buskers have to rely upon, just to be heard over the din.

Plus, sobering up might even turn me in a different direction; away from busking.

I'm Just A Mere Shadow Of My Former Selfishness

The algorithm flagged my blog as being "dangerous" and, by association, the Morris Berman "Death of America" blog, or whatever it is, initially got "pulled" just for mine being linked to it. Having a box pop open warning that the content is dangerous could explain the drop off in traffic, that I had attributed to shadow banning.

Morris and I both started our blogs in 2006, and we each had about 15 followers. Over the years, our traffic kept pace with each other. He has about 180 now, and, though he trashes the Unites States, it was only through his association with someone who doubts that the 2020 election was fair that he momentarily got shadow banned. I assume Google has figured out who the real culprit is, and his "Decline and Fall of America" thing is back to normal.

I only go there a few times a year, but happened to notice that we were both getting the "dangerous" warning for just a few days. This coincided with other glitches that I noticed, and describe below.

And even Alex in California's blog got swept under, momentarily. 

I removed that one from my "blogs that I read list" but symbolically linked it to the picture of the buxom girl walking past the cop with the megaphone in my description. Anyone trying to see an enlargement of her will be redirected to his "Mock Pie" blog. This also gives me a quick way to check it out, which I do a couple times a month.

I have to admit I see a lot of myself in Alex Carter, its author. This is in large part probably because we are the same age, within a year or two, and so we both grew up on the pre-social media planet.

I was at the stage of evolution he seems to be at, when I was in my 20's and at war with myself over my addictions. I was making rules for myself, for example, I wouldn't smoke pot until after all my homework was done. Then, I revised that to be after all my math and science stuff was done. I would then smoke weed before doing the Creative Writing stuff. The music courses, I had already prepped myself for, by having taken up the guitar at age 15 and studied any music theory books I could get my hands on. Those courses were a Cakewalk, outside of the B+ I got in "singing" because I didn't apply myself to the "classical" style of singing, involving the "correct" posture, embouchure of the mouth, using the diaphragm, etc. I tried to James Taylor, or Paul Simon my way through the pieces I was given.

To me, the classical style produced singers who all sound the same. That is the theory; that the human voice can be optimized for singing through technique. But my "problem" with the matter was, I thought you could listen to Handel arias, sung by The Greats and you would have to flip the album cover over to see who the tenor was, or the soprano. The classical method became the equalizer, taking each singer as close as they could come to the optimal human voice sound, and this had the effect of bringing them all closer to each other.

On the classical station, the disc jockey will typically tell you what work you are about to hear, and afterwards, who the soloists were by name. You would never hear them say "And, of course, that was Luciano Pavarotti on tenor," as if his sound was as distinguishable a Neil Young's. I took some consolation in the fact that I knew Neil would have probably gotten a B+, at best, from my instructor.

But, I have to conclude that I chickened out, when it came to even trying to sound like an opera singer, selecting "Fire and Rain," by James Taylor as my demonstration piece, and effectively putting a cap on my possible grade.

In the following years, I was able to kind of "fake" Pavarotti in my Pinto, driving home from the bar. But, Luciano would never drink before performing, because it would effect his vibrato and put enough slurring in his delivery that it wouldn't meet his own standards. He's the guy that said: "If I miss a day of practice, I know it. If I miss two days, the audience knows it."

Such is the hair splitting at his level, though, that for every opera singer worth 275 million, there are a thousand of them living out of suitcases, as they tour the world.

I'd be happy with the B+ and 70 million, but still be able to snort cocaine and drink Scotch, like my idol to the left.

But, back to Alex, I can remember trying to manage my drinking (pouring x amount of whiskey into a tall glass and then re-capping the bottle and putting it well out of sight. "That's it; when this glass is done; I'm done!" type of thing) and the thing about not smoking weed all day, but only after my homework was done.

I eventually dropped all the disciplines that I couldn't do stoned -calculus comes to mind- and changed my major to English, and then puffed my way to A's and accolades from my Kurt Vonnegut looking Creative Writing professor, who was probably himself baked. That's my idea of "equity" in the world; everybody must get equally stoned...

And I had the same propensity as Alex to jump ship as soon as any course of study became difficult. I had the Mel Bay flat picking book that I just recently tried to order another one of; but realized that the book wasn't making me become better at playing Bluegrass.

Only the rigorous practicing that would wear the sheen off the book and have the pages marred by coffee stains here and there -from long sessions of it; would do that.

The novelty, and the feeling that comes from flipping through the virgin pages thinking: "I can't wait to learn all this, and play it; this is going to sound cool; I'll be able to add Bluegrass flat picking to my arsenal!" wears off pretty fast. Usually before page 7 or so...

So, instead, after I was met with resistance, and not having learned the practice (excuse the pun) of super-practicing (going over the first measure a hundred times, sounding like a skipping record* and then the first two, etc.) I would be back at the music store, buying maybe a flamenco style method book, thinking that, maybe that book would make me better and doing the Alex thing (in his case [excuse the pun again] it would be different instruments...maybe I'll take to the cornet like a duck to water. Soon it would be the ukulele, then: I think I could really take flight with a saxophone, er, or maybe a zither. That would be unusual and set me apart from the millions of guitar players...type of thing).

The novelty wears off some, hours into the grueling practice schedule.

That reminds me of my old friend Hubert, whom I would get together with in the studio, where we would brainstorm ideas, thinking of a dozen things that would be great...we could do "Smoke On The Water" on violin and cello..that would be interesting...or... and, in the end, very little, if anything, would make it to tape.

