Always A Dilemma

• A Quick Turnaround
• My Glasses Arrive
• I See Things More Clearly
• Could I Have Been Wrong About Just About Everything?
• Cosby And Simpson Can Now Meet Face To Face To Discuss Systemic Racism In America
  

I fasted on prune and apple juice yesterday, then in the evening I ate a can of salmon. There is something to the adage of: If health is your wish, eat more fish..

And as far as fish being brain food, I had a clarity of mind and a calming of the urge to twitch with anxiety, after eating the salmon. I mixed it with pickle juice, mustard, a pinch of sea salt (although there seems to already be a salinity to the fish, even though it isn't an ocean borne species) a lot of black pepper, a few shakes of hot sauce, and a dab of olive oil. I couldn't find a can of green peas in my cabinet or I would have had all the ingredients to make my famous (in my own mind) salmon and green pea pickle delight.

This morning I got a call from Eyes On Canal. After about a month's delay, the glasses with the correctly sized and oriented bi-focal elements in place, had finally come in.

Their excuse had been that, in order to pop the lenses in, the plastic frames needed to be heated up to make them pliable, and due to the thickness of the lenses that I need to correct my astigmatism, the lab had over melted the first couple frames that were sent to them, and additional frames had to be sent via the slow postal service.

I suspect that lens technicians sitting at home collecting 45K a year for not melting plastic also factored into the delay. The shelves at the Family Dollar down the street, for example, look like they do the day before a category 5 hurricane is due to make landfall -more shelf than product. 

"We can't get any truck drivers to make the delivery," said Kimberly, a solidly built white lady, as tall as me, in her mid twenties who wears large fake eyebrows, is friendly, and whom I often see walking along the sidewalk in her red Family Dollar shirt either coming or going to work. I suppose by foregoing the owning of a car, she is able to make her salary "work" for her.

I often think about handing her a twenty dollar bill, every so often, out of the $407 a week that I am getting to keep me drinking tequila, smoking crack* and watching porn using the free data and hot spot, through my "Obama" phone. 

This is a sinister device that "the left" is using to make the American People become more dependent upon the government, according to Ben Shapiro, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, etc. "They" want more people sitting home and getting checks; and there are even murmurings about them declaring a climate change based lock down, after they have wrung as much as they can out of the virus thing.

They have seen how they were able to get everybody to "mask up" (not everyone, just the sheep of society) citing questionable "science" (and shadow banning from the web any dissenters -it's true, whether all 12 of you reading this believe it or not) and now, there is the push to get everyone to take a syringe full of the experimental vaccine, for which there is no data about the long range effects of (make that all 3 of you, now). I'm waiting for the Epsilon mutation of the virus before I get off my ass to walk down to the local V.A. for a shot. 

And the next thing, some say, is that they will come around to collect everybody's guns -well, every law abiding citizen's who registered theirs, that is.

How they plan to transition into a Marxist government from there is something that remains to be seen, but repainting the White House in the pride flag colors and renaming it will be part of the plan, I imagine.

But, Kimberly is the manager of that Family Dollar store who over-rode my banishment from there, after I had made a joke around one of the African American employees, who totally didn't get it, but rather, told me I wasn't allowed in the store anymore -cancelled me, now that I think of it; how 2020 of her...

The joke was this: I was second or third in line when a recorded message came over the overhead speakers, warning potential shoplifters that "shoplifting is a crime," and that "every activity in the store is monitored and recorded" and that they would find out where the culprits lived and send the police there (this was actually in 2018, before the pandemic; when it was a common sight to see a uniformed security guy chasing someone on foot down Canal Street, to return shortly after, out of breath and holding a pair of headphones or maybe some hygiene products. Now, I think they encourage shoplifting as a blow against Capitalism itself, which is being promulgated as "the real problem" by the woke among us.

The businesses are eventually all going to close after the shoplifting renders them no longer profitable, is the idea, I guess.

Then what? Martial law, and people lining up at government run food carts for their sustenance. Food carts run by armed people who will be making the kind of salaries that those at the top of the Marxist food chain historically have?

Going Down Like A Fifth of Tequila...

Everyone will line up, orderly and quietly, and those who step out of line either literally or figuratively just won't get their food. 24 hours of hunger will serve to get them back in line, both literally and figuratively.

But, the recorded message went on for something like 2 minutes, and at one point became so belabored that I made the flippant remark of something like: "Gee, I've been shoplifting here my whole life; I never knew it was illegal!"

That actually got a giggle or two out of some of the other people in the line, but the next time I returned to the store, I was pointed out to the security guard by the cashier who had been behind the register at the time, who then pointed at me: "You! You need to leave! You need to leave!" in the repetitive manner that dogs use (they don't just bark once to convey the threat of biting you; they repeat the bark until well after you've run off, type of thing).

I avoided the place for a few days, but, seeing Kimberly in the store one evening, I went in and explained to her what happened and how I couldn't believe that the cashier hadn't picked up on my facetiousness.

"That's OK," she said. "You can come in here."

"Besides," she added, "She doesn't work here anymore. She got caught stealing money." (I kid you not!)

So, I think about slipping Kimberly 20 bucks here and there. The $407 a week is really overkill for me, who had learned to live off of approximately $12 a day, when working as a busker.

*the crack thing was joke (although it is just waiting around the corner to ensnare me, as it has so many other residents here, for whom the smoking of it has become a pastime). I mentioned that to get a rise out of Alex in California, should he ever re-visit this blog. The thought of him pounding his fist on the table by his computer and yelling "Entitled, racist, hypocritical scumbag!!" is too much for me to resist. That 12 dollars a day would surely increase to more like 52 bucks a day were I to get hooked on that stuff. Somehow, it seems like heroin has waned in popularity recently; I wonder what's behind that, or if I'm just not seeing the forest for the trees. Maybe it's just that, when Bobby used to live here, it seemed that more people were heroin junkies because maybe they were attracted to his apartment.

So, I walked to the Eyes On Canal place, where I was greeted warmly and told "We've got your glasses right here!" I was thanked for being "a good sport" over the matter.

I said: "That's OK, I was just getting a little tired of being judged by the duct tape holding my glasses together, rather than by the content of my character." -A nod to the great Doctor King..

I then walked to the Jefferson Feed Store, to get food for Harold. There was a "help wanted" sign on the door.

I was seduced by the beautiful bags of expensive food -they even smell good- and decided to roll the dice and pay 5 times as much for Harold's food, in the name of his overall health and well-being; even though I had been stung so many times in the past, when he had turned his nose up at things like pheasant and duck and venison with lentils and pumpkin recipes, that promised no this; no that; never any this other thing in the formula on the bag. Certainly no grains! type of thing.

I settled on a bag of Fromm brand "Surf & Turf Recipe For Cats" which seems to have come all the way from France, because it was actually "pour chats" and had a lot of French writing on the bag.

I told the girl at the register that, if Harold didn't like it, at 14 bucks a bag; I was going to eat it myself. She might have gotten the sense that I was serious (I half was) after I added: "I don't see anything really offensive in the list of ingredients and that I would probably eat just a little handful and then wait about 20 minutes, to see if I got a stomach ache or broke out in hives.

This prompted her to say: "You know, we do have a policy that, if you bring back at least half the bag, we'll give you a refund." I did not know that. I would have assumed that, once the bag was open, they wouldn't take it back. I guess that is more of a "people food" policy.

"We donate them to shelters and stuff," she said.

"I would feel bad, though; like that would be hurting your business; like you would be picking up the tab for my cat's finicky-ness," I said.

It wouldn't be a problem, she assured me. Maybe the thought of me eating the stuff and then suing them was on her mind. 

I said that they could also have something like a "scratch and dent" section in the store, and just discount it. "Use at your own risk," type of thing.

The chat business taken care of, it was then off to the GNC.

Upon entering that store, past their own "help wanted" sign, I was greeted by an employee whom I have seen a few times before in there; each one after an unsuccessful foray to the Eyes On Canal.

He is what used to be called a "flamer," meaning someone who is gay and doesn't try to hide the fact. He speaks in a voice that is very close to a women's tone, and seems to be very sensitive to social issues.

It took him a couple of my visits there to warm up to me; but we eventually had a conversation about my travails with the Eyes On Canal place.

He spoke about the injustices foisted upon those who depend upon Medicaide, such as myself, and seemed truly empathetic to my plight. He had started to talk about how the pharmaceutical corporations have conferences where they basically decide how they are going to screw over the poor and downtrodden Medicaide people and how nowhere is the income gap more evident than in the way that industry functions, etc.

This time, when he came to the register from where he had been at the back of the store, he immediately said: "Oh, you finally got your glasses!"

This really floored me, and I started to re-evaluated my views about homosexuals, in general. I know that actually sounds bigoted: "homosexuals in general," what do you mean, to generalize like that, bigot! type of thing.

But, it was as if I was seeing him in a whole new light.

He is a very slight of figure black kid of about maybe 19, and probably is the poster child for the "liberal, far left, socialist, Marxist, gen X, snowflakes" that I only then was realizing that i had pigeon-holed into a category where I would have placed him.

He speaks in a gentle voice, and really seems to...what comes to mind is that term "Namaste" which means something like "I see the divinity in you," or something.

I tried the same joke on him: "Yeah, I got sick of being judged, by the duct tape holding my glasses together...."

But, before I could even tack on the "instead of the quality of my character" part he waved it off with: "Aww, nobody's judging you; this is New Orleans; that's normal for here. You sat on your glasses and figured out a way to put them back together; good for you. Anybody could sit on their glasses, or step on them in the dark..."

And so, here was this 19 year old black gay young man, schooling this 58 year old guy who looks like he probably voted for Trump, and doing it in a compassionate way that was sensitive to my feelings. It was like a light went on in my head. Maybe the next generation is somehow better off than the one before; maybe you just have to know how to measure it. Namaste.

Just one day off the sauce and returned to healthy habits, for both Harold and me, and already the universe is opening up and showing me some light.

