Affordable Connectivity For Some

(This is an old post that I merely proof read, but it was placed as if a new post)

I'm working offline for a while, "A week to ten days," according to a guy with a heavy Indian accent.

The "Affordable Connectivity Plan" that I've had since the  "pandemic" has summarily expired. 

I can't help but wonder if this isn't just a means of censoring information from certain people; ones who used their free data to visit non-mainstream media sites. 

They can't cancel people like Russell Brand and Tucker Carlson or Joe Rogan (though not through lack of trying) so maybe they are trying to work on the opposite end of the pipeline, and just shut off the service of those who qualify for the ACP, but are using it to view pod-casters such as those named above, or other anti-establishment slanted information. 

The canopies pop up on city corners everywhere, under which are given away free smartphones, to those who qualify by being unemployed and/or on food stamps. -Trojan Horse devices that are actually propaganda dissemination devices -coming pre-loaded with the Google Search function that is never going to reveal any websites other than those that are approved by the "deep state."

You will have to scroll about 4 pages down to find this blog, even if the search term you type in is "Street Musician Daniel," for example. 

This shadow banning first started within a day or two after I posted a music video on Youtube that was making fun of, then candidate, Joe Biden. 

An average of about 450 viewers a day suddenly fell to more like 12. 

And, now I will have to pay 10 dollars for every 2 gigs of data I use, or basically about 2 hours of video watching.

I'm almost willing to bet that if I had been a consumer of only the mainstream shills for the War Machine, Big Pharma and other powerful interests,  like a good little sheep; they probably would have renewed my service, so as to keep me "informed." 

Before I get too upset, I need to wait a few more days to see if they hook me back up, as the representative that I spoke to promised me (in a heavy Indian accent).

It has been about 3 years since I was ever asked to log in to the hot spot. 

It has been a weird Wednesday. I woke up at several points, the first time being about 9 in the morning when I actually felt up to riding my bike a mile to the where the plasma bus stops.

I could undergo the "new donor" procedure at the one across the river.

I wouldn't have had a fever, and the stethoscope would have recorded a minimum of wheezing from the cold which is almost gone after 16 days. 

Then, waking again around noon, I felt more tired. My diet the previous day had been sprinkled sugar and cocoa into peanut butter with coconut oil stirred nto it. 

By 6 at night, I was feeling the cold (or flu) coming back; as, I felt the slight chill of a fever and was racked with violent coughing fits. I was also out of coffee. 

So, I went to the Family Dollar where I bought a liter of spring water while stealing a one dollar box of individually packaged single-serving coffee packets. Driven to crime to support  a caffeine habit...

I must admit I have fallen morally, and become a thief after something like 35 years of being honest to the point of having returned a wallet that I found that had $990 dollar in it (2002) and having alerted an elderly lady who was in line in front of me at the register of a Circle K store in St. Augustine, that she had dropped a 50 dollar bill which had fluttered down and almost landed at my feet (2010 -I could have feigned tying my boot and become 50 bucks richer). And then there was the time the same year when, after my then girlfriend Karrie had come out of a certain liquor store and produced a bottle of whiskey from under her coat, I went back into that store and placed another bottle of the same whiskey on the counter, paid for it, then returned it to the shelf, telling the clerk/owner "I had a talk with my little Mexican girlfriend about how she is a representative of me wherever she goes, and she won't be shoplifting in here any more." 

"Yeah, I keep a tight inventory on what I sell each day, and I noticed the bottle missing right after she left without buying anything. It's good that you just did that, because I was about to tell you that neither one of you were welcome back in here," he had said. 

But, fast-forward to today -when every business that hasn't locked their entire inventory in glass fronted cases is teetering on the brink of insolvency because of rampant, unchecked shoplifting; and I'm afraid that I have gone to the precipice of the proverbial cliff that my dad once posited to me that "everyone" might jump off, with the inquiry of: "would you jump off, too?" and have jumped off. 

This might be kind of my reaction to having had the free data plan cancelled, along with the resurgence of the cold/flu. This has also coincided with me running out of bottled water, and having used the tap water -water that has been recently flagged for containing permanent toxins due to a bunch of fluorocarbons having been dumped, upstream, into the Mississippi River in past years, probably with Bugalosa, Louisiana (with it's nation-leading crime rates) atop the list of offenders. That has made the acquisition acquisition of spring water almost a life or death matter. The coffee was just me stealing something because "everyone else is doing it." 

That's about it on this Wednesday night that will soon elapse into Thursday, and put me within 5 days of having my food stamp card loaded with $284. In the meantime, I think I will finally be poised to show up in Gretna to go through the sometimes tedious process of becoming a new donor. I'll just be 50 cents short of a return trip, should they not be able to take my plasma. 

