A Warm Monday Through Thursday

• 4 Days of Warmth
• Ears Ringing Lately
  

There is going to be a 4 day window of opportunity to go out and busk in temperatures in the 60's and even 70's. Unfortunately that will be over the slower days of the week; but this will be offset by the increased numbers of people coming in for the Mardi Gras so that a Monday might be more like a Thursday.

Last night, I might have just as well stayed in because there weren't many people out; and I only managed a can of cat food and a shot of vodka before returning home. I found a fresh cigar, still in the pack, laying on the ground and I had been primed before going out by the guy in A 107 who passed me his gallon of vodka a few times while I played a couple songs on the guitar and harmonica. 

He said he is ashamed of the mess in his place, which had clothing littering the floor but not much other clutter, and that is why he had never invited me in before. 

The guy who lives above him went through a phase where he was flooding his apartment by plugging up his toilet and then flushing it repeatedly until he had about 6 inches of standing water in the place. This was done in protest of something; and is something that prisoners have been known to do in jails when they are locked in their cells for some reason and don't want to be. They will "punish" the jail staff by flooding the whole floor.

But A 107 suffered from water dripping down through light fixtures and vents and various other places; which soaked all the clothing that was strewn everywhere and I guess he hasn't recovered from that yet. It would involve several trips to the washers and driers and probably about 30 bucks in cash to remedy.

Other than that, I am off to search online for why my ears might be ringing lately. I had thought it was a high pitched sound coming from my TV or the desktop computer that I leave on (which is only providing a slide show of pictures) or my laptop, which I leave on. But the ringing persists even when I go outside. It is low enough so that I'm not aware of it most of the time; but, once I start to think about it; I can hear it. I'm hoping it's just from the 500 mg. of caffeine that I get on a normal day...

What Does "Acaloo" Mean, Anyways?

Yesterday's "playbook" had to be delved into while I was doing my deep breathing exercises during the afternoon, which was sunny and warm enough, at 55 degrees for me to sit in the sun for about a half hour with my shirt peeled off and around my shoulders.

A sunny Sunday attracts bikers to Bourbon

An occasional chilly breeze would rattle through my rib cage, a harbinger of the coming cold front that the weather professionals had forecast.

By the time I had everything ready to go, it was about 5:30 in the evening and the temperature had already gone down to about 48. It was supposed to be 37 degrees by about 1 o' clock in the morning. I would have to get out there and play until the thermometer hit about 43 and hope that the warmth that I generated from playing as hard as I could would carry me as far into the low 40's as possible.

It wasn't lost upon me that the Wim Hof Method that I have embarked upon includes cold showers for the mortals and all out ice baths in the morning for the Ice Men (and I don't mean the immigration and customs agents).

I took the 4 one dollar chips from Ceasar's Casino with me, along with the negative CoVid test card that I had gotten on Thursday. The card was good for 72 hours, ostensibly, and it was about 78 hours old when I put it in my pocket. Were the casino security people going to split hairs and tell me that I couldn't go in and cash the chips because of that 4 hour or so expiration?

I also took one of the Starbucks gift cards that the Lidgley's had included in the Christmas parcel that they sent; thinking that I could buy somebody their coffee off it in exchange for a lesser amount of cash.

I really only had to come up with some food for Harold. My options there were to:

A: knock on a few doors around Sacred Heart asking for cans of tuna from my neighbors.

B: Stop and see my friend Patrick, basically complaining about how cold it felt after only a few minutes outside and to ask him if he had anything a cat could eat.

C: Shoplift a can of Friskies from the Family Dollar

D: Hang around Starbucks seeing if I could find someone in line to buy something who was holding cash and ask them if they would do the gift card trade thing.

E: Cash in the chips at the casino (provided they didn't gig me for having a negative test card that was 4 hours "expired") and then use some of that 4 dollars for cat food.

F: Just go straight to the Lilly Pad, set up and start playing, and hope that that would solve all the problems, the way it has been doing without fail for the past 14 years.

I thought about how there is such a thing as "uncomfortable" cold and that I would just have to be uncomfortable if I wanted to feed Harold; so I pedaled on, towards the casino.

"Acting Like Troglodytes Out There"

I stopped at Patrick's house, who let me in and told me a horror story about having been pushed over on his tricycle by a random black man who was walking along the sidewalk having a loud argument with the invisible man.

Patrick thought he might have had ear buds in and was arguing over the phone with someone, but realized as he approached that he was just yelling at nobody. He moved his tricycle out of the guy's way, letting him pass; but after the guy passed, he turned back and then made a run at the guy, pushing him over and breaking a couple of his ribs and injuring one of his hands.

Patrick was the picture of victim-hood, as he sat there wincing in pain every time he tried to move to pick up his lighter or adjust himself in his chair.

Along with being injured in the random attack ("It's crazy out there; people are acting like troglodytes!" he said) he also had just gotten a letter from the Social Security people telling him that he somehow owed $13,000 and that all of his future checks would be taken from him until that was paid off.

I should have asked to see the letter, as, maybe I could have made some sense out of it and found a different interpretation of it; or even recognized it as being a scam, perpetuated by someone. "See, the 'official' seal is missing a couple feathers in the Bald Eagle..." type of thing...

He passed me a small roach of weed that I managed to fill my lungs off of one time. After holding that in for a minute, I was pretty baked and his tales of woe took on a deeper and more symbolic perspective. I started to wonder just how "crazy" it had gotten out there, and knew that I had better grab my stuff and head out towards the Lilly Pad, with a stop at the casino first, rather than sit there as the walls closed in around me and the outside became more looming and threatening in my imagination.

At the casino I locked up my bike and went to the kiosk where the security people, a young skinny black kid and an older black women were checking people's Covid status, mostly by using apps on people's phones.

I explained that I had gotten the chips in my tip jar, with the guitar on my back corroborating that; and that I only wanted to go to the cashier's window and exchange them; I wouldn't be in there long.

After the younger one initially said: "These are only good for 72 hours," the older one looked at my card.

"I got it on Thursday, late in the afternoon, so it is really just like 76 hours now..."

The lady told me "You're good," and let me into the place.

There was actually a small group of people who were applauding those, including myself, as they entered the place. I could only think that this must be because they assume that those people have gotten the experimental genetically modified vaccine that's side effects remain to be seen.

They were applauding me for having gotten tested for the abominable snowman, not for having gotten the jab(s). I almost felt like announcing that to the group of people. They were trying to make me feel good for having done my civic duty, it their minds.

As I looked around the casino, there were people in various stages of masking; the staff, of course all had tightly fitting masks that looked to be of the same cloth. But, some of the patrons sat at the slot machines with their noses hanging out, and I saw a couple people with no masks at all!!

I decided, out of gratitude for the lady having forgiven the 4 hour lapse on my test card, to at least pull my bandana over my face, but I kept pulling it down to take a breath of fresher air every so often. "Will work for my own carbon dioxide, and an hourly wage..." I said to a guy who was behind me in the cashier's line, referring to what all the casino staff had signed up for.

He might have been smiling at my jest behind his mask, I don't know.

And, in fact, that is the greatest harm that this pandemic is inflicting upon humanity in my opinion; the cloaking of human expression and stifling of the non verbal communication that the masks "mask." 

I mean the guy could have been scowling in total non appreciation of my little joke about the carbon dioxide, and that might have warned me not to press the issue further, with any more jokes, as the line of people inched forward towards the cashiers.