I walked back home, thinking about the Ben Shapiro video I had seen that morning and about his lecture about "People who go to church and read the bible and have beliefs about the 'immorality' of homosexuality," which was part of a longer diatribe about the fact that the National Football league has just released a "Football is gay; football is lesbian; football is everybody" type of commercial, about which Ben complained: When we tune in to watch football, it's to watch football, not to be preached some b.s. "woke" message (I'm paraphrasing).

Maybe the earth belongs to all of us in equal proportions and every single person should have a ton of nice things, and not one person should be wanting. And to the hoarders who would say "I deserve all this because I worked hard for it, and you deserve very little because you haven't," maybe Ben Shapiro might flip his bible to the "What profiteth a man to gain the world, but lose his soul" verse. At least I had something to think about as I walked home with my first clear head in weeks, carrying mine and Harold's righteous share of healthy food.

Harold hated it.

He was sitting on a chair. I approached him, holding the bag of Nourriture Pour Chats. He saw the bag in my hands and instantly, his nose began to twitch, trying to smell it. He was facing me and thrusting that nose towards the bag.

I ripped it open and poured a small amount onto the chair in front of him.

He sniffed at it, then turned his whole body to the side, so that I was facing north and he was facing east, staring straight ahead and motionless.

"Harold...Harold...Harold?" No movement at all; he was ignoring me and the bag of food for chats.

I'm going to bring it back to the store; probably tomorrow. Probably in conjunction with another visit to the GNC. Hopefully on my second day of not drinking. Although, as soon as I just typed that, I could almost taste a margarita. It's 9:25 p.m., and the bike has a flat tire; I would have to walk.

I'm afraid that if I drink enough tequila I might just wind up eating the nourriture pour chats, and won't have at least half a bag to return to get my 14 dollars back. 

Hmm...always a dilemma...

How is it that Ben Shapiro hasn't been shadow banned by Youtube like the rest of us who say similar things online?

I really feel sorry for those "essential" employees who have "essentially" been screwed by this Covid situation.

Are buskers essential?

...just thinking out loud...

I've Been Up Only 12 Hours

 ...but before that, I was up for a full 30 hours, and so I am tired.

I had to go back and delete stuff from yesterday's post yet again. As cathartic as it might have been, who wants to read the angry rants of a guy with a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold and a keyboard?

I bought the stuff to start another juice fast. Monday's only lasted less than a day, before I went out and got alcohol.

This has really diminished the quality of my life, so that I am not even enjoying writing on this blog that much...

Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings, I guess...

I abused myself yesterday; there's no other way to put it. After the tequila hit me I became ravenously hungry; I took a frying pan out of the fridge that contained the broth from a beef shank soup bone that I had soaked in vinegar then simmered for a long time on low heat to turn the marrow gelatinous. I put it on the stove on medium heat and then after the water was almost boiling, poured about a half container of liquid egg whites into it, so it coagulated.

While this was happening, I was also watching the highlights of the hockey game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay lightning.

The Canadiens are kind of a Cinderella story; they started out like wildfire, then something went wrong and they had to fire their coach mid season; then they had a bunch of injuries, and then they had to play something like 25 games in a short span in order to make up for ones missed due to Covid 19. But, then, everything fell back in place towards the very end of the season for them, as one player after another came back from injury, with each one surpassing expectations grandly, as if each one had been a missing link throughout the season. They were ranked 18th among all the teams, statistically over the course of the whole season, and just squeaked into the playoffs after finishing 3rd in what was considered the weakest division in hockey. But, they went into the playoffs playing like wildfire; the way they had started.

I know all that because a fan of theirs in Canada was happy to take the time to explain it all to me, after I made the comment of: "Wow, who would have thought the habs...why didn't they win more games during the season, the way they're playing?"

I think that is cool that a guy is such a fan that he was willing to fill me in. I only rarely get a game on free TV; and am not up to paying $69 a month for Youtube TV; which would give me access to tons of things that I don't plan upon having time for.

I am thinking of becoming a Patreon subscriber to Michelle Webber's art tutorial website. She specializes in watercolors and, I have enjoyed the little bit of messing around that I have done with them, and they are cheap. That would leave even less time for watching a ton of stuff on Youtube TV, and plus I would have to pay for the data to keep my hotspot streaming so much every day so as to make Youtube TV worth it at $69 bucks a month.

If I want to produce anything of substance in a music video some day, then some other things will have to go. Alcohol consumption tops the list; with staying up all night watching old John Wayne movies on free TV not far behind. What to leave in; what to leave out? -to quote Bob Seger from the song "Against The Wind," which is yet another song that would take me less than a half hour to learn, that I haven't learned.

"Work hard, or work smart" is an adage that has a lot of wisdom to it. I can save a lot of time by learning songs that I have sung along to on the radio when I was younger and had a better memory. I might as well take advantage of having been able to put certain albums on in my youth and sing along, knowing "every word." They would be the easiest ones to add to the repertoire just by learning the guitar part..

Although, yesterday I discovered that, my whole life, I have been singing the wrong words to a Joni Mitchell song.

They played "Free Man In Paris" in heavy rotation on AM radio, back when it came out, and throughout the whole decade of the 1970's, actually.

I thought she was singing: "I was aggrieved and embarrassed, I felt un-feminine-like (nobody was calling me up for favors, and no one's future to decide).

But it is actually: "I was a free man in Paris; I felt unfettered and alive.."

I guess it threw me as a teen, because I wasn't considering that she might be calling herself a free "man" in Paris (...she can't be singing that, I thought...).

But, having sung "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The 'Ol Oak Tree," by Tony Orlando and Dawn with every word intact at least as many times as there were ribbons around the namesake tree in the last verse; I might as well add it to the song list. I would just have to pick the 4 chords out by ear and memory.

Making the song list -one more thing on my to-do list (which I haven't gotten around to making yet).

5th Flat Tire

The tire on the bike has gone flat again, for the 5th time; and in the same manner of holding air for 2 days, then slowly deflating on the 3rd day.

I'm going to buy a new tire for it. I believe the one in it is malformed and allows a thin strip of the tube to protrude between it and the wheel, where it becomes pinched with every rotation. This takes 3 days of riding to happen. That's my theory.

I looked at "burner" phones today at the Family Dollar. For 20 bucks, I can buy one, and I won't even have to use it; just its phone number, to use for opening another Google Account.

Then, I will be able to ditch the past, as Google will see me as a brand new person; with no shadow ban worthy offenses on my record.

The last music video I made had a very positive message; it is that the children are our future, and that after the oldest generation now living passes away; their ingrained racist beliefs could go to the grave with them.

But, I used clips of a little white girl dancing with a little black boy, culled off of an episode of Dance Moms, that I actually paid $3.99 to rent; my first and only purchase made from Youtube.

The show actually airs on one of the free channels I get through my rabbit ear equipped TV, but I had to get it streamed in order to get it onto my hard drive, so I could edit it and use it in the video.

The idea came to me when I had both my FM radio and my TV on.

The guy ranting about Jim Crow and accusing the host of promoting racism on the call-in radio show was ranting away, when I looked over at the TV to see that Dance Moms had come on after whatever reality type show I might have been watching, and there were the two kids of different colors dancing together. They may have been 8 years old.

"T.J." from "The 9th Ward" (in East New Orleans) who was berating the call-in show's host, I pictured as being just like the older black men who live here at Sacred Heart, who seem to have all gotten their beliefs from wherever T.J. did.

"White supremacists are practicing Jim Crow!" is a common topic of discussion which can be overheard by the old guys here. But there were the little kids, holding hands and dancing together on the TV, and it occurred to me they, and not T.J. are "the future."

But, artistic considerations notwithstanding, the Youtube algorithm flagged the video somehow, (due to the presence of children in leotards?) and that became one more brick in the wall, towards me being shadow banned.

Comments were disabled on the video, as is Youtube's policy, I learned too late, after spending 80 hours putting the thing together. If a human being made that decision, it was only after a quick fast forward through the thing. I'm sure nobody watched it in order to glean the "message" of it.

There are things that can't be done in any context at all on Youtube, or Facebook and whatever else is owned by the stewards of cancel culture.

Some person, I forget the details, lost his job because he used the "N" word in quoting someone else ("No, the guy said [n-word] I heard him clear as day!" type of thing). Some things can't be used in any context at all; or user gets cancelled. Disappeared from search results, fired from their jobs even after apologizing -grovelling for nothing, it turns out- and having their lives destroyed in many cases. Homeless and living in their car, along with their families, because of a "gotcha" that some sanctimonious millenial was quick to pounce upon...

But, the solution, for me at least, will be to get a $19 phone and use its number to open a new Google account.

Then, I will be able to build back a readership using (trolling) headlines on blog posts, such as I see some startup "news" organizations doing.

"Biden Fires Kamala Harris After Border Debacle" is a typical one they might use, which gets them clicks in the tens of thousands, along with the advertising revenue and all that, which comes along with that kind of traffic.

The video that plays when you click is usually just an edited out excerpt from a longer NewsMax video. Apparently the type of person that would be dying to read the details of Kamala's canning, will stick around and watch the NewsMax stuff anyways, and see the ads, even though, incidentally, there is nothing about the next-in-line being fired. There must be some arrangement between them and NewsMax, whereby it is alright with the latter, maybe because it is getting their stuff "out there" albeit through guile and deception; maybe they have to share the ad revenue.

What I have to figure out is whether I can just import this whole blog into the new account, which hasn't been flagged, or if that content will get flagged retroactively. I suppose I could just do a search for the "n" word and then remove it from wherever it might appear in this blog, over the past 12 years...

To tired to think about it now; that's why I didn't buy the phone earlier. I'll do it when well rested. Speaking of which; goodnight!

Too Close For Comfort

 I've been up a whole 25 hours now.

Left, what I came home to.

This reminds me of that condominium that collapsed in Miami or wherever it was. And to think, had I returned home a little earlier, it might have landed right on me.

Gee, I can't wait to ditch this blog and move to another web address where only those whom I want to know about will know about.

I say this, because I am feeling a lot of anger right now.

But, as soon as I typed that last sentence and hit enter, it dissipated. It's that kind of ephemeral anger. Maybe it's white rage.