I don't even want to try to get the 2 quarters from Jr., as it has become clear that he is primarily in the market of buying the company of others. History has shown that, he would tell me "Yeah, I got 50 cents I can give you, I can help you out!" But then would tell me to grab a seat and hang out at a rate that would amount to me getting 50 cents per hour of listening to his drunken rants. I would be required to play his guitar, while he played sloppily along, enjoying his pot and alcohol buzz while I would be cold sober and have to grin and bear it until some point at which he felt he had gotten 50 cents worth of "a buddy" out of me. 

He would start passing me his bottle at intervals calculated to keep me in a state of half drunkenness,  and wanting more. All this has played out so many times that I've lost count, and patience, with it and am starting to feel like I'm Charlie Brown, trying to kick a football that Lucy is holding.

I'll take my chances with random strangers at the bus stop should I become stranded in Gretna. In the worst case, I could sleep outside, then return to Octapharma in the morning, hoping that my blood pressure or heart rate would be back within their acceptable range (I've mainly had the problem of my blood pressure being too low, which I think is due to my putting myself in a deep relaxed state as a means of staying patient at those times when there are a dozen people ahead of me, they are short staffed, with the whole donation process bound to take 5 hours. Add in travel time and the 75 bucks I get could wind up being paid at a rate of $10.25 per hour. 

That raises the issue of: Why not, instead, busk in the Quarter, where 10 bucks an hour is what I averaged 12 years ago; before I acquired all the skills I've accrued since then?

I look forward to things getting better... 

I've done another raid on the abandoned apartment of one Carlos, during which it dawned on me that, in my prior forays into it, I hadn't once thought to look in the
refrigerator/freezer, which has been plugged in and running since he left.
There was, on one shelf, bricks of Velveeta style "processed" cheese, stacked like gold bars in Fort Knox, and elsewhere, plenty of air tight packets of
things like "Pasta With Garden Vegetables In Tomato Sauce," and
condensed tomato soup, as well as Meals Ready To Eat style packets of "white chicken (with rib meat) fully cooked," that can be submerged in a pan of hot water and come out steaming and, well, ready to eat...
The freezer yielded some frozen pork, the price tag on which indicating that it dated back no further than the Biden administration, as it was about
20% higher than what pork used to be, before almost
half of U.S. tax dollars started going to some corrupt overseas regime to be spent on weaponry from a handful of contractors, enriching them and their lobbyists, while paper money is made out of thin air to grease the wheels of an "entitlement" economy with one downside being the inflation of the price of pork reflected in Carlos' freezer, but I digress...
The refrigerator is also rodent and insect proof, and Carlos had stored a
few boxes in there, probably for safe keeping. Because, in the less secure pantry closet,
every cardboard box on the shelves had been chewed through by mice
and/or rats, with whatever contents that had eluded their cute little whisker
flanked mouths having cascaded to its floor, accumulated to a depth of about an inch (an inch and a half if your measurement factors in the hundreds (thousands?) of huge
roaches [Palmetto bugs to some, huge roaches to others] atop the pile. They all shot off in different directions and had vanished into various crevices, taking about the same amount of time it had taken the beam of light to go from my flashlight to them, once I switched it on).
It's going to take a little elbow grease in order to get apartment A 106
ready for its next unwitting inhabitants. On the whole, at least the smell in there isn't as
pungent as what has wafted from some of the dwellings where the bodies of residents,
who hadn't been seen around by anyone in maybe a month, have been discovered (usually by the rent
collector).
That particular essence, while probably never confused with Wind Song perfume; does at least share with it the attribute that it "stays on your mind."
The Eu de Delinquent Renter is a funk that manages to penetrate even into a closed closet and
through the fabrics hung within.
You might spot a nice looking shirt amidst a heap of
them in the dumpster and think it might look good on you.
But Gain detergent with Oxy Clean be damned; the tenacity of that
odor is such that; even though you might look pretty dapper when decked
out in it; you're going to have trouble getting the babes, so it's best just to
leave the thing for the trash collectors.
Concurrently, in the lobby, will appear a hastily printed out and Scotch taped up somewhere notice, adorned with the image of a face that you have perhaps seen from time to time (but not in the past month or so, come to think of it...) This is often lifted from a Facebook
profile and might be 15 years out of date. The announcement will state that "In Loving Memory Of" a person who's full name you probably never knew until just then, and at a given time and place, there will be a ceremony held to "celebration of the life" of this individual (a life lived in a rat infested hell-hole, but a life nonetheless).
And, since it would be pathetic if nobody were to attend the celebration and one would genuinely feel bad for the few close relatives who did show up; "Cookies and refreshments will be served afterwards" would be added at the bottom of the notice, insuring that at least half of the Sacred Heart residents would be there; celebrating...
But Carlos's place is certainly salvageable. In fact, having visited him a few times there, I would have to say that it doesn't smell much worse now than when he was living there.      