I couldn't resist, though, and as I rattled the 4 chips in my hand, said "I wonder if they are purposely slowing the line down to give people a chance to consider laying their chips back down and going 'double or nothing,' instead of proceeding to the window to cash them in..."

He murmured something slightly positive sounding that made me think there might be at least a wisp of a smile behind the cloth.

I got my 4 dollars in cash from a slightly amused cashier who might have been smiling as I told her that I had gotten the chips in my tip jar and had been holding them "for a minute," using the guitar on my back to illustrate the story. "But now I'm down to them, if I want to feed my cat and get a half pint of brandy, to stay warm out there..."

Indeed, I felt pretty happy and grateful as I headed for The Unique Grocery, where I set aside a dollar so I would be able to get Harold a can no matter what happened at the Lilly Pad, then told the guy behind the register: "I have 3 dollars; well, 3 dollars and ten cents (I had found a dime on the ground). Can I get 3 shots of something?"

Tonight's post football watching weather

The guy, who has been there for years and who has been alternately rude and friendly to me, placed 3 shots of Takka vodka on the counter and told me: "3 dollars." So that's the cheap man's way out at the Unique Grocery, I thought. It has been about 4 years since I've had to go in there bargain hunting.

I did a half a shot off one of the bottles (resetting a 14 day stretch of "sobriety") and then unlocked my bike and began to ride down Royal Street. Still baked off Patrick's joint and with a half shot of vodka in me, I felt like Mr. Moderation; a little bit of everything in me; Covid negative and looking for snipes on the ground as I rode. I felt happy and grateful.

People were walking stiffly and communicating things like "Whew!" and "Hoo!" in lieu of actual words, which all said the same thing in the universal language: "It's cold!"

For, it might have been about 45 degrees as I set up my stuff. 

The second half of the first shot of Takka actually had the warming effect upon me which is I guess part of the reason that Russians have traditionally used vodka to numb the cold of St. Petersburg winters. I didn't really feel like drinking the stuff, but rather felt like it was kind of a security blanket in the pocket of my jacket. No matter what the night produced, I would always be able to slug down the couple shots and assume a "devil may care" attitude.

Looking Towards Lilly's

And, so I was able to play just fine and had peeled down to a tee shirt for the first hour that I played, when only a single dollar bill went into my jar. 

I was forgetting how early I was, having started at about 6:45 PM, after the Patrick stop and the casino one. 

I hadn't been able to bring myself to go in Starbucks to try to trade gift card money for cash. The prospect of that made me feel too much like a skeezer; fueled by the paranoia that comes with good weed like Patrick's.

I was feeling the euphoria of that one hit the entire night, which lasted until about 9:45, when I started having trouble playing a C major chord because of cold fingers.

There were a couple 5 dollar bills, which came when I was playing my best, and so focused that I hadn't even noticed anyone dropping them in the jar, even though it sits 2 feet in front of me; I must close my eyes a lot or be able to have them open yet not see anything; like a person who is looking at a TV but so deep in thought that he isn't actually "watching" it....

I ran and got a shot of Fireball at the Elysian Market, where I also picked up a couple cans for Harold; one regular Friskies, and one "Fancy Feast," as kind of a treat for him.

That came to $4.50, and then I hit Unique's for a can of Heineken, where I found out that the quarter that I had paid back had been registered with the cashier who had let me slide on it. In fact, as soon as he had come in to work he was informed that "'Acaloo*' paid back the quarter," he told me.

I thought it pretty cool that, with all the madness that goes on in that store, it is newsworthy to them when I make good on a debt. I think that might be because I am one of the few people who has been going in there for 11 years who has never stolen from there and who always pays back what is borrowed out of whatever he makes busking. It's not the amount (.25¢) but the principle. I think that, should I ever become dishonest, it might be seen as a sign that the whole world has gone mad; so I made it a point to pay back the quarter; and a good thing it was, as the whole staff seemed to have heard the news that I did.

I get a sense of "community" from all the people that I've been seeing regularly over the past 12 years, and that might be even more valuable than I realize. Just the fact that "the karaoke guy" who was on a street corner busking gave me a look that said: "We're the dedicated ones, out here on a 45 degree night," made me feel good. Sure, I had to be out there or my cat would have no food, but at least I was out there, instead of stealing a can out of the Family Dollar.. 

I made 15 bucks before the temperature had dipped to probably about 40 degrees and I started missing notes. By then, I had put my sweater and jacket back on and was playing with that encumbrance (the extra layers push the guitar away from my body just enough to change the angle of everything; but that is something I thankfully got used to through all the cold weather playing I've done. It's probably like if Dale Earnhardt had to drive a different car in a race; it takes some getting used to but the gas and brake pedals are basically in the same places... 

*"Acaloo" is the nickname given to me by the Ethiopian staff at the Unique Grocery; I'm assuming it is a term of endearment in their Amharic tongue; but will have to Google it; or maybe one day ask them: "What does 'Acaloo' mean, anyways?"

40° Is Too Low

• A Chilling Discovery
• On i-rodents
  

My brief little jaunt to the grocery store led to the chilling discovery that it is just a tad too cold to go out to busk. My uncovered hands were stinging a bit on the handlebars of the bike by the time I arrived back at Sacred Heart. The temperature reading of 40 degrees jived with this, as that is 3 degrees below my personal cut-off point for busking in cold weather.

That is not only because of the difficulty of playing, due to loss of muscle control; but, the times that I have tried to play in this kind of cold, I found that the tourists were unwilling to stop and listen and, instead, were making quick, stiff movements and trundling towards the warmth of the bar.

The (Screen) Times, They Are A-Changing

I became annoyed during my trip because of the number of people I saw staring, or poking away, at phones. 

The delivery trucks had apparently shown up at the Winn Dixie and a crew of mostly people of color all had buds in their ears and were talking away as they worked. Good luck trying to find out what aisle the raisins are in from any one of them. Some were kind of hiding behind stacks of boxes in the aisles, poking away at phones, and not even seeming to notice me.

When I went outside, I saw a scraggly looking white guy who looks to be about 18 years old, squatting down along a wall, apparently taking his break and, yup, poking away at his phone. 

I have seen him before and he has never said a word to me or acknowledged me in any way, but has been in the same spot, poking at the phone, sometimes with a cigarette in his mouth. He seems like the most antisocial sort imaginable, and never even seems to talk to any of his co-workers whenever I see him in the store.

That is probably because he is white and there is a tacit agreement that he and the people of color will work together, and he will be tolerated, as long as he doesn't try to speak to any of them. 

Out of the dozen or so workers that I either passed by in the aisles, or saw putting stuff on shelves near where I checked the amounts of sodium in cans of tuna fish or whatever, none of them spoke to me. 

I started seeing them as being retarded; but had to change that to a more positive thought like; this is the way the world is becoming; soon everyone will be walking around with virtual reality helmets on; being in some different world while they walk through this one...

The white kid who skulks over to his break spot to poke at his phone reminds me of a squirrel that some of my neighbors growing up used to feed. They started putting things like Ritz crackers out for the thing, which eventually would come right up and be waiting on their welcome mat for more Ritz crackers. It eventually lost its ability to climb trees and forage for nuts and its fir started thinning out to the point where its tail was so threadbare that you could see the bone through what was left of the fir on it. That tail wouldn't serve it very well if it were to fall out of a tree, but it didn't have to worry about that, only about hanging around the entrance to the Emby's (as that was the family's name) house.