I think I have figured out everything I needed to have figured out in order to launch a new web campaign, under a totally different identity, and I am looking forward to having a horse in the race, so to speak.

I want to post things and have them go viral, and I believe I can do so. Not with Google and Mark Zuckerberg (who can go to hell, after his little application goes the way of MySpace in a few years) working against me.

My "woke" bit is set to almost zero, what a pity, but I will fix that.

Or I will snap mentally because of the microwaves that are being directed at us Sacred Heart residents by some agency, perhaps a government one.

I knew that there was something amiss about this "free" apartment that I was "entitled" to, along with a bunch of other colored people who are either "chronically homeless," or mentally ill, or (you guessed it) both.

They are trying to keep pace with the Chinese in the technological realm of using microwaves, directed at humans, in order to destroy them over time, without leaving a trace. We are the guinea pigs, here at Sacred Heart apartments, where one needs to smoke crack just to be social.

I started to suspect as much a few years ago.

They are experimenting on us. This might explain why my friend Jacob, after staying here a week or so, decided to get the hell out of here.

I have heard noises and things that made me think the place may be haunted, but the loud noise that I can't tell where is coming from, like taking a marble and spinning around a giant metal funnel, so it would go around and around, gradually descending into the constricted tube so it would spin faster and faster. Plus, every time I connect to my hotspot there is shown as one of the other "available" networks, one simply designated as NSA, National Security Administration?

Nothing is free in life, and so, in exchange for this apartment I am being subjected to experimentation. Such as the heating and air unit which has to have water running through it, under pressure that makes it sound like there is a fire hose blasting water through it.

It gets to me, to the point where I think I am going to run and slam my head into a wall. And I can hear voices in it; can make out words, if I listen closely; or more so, if I let my mind go.

I fixed the guitar and so I can now go back out to busk. 

I am thinking about just getting a better guitar. Better even than the Takamine which is pretty nice, all things considered. I will make that determination after my first night back out busking.

I could have used all this lock down time to become a practicing maniac and wound up coming out been able to play some Tommy Emmanuel stuff when I resumed busking.

But, that didn't quite materialize. I have been practicing some, though.

The tequila I bought an hour ago, after not having slept for a whole day is starting to hit me; and I am starting to realize that I hate almost everyone's guts.

Especially that Facebook guy, Zuckerberg.

I despise him, along with that Twitter guy, and that Instagram guy. I never liked Bill Gates much, either, apparently neither did his now ex-wife. They poured (laundered) tons of money into a bunch of non profits that have a "green new earth agenda." A lot of that is OK; if they can accelerate to removal of all gas cars from the earth, sure. And, the oil producing people really did gain a lot of power over the years and would have been an obstacle...

But, what a bunch of jerks, disabling comments on stuff I post to Youtube because I watched a "right wing conspiracy" video and "liked" it. Then I opened an account on Gab.com...then I disappeared from search results on Google, wow.

Their applications, which took no more skill to write than the MySpace or the Napster, or the LiveJournal, or the Alta Vista ones that were just as prominent at one time -just happened to "take off" just because of them having guessed right about some nuance that "the people" preferred over the other dozen or so competing apps at the time; and now they think they are in a position to rule the world; deciding the outcomes of national elections, etc. What's wrong with that picture?

I also left a lengthy message on the site of some guy who makes podcasts pertaining to musical gear. I asked him what his advice would be as far as me setting up the headset microphone so I can plug it into the portable amp that fits in my backpack. I hope he comments back. He might, because his podcasts get few enough views that he will actually see my question.

I almost went to bed 4 hours ago, which would have had me waking up at the "normal" hour of around sunrise. But, I am still up.

I fixed the Takamine guitar that I use to busk with; finally.

It, along with the bikes with the flat tires, and basically everything visible in a panoramic view of my apartment, had been sitting there, waiting for me to get to it.

Above: I believe when I complete this puzzle, then a lot of things will have fallen into place. 

Not So Fast

 I See The Dark

After doing the juice fast on apple juice all day, I was beset with the usual hankering for a bottle of wine as soon as the sun had gone down, so I left to go get one.

Since I have a mile ride to the grocery store, I stopped at the corner Shell to get a beer to steel myself and calm my nerves before going to the racist Rouses Market, where I am treated much the same as "Negroes" probably were around these parts, before they started calling themselves "Black Men" (circa. 1966). Going to that store often tries my patience and, more than once, after entering there in a good mood, I came out, not in one.

Once in the Shell station store, though, I got another idea. They have an impressive assortment of different brands of tequila. I'm pretty sure that this is to attract Latinx customers, whom they seem to favor. It follows the same logic of putting sunflower seeds in your bird feeder if you want to attract cardinals (like the one that sings twice a day at nine o' clock from my singing bird clock) or millet, if you prefer sparrows, type of thing.

I looked at all the tequilas, and wound up grabbing a bottle of limeade and then spiking it with Jose Cuervo gold, which put the song "Hey Nineteen," by Steely Dan in my head for the rest of the night, and then made the mile ride to Rouses Market, or Reverse Racism Central, if you will.

I could go to the Winn Dixie across the street from there, where the white security guy works, having quit his job at Rouses Market and gotten himself hired there. But it is always a challenging experience going to Rouses, because the staff are openly hostile towards white people. I believe the 90% black staff there are trying to sabotage that white owned business from within.

Great Deals On Pork

Donny Rouse was at the capital building, peacefully protesting on January 6th, and someone from New Orleans who was also there had recognized him, photographed him, and then posted the picture to social media. 

Immediately, there began a push to boycott that store because of that. What the person who took the picture was doing there, never came to light.

Donny claimed, publicly, that he never went near the capital, but was only there to hear the president for another hour or so give his speech.

The boycott didn't seem to gain momentum, except for a few days after that shocking news was made public, when I noticed an almost empty parking lot, and had to check my phone, to make sure I hadn't lost track track of time, and they were closed.

The failed boycott notwithstanding, the Rouses were still saddled with the problem of having a 90% black staff, who would start to try to sabotage the business from within, becoming openly hostile towards white customers, so they wouldn't want to shop there, and I think, facilitating shoplifting, by their own race.

I was in there shortly after the "violent insurrection" and a black man in line behind me had placed what looked like a 10 pound pork tenderloin on the conveyor belt that had a price of something like $4.27 on it.

He caught me looking at the sticker, probably a little wide eyed with astonishment and gave me an icy look, as if it were none of my business what the price was that was on it.

"Good deals on pork this week, I guess."

That was about the time I started to have trouble with the black security guard with the "B.L.M." mask on his face, following me around, waiting for my improvised bandana mask to slip an inch off my nose, so he could threaten to kick me out, and with getting cash back at the register, with the cashiers more than once hitting some button on it to close out the sale before I could press the "cash" option on the card swiping machine, even after I had told them I was trying to get cash back. On one such occasion the same guard was right there in my face after I complained: "That's why I told you I was trying to get cash back, because I was..."

I See The Dark

I got back to Sacred Heart, where there were three or four other residents hanging around out front; one of them was Pops, in his electric wheelchair. They were waiting for a certain crack dealer to show up.

I decided to continue in my campaign of trying to befriend these other black residents, rather than just passing them by, while they stared at the bags on my handlebars, as if trying to see through them. I was still sipping on the bottle of limeade, spiked with tequila.

It wasn't long into our small talk, when Pops asked: "You got another cold drink? I know you got some more cold drinks in there..."

"No, I just bought this one so I could spike it with tequila. I didn't have the stomach for straight tequila (I had been on the ill fated juice fast all day)."

Well, this led to one guy mumbling something to Pops, to which that worthy answered: "Oh, he keeps him some tequila," implying that I had more somewhere in my bags.

No, I only bought a half pint and dumped it all in the 32 ounce bottle of limeade.

Pops wanted a sip off my home made margarita (what pandemic..?).

I passed the bottle to Pops, who took a sip.

"Oh, that's good. That's real good," said Pops, complementing my skill as a mixologist, and apparently signaling somehow to the next guy, a large, kind of effeminate other black guy whom I have seen around, and had a few encounters with. He had invited me to his apartment one time, which tripped my gay-o-meter, so I declined (this isn't my first rodeo, type of thing). I remember resenting him for even trying me that way.

And, another time, after Bobby had given me an Epiphone acoustic guitar, which was a cheap instrument and played like one, but was brand new, polished and shiny, so Bobby saw it as an upgrade over my Takamine that has a little bit of body damage, I stopped in a stairwell on the way back to my apartment with it, to play it a bit, to see how it sounded, with the benefit of the reverberation from the stair well.

This same guy came lumbering along and, giving me a little smile, had plopped himself down a few stairs below me. I could smell alcohol on him.

"Give me some smooth jazz," he said.

Still holding a bit of a grudge from the overture he had made in inviting me to his apartment, I had said something like: "Dude, I get 20 bucks a song on Bourbon Street taking requests, I'm just trying to see how this thing sounds, I just got it; I'm not up to playing songs on it yet..." I just hadn't appreciated how he'd insinuated himself.

But, there he was again, waiting for the dope man along with Pops. And, he wanted a sip of my margarita, of course he did, Pops had said "Oh, this is good!"

Big effeminate guy had given me a fist bump when I first rode up, but after I had said: "Sorry, man, this is all I have left," at first seemed to take that news OK, but then started to mumble, and then started to cuss a bit under his breath, and I just wished everyone a good night and pushed my bike up the ramp and into the building.

"He just thinks the whole world revolves around him; thinks everyone else is on earth to serve him," I thought. "Give me some smooth jazz, something soft; come on up to my apartment for some overt homosexual advances, hand me your bottle," type of thing. Then he gets mad when others don't comply...  

So, that was a tiny setback in my attempt to befriend the reverse racist blacks that I live with. Give me something soft; like some little white boy that I can take advantage of... 

The Fast Begins

I See The Light

Brian Hudson with "Grandpa" Eliot

on Royal Street

It's time to put away childish things, like getting drunk every night, stuffing my face with a menu of food items that teeter on the unhealthy (2 a.m. trips to the candy machine to slide a dollar in and pull an apple pie or white powdered doughnuts out) and stagnating.