Alex has tried a dozen different money making schemes; and has changed his religion at least a half dozen times in the years that I have been checking in and out of his blog.

Currently, it seems to be Buddhism. Which would make it so ironic, if he were the one who left the anonymous comment that follows:

Daniel...


You are a piece of shit racist asshole, a conniving twat, and the biggest disingenuous lying fucking moron I've ever known.

You bash on people who do things for you on here like you are clever, but you are nothing more than the witless online trolls you claim to despise. You bitch about millennials, yet you act accordingly like one.


My only hope is when your time comes, you die in the most painful and lonely way possible.

Can't wait for that day so I can piss on your grave. FUCK YOU 

There's a devout Buddhist for you. The boy has reached nirvana.

Like music, religion must be practiced.

The highest levels of enlightenment are reached by only a handful of devotees in any religion. To make a blanket statement like: "Christianity is for bigots, sadists and losers who want to impose their beliefs upon others" is a slight to the 1% of them, who "get it."

A Catholic priest once said that the sermons he gave on Sunday, he would dumb down for the masses.

The best that can be hoped for of them is that they will become more civil and polite and decent citizens. They aren't "ready" for the mystical teachings of Jesus.

If you have a question about the third eye, for example, that priest would ask you to schedule an appointment to speak with him privately. This might also be a residual thing from the centuries when the church could get itself in trouble with rulers and governments for teaching things that those entities didn't want the masses to hear.

Love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, "thou shalt not kill," but be ready to pick up a sword and invade some country with your flag flying high, type of thing...

The Glitches

The first glitch was when Youtube changed their code to make it harder for people to download videos. The button for "download" disappeared from my browser. I fixed that by updating my Youtube downloader.

At the same time, all the Soundcloud music that I had on this blog disappeared. I can go to the files at the Soundcloud site, but not through Firefox.

Then, I posted a negative review (right) of the Uxi Duxi kratom bar that I used to go to daily, replacing a good one that had been up there for about 3 years now.

Immediately, I got the comment above. That made me think it was a retaliatory thing from the gay guy who owns the place.

The same day, my Facebook page had an invitation for me to join some kind of "gay housing in New Orleans" group. 

It is not for "gay friendly" landlords, it states, but seems to be there to connect gay people with free places to crash.

Was this just because I reviewed a gay place?

Most likely.

So, I thought the comment was from the owner, who has the application I put in on file. I didn't know, at that early stage of my going there, that they would never hire a white strait male. They are, rather, all about "inclusion," so naturally that doesn't include me...type of thing.

But, the background check that he ran might have shown that I was arrested for "possession of child porn" in Mobile, Alabama. Though, technically, it probably shouldn't, since the charges were dropped (because my photos were taken at a nude beach, wherein, yes, there were children, but that isn't legally child porn).

Whatever Is Convenient

There was a lieutenant in Mobile who was trying to run me (and any of the other homeless people who flocked to that city because of all the resources there for The Homeless) out of town.

He might have doubted that the charges would stick, but knew that his goal would be accomplished, as did I as soon as I was released from (federal) prison, after a 2 week stay, and was accosted by hostile locals, such as a guy who ran a restaurant near where I busked, who said something I paraphrase as: "Just 'cause you got some fancy lawyer to get you off, doesn't mean you still aren't a pervert!" and wouldn't allow me to busk there anymore. I also wasn't no longer allowed in any store or bar, and would hear people saying "There's that child molester!" with one guy outright threatening me.

This doesn't surprise me because I'm in AmeriKKKa, as Berman would say, and these are stupid people.

Ironically, the reason that homeless people flock to Mobile is because it is a super Christian place, with one church for every 28 people, or something.

So, I thought the comment was from someone at Uxi Duxi, in retaliation for the review.

Funny how a lot of these same people are adamant about O.J. Simpson's innocence, but are sure that I am a heinous criminal who is only free to roam the streets because some fancy lawyer got me off. Whatever is convenient.

This probably explains the disappearance of one Craig Nelson, who used to comment here, and seemed to like the blog. Nobody want's to associate with someone accused of something like that.

That particular Lieutenant in Mobile committed suicide, by the way -drove home after a shift ended and then shot himself with his service weapon while sitting in his driveway. The guy they replaced him with was even more anti-busking. "You're panhandling; panhandling with a guitar!"

But, again, this is fast becoming a country of ignoramuses. Or, more likely, it always was, but it is only now coming to light because of social media, which is exacerbating it, while bringing it to light.

I must be gay because I reviewed Uxi Duxi, so would I like to let a fag crash on my couch? One who's OK with child molesters? type of thing...  

So, I have been making a habit of going back ten years, as close to the day as possible, after posting to this blog, to read what I wrote ten years ago.

My first finger painting, thanks Alex

This is to clean up any drunken posts I might have made (like one from last week that I barely remember writing) and to delete ones that otherwise don't make sense without the context given by neighboring posts.

So, in doing this, I came across one from ten years ago; where I posted about the Hohner Golden Melody harmonica that Alex in California had sent me.

Back then, he was very supportive and almost like a pen pal. I guess I had lost sight of all that. He sent me the art supplies that I still use some of to this day (not the finger paint, but..)

This made me feel bad about anything I might have said against him; I was ready to try to bury the hatchet. Just in time for the above comments to arrive; which I am starting to think came from him...