The Emby's took a 2 week vacation in Florida the winter after they had "befriended" the rodent and when they returned, they found the thing nearly wasted away and shivering near their doorway, and, despite their attempts to revive it with more junk food, they found its dead body soon thereafter, looking like it had been attacked by something, perhaps crows.

i-rodents

That is what the phone poking kid reminds me of. The hair on his head kind of looks like the squirrels fir did. I suppose if you were to criticize him for being anti-social, he would retort: "Dude, I'm on 12 different social networks!" though he wouldn't say it to the accuser;s face, but would mumble it with his head tilted down towards his phone. The disturbing thing is that he is just one of a whole breed of "them." They even carry themselves with a bent at the neck posture, and might quickly look your way, but divert their gaze back to their phones before making eye contact. Like i-rodents.

Then, I rode by a fat man of color whom I had seen on my way to the store, sitting in a blue SUV with its motor running, his face aglow from his phone's screen. He was still there; still aglow. I don't think he noticed me riding by either time. A little further up the road; another glowing face behind the wheel of another vehicle..

And, on it went. Every person I encountered during my trip was either staring or poking at a phone, with the exception of one large white man who was walking in the road ahead of me as I approached, and who had moved to the sidewalk by the time I passed him. He gave me a leery glance that gave me the impression that he was out walking, so as to come down some off of crack -so that after he returned to his place, the walk, with the fresh air and exercise might have made it so he could get somewhat high again when he took his next hit.

Is it any stretch of the imagination to believe that the CEO's of Facebook and Google and Tik Tok probably think that they rule the world?

One Is Too Many; Ten Aren't Enough...

I Get A Negative SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Result

One of my favorite saws expounded by the nice Alcoholics Anonymous people (post title).

Damned Swiss Rolls!

And, so, on a 48 degree night that I could have handled quite well, and with 11 days of sobriety under my belt, I sat on the fence about going out to busk.

Would I run to Fred's Market for a half pint of brandy as soon as the first 5 dollar bill went into my jar? Or would I sit there and become lost in the intricacies of playing the guitar and harmonica at the same time as trying to remember the chords of some song, until an hour and a half had gone by, and I was scooping 58 bucks out of the jar and stashing it in my pocket, then spending only a couple bucks for Harold food on the way home?

Back when I had started on what turned into 1,387 days without a drop of alcohol, there was a guy named Jim, who was one of the artists who sold paintings near Jackson Square. He hung his work on the fence in front of the Jesus clock (right) as a matter of fact.

Jim was very encouraging of me. I would walk past him almost every night and give him a thumbs up, saying something like: "17 days!"

And Jim would give me back a thumbs up and say: "Good!"

Jim had something like 13 years sober. He didn't give up on me after I had gone 27 days, but then had found an unopened bottle of Chivas Regal scotch sitting in a box on the sidewalk along with other evidence of concluded revelry, like a half eaten cake and maybe a couple plastic party hats.

I had scooped up the bottle mainly because it was a 35 dollar value that I could at least sell pretty quickly for 20 bucks, I thought. But, later that night, I decided to try a sip off of it; after all, Chivas Regal makes a world class scotch...

On my way home from the Lilly Pad, I skulked past Jim with my head down, and a half full bottle of Chivas Regal in my backpack; no thumbs up that night. I started to explain about the unopened 35 dollar bottle, but Jim shook his head and said something like: "Tomorrow's another day," or maybe dropped another one of the A.A. maxims on me, like: "The next time you consider drinking, don't ask yourself 'Do I want this drink?' rather ask yourself 'Do I want to drink for the rest of my life?'" or one of those things that the A.A. people say.

"Human Food" Diet Concerns

Jim used to tell me that it was next to impossible to quit on one's own; and that I would have to go to A.A. meetings, and even offered to move some paintings around in his van to make room for me if I wanted to go to one with him. Apparently, he still attended them, even 13 years sober.

But, I went 1,387 days; and used Jim's words as motivation. ...next to impossible, eh? Well, I'm going to be one of those rare exceptions!

Jim may have said that because the Wim Hof Method had not come out then; maybe it's not so "next to impossible' with The Ice Man on your side. Plus, I was using a lot of meditation then, and in 2015 I had the fortuitous stroke of luck to have discovered kratom. 

I thought that kratom might have been the universe's way of rewarding me for my sobriety. In fact I had my doubts that it had even existed before I stumbled upon it; as if the Uxi Duxi appeared out of the ether, conjured as a manifestation of my inner frame of mind. It was something I had never heard of, and I was willing to believe that it had never existed until such a time that I was ready for it to come into being; as this world merged with the astral plane in that aspect. It became the anti-alcohol for me. 

My life had gotten better in every way over the course of the first 6 months of sobriety; but then I had hit kind of a plateau. It became possible to have an unremarkable day even without drinking. I then gave up the high fructose corn syrup that was in the 3 or 4 "energy" drinks that had replaced the bottle of booze by my side at the Lilly Pad. That brought me up one more level, after about 3 months. That was when I discovered kratom.

Kratom helped me focus my thoughts (I thought it might be the Ritalin I never had as a kid) and I even saw a noticeable improvement in my musical ability. It also brought my friend Jacob into my life (something that the jury is still out on deliberating the beneficence of; but that is a whole other post).

The only question now is if the neural pathways that I forged through that focused and intense playing have become etched into my physiology and, after not having had any kratom over the last 11 days, to go along with not drinking; I tend to think this is the case. It's as if I learned how to think a different way and now that the lesson has been learned, I am able to graduate from the kratom school.

Tomorrow will be 12 days sober and the 4th day of a juice fast; which should transition into a water only fast, for as long as it takes to get me to where the breathing exercises, along with getting 8 good hours of sleep and 45 minutes of sunlight, and God willing, taking an ice bath each morning, will be all I need to move to the next plateau.

Time to do another 3 rounds of Wim, then go to sleep. Hopefully I can nail down the song "Another Day," by Paul McCartney before going out to play during the day tomorrow. That is Lilly's favorite song and I can think of no greater sign that I'm on the right path than if she should walk up to me, and I can play it for her. After showing her my negative SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Test Result Card, of course. That would be about as complete as life gets.

"I bit off more than I could chew, and then I chewed as fast as I could" -The actor who played Crocodile Dundee, from some interview I read.

It seems like I'm fated to be going out each night with an "incomplete" sense of preparedness. Why couldn't I have learned a couple more Neil Young songs, so that I would have 5 of them in my repertoire, should I have seen the other side of that fence, and went out tonight? That particular bugger has been in the news, lately, and is already about the 5th most requested artist by tourists that come by the Lilly Pad.

The "Beatles Complete Scores" book, I need to go through and find all the songs that fit the keys of the 2 harmonicas that I have; that would take about 12 minutes to write them down, and another hour to familiarize myself with the chords of. The words, I have known since I was 11 years old...

It is a chore to be one's own manager.

I imagined a guy waking me up at 10 this morning, saying: "Time to get up, there's coffee on the stove! We're gonna spend a couple hours learning a couple Neil Young songs, then we'll sit outside in the sun for 45 minutes, then come back inside to go through the Beatles book. The warmest part of the day is going to be between 2 in the afternoon, and 6 in the evening; we need to be at the Lilly Pad and playing for those 4 hours; but, first, let's do 3 rounds of the Wim Hof Method Breathing exercises, before elevating your heart rate with the coffee!"