"When you're standing still, you're going backwards," one of my early mentors, Jim O' Leary, the PGA golf professional whom I worked for as a 12-15 year old, once said. And nowhere is this concept better illustrated than in my apartment, where I have been lucky recently, to just clean up the mess from the previous day, never mind making progress on anything.

Things pile up, some of them not being addressed for months, such as the bikes which sat upside down near the entrance with flat tires for weeks, as I walked everywhere, putting myself in more danger from being a slower target, easier to shoot with a paintball, perhaps, and wasting the most precious commodity of all; time.

Last night, I got a text from Brian Hudson, who used to busk in the Quarter, but who went back to Texas, where he is from, for the pandemic, I guess. His family seems to have money, and he is a medical student at one of the local colleges, who busked on Royal Street, always with a $2,000 Martin acoustic guitar, run through an expensive amp, etc.

"Hey, Daniel! Still playing at the Lily(sic) spot?" was his text.

The French Quarter was pretty much packed with people, the webcam on Bourbon Street showed, when I went there after having answered his text.

"No, Lilly wants me to get vaccinated and show her proof, before she will be comfortable with me sitting on her stoop and playing.." I answered. I went on to joke that, for "political" reasons I haven't been out there yet, and then voiced my fear of losing the spot to some other busker, who may have seen me playing there before, but not now. Some buskers take a "monkey see; monkey do" approach to choosing a spot, figuring one place must be good, if someone is seen playing there all the time.

When Brian didn't text back, all I could think of was cancel culture -he read that I haven't been vaccinated, and thought "Uh oh, vaccine hesitation; probably voted for Trump..." and then, cancelled me; by not only not responding, but by blocking me or removing my name from his contacts, type of thing.

I do hesitate to do anything that I hear Biden tell me to do, and especially A.O.C. the middle school mentality congresswoman from wherever she is from. Since they are always lying about everything, why do anything they tell me to, is my opinion. It can all be traced to the oligarchs like Bill Gates, who are really running things; trying to run the whole globe with the United States just being one wing of it.

Someone convinced the most powerful people that the planet is being destroyed and perhaps we must do away with all fossil fuel consumption, and that people are not going to voluntarily give up their gas powered cars etc. and so the brain trust has come up with a plan to seize power and force certain changes to come about. Trump had to be removed. That is obvious now. That is why so many people will tell you, through their masks, that he is all kinds of evil; with the reason being that "he just is." Don't you watch TV, use Facebook, and Youtube, and Instagram, how can you not see that Trump is evil? It's everywhere! Have you been living under a rock?" type of thing. 

I've heard those exact words out of the mouth of one of the cashiers at the Shell station, who had removed her mask to smoke a cigarette outside. This was about a year ago, before the last presidential election. "We need a new president, I know that!" she added, before flicking her butt, pulling her mask back up and then going back to work, ringing up items when not staring at her phone.

So, I'm opting for the natural immunity which I've probably already acquired. I think both Jacob (Scardino) and I both had the virus, the couple of weeks that he stayed in my apartment. First he was sick with flu-like symptoms, then I got it a week later.

I know I said that I am trying to steer away from politics on this blog, and make it great again. But the cat is already out of the bag; this blog is only being shown to a handful of (lucky) people out of the billions of people that go online.

Funny how it only started to seem like nobody cares what I think after I started thinking "the wrong things." When this blog was mostly just anecdotes from my life that aspired to be amusing, I would occasionally have up to 287 people or so reading a particular post; and sharing it! Now there are people who won't comment upon anything I post to Facebook, because they are afraid of losing their jobs, their homes, and probably their lives. And, so Brian never texted back, most likely because of the vaccine comment...

On A Brighter Note

Last night, for the second night in a row, I spoke to another one of the residents here at Sacred Heart, rather than just giving a curt nod and a mumbled word or two.

I was returning from Rouses Market, pushing my bike through the hallway, with bags on the handlebars containing alkaline water, a large wedge of watermelon, a beef shank "soup bone" type thing, a bottle of wine, and an assortment of treats for Harold.

I was soon going to work on the bottle of wine, with any hopes of creating anything worthwhile, fading with every sip. At least I didn't pass out and leave all the bags on the handlebars, like I had done a couple nights before, when the fish thawed out and the ground lamb got warm, and it all had to be cooked and eaten right away, because thawing and then re-freezing stuff can ruin it to a degree. This had led to me feeling like I had food poisoning, which made me appreciate the good health that I had enjoyed over the years when I rarely felt like laying on a bed and moaning in agony, waiting for my guts to explode and a bunch of worms crawl out. But my drunken self still made the mistake of chucking the bag containing the watermelon in the freezer; now I have a frozen solid piece of watermelon. But, watermelon is one of the best things to break a 10 day fast with...

But, even before I got to the apartment, I passed a couple of thin black people whom I had seen before and just given a nod and a mumbled word to.

A thin black man, with a thin black lady who was leaning on a walker, they held the door open for me at the entrance of the "smoking" room and then again on the other side. I thanked them, and decided to converse some with them.

This is because I have seen the light, in a sense, and am positing the theory that I had been only hurting myself by directing derision at these black folks that I live in the same building as.

The man, who introduced himself as Clarence, remarked that he had a bike just like mine and that he wished he could fix a flat tire that is on it, because he is walking everywhere, and it was stressing him. He would have to take the bus all the way to Walmart to get a new tube.

That is a trip I made a couple weeks ago, to do the same thing. Only I had gotten a 2-pack of them. You see where this story is going now, right? I had a 2-pack of tubes, and Clarence has a bike just like mine.

Well, I told Clarence that I had an extra tube. It's the one that developed a pin-hole leak after I put it in the tire, but the Slime™ seemed to do its job after I submerged it and the little stream of bubbles that gave away the location of the pin hole stopped leaking right in front of my eyes after a kneaded the rubber a bit.

Clarence was overcome with joy after following me to my door, where that particular tube was right inside, ready to go out with the rest of my trash, as I still wasn't sure I trusted it, although no amount of squeezing it could produce another bubble from where the hole had been).

I explained this all to him, and wished him luck with it. He lives right next door to Freddie, the greasy hand print assassin.

And, once again, my spirits were lifted by the encounter. I am starting to think that I have been placed in this situation because it is some kind of next step spiritually to learn to love these black people whom I live with. Arguably, they are the hardest challenge, in that regard, because they are predisposed to being racist and against me.

But, the text from Brian and then seeing how crowded Bourbon Street was on the webcam really left an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. This makes me realize that the busking has not been only about money. If I wait until unemployment payments stop before going back out, then scratch that last sentence. It's a feeling I haven't had since I was a teenager and I saw a girl that I had a heavy crush on, talking to another boy. I'm afraid of another busker taking the Lilly Pad, and having Lilly say: "Daniel, you just haven't been around, and (insert name here) is a really nice guy, I've been talking to him, and...he's a really nice guy; he hates Trump, too. I told him he could play here..."

I could go out and play acoustically and work on the headset microphone situation on the side; that would motivate me to go to Webb's Bywater Music store to talk to Mr. Webb about how I can hook up the mic to the amp and run it all off of batteries.

Charcoal Drawing Tutorial (Complete Beginners Guide!)

I'm falling in love with drawing again. Ms. Webber answered some comments I posted under her videos. I can't wait to draw the next fish! This may have been a godsend, stumbling upon her art tutorials; perhaps it will draw me away from the mudslinging of politics, to buy one of her lessons, and have her guide me through the creation of a watercolor/charcoal "mixed media" work of art. Mixed media because there are charcoal drawings, and there are watercolor paintings, but I will be combining the two, and hopefully learning something.

I Speak To A Skeezer

I Speak

In the 7 years that I have lived here at Sacred Heart, there have been some older black fellow residents that I haven't spoken a word to.

These black residents, about maybe 10 years older than me, are very similar in appearance to one another, smoke the same brand of cigarettes, drink the same Olde English malt liquor and act the same as one another in divers circumstances.

Our "interactions" the past 7 years have involved me spotting them, sitting around the front of the building, usually because they felt that they "had to get out of that apartment and get some air."

Last night, I became bored enough in my apartment to want to do the same thing.

When I stepped outside the front entrance, there was Pops number 2, an older, kind of small black man who is always in a wheelchair type of device. Pops number 1 is another guy, who could be the twin brother of the first, from whom I can usually only distinguish by the electric wheelchairs that each one commutes in. One has a red one, the other a black one.

My relationship with these people has been one of walking past them, half looking their way enough to see the sour countenances they wore, as they looked at me, or rather at whatever bags or other items I might have in my hand, with derision, as I walked past.

Pops' eyes would shift to the bags in my hand, as if trying to guess what was in them, and a frown would form on his face. The same with the other "Pops" as well as a dozen or so others who gather around the front of the building.

I always assumed that they gathered there A: because they are gregarious by nature and thus can't stand being alone in their apartments, and B: so they can panhandle the people coming and going, asking a cigarette of everyone who must walk past them in order to come and go.

A Materialistic Culture

That afternoon, I had watched a little bit of Jerry Springer, after flipping through the channels, looking for something that might fill the gap between 25 Words or Less, which follows Jeopardy, and the Jeopardy that comes on at 6 in the evening. Judge Judy is good for about an hour of amusement, despite the guilt I usually feel over watching TV and not practicing the guitar, or doing anything else creative.

But, I flipped to the Jerry Springer Show and witnessed the circus act of black people confronting each other over infidelity, and then physically fighting each other, over each other.

More Syncronicity

I had randomly heard the song by the group The Police "We Are Spirits, In The Material World," after having woken up earlier, with Madonna singing "Material Girl" from the randomized playlist that I had passed out drunk to and left on all night (early morning) as I slept.

The common thread on the Springer show boiled down to; the people cheated on their partners because that partner wasn't "doing enough" for them. This always devolved to materialistic issues. "How could you do this to me; I do everything for you, I paid for your insurance on your car, I bought you this, I bought you that, I took you out to Red Lobster; I love you, baby!?" type of stuff.