When I was letting Harold out last night, I cracked open the door to A 106, offering him the chance to explore. I wanted to see if his curiosity -the level of which purportedly being enough to kill him- would
be enough to make him want to go in there; with eyes darting around, and nose and whiskers twitching; but he
balked; perhaps fearful that Carlos might still be in there. He had never been mean to Harold (but he is still a 6 foot tall, 220 pound nigger*) and so I guess the furry creature wanted to err on the side of caution.

I was kind of curious myself, about letting Harold in there. I would have propped the door open, to give him an escape route.
Then I could count the number of dead rodents that had been layed at our doorstep in
the morning. It would be great fun for both of us, perhaps the most fun I've had with Harold since I got him.
But, alas, he decided not to risk any of his 9 lives, but just went outside instead.
And, alas, Carlos isn't a coffee drinker, as a thorough search search reveals. Nor is he a tea drinker, as
evidenced by several boxes of it that were still tightly sealed and showed no
signs of being gnawed upon. I guess it just isn't the rodent's cup of tea..

*Carlos would laugh his head off at that so; shut up, cancel culture...

Happy Anniversary?

Here I sit using what might be the last of the data that had been coming through my phone in "unlimited" supply, through Assurance Wireless.
The original idea was to allow people like myself to spend their entire waking existence tethered to the screen of their phone or, in my case, a laptop's screen using the phone as a hot spot.

Nothing in this world being free, I soon learned that these government phones were basically propaganda disseminating devices (PDD's) and that today's incarnations of evil were sending free data in order to try to destroy societies from within.

Just as Charles Manson has faded into obscurity; having been outdone by modern mass murderers -the same way that Knute Rockney is no longer seen as someone who would be anywhere close to formidable as a ball carrier in today's NFL. So, Hitler also pales in evilness compared to the titans who are all about taking over today's world. Or, to say the least; when Adolf put a bullet through his head; that was in no regard the end of darkness in the world. No occasion to sing "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead," (as some people celebrating the defeat of Trump did, while elbow to elbow, unmasked and passing the bottle around at the height of the "pandemic" but that's a subject for another post...).  

If I just used the phone every day as "intended," I would get nothing but news and information that was engineered to rile me up and make me hate the "other side." This was easy enough to figure out.
Facebook would hit every user's screen with an ad for a cartoon book designed to heap praise upon
the greatest president ever" while including chapters devoted to "how to spot a Socialist," and how to resist being indoctrinated, etc.

Then the Facebook algorithm would sort the users into 2 groups, the first being those that actually sent off for this educational tool (giving the algorithm a treasure trove of: A. The actual physical address of a "Trumper," B. The information that this household has children -refer their IP address to Tik Tok et. al. for further dissemination of propaganda aimed at children and C: The usernames of those leaving negative comments like: "Oh, great a how-to guide for turning your kids into Nazis"

The idea behind "C" being that Mark Zuckerbot would then be aided in instigating things like the BLM riots, by having a ready mob of like thinkers, chomping at the bit to burn and loot. And they would have been shunted, virtually, into a huge echo chamber with just them in it; so as to present them with the illusion that "everybody" is outraged by the white supremacist's and their people of color murdering ways and ready to riot! And to smash windows and grab expensive merchandise; hell, yeah!

The "other half" would know nothing of what was going on, but would instead be fed clips of Trump speeches from rallies, when not being shown videos of young black men pushing elderly white ladies in front of oncoming subway trains, and other content like it.

This is how someone with control over most of the worldwide web has control over much of the world.

This "f-ing with" is not restricted to the U.S. citizens; funny how there were "Black Lives Matter" themed riots in other countries, miles away -their citizenry similarly in a tizzy over the killing of George Floyd, over here in America -with some of the exact same phrases on signs they held! That must have been the 100th Monkey effect in action; yelling the same exact things, too...

Anyways, I was able to see through what was going on, and how the modern day Hitler doesn't need the tanks and soldiers -unless the Google servers can be likened to tanks and the Zuckerbots and Gates's of the world seen as generals, or at least colonels...