But, there is no such person. It would be nice if I had 3 or 4 roommates who were all buskers, and who practiced their material in the other room than where I slept, and every morning, they were running through 3 or 4 new songs. Or, I should say it will be nice when that situation arises, as, through the Law of Attraction, I am already looking forward to it and feel grateful and happy about it...

It is not lost upon me, the fact that when I do reach retirement age (whether that is 60 or 70, I don't know and will have to Google) I will be at liberty to move away from here.

But there is something about the way I was drawn here and the deep subconscious foreboding that I can't deny dwells within me; that the purpose of my life; or at least the circumstance where I stand to make the most progress in my spiritual evolution is to stay here and fight it out; i.e. to learn how to love a race of people that are predisposed to hate me, and to conquer them with love.

Sure, I could move to somewhere in Idaho where there will be nobody but other white people, and spend my golden years there, but would I be sulking and longing for the Lilly Pad for the remainder of my life on earth?

It's been 100 hours since I ate the whole box of Swiss Rolls, filled with "creme" (which they probably aren't legally allowed to spell "cream" because it's NOT, but it is hydrogenated palm kernel and/or soy oil) and I am just getting back to the feeling of wellness that I had before I ate them. The same kind of oil that makes paint stick to a house seems to make that stuff stick to my insides, and it has taken 3 days of juice fasting just to clear the mental fog from my brain, so I can even write this.

I suppose that, by tomorrow afternoon, I will be headed out with only a jug of alkaline water to sit down and play. By that time I will be past the point where alcohol would even give me a buzz. It would only be a detriment to the blessed calm that comes on the 3rd day of a juice fast. Of course the devil will appear and offer me dominion over heaven and earth if I bow down to him and worship a Hand Grenade drink that will invariably be handed to me by the first person to come along at the Lilly Pad, if there isn't already one sitting on Lilly's stoop when I get there, with its ice not even melted. But, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I downloaded the Wim Hof Method Breathing Exercises video, and then loaded it into my editor. I then inserted more deep breaths, so instead of 30, I will be doing 45. Then I doubled the lengths of the breath holds at the end of each of the 3 rounds, so that at the end of the last one I will be laying there for 3 minutes without any air in my lungs. Pure bliss.

I mentioned having done this in the comment section of Wim's video and got a response, not from The Ice Man himself, but one of his adherents advised me to check with my doctor before undertaking such an extreme approach (otherwise, that "undertaking" may turn into a morose pun, in hindsight).

That is laughable; check with my doctor...

Me: "Doctor, I'm going to do the Wim Hof Method at double the intensity  prescribed for beginners."

Doctor: "The Wim Hof Method? (pokes at his smartphone, frowns as an image of Wim, hiking up a snow capped mountain wearing only shorts, appears). Why?"

Me: "To stimulate my immune system, alkalize my system, and reduce anxiety and stress, so as to spike my energy levels and my mental acuity."

Doctor: "Nonsense, son. I'm going to prescribe you a brand new medication that was just sent to me from Merk; that will do for you exactly that! There are a lot of crazies out there, and a lot of quackery; don't you fall prey to it! Your Medicaide will cover this; er, and just let me know right away if your ears start ringing or if you are vomiting up any blood. there have been a few cases of such interactions with the vaccines; just call my office if you experience anything like that, and we'll bring you back in here..." (shaking his head)...tsk, The Ice Man, give me a break!...(puts phone back in pocket).

S.M.D. -Avoiding Religion and Politics Since 2009

It's that "Grant us victory over the disbelievers" part that concerns me. Does Allah mean the unvaxxed?

The 3 Day Juice Fast And Cleanse And Mucous Free Diet

 "Claire de Lune" plays off a scratchy record, as I sit here still feeling the effects of the box of creme filled chocolate rolls that I ate about 66 hours ago now.

I am learning valuable lessons that will help me in the practice of treating people with eczema, without the use of drugs or topical creams, or cortisone shots every two weeks "to knock the inflammation down," should I ever decide to hang a shingle up as a natural healer of some sort. This one being that some things remain in the system for days and can trigger allergic reactions to other things just by their presence.

Dom* returned yesterday afternoon from the hospital, and I just happened to be stepping out of my place when the elevator door opened and he sallied forth with his right arm in a sling, and his left thumb wrapped in medical tape.

I walked with him, up to his apartment, which had remained unlocked throughout his almost 24 hour ordeal of being treated for a dislocated shoulder and a broken thumb; leaving mine unlocked with the bike just outside waiting to take me to Rouses Market, where I intended to get alkaline water and juice, to keep the cleanse going.

I rolled a few cigarettes for him using his rolling machine, as he was unable to do so; and then opened a bottle of grape juice for him. 

He then asked me if I would get him a couple things while at Rouses, handing me his EBT card, and a small piece of paper with his pin number written on it.

I was impressed by how calm and reasonable he was, having been "dried out" by the hospital staff while they were patching him up -the reason, I'm sure that they had kept him for so long for just a dislocated shoulder and broken thumb. He couldn't remember the details of his accident of falling down the stairs but remembered enough to thank me for having called 911 on his behalf.

I left for Rouses Market, but decided to go to Winn Dixie instead; where I got him the roast beef and chicken salad that he had wanted. 

After I got back to Sacred Heart, I found that he was already expecting me, having checked the balance on his EBT card periodically so that he knew, within a few minutes, when I was at the register, and when to expect me back. He even already knew that I had remembered to get both items, from looking at the same balance. I was amazed at how normal he seemed, seeing him for the first time without a half gallon of whiskey in him.

Dom (*as I finally know to be his actual name from looking at his EBT card) was talking about going to the OctaPharma blood plasma place to sell his plasma for 60 dollars, the very next day after he fell down the stairs and broke bones. 

His main concern was that the OctaPharma people might turn him away after noticing the mark left by the IV drip that the hospital had used, thinking that he had shot up some drugs. He was planning upon proffering them his other arm -the one that had been dislocated at the shoulder and then popped back in- after going in the place minus the splint and the thumb wrappings.

He told me that they didn't require proof of vaccination at that place, and suggested that I go along with him the next time he goes. Since it has been about 3 years since I donated plasma there, I would be taken in as a "new" donor, given a short physical, and then given 100 dollars for the 450 milliliters that they would take from me. Dom would receive a referral bonus of 25 bucks, for bringing me there.

I was astonished to hear that they had no vaccine police at the entrance to such a place. Donating plasma gives a blow to the immunity system, and there, the non-vaccinated would be laying there, strapped to their extraction machines that are all lined up in rows, with something like 24 at a time being processed, all of whom having their own immune systems taxed; and yet no proof of vaccination required. They are a Swiss owned company, by the way.

Their other regulations are so stringent that I can remember being turned away one time because my blood protein level was just under the threshold or I had lost too much weight between visits. If you have ever been to The Sudan, I think it was, then you are ineligible to donate, etc. or even if you know someone who is an intravenous drug user.

Of course, anyone who wants to sell their plasma learns through the grapevine to "Just answer all the questions 'no' except for the one that's 'Are you feeling well and healthy today?'" That one, you have to answer "yes," even if sneezing on the touch screen while doing so.

I'm debating upon whether or not to go busk some, now. It is about 3 in the afternoon and is maybe about 58 degrees outside. A little chilly on the ride there, but perfectly fine once the playing starts, and the layers of clothing start being peeled off in between the first few songs. I usually am down to just a tee shirt in 58 degree weather after just a couple songs.