Then the person would basically counter with the argument that that person B, whom they cheated on them with, buys them more material objects, and thus, loves them more. "He buys me clothes, he paid for my hair extensions, he paid to have my car fixed; you never did none of that, you don't love me near as much!" type of thing.

And so, this affirmed the model I had been forming of African Americans as being materialistic. A bunch of materialistic motherf***ers, to use their parlance.

Eyes On The Prize

And so, all eyes are on whatever bags I am carrying when I return to the building from a store run. Some of them focus upon the front pockets of my jeans, as if looking for the tell-tale shape of a pack of cigarettes.

"Is that beer, can I have one?" asked an older black lady who was hanging out one evening as I walked past. I'm not sure I had ever seen her before in my life, but there she was asking me for one out of the six pack of beer that I had bought, and already drank one of, myself. Gee, that would leave me 4...

I remember how mad I had become. I fumed over that the whole evening, I recall. Especially as I swilled down more and more beer. The nerve of her! I wished I had thought of something even more biting than the sarcastic: "Sorry, I'm not going around handing out free beer today," that I had said something like.

But, why should that lady have such power over me as to be able to anger me the whole evening, just by asking a simple question.

Of course she thinks "just like" Freddie, and Pops 1, and Pops 2, and Lionel. I owed her the reparation of at least one of my beers.

Freddie is the guy who left greasy hand prints on the wall inside my apartment, shortly after I had moved in. I had bagged up my trash to take to the dumpster, leaving my door propped open for ventilation as I left. On the way to the dumpster, I passed Freddie, who was going in the building, as I was coming out. He had been with a couple other guys, working under the hood of a car that sat in the parking lot. He might have been running to his apartment to take a leek, or to grab another Olde English from his fridge.

I tossed my trash in the dumpster and then went back to my place. Once inside, I immediately noticed a couple of black greasy hand prints on my freshly painted white walls, where someone had stamped their hands and then dragged them downward. That had been my introduction to Freddie, a couple weeks after I had moved into Sacred Heart.

Lionel, I met soon afterwards, when I was sitting in the computer room. I had gone online to check the price of something off the Radio Shack website. Finding the item (it might have been headphones) that I was looking for, and learning that they would be open another hour or so, I dug whatever cash I had out of my pocket to see if I had enough, after factoring the tax in, to get the thing.

I had just about enough, I calculated.

Just then, Lionel, whom I had seen but never talked to, and another guy appeared and started to walk past the computer room. Seeing the money in my hands that I was counting; Lionell held up a finger for his friend to wait a minute, then came in the room and came up to me and said: "Give me a couple bucks."

I started to tell him that I was going to need all the money I had to go buy something at Radio Shack.

"Man, I need a beer!" he almost yelled, in a tone of voice that implied that that was more important than anything I might have wanted the money for. His friend in the hallway became impatient and said something like: "C'mon Lionel!"

To which the latter said: "Wait a minute; I'm trying to get this asshole to give me a couple bucks, so I can get a beer!"

"Oh, I'm an asshole because I don't give away money for free?" I said. "Ask one of your friends for money."

"I don't have any friends," said Lionel, then appended the threat of: "We'll see how many friends I have as soon as you step outside!" which didn't make much sense, other than to indicate that Lionell was the actual asshole.

The Origins Of Harold's Name

Then, the list goes on, to include Jackie, who lives two doors down from me, and whom I haven't spoken to since shortly after she moved in the building about a year after I did, having taken over the apartment vacated by a guy named Harold, who had reportedly gotten caught transporting a large amount of heroin in someone's car and had gotten something like 5 years in prison.

I named Harold, my cat, sort of after him; thinking: one Harold out (of the building) one Harold in...maintaining the delicate balance of Harolds around here, type of thing.

That, and the fact that I had found the copy of the Bagavad Gita that had a cover that matched the color of the cat's fir about an hour before being given Harold by a neighbor who had rescued him from the parking lot. Hare Krishna, I derived "Harry" from, and then amended it to the more formal "Harold," after learning about the guy 2 doors down going away for 5 years.

A Somewhat Conversation

So, more to the point. Yesterday, I decided to talk to Pops, who sat in his wheelchair in his regular spot near the front door, where he stations himself, ready to offer assistance anyone trying to get in and out, especially if their hands are occupied with a bicycle or bags of groceries, or other things, which he will stare at contemptuously, if I'm the one holding them. 

He will beep the door open using his key card, so the person pushing the bike and holding the bags won't have to fetch their own card from their pocket. This is always followed by a request for a cigarette or a dollar, as if this is the price for his service. No such thing as random kindness in their materialistic world, I guess.

But, I spoke to him about my having gotten bored and needing to step outside for a few minutes (see, I'm just like you, Pops, white people can get bored and lonely too...). 

This led to a somewhat conversation, where I noticed that everything I said, he was quick to refute, or to correct me upon. A police SUV turned off of Canal Street and started to ride by the building. Right before reaching the front landing area, its spotlights came on and illuminated us.

"I guess they're checking our faces, looking for someone," I said.

"They ain't looking for no one; they're checking on the school; every night they ride by that school; that's part of their job, to check the school. You don't know what you're talking about!" snapped Pops (2).

Well, excuse me. 

I guess, since he spends so much time sitting there by the door, he thinks he has become an expert, I thought.

On every other subject that came up, he apparently knew better than me, also. He mentioned that he wanted to move out of Sacred Heart, despite the fact that it is in a "historical" neighborhood.

"Yeah, Louis Armstrong got married in that church right there, in 1964, I think it was to Lucy, his first wife," I said, referring to said history.

"I'm talking about in the 1700's, history!" barked Pops, in his "you don't know what you're talking about" tone again. 

I'm not saying that talking to Pops drove me to do so, but I was soon en-route to the Shell to get some beer.

Returning from there, I saw that there were 2 police SUV's parked out front and I walked past a few officers once I entered the lobby (having opened the door myself to save being panhandled for a dollar or a cigarette) who were in the process of leading a 280 pound black lady in a moo moo dress and handcuffed, towards the exit. I guess they had rode by shining their spotlight, looking for someone, and not just doing a routine check of the school after all, I thought. I wonder if it had dawned upon Pops that he hadn't known what he was talking about with his school checking theory...

But, as unproductive as it might have seemed to have broken a 6 year silence and spoken to Pops, I realized, once I got back to my apartment and eventually grabbed my guitar; I felt a lot less "oppressed" by the sense of being surrounded by a bunch of hostile fellow residents. I had humanized Pops, I guess.

I have always felt inhibited in totally opening up and singing at the top of my lungs by the sense of resistance that comes from the fact that, while I proclaim to not give a crap about what any of the other people here think, it goes against the grain of music being an expression of love (and all that) and "How can we sing king alpha's song in a strange land?" type of sentiments.

They can continue to hate me all they want, but I have, at least, done my part (or started to do it) and so can breath (and sing) easier. I am afraid that it might be my karma to learn to love these African Americans and not feel superior to them; no matter how ignorant they might be... like that is my mission, should I choose to accept it, type of thing. It's would be a challenge, but maybe that is the one incumbent upon me.

"You Know Any Santana, Man?"

I still can't see myself taking my guitar down to the recreation room and taking requests for Motown songs; but, if that is the next step in my journey I guess the sooner I come to grips with it, the better...

I used to leave here to go to the Quarter to make money and then come back with the attitude of "Don't ask me for shit; so what if I just made almost 200 bucks in a little over 3 hours!"

I'm starting to question that attitude. Maybe a little generosity would go a long way; like slipping the beggars a couple bucks every night, upon returning. 

I do currently make a habit of buying a little snack, every time I go to the store, for the ladies who work at the security desk in the front lobby, ostensibly for buzzing me in the front door; but mostly out of respect for the fact that they are working. 

And, they are just as black as the bums. Actually the one who is a Sargent and above the others is rather light skinned. I'm not going to go there, though (saying that that's why she is above them; by virtue of having some white in her bloodline somewhere).

The irony is that, because they are working, they are getting a paycheck and can afford their own Zebra Cakes, though those are the ones I "reward" because they work, like I do.

The bums out front kind of need the money more. If "need" is the right word. I'm still not there yet, but I have made an inroad, at least, by speaking to one of them; extending an olive branch maybe. 

I just wish I lived in a building full of Latinos; I would sing my heart out for them and hope that they heard me; rather than being in the market for sound dampening materials, as I have been, and wanting to stuff a closet full of pillows to do my singing in...because my music is none of their business, type of thing..this has produced a lot of wimpy sounding vocal recordings; of a man feeling oppressed by the tacit hostility of his neighbors.

Freddie's hand and finger prints are still visible on my wall..

I should have gone back out, after he had returned to the group working on the car, holding my phone to my ear and saying loudly: "Yes, could you please send a fingerprint technician out here to 3222 Canal Street, officer? Thanks."

I mean how foolish is it to vandalize someone's apartment by leaving your palm and finger prints on his wall? What are the odds that they don't have Freddie's prints on file down at Central Booking?

Life Is Worth Losing - Dumb Americans - George Carlin

Intervention From Within

 What A Difference A Day Makes

Late yesterday afternoon, I left the building in the middle of the tropical storm type thing that the weather lady gave us.

When I lived in Phoenix, we had a very nice weather lady who only gave us rain a handful of times a year. She was a bit bi-polar and liked to roast us in the middle of the summer, with her 111 degree days, but, nothing like the local lady here, who seems to be somewhat of a drama queen.

I wish they would swap her with that lady, and send her out to Arizona, where they would probably enjoy her floods and hurricanes, to break up the monotony.

It was raining very heavily, and my umbrella, I could only crack open half way, or it would have been turned inside out in short order.

So, I got to the store, soaked pretty much from the shoulders down. I hadn't even tried to avoid puddles up to my ankles along the way.

One guy at the register, behind the Covid plexiglass immediately pleaded with me to leave the umbrella at the front door and not drip all over the floor.

