The Oddball Out, With Fiery Eyes No One Could Steal...

I stayed up into the morning, watching Russell Brand videos and didn't fall asleep until after Jeopardy at 11 and, somewhere in the middle of "25 Words Or Less" which comes on after.

I took my glasses off and laid my head on my pillow (a wadded up bed sheet) taking advantage of the fact that that is one of the few shows you can watch without actually watching. The contestants can't see the answers on the screen in front of the home viewers, so it is possible to play right along with them if you can't either. You will hear a beep if the player says the right word...

You can also fall asleep pretty quickly after taking your glasses off and laying your head on your pillow while listening to that show...

Waking up at 7 in the (Monday) evening, I had one thought in my head. And that was that I had (in a dream, perhaps) deciphered the meaning of one of the lines in the song "Lyin' Eyes," by The Eagles..

I remember getting into an argument with someone before over another Eagles's song, after I had insisted that the line in "Hotel California" which he thought was: "Amanda's Tiffany-twisted; she's got a Mercedes Benz" was actually more correctly written as: "She's got the Mercedes bends" and then tried to explain that the writer meant that the girl in the song had "come up" too fast in society and, like a scuba diver who comes up too fast, had gotten the societal equivalent of the "bends" which would cause the diver to cramp up and bend forward at the waist. The singer even punctuates the line with a grunting noise like the diver might utter.

The obtuse person I was arguing with was adamant that the line was merely "She's got a Mercedes Benz (automobile)" and there was no (excuse the pun) deeper meaning to it.

I have been waiting for the day that one of the songwriters might come to New Orleans on vacation, and I would have the opportunity to confirm, at least to my own satisfaction, that I was right about that song line. I'm already convinced, though. The person I was arguing with was clueless.

So I woke up seeing new meaning in "Lyin' Eyes."

The song is about a wife who is cheating on her husband, who has lost interest in her, with some young guy across town. But, she is unable to conceal the relationship from him because her lying eyes give her away.

The line that I had in my head upon waking was: "On the other side of town a boy is waiting, with fiery eyes and dreams no one can steal..."

It dawned upon me that the "no one can steal" part of the line is irony, based upon the fact that it paints him as being the winner because he has something (fiery eyes and dreams) that can't be stolen from him; while the poor husband has something, in his wife, which is being stolen right before our ears. 

That's really all it was for me, something as trivial as finding new meaning in a song while I slept; notwithstanding it being one of the best songs ever written...

4 Days, And A Wake Up

I had slept through Jeopardy and had to snap the TV off before Wheel of Fortune started to annoy me with its virtue signaling in the body of a "token gay black guy," bending over to spin the wheel with a big toothy grin on his face ("Big money; big money!!") -a fixture on that show now- talk about the Mercedes bends..

The end of today will make 5 days without drinking, give or take a day, I'll have to check my records if I intend to do a running tally of "days sober." I will have to if I ever want to busk again. Drunk is no way to go through that endeavor.

I've managed to do this despite screwing up my intended extended juice only cleansing fast.

Update: I just got back from the Winn Dixie with more prune and apple juice along with spring water and will try once again..

Left: "There's a spiritual component to anorexia. That's why people do these fasts in many religions; cause when you starve the body, there's almost a mental clarity that takes over, and that's what I think becomes addicting for most people. When you study anorexia you find that it's usually a manifestation of people trying to assert control over their lives. And that's what it is; it's the one thing that you can control, when you feel like there's chaos -what you put in your mouth, what you put in your body..." -Candace Owens

Having quelled the addictions to things, there is no urgency to go out and busk, with even the fact that I'm out of toilet paper becoming less critical, due to the fast; so it is an all around positive thing...

"It's The Human Spirit; We Want To Be Valuable, We Want To Create" - Candace Owens

Almost everyone in the building has gotten their "first of the month" money from the government for their disabilities, with myself being just about the only oddball out. 

Candace Owens

I have always refused to play their game of finding a doctor willing to send paperwork off to the Social Security people, pursuant to a diagnosis of me being mentally disabled because of me hearing dogs barking in my head.

And then going to a lawyer whom anyone in our building could recommend, who, for a 10% cut of any retroactive benefit amount I might wind up getting, would get the ball rolling and do all the paper and leg work, and I would soon be getting my own "crazy check" on the first day of each month. They think I am literally crazy to not be doing so.

Combined with busking every night, under the table, that might make for a comfortable financial situation for me.

It has always been pride in my ability to take care of myself, and a desire to play by the rules, that has stopped me. I have become enraged at people whom I have seen taking advantage of the system and, on some level, felt superior to them; or at the very least, thought of them as being pieces of welfare "trash," all take and no give, type of thing. I was also worried that it might take the wind out of my sails as far as me applying myself to something that would be rewarding to me and society.

But, hey, maybe I am becoming a little more woke now and am starting to see the abuses of "the system."

I have learned that the ultra rich have become even more so lately, thanks to the "tragedy" of the pandemic; and that, in order to add an 8th "zero" to the end of their net worth figure, millions have suffered.

Maybe us working class people are like the donkey in Orwell's "Animal Farm" ("I will work harder!") and are living off the stale crumbs that fall from the tables of the elite. Maybe we have a right to complain about how little we are given and how much we are exploited.

I remember how, just 15 years ago, I hated the police; referring to the ones in Florida as "fancy pants." It was as if they harbored a resentment of someone who lived rent free on land which had been designated as a bird sanctuary -free if you have wings and a beak, but if you walked on two legs you should work and pay a landlord and the taxman and suffer along with everyone else who hadn't been born into privilege.

"You don't pay taxes, you just play your guitar and hope people will come along and give you money; you make me sick!" said Officer Chutz, of the Baton Rouge police force, back in August of 2011, as he was arresting me after I had made the "admission" that I had drank a 24 ounce can of Lime-A-Rita." There were fancy pants in Louisiana too, I had concluded, as I sat in jail for 45 days on a charge of "public intoxication."

But, then, in New Orleans, I had become a member of the protected class of "hospitality workers" who served in the tourist industry, and watched as police hauled off to jail individuals who might have been harassing me as I busked. One time a crusty "traveling kid" type had been reaching for my bottle of wine and my cigarettes "Oh, can I get some of this; can I have one of these, do you mind?" behind the philosophy that we were "all out here together" and that, when a tourist gives something to one of us, they are really giving it to all of us. It's the "rainbow" way, type of thing. 

"Let me play the guitar for a while, I can make us some money; mine fell off the back of a train and broke..."

"I have every right in the world to be here, this is a public street!" he had told the cop, to no avail because they found him in violation of the selectively enforced ordinance against "obstructing a public passageway," because he had been sitting down on the sidewalk, where "one of these drunk tourists might trip over you."

"What about him (me); he's sitting down!"

"We know him..." 

And too know, know, know cops is to love, love, love cops; and I do, yes I do; honest, I do.

And, from the time I started busking in 2007, until I finally decided to do the thing (by way of St. Augustine, Florida and Mobile, Alabama) hardly a week went by without someone coming upon without saying: "Why don't you go to New Orleans?' as if that would solve all my problems.

There is a familiar ring now, to the refrain of "Why don't you get a crazy check?" which hardly a month goes by without me hearing.

For now, I am still the oddball out, though.