I have opened alternate accounts on social media using the Tor (totally anonymous) web browser and a different e-mail address attached to a different phone number, and on this particular device, I have been the most ardent "We must stop Trump from regaining the White House as if the very survival of the species depended upon it"-ite.
And, lo and behold, that phone became saturated with Rachael Maddow type's faces warning me about the dire dangers posed by right wing "extremists," who have been brainwashed into believing that there is something not quite exactly as it should be about a population being forcibly locked down and mandated to take a medication that would be free of charge to them, but for which the treasury would be billed at something like $24 a pop, for each of the first 4 required doses and then into the bonus round of boosters for as long as they could keep their plates in the air.
And these extreme, racist, homophobic, xenophobic members of the Cult of Trump, who desire society to revert back to 1937 style dynamics; my alternate phone emphasized, then put their ignorance on display by questioning the sending of billions of dollars to a foreign country which would wind up spending whatever of it hadn't been skimmed off the top, right here in the good ol' USA on weapons "made in the U.S.A."
Those rubes in fly over country just don't understand the principle of investing money right here at home. Tax the Lockheed Martin's and Ratheon's a reasonable percentage out of their considerable profits; and you'll be able to throw enough charity at the populace so that they will not rue the loss of their small business's (which required much hard work of them to run) and they will become content with sitting home home and collecting money from the government, while staring at their smartphones all day -hey, the phones are free; for those who are unemployed and/or receiving food stamps; in other words, you. Those rubes just don't get it. 

Let the Amazon's and Whole Foods handle the business of the economy. Stay tuned to your government phone for further instructions. Those with your best interests in mind will do their best to shield you from the likes of Russell Brand, Tucker Carlson, Larry Elder, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan by installing firmware on your smartphone, so that you won't even be exposed to their nonsense.

But my main phone -the one I actually use- has run out of free data, just as we are entering the election season, go figure. Now I will have to pay for every gigabyte of right-wing extremist data. How is a locked down with free money coming in every week engendered crack and porn addict supposed to manage that?

Anyways, that is what I learned about what's going on in the world, by getting 2 separate Google accounts and being "establishment" on one and "anti-establishment" on the other.

Now, I look forward to witnessing an actual atomic bomb detonation (or at least seeing the flash and feeling a blast of hot air) and witnessing a President Kennedy being assassinated; both in my lifetime -two events that I truly never would have seen coming just 30 years ago. 

Stay tuned to your smartphones, everybody. If it looks like the wrong guy is going to get in the White House, and that the cheating in the election might not be enough to thwart the guy; then some real heavy shit is going to go down, as a distraction, and as a deterrent against voters "changing horses mid-stream." I don't think Americans have ever voted the incumbent out, in the middle of a World War; and so, there we will have it...

It was a good 2 years of free propaganda; but it ended on 7-23-23. Glad I got to hear the entire "Crazy Horse" album by The Osmonds (1972) before my data ran out; speaking of extremists, haha. 

Just Give Thanks To Manifest

Another in a series of things that have been right under my nose all along but that I never saw, I saw this evening.

Carlos, from the apartment diagonally across the hallway from mine, moved out maybe 4 months ago, now.

When the workers, who have been here replacing pipes and generally fixing the huge heating and cooling unit, so that it no longer emits scraping metal upon metal shrieks but now sounds more like a dishwasher in action or so -well, those guy's, I guess had on their list of units to put temporary portable air conditioning units in, Carlos' apartment, even though he is long gone and in arrears something like $6,700 on his rent, as rumor has it.

I picture the scene: the workers let themselves in his place and are startled by the sound of a rodent scampering into hiding. They flinch. They then notice that the place has been hastily evacuated, with someone having grabbed sundry items and left others everywhere. They leave, but don't lock the door behind them; maybe so that, if the building manager tells them to go ahead and put a portable A/C unit in the place, even though its most recent tenant left 4 months ago, owing almost 7 grand; to keep the mice comfortable, that would save them having to unlock it again.

Anyways, I wasn't worrying about having lost my nail clippers, and the fact that I was out of toilet paper and could really use something to clean my walls and some other surfaces, and, not only that I was out of food money for the next 10 days and almost out of food...
I knew something would turn up and I offered up a prayer of gratitude in advance of the way things were going to work out in equal measure to the providence that I accord to God...

It was immediately upon feeling this sense of gratitude that the thought kind of materialized that the door to Carlos' former place may be unlocked. 

I had actually been walking through the hallway just as 2 or 3 of the heating and air guys were at Carlos' door, fumbling through a ring of keys, about to go in. I told them that "That guy hasn't been there in about 4 months," but I guess they wanted to confirm that and see for themselves.

They hadn't been in there long, I remember.

Thanks, Carlos!

So, I walked over there and tried the door, to find it unlocked.