I went and got a bottle of Yellow Tail Cabernet/Shiraz that had a date of 2015 on it. For some reason that store has some old bottles of wine with labels faded to a lighter hue than the newer ones.

I had tried one of the same kind that was from 2014 and found it to be "corked."

Corked is a state that comes from one tiny bubble, maybe just one molecule, of air having gotten into the bottle, making it so that instead of aging and becoming better "like fine wine," it turns into something that tastes like what I imagine the water that gathers in the bottom of a dumpster after a rainstorm would taste, mixed with fine wine.

I decided to gamble on the 2015 one, because its label wasn't faded, meaning it hadn't been in direct sunlight like the '14 one. The corking occurs when a bottle is heated up so much that it forces some wine out through the not totally impregnable cork, which is what they used to use to stop wine bottles, before the rubber cork was invented. Another case where a natural thing is inferior to a man made thing.

Then, when the bottle is cooled back down, the vacuum, over time; 7 years in this case; is able to draw maybe a single molecule of oxygen into the bottle, which is enough to kick off a lot of undesirable chemical reactions in the bottle.

There was a flash of lightning outside which knocked the card reading satellite machine offline, as soon as I had stepped to the register. This was similar to the crack of thunder/bolt of lightning that had occurred the last time I rode the bike, as soon as I had sat on it, on my way to get weed from Bobby. This is also something that a religious person might think was God, trying to tell them something. (I'm starting to wonder if "God" is just a conspiracy theory).

So, with the machine down, it was cash only. I dug into my pocket, expecting to be something like a quarter short of what I needed -there's that conspiracy, again. But, I wasn't going to be dealt that hand, and have to return empty handed and dripping water -so wet that I would even have to change my underwear- to Sacred Heart. What happened was an even better zap by "God."

The wine was indeed corked, even though it was a year newer than the 2014 one.

It was nasty tasting, and I wasn't up to going back out in the tropical storm, because by then the power might have been out and the whole store closed, plus it had taken almost all the cash I had to get the wine and a can of beer to drink along the walk home. I wasn't even holding the umbrella up anymore at that point; it would have been pointless.

So, I fried up some mahi mahi fillets that I had gotten the night that I messed up and got a flat tire and then got high, neglecting the bags of groceries on the handlebars of my bike with the newly flattened tire, until all the frozen stuff had thawed out.

The combination of this improperly thawed fish (there is always a caution of: remove the fish from bag before thawing) and the corked wine, became the perfect storm for me to feel as bad as I have in probably years, like I had poisoned myself.

This was enough to give me pause to appreciate just how good I have felt in general for most of my life; having never had to go to a doctor from the age of say, 22 until the age of 52.

"If this is how I felt all the time I would commit suicide" was how I felt. I got up, thirsty as hell at about 4 in the morning and drank a good portion of a 32 ounce bottle of prune juice and then waited for it to have its effect upon me, then flushed all the e-coli and the corked wine down the toilet.

I took the Slime tube out of the bike just now and found a pinhole leak by submerging it and squeezing it. The Slime then seemed to do the job that it hadn't done when the tube was in the bike and I was soon unable to get a bubble to escape through the hole. I figure the Slime tube was in the same condition as the corked wine, probably having sat on the shelf too long in some warehouse so that the Slime dried up some inside of it.

Now I am going to put the second tube of the 2 pack I bought in the tire and push the bike to the Shell and continue my effort to get a tire to stay inflated for more than a few days. I won't grab another one of the old bottles of wine, but, maybe some beer to go with a hockey game that will hopefully be on TV tonight.

I'm not ready to quit drinking yet, so this blog will continue to suck for a while longer. I was very angry yesterday; my mind playing a non stop reel of every person I have ever been pissed off at in my life, replaying scenes as I occasionally got up and punched an imaginary figure that could have been any one of several people from the past. Just typical alcoholic stuff... 

If I Can't Stop, I Will Put Myself In Rehab

That's what I told Bobby yesterday over the phone.

He had asked me how I was doing. I told him that, if for any reason, I decided to get drunk that night, I was going to check myself into the rehab place. Because, at that moment, I was planning upon eating a good meal of super-foods and then doing any number of positive things; doing some laundry, fixing the bookshelf, so I can get books off the floor, off the bed, off of everywhere.

I saw a positive path in front of me. The job situation in the country right now, I was seeing as an opportunity to actually get a job somewhere where I would like to work.

The microphone I got for busking still needs to be plugged into a booster. I haven't been able to find a battery operated one. This means I would have to consider bringing a battery with an inverter with me, to plug things into.

Had I known this, I wouldn't have had to get a battery powered amp, I could have plugged a regular one in; like Tanya Huang does. She runs a regular Fishman amp, designed for an indoor studio, through some kind of unit that she can charge up at home which will run the amp for the 8 hours she requires of it.

But, then I would need a trailer to pull all my gear behind my bike. Those are available, but it would be a major inconvenience to get one in and out of the door at the apartment building.

And, then I got a flat tire on the bike, making it the 4th tire in a row that has gone flat on it, the same way -holds air for a couple days; starts to get soft on the third day, and then just deflates in the space of a quarter mile of riding on the 4th day.

I pushed the bike to the nearest store and bought a bottle of wine, which I started sipping as I pushed it home. Then, after I got drunk enough, I wound up calling "the guy" to get a quarter gram of coke, because, I don't know why. Maybe because it is just me; isolated in my apartment, with no other person to have to haggle with over it "your line is bigger!" nor to have to hear bitching had it been weak coke, and a ripoff.

One one hand, everything is improving. I have the guitar method books, and I make progress with them. But every day, after waking up with the best intentions, watching Jeopardy and then getting on the computer to hopefully blog, and practicing exercises out of the books; as the sun starts going down, I crave either a tasty six pack of beer to go with whatever I'm going to eat, or a delicious bottle of red wine. It's the same old thing where, if it is a bottle which is rated 90 points and is on sale for half price, then I would be a fool not to get it. And then, I am being a connoisseur, and not an alcoholic.

The cocaine is just a way to say f** you to the flat tire, and the problems with the musical equipment. 

Right now, there is a thunderstorm raging outside; my phone is beeping with flash flood warnings, and if I want to go to the store for wine, I will need to trudge through it, with an umbrella being almost useless to keep me dry because it is raining sideways and bouncing off the pavement.

Well, here I go...

Maybe I'll get some laundry done tonight, if the power doesn't go out from all the lightning outside. I'm not going to check into a rehab. I learned a long time ago, that if you can't help yourself, someone else will be glad to do it, but that someone will sense weakness in you and become predatory.

"Is your sanity and your whole life not worth $65 a week to you?" they might ask.

"Go to f*** hell, you're just after my money; I'm going to get a bottle of fine tequila and, honest to God, if you try to interfere with me I will try to kill you!" is where that would go.

If you can't help yourself, then you can't help yourself by checking into a rehab. Imagine if they assign me someone to keep tabs on me; to call me up and ask if everything is alright and am I staying sober. Someone I will get to hate in short order and start to lie to. Someone who will drive me to drinking in a hurry...

Maybe tomorrow I will embark upon the 10 day water fast which has never failed to get me over any addiction in the past; like the one I did before quitting for 1,387 days between 2014 and 1,387 days later.

I might just have to get a whole new wheel for that bike; the one in it might have some kind of defect that makes the tubes stretch too much and break..

It is like a hurricane outside; where is my umbrella?

I Forgot The Tape

The headset microphone needs to have some kind of signal boosting in order to plug into the portable amp. I am thinking of getting an equalization pedal, meant for a guitar, and then just running it flat with the "level" all the way up.

The important thing is that I get on it immediately so as little time as possible goes by before I am ready to go out and play again

There is a lot for me to research. It will probably be something meant to boost a keyboard that I will need. The stuff made for guitars cuts the high end out of vocals too much.

I Forgot About Duct Tape, But Remembered Wine

I went out earlier, and somehow forgot to get the duct tape; so the bookshelf won't get put together tonight.

I am enjoying going out less and less. Starting to dislike too many of the people I encounter.

Back in 2006, I would wake in a dark forest at 5 o' clock in the morning, and then pedal a bike 3.1 miles to the labor pool, expecting to be sent out on some labor intensive job somewhere, and then being back at the tent around 12 hours later, with food and wine and a little bud of weed, and about 30 bucks left over, to go in a Mason jar with other monies.

There was a little Asian run store not far from the labor pool, where just about everybody cashed their checks, at a cost of one dollar. In 2006, this might be around 120 people a day.

They would go out to job sites where maybe 90 brand new houses were being built, cookie-cutter style, for the most part, with variations in window shapes and maybe front door placement, and, of course they would be painted different colors.

The problem that became apparent was that Jacksonville, which was already on the list of worst cities for traffic jams, could ill afford more communitis of 90 families competing for the same traffic lanes. On the way to the jobs, the Workforce van might have to stop 3 times, as the lights changed, just to make it to the front of the jam and maybe go trough the green light the 4th time it changed. The same was true after the work day was over, it took about a half an hour before the van was moving over 20 miles per hour. Everywhere you looked there were roads that looked like parking lots.

This had to do with why Jacksonville has the nickname of "The River City," as the river needed to be crossed using only a hand full of bridges that were already in existence. It takes 10 times as long to build a new bridge over the St. John's river as it would to build 90 brand new houses in a subdivision which might have 2 roads leading in and out of it. If you were to put 2 cars in the garage of each house, then the situation becomes a traffic jam waiting to happen.

Not to mention, it's probably pretty expensive, putting a cable suspension bridge over a mile wide river. That's probably the reason that the 4 existing bridges were built around 40 years apart from each other.

Somebody was most likely making a ton of money building and selling new houses in one of the top 5 worst traffic cities in the nation. And who knows who was paid off, whose job it would be to raise the issue of the infrastructure being unable to accommodate the additional traffic, to make them shut up. That someone probably made his fortune and then moved to Texas or somewhere else that has a much better commuting situation. 

The labor pools were the place to go if you had no ID but still wanted to work and get paid the same day. 