I'm still working on the mindset needed to go out and play 6 nights a week, like I used to do.

An Uphill Battle

•  Planets Align So Rare
• Sugar The New Crack
  

I am still feeling the effects of having eaten a box of cream filled chocolate rolls, during Sunday night's football game.

I had actually gone out of my way to not drink or smoke weed that night, though I had had the opportunity to do so.

When I was at the Family Dollar getting some food that Harold could eat, along with some alkaline water and a couple Bang energy drinks was when I grabbed the box of chocolate rolls, which were only a dollar and change.

I thought about riding down to my friend Patrick's house, who might have had the game on his TV, which I was already missing the first quarter of as I went through the aisles.

"In relationships we're so used to complaining about other people,..It's always focusing on the other person. But for relationships to really work, we need to focus on what we appreciate about the other person, not what we're complaining about. When we're complaining about those things we're only getting more of those things." -Marci Shimoff; from "The Secret," by Rhonda Byrne

No Cat Food Burglar

I keep thinking about how easy it would be for me to steal cat food out of that place, especially since I think their security people stopped watching me in there a long time ago.

Surely, when I first started showing up there about 8 years ago, looking homeless with a backpack on my back, with only the guitar on my shoulder giving any indication that I might be the type of homeless person who has some kind of income; surely they stationed one of their security people up in some catwalk above the ceiling tiles, where they could use various spy holes to track my activity; before giving up on that, and maybe switching their focus to others.

What may have convinced them that I'm not a thief is how I repeatedly pay for tiny items that would easily fit in a pocket or up a sleeve and aren't cheap; like 8 packs of AA alkaline batteries that are $5 and the size of a half bar of soap.

So, having gained their trust, it would be easy for me to slide a can of food for Harold up the sleeve of my heavy winter jacket, or wedge one under my belt; but I just can't bring myself to do that. Not even by thinking that I would be doing it "for Harold" and rationalizing it the same way that some BLM looters were expounding the "principle" that they were just trying to feed their families, by stealing Nike sneakers out of some store.

The way I look at it is, although it is largely a matter of pride in the fact that I have never stolen (nor have I ever asked anyone, outside of friends, for a dollar or a cigarette) and maybe that pride is working against me; and causing my cat to suffer. 

I still think that, if I were to get caught stealing a can of cat food then the staff at the store would be inclined to think that I have been in there stealing throughout the whole 8 years or so that I've been going there. As if one dishonest act can negate a whole lifetime's worth of integrity. It was me not going out to busk during that afternoon when the temperature briefly went above 50 degrees that was causing my cat to suffer...

So, I got Harold a can of cooked chicken breast meat; he seems to like it, although I worry about the sodium content (note to self: Google "Is salt bad for cats?")

I had to admit to myself that my thoughts of dropping in on Patrick were mostly about smoking some of  his weed; and not so much to enjoy his company. Realistically, he doesn't really have a personality because of how much he drinks. Drunks are usually their "drunk self," and one rarely gets to meet the actual person behind that facade.

I decided to just go back home without any booze or weed, though with the box of cream filled chocolate rolls, and watch the football game. 

I wasn't going to rely upon anyone else but myself. If I wanted to drink or smoke bad enough, I knew where the French Quarter was and could go down there with my guitar and come up with those things through my own devices. This has been one of the lessons in life that I have learned.

But the cream filled rolls really set me back; and reminded me once again that some of the oils in those things take several days to get out of the system. This is something I wish I had figured out when I was younger and trying to sleuth out the roots of food allergies through "elimination" diets.

I would stop eating something, but would still be suffering a few days later; which might have led me to conclude that that particular food wasn't the culprit, and would go back to eating it.

I feel sorry for people who are taking that drug I see advertised all the time for eczema and psoriasis with the motto: "Hide my skin; not me?!" if they are continuing to eat the same foods advertised on the same channels, but are hoping that the drug will heal them "from the inside," as advertised, then their immune systems are still being triggered by the allergens, but now there is a chemical war going on inside them; the body's natural reaction to the allergens is being rebuffed by chemicals and they are at risk of side effects which could, in rare cases, cause death. Better off hiding your skin, imo.

What should I expect when Jeopardy is sponsored by a big drug company?

Then, I made it home to find that Jacob had texted me. He seemed to be in a good mood and said that he was about to take his daily drive.

I suggested that he could stop by here and we might go up to A206 and jam with Don (previously referred to as "JR") to which Jacob replied that that would be an activity that would require us smoking weed in order to fully appreciate.

I had to realize that, since Don keeps a gallon of whiskey and a sack of weed in his place at all times, I was kind of doing the same thing as with Patrick. I might have thought it would be a goof to go up and jam with him; recording the results on Jacob's phone, so that some goofy sound clips of Don's drunken playing and whooping it up in general might be used as samples in future music projects.

But, as fate would have it; Jacob never got back to me, so that became a moot point and I achieved another day of sobriety.

Jacob had been in a car wreck during his drive.

Last (Monday) night, Don fell down a flight of stairs and broke his guitar strumming arm. I just happened to encounter him at about 2 AM when I was going outside to let Harold in. It was raining and about 48 degrees.

It seems that Don was on his way up the flight of stairs when he had fallen down them. It was probably his attempts to break his fall with his right arm that led to it becoming injured. At first I thought it might be his normal, nightly fall after his draining a certain amount of the gallon of whiskey; but realized that this one was more serious when I saw him using his left arm to try to pick up his right one, which seemed at an odd angle.

It was only then that I went and called 911; even though I worried that doing so might draw unwanted attention to myself; as in the police running a routine check on me to see if I have any history of pushing people down staircases, and them finding some old warrant out of another parish and maybe arresting me, so they could force the vaccine upon me at the jail, or something. That would have been a far out, paranoid suspicion just a couple years ago...before The Great Reset went into motion.  

 

All About Braving The Cold

It was 35 degrees, according to the news that I put on the TV at about 7 in the morning.

I had woken up and done the Wim Hof breathing exercises, but only after having had a cup of coffee. Wim drinks coffee in the morning, but does his breathing first.

Then, he gets into a tub of ice water and goes into deep meditation to regulate his body temperature manually, I think. I'll have to watch a few more of his videos.

The fact that the hot water went out in our building for about 4 days last week, I took as one of those fortuitous coincidences that befall the practitioners of The Law of Attraction. Before I went up to the lobby to complain and inquire about the water, I had decided to watch the rest of a Wim Hof video that I had paused; and the very next thing he recommended was that, people who didn't have large tubs full of ice, could take cold showers.

The idea behind the ice baths was simply stated by some qualified medical guy with his own videos about Wim's videos by pointing out that, upon jumping into an icy body of water, the person's entire focus becomes upon gasping for air; and all the petty concerns and anxieties, such as "did I put food in my dog's dish before I left home" suddenly disappear.

Right now, I have my fan sitting on the counter next to the stove which has each of its burners turned to about the level of 3 out of 10, and the fan is blowing the air off the stove and into the rest of the apartment.

I was able to make it all the way through last winter that way, since there was really only about a month at most that I had to do that. The maintenance people never made it here to look at my heating and air unit, that year.

I put in a work order a couple weeks ago to have it looked at again. I suppose if I told Missy the building manager that I was using my stove and a fan to heat the place, the heating and air guy might appear. I used to have the schematics for the thing, as they had been left behind by someone at one point; but I would have needed at least a volt-o-meter with an ammeter and probably a soldering rig in order to have fixed it myself.

