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...