They would tell new arrivals that they could sign them up and do all the paperwork, but, before they could print them a check, they would have to verify their citizenship and Social Security status, etc.

Then, there would be a shift change and, by the time the worker got back in from a job, the other crew member would just print them up a check, along with everyone else, using the name and number written on the work ticket.

You could then work there a certain length of time, then take the pay stubs showing said work history to the DMV, where they would be good enough to get you a state issued ID (in whatever name and number you had been writing on your work tickets). This was a great way to get an alternate ID in the name of some deceased person and say goodbye to your bad credit, criminal history, child support obligations, etc.

I used one in order to marry Nina, my Russian wife, while keeping an identity in reserve, in case I met the woman of my dreams right after marrying Nina (isn't that the way it always happens?). 

Or, in the words of England Dan and John Ford Coley: "It's Sad To Belong To Someone Else (when the right one comes along)" 

But, showing up at a labor pool with nothing but the clothes on your back, but being willing to do heavy physical labor, used to be a great way to change one's identity.

And the Asian store would always cash the checks that they recognized as coming from the labor pool, so one could survive the few weeks, before going to the DMV to claim you lost your wallet and every piece of identifying information in it. But, you do have pay stubs from your job, type of thing.

I think doing back-breaking work like mixing concrete by hand or riding on the back of a trash truck, for a couple months, earns a person the right to a fresh new identity.

In my case, I was driving a cab in Phoenix when I got pulled over by a cop on Central Street, who only sat a short time in his car running my new license, before returning it to me, congratulating me upon being 36 years old and never having gotten a ticket, telling me that he didn't want to be the cop to mar such a stellar driving record.

Another time, I was on Indian School Road late at night and saw a group of cops chasing a young skinny guy across a parking lot, in a Keystone Cop-esque scene. I moved my cab to intercept the guy, who had been maintaining a distance of about 40 feet ahead of the whole gaggle of them. I jumped out and was able to slow the kid down enough by playing linebacker and causing him to have to go around me, so that the cops caught up with him.

This was the same time that I had a federal fugitive warrant issued for my under my other name; and there were the cops, shaking my hand, slapping my back, and thanking me for the help; wasn't I the guy with the pristine driving record? I just love stuff like that; and those kind of things make the best memories. There are people out there, who are on the "most wanted" lists, and you never know where they will turn up. Why, you're shaking the hand of one right now, and offering to buy him a hamburger....

But, the Asians who ran the little store were very shrewd people. I'm not sure if they were Laotian, Cambodian, or Vietnamese.

They would charge the dollar for the check cashing, which would have them handing you back something like $48.69, conveniently broken into all kinds of denominations, ready to spend right there on beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, pornography, candy, hot dogs, and maybe even "dick pills," of which those Asians were conscientious enough to keep well stocked. There would always be ginseng extract available at the counter. And they seemed to respect us as the hard workers we were purported to be.

Outside the store were the pot dealers and the crack dealers, and so those Asians even became aware of what everyone's "poison" was, and knew things like how reliable they were as far as showing up for work all 5 days in a given week. I just feel bad about how, when I did have that warrant out for me, and was driving a cab in Phoenix, the detectives started turning over stones and pursuing different avenues to find me, and were soon flashing a picture of me and asking them when the last time they saw me was. They were homicide detectives and so, word soon got around that I was a serial killer, or whatever the rumor mill churned out, and I started getting the cold shoulder when returning to my old haunts, such as Jacksonville. I had thought those Asians liked me at one point, but now they were whispering things to each other when I returned, and being very short with me.

Who knows what tactics are used to jog people's memories, "Can you give us a call if you spot him; it's very important that we find this guy; it has to do with a murder," type of thing.

It's been worse, the times I've gone back to Mobile, Alabama, where the rumor is that I'm a child molester- another example of "guilt by accusation." I'd have to conclude that murderers are much higher up on the totem pole than I am in that particular port city.

The Pool Dries Up

But, in January of 2007, the labor pools abruptly stopped getting calls for cheap labor. A 5 a.m. bike ride to the place would turn into a 3 hour session of drinking bad coffee and watching even worse TV, with the sound of a phone ringing being a rare occurrence. 

On those mornings, I would leave there around 8 a.m. with the sun already high in the sky and go on scavenging runs to dumpsters behind stores. I would often arrive back at the campsite with a 40 pound box of foodstuff balanced on my handlebars. A fire would be lit that night, and a party thrown, with all the raccoons invited.

Thankfully, I discovered busking at around that time, before I sank any lower than when I would go into the Gate station and grab 3 large cans of malt liquor, throwing 2 of them in a certain trash barrel and then bringing the 3rd one to the register to pay for it. 

And then would sit at their picnic table waiting for the 2nd shift person to come out of the store, pushing a hopper containing all the trash bags from his shift, 15 minutes from its end, and then chuck them all in the dumpster. I would go in a few minutes later and feel the bags for something cold, before returning to the fire and the party.

Yeah, busking came along in the nick of time... 

This was when being homeless was an understandable condition to the average person. All construction of new homes had been halted around Jacksonville, with some buildings left standing in a half finished state. This was also before a ton of people found that the panhandling they might have initially done out of desperation, had become their calling. Then you started to see the professionals, begging with a smile "Anything for me today, sir?" Alright, there's always tomorrow and the next day and the next, until I die, type of thing. Those types really annoyed me. I will steal before I would ever panhandle; unless I got a hand chopped off for stealing; then I might reconsider.

It seems like that (2007) is all "in my youth" now, as I looking back 15 years. I suppose every cell in my body has regenerated itself twice over. I remember that forest with a feeling of nostalgia. I suppose all those raccoons have all passed away. Yes, it's sad.

The Good, The Bad...

 Life is like a mobile, with good and bad things keeping it balanced and spinning, the fish swimming circularly and bobbing.

I am thinking of getting duct tape to fix a bookshelf that I found by the side of the road, which had splintered upon being dropped in the road along the half mile trek to Sacred Heart. I admit I was trying to carry the bookshelf and drink a beer as I walked.

But, I believe that, using duck tape which I would trim with an razor blade so it wouldn't look like too much of a hack job; I can right the bookshelf; and I think that the weight of books that I put on the shelves will help hold the thing together because of the architecture of the thing.

The headset microphone came and has too small a signal to drive the portable amp, and so I am faced with getting the cheapest type of pre-amp that will run on batteries, to boost the headset mic.

I'm going to wind up using a guitar boosting pedal and then fudging with the equalization to sing through it.

Harold the cat has been finicky to a fault lately; with myself having dumped out several plates of $1.79 per pouch gourmet cat foods in flavors such as "duck and pumpkin." This has been a test of my patience.

I am dying for a bottle of red wine right now.

The eyeglass place still hasn't gotten the lenses back from the lab and so I am still walking around with gray duct tape holding my glasses together. 

And, time management has been a pain in the ass; right now I am trying to type this as fast as possible so that the sun will still be up when I bike off for a bottle of red wine; and perhaps a roll of duct tape to put the bookshelf together.

The other option of using wood screws, I still might invoke, but only after the thing is being held together by the duct tape. I can drill holes and insert wood screws without having to worry about holding boards in place at the same time.

I hope I don't mess up too badly tonight.

Tired Of Talent

Street Musician Daniel Color Guide (new widget): 

Check your arm against this handy square to the left to see if you are light enough to get enjoyment out of reading Street Musician Daniel, it's as simple as that!

It's a quick way to determine if this blog is likely to be suitable to you, without you having to read some of it.

The best candidates have skin hues as light, or lighter, as the square to the left.

Use this as a rough guide, your pigmentation may vary. People in the more temperate lattitudes can adjust the scale up a gradient or so.

Latinos, I know a lot of you might feel that you are kind of on the fence...en la cerca... but, come on board.

I have always like Latina Senoritas. One of the first girls I ever had a crush on was in 4th grade, and I wouldn't learn until later that the reason she looked so appealing in her tawny brown skin was that she was Puerto Rican.

My hometown was, in retrospect a pretty segregated one.

There were parts of the city with nicknames like "Greek Town," "French Hill," etc. And so, the first girl I encountered at the elementary school which, now that I think of it, only had a handful of kids darker than the CGS.

Billy Brown was one of them. Talk about an allegorical name. Billy was the most brown kid in our class. And, he was about the worst student, getting marks just above the single digits on tests, I recall.

I somehow assumed that it was because he was poor, showing up for school in a very limited wardrobe. We all knew all 5 of Billy Brown's shirts by the end of that year.

I pictured him having a brown-ish father, who had been marginalized and relegated to "the lowest paying jobs" because, even at the age of 10, I was noticing that a lot of brown skinned people had the most menial jobs. At that age, I would have posited that they must like those kind of jobs. I just figured that people picked the jobs that they wanted to do. That must have been instilled in me at home, because there and school and church encompassed about 93 percent of my whereabouts, with 2 weeks spent on Cape Cod each summer, and riding my bike around the neighborhood filling in the gaps. I would say it was an insulated existence.

So much so that, after I found myself attracted to the first Puerto Rican girl to penetrate that insulation and come into my life, I was horrified over the fact that the girl was near the bottom of every other boy's "the nicest girls" lists. She was rated as "a dog" by the other boys and I would have exposed myself to ridicule and maybe become diminished in the eyes of my classmates, to confess that I liked the Puerto Rican girl. 

I was afraid that my true feelings would give me away and they would figure out that I liked her, anyways. I knew that I wouldn't be able to stop myself from looking over at her a lot during class, and making a beeline for her, trying to talk to her, as soon as we took a break for anything. And, spending entire recess periods around her, trying to make her laugh (so I could see her smile) would have been a giveaway.

I really vexed over that. I didn't want to find out what kind of treatment a kid might receive from his mob of classmates, if that kid were going out with a dog, walking that dog home after school to her doghouse,

This reminds me once again to dig that story about Angela, a black girl whom I lived with for probably close to a year, off and on, off that hard drive that it's on.

The tie-in would be that, 30 years later, I would have a black girlfriend who would demand that I stand up to my redneck boss in defense of. To look him proudly in the eye and declare my love for Angela, come what may.