At least if the fan were to fall backwards and land on the stove and start to burn, the smoke alarms wouldn't go off; I ripped all of them out of their sockets because they were way too sensitive, and would go off if I left a pan of rice on the stove too long and it started smoking.

Where There's Smoke, There's Ire

That would require the fire department to show up, as per their regulations, which was a pain in the neck for all parties involved. One such time the firemen reported that I had "fallen asleep" with something on the stove; when actually I had been in the other room and had heard the sound of the water boiling out of the rice, but by the time I made it to the pan, the stuff on the bottom had begun to smoke; and that had been enough to set the alarms off. And enough to get me written up for a violation of my lease, under the false accusation of having fallen asleep. I think because the firemen saw wine bottles in the apartment, they made that assumption.

A plastic fan would make a hell of a lot of smoke and would burn pretty hot for a long time. Definitely enough to set the wooden cabinets above them on fire. Still, smoke inhalation would be the real danger. But that's why I run the fan on its lowest setting and brace the back of it against one of those cabinets. 

I learned about burning plastics when I was homeless in St. Augustine and there was a crazy guy who had a campsite near me who would throw huge plastic pallets on his bonfire during the winter, when temperatures might have dropped to around freezing. His fires eventually dried the leaves in the canopy of trees about 30 feet above his pit out enough that one night he set "the whole woods" on fire. The nearby Winn Dixie eventually calculated that they were losing a lot of money from plastic pallets being stolen.

I'm about to make a chilly ride up to the local Winn Dixie for water and juice, I believe. Although I could do my guitar practicing first...

Sunny, And In The 60's

It's a Tuesday, and close enough to Mardi Gras, to increase the number of tourists out there by multiples of normal Tuesday traffic.

I almost went out yesterday afternoon. I could have been playing by 4 p.m. had I left at the time I almost did. The temperature was 57 degrees and was only forecast to go down to 50 by midnight.

I planned upon playing from, say, 4 o' clock until it got dark at about 6:15 o' clock. Then, I would see if I had made enough to spring for a set of batteries for the amp, in order to amplify myself then maybe continue on into the night.

I didn't feel 100 percent, though. Even though I know that the quickest way to get to feeling 100 percent is to busk my way out of the malaise. Resting at home might take 5 times as long to recover, compared to using the adrenaline of playing, and the interactions with people as a catalyst.

But, I decided to do 3 rounds of Wim Hof's breathing exercises, which had me feeling much better; though I was still kind of fatigued from the interrupted sleep I had gotten, full of very weird dreams; in one of which I was dreaming I had coronavirus, and then waking up feeling like I was coming down with something.

Yesterday's post was sort of like flushing everything out of my brain.

I'm not used to waking up at 4 in the morning and then trying to be ready to go out an busk 15 hours later, after being up that amount of time. It certainly doesn't leave any room for any energy draining activities.

The uncluttering thing is progressing along; next I might attack my pile of clothing and get rid of things I haven't worn in over a year.

By about 9 in the evening, the 54 degrees that it was, felt colder because of a breeze, and Harold was at the back door, so I let him in; then thought that I didn't have any food for him.

I did have a large pot that I had steamed some catfish along with kale in, the night before, in the refrigerator. There were still chunks of catfish in there, but it was steeped in kale juice.

Harold tore into the fish, devouring it in its entirety, then licked the plate. Who knew that a cat would love catfish, I thought?

I'm pretty sure the fish got its name from the catlike whiskers on its head.

Harold always liked any cat food that had greens in it. These are usually labelled as "indoor cat" food. The idea is that they are putting in the greens that the indoor cat can't get.

But, I observed that one of the reasons Harold likes to go outside so much, is to eat greens; and so I tried the indoor stuff on him, and he loved it.

They should really label the food "for indoor cats; and cats that love to go outside because of all the greens out there."

So, Harold filled up on the catfish steeped in steamed kale juice; and I was able to rest more easily and didn't have to ride up to Rouses Market and back.

Today is forecast to be sunny and in the mid 60's.

I think blogging is one of the things that might sap some of my busking energy; so I'm going to stop here...

Wim Hof Breathing Exercises

 The Life I Will Be Living Soon

I had been putting off delving into the Wim Hof breathing exercises the way someone might put off going on a diet or starting a jogging program; a quarter mile the first few days; then increasing up to 2 miles every morning, type of thing...

It was probably the nicotine vapes and the alcohol telling me: "We're very worried about being neglected and eventually forgotten about, should you embark upon such a discipline, to be honest with you, Daniel.."

"And, what about us?" complained the white powdered doughnuts in the vending machine near the lobby. "We give you eczema, but we think we're worth it."

The Gab About The Jab

Wim talks about the therapy, for which he has acquired the nickname of "The Ice Man," which involves basically jumping into an ice cold lake; perhaps even through a hole punched through the ice covering it.

 

His contention is that; when a human being is put in this particular stressful environment; all petty concerns and anxieties are instantly replaced with more root concerns like gasping for the first breath upon being submerged.

Then, the mind's focus upon regulating the body's temperature takes center stage and one can tap into the deepest part of the brain, where functions that science has previously considered to be disconnected from consciousness can be manipulated; things like the immune system, the lymphatic system, the heart rate, etc.

 

One of the stories Wim tells is of a scientific experiment that was performed on him; where he was injected with some form of bacteria; and was able to consciously rally his immune system against it; and then 15 minutes later, blood was drawn from him that had no trace of the bacteria.

 

Other tales exist of him spending something like 17 days hiking to the top of some Himalayan peak, barefooted and wearing only a pair of shorts; much to the astonishment of a group of other hikers whom he encountered there; who were all bundled up in parkas and wearing gloves.

 

It crossed my mind that he, of course, might have been perpetuating a hoax in order to be able to get enough suckers to subscribe to his Youtube channel, so he could monetize it (did he bend any spoons with his mind while he was on that mountaintop? type of thing) and that, instead of floating in frozen water, in touch with his auto-immune system, he was sunning himself on a beach and counting the money.

 

But, the proof is in the pudding, as they say (although I don't recommend eating pudding, as it is typically loaded with refined sugar and hydrogenated oils).

I have done the breathing thing 3 times now, with 3 "rounds" each time.

The first time I had been guided by incomplete information and was leaving out a few things, like the 15 second "recovery" breath, to be done after the laying there for 2 and a half minutes with no air in the lungs part.

I woke up at about 4:30 a.m. this morning.

It had been a fitful sleep. I had fallen asleep during the football game, with my last memory being waking up briefly to hear that the Pittsburgh Steelers were losing 38 to 14 or something.

I got another couple hours of sleep, after letting Harold in from outside, where he was parked right by the door in the "fending off the cold" posture that cats take when they tuck all their limbs in under their bodies and wrap their tails around themselves. 

I'm sure that Harold would have preferred to do that under one of the buildings, or at least on top of grass and soil that would offer more insulation; and so the fact that he was thus situated on the concrete landing right outside the door to the parking lot meant that he wanted to come inside; or alternately, was doing his own Wim Hof sort of thing; to connect with the deepest part of his "reptile" brain.

It was the former, I assume, by the way he scampered inside with a meow.

He was sleeping next to me when I woke up after the game had ended and "Meet The Press" was being aired. For those who might have missed the early morning airing of it.

The first voice I heard (I wasn't facing the TV) laid out a laundry list of the failures of the Joe Biden administration; giving him the sole credit for the infrastructure bill.

Then the host defended the administration while hurling accusations at "the Republicans," with the overall effect being that nobody was right and nobody was wrong. It was a wash that just left the effect of having wasted an hour listening to "Meet The Press." It had been just fascinating enough to keep me awake through it.

The real problem is the setup through which a few large corporations are headed by CEO's who are making such obscene amounts of money as to become the richest individuals in the world; and that they all have boards of directors, who are elected by stockholders, who vote on what their salaries should be, as members of the board of directors; and that stockholders who hold millions of shares get to cast millions of votes for who should be on said boards of directors; and the whole ship of fools is perfectly content to have shows like "Meet The Press" give "the American people" the impression that the real debate is upon who is right or wrong between the 2 mainstream political parties.

When the real issue should be the dismantling of the corporate structure whereby a few individuals are super rich and looking down upon earth from their own rocket ships upon the suffering of a great number of impoverished people, American and other, the corporate heads don't really make a great distinction; all nations have been brought under their auspices.

So, give the people their "Meet The Press"s so they can tune in and see where "the world" is at; and then can choose a side and take to the streets in protest; one group against another, blithely ignorant of the fact that both sides are being equally screwed by a third minority group of elites. Equality for the masses, at last! Jeff Bezos can look down and see it all pretty clearly from his rocket ship.

But, the silver lining, I believe is that; even the richest man in the world is going to have to die some day and leave it all behind; and all he will retain is his soul; maybe not even that, if he doesn't believe that.

When I was as small as 6 years old, I used to try to imagine not existing.

It seemed impossible to not exist; because how would I know that I didn't exist? I would have to exist to some extent even to be aware that I was gone, I thought.

I would manage to be able to picture not existing for a split second and then would return to my thoughts with a start.

I guessed that the analogy is that people aren't afraid of going to sleep, because they do so, looking forward in joyful anticipation of the next day. They can't wait for it to be early morning with the sun rising and the birds chirping and a fun day ahead of them; why not just go to sleep and not have to while away the hours waiting upon the sun and the birds. That makes perfect sense; plus the fact that, if you are physically tired enough then sleep will overtake you; like a thief in the night, it will come and steal your consciousness.

And so, the 10 richest people in the world are all going to die. And, try as they might to instill their values in their children; who have never seen working blisters unless they are on the fingertips that they use to text on their phones all day, every day; they are invariably going to have to leave their fortunes to them.

And, what is to stop one of their children from concluding: "I'm going to be the total opposite of my father; I grew up witnessing how rapacious and greedy and unhappy at the deepest level he was; and so, I'm going to take the whole 1.4 trillion dollars he bequeathed to me and give it away! 

I'm going to spread it amongst all the people of the world ..except for the white people because they already have their money, it's in the color of their skin..

And, I'm going to restructure all 1,300 corporations that my dad owned controlling shares in, and dissolve the boards of directors and make the CEO a minion of all the workers, rather than the other way around; and turn all the corporations into Co Ops, run by a democracy of the workers; and this will raise the standard of living of everyone on the planet!"

All the money in the world won't buy insurance against a nut case child like that; blame the wife's family all you want...

It would only take one generation to revolutionize the whole capitalist system as we know it...I thought, as I drifted back to sleep, some time after Meet The Press ended...and this up and coming group of screen staring gender fluid types is a fertile ground for producing the next revolutionaries... 

Then, I woke up during a half hour, at least, long infomercial for some kind of generator.

I usually tune out infomercials; but this one kept me intrigued; as it brought me back to what it had been like here when the power went out 11 days.

"Who could have foreseen an ice storm in Houston, Texas?" asked one person who was probably paid for her endorsement. 

But, thanks to her (I-forget-the-brand-name) generator; she had been able to watch her shows and eat microwaved popcorn, while her generator-less neighbors wailed and gnashed their teeth.

In California, the government periodically shuts down the power grid to combat wildfires, or something, someone was saying. 

With the mighty generator, though, all you have to worry about is the fire. Your garage door will still open to allow you to get out of there.

And, on and on, as I drifted off to sleep, with visions of sitting in my 93 degree room with an olive oil based candle providing the only light; and the batteries that I had taken out of my TV remote powering a little pocket radio tuned to the news and info station. All the talk was about the hurricane; which had apparently taken priority over the coronavirus, which was barely mentioned

I woke up the final time around 4 a.m., pretty sure that I had gotten one of the variants of COVID. I had kind of a throbbing headache in the back of my head and some congestion in my lungs.

So, I did 3 rounds of the Wim Hof deep breathing exercises, wondering if Wim would have recommended doing them when sick.

I felt better afterwards; enough so that I decided to sit down and peck away at this blog post.

It's been really weird, lately, waking up feeling something that I have come to associate with "coming down with something," that in the past has been the harbinger of a worsening fever, and a cough, with my lungs becoming more and more congested, so that by the end of the day I just want to wrap up in a blanket and take Alka-Seltzer cold and flu remedy. But this thing just goes away after a cup of coffee; and most certainly after 3 rounds of breathing exercises.

It's also interesting how in the vaccine mandate debate, each side seems to fall pretty neatly along the lines of "blue" and "red" states.

In Massachusetts, (the only state that didn't vote for Nixon in 1972) where my mother lives; the vaccines seem to be viewed the same way we did the ones we all got in school, back in the late 1960's. They were probably mandated, but they didn't feel mandated. We had just put a man on the moon and brought him back safely; and now this very same science was bringing us a miracle of modern medicine; and we would all be protected.

Those vaccines for measles, mumps, chicken pox, small pox, and maybe even "German" measles, were all lovingly administered by school nurses, and we all felt fortunate to be living in the U.S.A. where medicine was so advanced. We were aware that kids in less fortunate countries would just get sick and die. 

We pictured those kids; all skinny, with pock marked brown skin, living in grass huts on poor soil, wrapped in toga-like garments; without the faintest clue as to how to put a man on the moon; dying. 

We knew that every 29 cents that we dropped in the Unicef box placed by the principal's office, would suffice in providing a bowl of rice and a cup of milk for one of them; and that there were courageous groups of people who went out like missionaries, braving the dangers of whatever poisonous snakes were indigenous to their nations; to vaccinate as many souls as possible. Nurses dressed like Mother Theresa. So, we all felt fortunate to be getting first dibs on the syrum.

I Meet Lee Harvey Oswald's 3rd Grade Teacher

Fast forward to 2012 and I was walking through Algiers Point, Louisiana, right across the river, probably on my way to their library, which was one of the only branches that opened on Sundays, and I encountered a slight, elderly lady who was in the process of lifting cases of bottled water out of the trunk of a car.

I offered to help her.

After looking me over, and maybe because of the guitar on my back, she accepted my help; but asked that I just place the water on the porch just outside the front door of the house.

We got into a conversation after she asked me what I did for a living and after I had told her about busking, and after she had said "Oh, that's not a living!" after I told her how much money I "usually" made doing so; adding that it was an alright living if you hadn't any bills to pay.

She said that she had been a school teacher, right there in Algiers Point for something like 55 years. She even had Lee Harvey Oswald as a student in her 3rd grade class, she mentioned.

Her tone was kind of defensive of him; as if he had been a good kid and probably not capable of killing a president of his own volition -he had been put up to it, or was trying to impress that girlfriend he had in Mexico City, who was sympathetic to Fidel Castro.