Spoiler: Clawsen, as that was his name, fired me, that time. He said he couldn't "use me" on any jobs anymore because his good friend and state trooper had told him that Angela's apartment was under investigation; and that there was soon to be a raid, and subsequent busts, and that I was going to get caught up in it; and that would drag the name of C&L Landscaping through the dirt (excuse the pun) in a way that would be unacceptable.

Not so much for the Droouugs, as Clawsen had drawled it to me when giving me the ultimatum, but because it might come out that one of Clawsen's guy's was shacking up with a n***!

The sad thing was that after I had chosen love over a job that I liked, our relationship deteriorated. Going from almost 400 a week in cash, to the paltry checks I began cashing from the "it's a little slow today, we're going to send you home to your bitching about money girlfriend" Jiffy Lube.

And, I had a perfectly good Russian wife in the very next apartment complex over, whose open door I could sit at, at 5 a.m.. when Clawsen's truck could pull up.

Nina would have happily sent me off with an overt kiss, to help the ruse. One of the traits of my Russian friends that I became aware of, over the one year approximately that I lived with my wife at the time, Nina, is their apparent relish of being active in some kind of subterfuge involving the authorities, usually.

I always use the example of the time I was in jail in downtown Jacksonville, after not having been in town for a while and having lost track of most friends, along with their numbers. I could get out of jail on bond only if I had a place lined up, where I could be found.

One of the only phone numbers I could remember was that of my Russian friend, Alex. I had delivered pizza alongside him at Dominos. We had hung out at his place a few times, smoked a "kazbek" in the garage, then shot some darts there, watched Monday Night Football, and the movie "The Game" (Michael Douglass) and he was the closest thing I had to a friend that I could think of, under the circumstances.

My only hope was to list him on the paperwork and then hope they wouldn't call the party listed. 

But, of course they called. Right in front of me, as I squirmed in a chair, ready to be exposed as someone who had lied about having made arrangements to stay with a host who resides in the county. Falsifying jail documents.

It was Lillian who answered.

The bond lady, or whatever her title was, gave whatever that title was to Lillian and then basically said something like: "And, so it is our understanding that you have made arrangements with Daniel to have him stay with you for the next few months...etc." 

I thought the best I could hope for was maybe a down to earth "Well, we haven't really discussed it," but he can stay here, type of thing.

Without missing a beat, and in a convincing tone of voice, Lillian chimed "Yes, ma'am, of course; all the arrangements have been made" Her tone of voice didn't betray any sentiments of "Why is the Sheriff's Office calling me out of the blue about a guy that's been over maybe 4 times, and talking about him staying with us (and our two adult kids) for a few months?" if she even was having them.

She got me out of jail, in impressive fashion.

I, of course, went to the Karakov house, to thank Lillian personally and to assure them that, no, I didn't really need to stay there for the next few months, I had just needed to say that to the bond people.

So, all the above is to make the point that Nina would have enthusiastically participated in such a thing as pulling the wool over the eyes of one Clawsen Smith. 

She would chuckle over the tie-in to it being a way for me to live with a black lady,

Nina would have been my "actual" girlfriend, had love blossomed between us, over the year that I lived with her, and my new 23 year old stepson, Michael.

It was not to be. I had left for a few months and then come back.

Nina was happy that I was happy living with Angela and knew where to find me in the event of needing me for any immigration type proceedings pursuant to her getting her green card, or something. 

But, we really could have gotten away with deceiving Clawson, having the pieces already in place, and all. But Angela had insisted that it would be a sign that I was ashamed of her; and that's why I was hiding her from Clawsen. 

But, Clawsen, who had been promoting me right along up the ladder in his landscaping and irrigation business, which he ran according to some code that might go back to the plantation days, whereby the blacks had to ride in the bed of the pickup while Clawsen's white partner (me, before I defended my love for Angela) rode in the air-conditioned front.

There would be a cooler with iced down Budweiser, and it would be my job to stick my hand into the frigid water to retrieve one, every so often, and then to crack it open; and hand it to Clawsen. And for this job I got paid more than the colored help in the bed of the truck.

It was just one of those deep south codes that groups live by. Clawsen would often invite some of those lesser paid laborers to his house for maybe grilled sausages and beer. But it would seem to me to be ceremonially a way to have Clausen and his wife seated at the kitchen table, and then myself and maybe a couple other of the white guys in the company, many of whom were related to Clausen, seated right outside the kitchen just a step down, and then the black guys would be served their sausages and beer at a more flimsy table which was in a screened porch area which was physically set about 4 feet lower in elevation than the room where, say, myself and Mark (one of his sons in law) would be munching down.

So, the point is, there were other reasons, besides being ashamed of Angela to want to hide her from Clawsen. He wasn't likely to stop believing that I might be bringing African germs into his truck each morning, from that apartment, nor ready to give up stored volumes of lecturing material on the subject of The Negro.

Heck of a lot easier to just change the spot where I wait for him every morning, that way I can keep the almost $400 (tax free) flowing from a job riding shotgun in a truck, looking over the "jobs" and occasionally grabbing a shovel or pick ax and working vigorously, alongside the crew, most of whom had been sitting down before Clawsen't truck was spotted, approaching. 

"I wanted to show them that you ain't afraid of hard work, and that you can work just has hard as them. You done good, buddy..." Clawsen said after one such forray. 

I even tried to sell Angela on the hilarity of us carrying on right behind the guy's back; with the ol' redneck sausage eating plantation master none the wiser. I wasn't ashamed of Angela and I was no longer employed by C&L

Today, I can't help but wonder if it isn't like some artifact from the time in fourth grade I was ashamed to admit that I liked the Puerto Rican girl; something that has followed me my whole life, like some great unresolved chord, in a crescendo that I had to balance the karma off for by not being ashamed, but having that backfire..

If I had admitted my love of the Puerto Rican girl, whom others considered a dog, would I have slain the dragon and been spared having to live with Angela Washington for a year?

I think it would have made me an instant hero at C&L Landscape L.L.C. had Nina played the part of my girlfriend.

Clawsen would have promoted me. This would be because he would derive more satisfaction out of screwing a manager's girlfriend than just a loborer's. That's just me playing shrink on the guy, based upon the time I knew the guy...

The Point

I guess the point is that    

I Crawl Into The Shell
 When I was in the Shell getting a couple Red Stripe beers, hoping to get back home with them before Jeopardy started, the guy in front of me, a medium sized black man in his forties who was wearing sunglasses and had his mask pulled down under his chin, was telling the cashier how he himself just wanted to get home with the liquor he was buying and watch "America's Got Talent."

"I just love 'America's Got Talent," he said.

So, when it was my turn, I reported to the cashier that I, in turn, just wanted to get back home in time to watch Jeopardy.

That cashier is a Latina girl of probably about 22 years old, petite, and with the kind of exaggerated features that some might pronounce ugly, but which only makes her look interesting to me. Her mouth isn't any less attractive for being kind of too big for her nose; to me, type of thing.

The Detached Stare; an "in the moment" attitude

The detached stare, showing eyeballs not synchronized, as she is not paying attention to what she is seeing but is using the "third eye" to glimpse into a timeless void; it could seem like any length of time to her, what one would tally as "one second" of observing the girl thus inclined...

As I entered the store, I noticed her in the attitude of the detached stare, having a dissociative fugue, as it were. She had just expelled a large breath, out of her ample mouth. 

To me, this is an indication that this particular Latina, is privy to the art of present moment living; for The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (I wonder what being hit by lightning in that frame of mind would be like, but I digress).

She was probably taught by a sufficiently spiritual, probably Catholic mother, in a loving home with a father and mother and 3.1 siblings; to tap into that particular reservoir of being in the present. And she was probably given the freedom to dwell in that particular bliss through being in a safe environment, in a neat and clean house redolent of Spanish rice, and resounding with the laughter of a family that has a father, who goes out and makes an honest living, type of thing.

Since this is typically my own mindset, I was hoping that it was the sight of me that triggered her detached stare. Perhaps she picked up on my vibrations and they brought her back to the here and now.

Or she could have been taking a deep breath to steel herself against her impending encounter with one of the more spaced out customers that go in there...

I was feeling better about myself than the last time I had been in there, on a lot less sleep and to get beer that was going to stop another 24 hour streak of sobriety. It's been a bit challenging; getting over that "24 hours sober" hump, lately. It seems more like a brick wall.

But, I am trying to just let it pass; to plant the seeds of progress in my subconscious and then, perhaps be more like I was today, when I opted to hit GNC for energy type stuff and then come back and do this post, rather than to return to the Latina cashier for more beer. 

My bike finally has air in its tires, after having sat through about 88 days of me procrastinating on fixing it. That sounds like a really debilitating thing, to me, and a matter that Bobby has recommended that I take to a psychiatrist of the ilk that are available to me through whatever the "medicaide" is that I received in my mailbox. Bobby argues that this type of procrastination is not normal and that I could either get professional help in dealing with it; or could ultimately hit the psychiatrist up for some kind of note to pass to the Social Security "disability" lawyer that Bobby also recommends that I consult with.

Not lost on me is the fact that Bobby looks at me in astonishment, not understanding at all why I don't just take the tried and true steps along the path to getting a "crazy check" every month. He thinks that that proves that I'm crazy...

It's almost as if, by having been vetted for residency at Sacred Heart, there should be an association with: if he's messed up enough to have gotten into Sacred Heart, then he's messed up enough to get a crazy check. If A=B and B=C, type of thing...

But, to me, that is just a move in the direction of atrophy. Getting a battery powered amp to plug into at the Lilly Pad, and magically adding about the same amount as a crazy check each month to my income; that is a move towards (entropy?) whatever the opposite of atrophy is, anyways...

And, Bobby the magician, sees a way that I could balance the two; to get an extra $505 a month in a crazy check and then to not let that stop me from going out and playing 3 hours on Bourbon.

I just don't know, and so I procrastinate.  

Before leaving the Shell, I added the unsolicited information that I didn't really like America's Got Talent.

"I believe I have gotten sick of talent, from watching it too much," I told the girl.