But, then she started to talk about how an unusual number of her students had died of cancer, with many of them not having even made it through high school. She blamed it upon the Kennedy administration having sent them a polio vaccine that came in sugar cubes, to make them palatable to the kids, I guess. There was something wrong with those cubes, she had always thought.

So, I guess conspiracy theories are nothing new; dating back to at least the Kennedy administration...

She gave me 2 dollars for helping her with her water, which I mentally adjusted, for inflation, to 10 dollars, since she was old enough to remember when 2 bucks was a lot of money, just for toting a couple cases of water a distance of 20 feet.

I couldn't help thinking that; while we were feeling so fortunate in our Catholic school in Massachusetts, to have our school nurse give us vaccines so we wouldn't become like the children on the Unicef boxes; there were those down in the backwaters of southern Louisiana, like this lady who was teaching Master Oswald his 4 "r"s (reading, 'riting, 'rithmatic and rifles) who was also fomenting the suspicion that a high incidence of cancer in the children of Algiers Point could somehow be traced back to "Kennedy's" sugar cube vaccines -not industrial pollutants from other red states flowing down the Mississippi River, that those kids probably ate a lot of fish out of, or anything like that. Nope; Kennedy, and his damned pink sugar cubes!

I don't know if that brings this post full circle from where I started it 9 hours ago; with a short break to go up front to check on the cold water situation; but like the Mississippi River in Algiers Point; this is where it ends.

Addendum: The hot water is not working throughout the whole of building A, and not just in my apartment. I had wondered if they had shut the water heaters off in all the non vaccinated apartments. I suppose me going out on Bourbon Street without a mask and mingling with tourists from all over the world has got Tim the security guard a bit spooked. He can't help it; he spends his whole shift staring at his phone which is giving him a steady diet of CNN and local "news." I've seen the local news the times I failed to shut the TV off after watching Jeopardy and 25 Words or Less; and you would think that we were in the middle of another Black Death, from listening to their newscasts. 

But, I could be triple vaxxed and boosted and still come back here and give it to him. Then, he would just be yelling: "You need to stay off Bourbon Street until this whole thing is over!!" The Tim's of the world are just a fact of life.

Clear Sailing Ahead

Some lady outside Rouses Market was warning me that I had better get myself inside and stay warm tonight. She said that the temperature is going to drop drastically and it might even snow.

She was a lady of color, wearing thick plastic framed glasses, standing next to a cart full of groceries in paper bags. She was waiting for her ride to show up, not for from where my bike was locked to a pole. She stared at a receipt in her hand.

Guessing that she might have been shocked at how much her groceries had been and was seeing if anything had gotten rung up twice or something, I made the comment:

"I've been seeing a lot of people looking at their receipts in disbelief lately," alluding to the inflated prices of late.

She immediately informed me that "Oh, no," that wasn't why she was staring at her receipt; a bit defensively.

At first I thought she might be a lady who considers herself wealthy; and thus, above the economic concerns of an ordinary person. Like, maybe I should have divined by looking her over that she shouldn't be concerned over how much she had just spent. Maybe her thick framed glasses were the $800 kind, or something.

But, once I started talking to her, I realized that she was a practitioner of The Law of Attraction. She accepted that groceries are just high right now, as if it was a fact of life, and then exuded confidence in that she would continue to be blessed with food, at any price; in the same way that she had come by what was in her cart.

After telling me that I had better dress warmly for the impending cold weather; she added "if you're gonna go out and play your guitar."

So, she had seen me before at the Lilly Pad.

Since it was 63 degrees with the sun about an hour from going down, I told her that I was thinking of going out as soon as possible, hoping to get in a few hours before the weather changed.

"You don't understand; it's going to be brutal; they're saying it might even snow!" she reiterated.

Being from Massachusetts, I knew that snowy conditions were a good thing for someone concerned about freezing to death. When it snows, the temperatures hover just below freezing and never drop into the dangerously cold range -something to do with the process of turning water into snow producing heat, I think it was...

I suppose 29 degrees would feel pretty cold when you aren't used to it; but it isn't going to kill anyone.

Once I got home, though, I brought up the forecast, and it seems that the lady (who was talking also about the high grade medicinal marijuana that she is apparently getting) was a day early with her doom and gloom forecast. For it is supposed to drop from the 62 degrees that it is now, to no less than 58 at about the time I would typically knock off from busking.

So, it appears that I have one more night to make money before tomorrow comes and the temperatures go into the low 40's. Thank God it was just her marijuana confusing her, and making her forecast wrong.

I do have to worry about the batteries in my little amp, though. I should have stocked up after Jacob and I made $145 on New Year's Eve. I guess I wasn't planning this far ahead...

Wim Hof Breathing Exercises

It is just about 6 pm. and Jeopardy is coming on; and then I will do a couple rounds of Wim Hof's breathing exercises. 

It has been hard to force myself to do them; not quite as hard as jumping into a frigid lake through a hole cut in the ice, such as Wim does, to stimulate his immune system; but hard for someone who would rather just lay down at the time, and go to sleep. 

After doing the breathing thing I find that I have less anxiety in general; and so I'm hoping that a few rounds of it will assuage my worries about the batteries in the amp, or the guy with the loud sound system that has been showing up on Friday nights and sitting in front of the bar, cranking hip hop music out of the thing.

Did I Mention That I'm Becoming A Marxist?

More Light Shed On Eviction Matter

This morning, my phone rang, and it was the lady from the Lantern Light Mission; who asked me a few questions about my living situation, and, without divulging too much of my theory that crazy left wing sheep are conspiring to get me tossed out of Sacred Heart, as a domestic terrorist and "natural immunist," I was able to explain it to her satisfaction; and she said that, since this is a one time "thing," and that I won't become a future thorn in their side every time I have a bad month busking, type of thing; they will be able to pay off the amount that had accrued, behind my back as it was...

So, that gives me a sense of relief, since I think it will be harder for them to cancel me for "giving music lessons," in my apartment; as per the new addition to the lease I signed. They would have to station an agent outside the door to ask people if they learned anything musical from me while they were hanging out, and then subpoena them to a hearing somewhere..

I Learn Something Musical

After I was auto-directed, by the Youtube algorithm, in this universe where there are no accidents, and everything happens for a reason, to a video by economist Richard Wolff, which was from a talk he had given in 2010, and was so fascinating that I just had to see if I could find a more recent one of him -to see if he was still tooting the same horn after all that has transpired in the last 10 years- and wound up watching a lot of his stuff, including some done as recently as a month ago.

When he told an audience about his degrees in Economics from Harvard, Stanford and Yale; and how, throughout all the hours of lectures he absorbed in all those hallowed halls; never once, was Karl Marx ever referred to by any of his professors in regards to his theories being even worth considering.

He said that this was because of the "fear" that those professors harbored. 

And that apparent attempt at cancelling the guy had the opposite effect, as usual, of making me curious about the guy.

Left: I might not be great with names, but I hardly forget a face.

I knew I'd seen Karl before; I'm already a big fan and have watched a few of his Youtube videos. I find him to be quite entertaining, kind of a folk musician; good singer...

I wouldn't have guessed that his is also an author.

I guess I'll start with his "Communist Manifesto" -the one that came up at the top of search results.

I can tell by some of his lyrics that he's kind of into political issues; so the title of his book doesn't surprise me.