In I went, and emerged about 20 minutes later with unopened boxes of toothpaste, a good set of nail clippers, and a couple different cleaning solutions in spray bottles. I also had a bag full of canned food items, some of them less than 5 years out of date. Thanks, Carlos.

With a crime rate of 52 per one thousand residents, Bogalusa has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 19.

Had anyone noticed me coming out of there with the loot, I was prepared to tell them that I had just gotten off the phone with Carlos ("from Bugalusa," I would add, to cement the lie using a concrete fact. Every Sacred Heart resident knows that Carlos is in Bugalusa, Louisiana now; and hearing that information issue forth from me, they would have no choice but to believe that I had just gotten off the phone with Carlos, and that he had indeed told me: "Go one an' git you whatever you want out of there!"

Here's one of Bugalusa's race riots...

It was Stephen King who said, in his book entitled "On Writing," that the key to telling lies is to add ancillary details to your lie, thereby making it much more believable. If you are going to lie to someone and tell them you just got back from the little store down the street, when you were actually home, but just didn't feel like answering his knocks on your door; tell him, as part of the yarn that the store owner was cussing out some old, skinny black lady; or that you stepped in some dog shit that was on the sidewalk right in front of the entrance to the little store that you were never at. That will make it almost impossible for them to persist in thinking they are being lied to. I mean, how would you know about the lady being cussed out if you hadn't been there to see it, type of thing. King is right about that; I always use that technique, in the rare cases that I ever lie to people...

Carlos left behind at least a dozen jars of peanut butter but, alas each had "fully hydrogenated" oils of rapeseed, cottonseed and soybean listed in the ingredients. A non-starter for myself. 

I suffered for probably about 7 years with "eczema," in my mid to late teens -7 years of being girl-crazy though having dry, flaky skin and an anemic skin tone- before learning that I somehow can't metabolize those particular oils, but rather, pass them, unbroken-down to my lower intestines where they are seen as foreign invaders by my immune system,provoking an overproduction of histamine, along with the concomitant "bad skin -probably the body's way of insuring that I would never pass my genes along to children who would be disadvantaged by not being able to eat school cafeteria food...
 

But anyways; there was Carlos' place with the door unlocked all this time that I might have been stressing over how to keep my nails short enough to be able to play the guitar, so I could make money to feed myself and buy toothpaste, toilet paper, and some stuff to clean my walls, because their dirtiness is suddenly bothering me, now that I have detoxified my body through a week long fever of 103.5 degrees and a diet of only distilled water, followed by one of spring water (the distilled stuff is good, but will eventually leach the minerals out of the body through reverse osmosis -good for getting the poisons out, but not to be overdone...3 days is enough). 

I Was As Sick As A Dog

I had been taking my health for granted.

A week and a day ago, on a Sunday, I was making plans to stuff my backpack with a couple changes of clothing, along with sundries out of a certain closet that I basically use to keep the remnants of my past life as a homeless guy, in. 

Not wanting to throw away perfectly good things, this broom closet has cloistered away mosquito repellent, an 'emergency blanket" a tent which rolls up into a size not much bigger than a loaf of bread, along with nylon rope, plastic ties, battery powered AM/FM radio, alarm clock, flashlight etc., and a rain proof "poncho" big enough to accommodate a body, a backpack, and a guitar in a case on a back..
 

The idea was for me to go down to the Quarter laden with this gear and then to busk for a while to raise X amount of dollars, which would then allow me to traipse over to the Greyhound/Amtrack station with the means to purchase a ticket for a some destination in the general direction of New England. The plan being to see family and friends for the first time in 17 years.

The bulk of research into this would be conducted through talking to the "old timey" groups of musicians (like "Yes, Ma'am")

who play during the daylight hours on Royal Street. There are some that I've seen perennially the past 12 years or so that would only show up at certain times of year -certainly for as long as a month during Mardi Gras, but then they would go off to places where they had found the getting to be good, depending upon the calendar.

You can make a killing in Anchorage, Alaska but only in August, type of thing. The same for Denver or Golden or Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

Nashville, Ashville, Savannah and even Toronto, Canada all host music festivals, at times spread apart so as to not be in direct competition with each other, so that the traveling busker (troubadour, if you will) can go from one thriving economy to the next, seeing the country and being able to afford a better than average lifestyle; staying in hotels, if not additionally eating in restaurants.

I learned a lot about this from talking to those who don't try to make a living year round in New Orleans. 

July and August can be brutally slow and yield 12 dollar nights of busking for 3 hours, as I am well aware. A lot of places close down because of the lack of tourists, while tourists generally stay away because everything is closed, anyways. The ones who do show up are the frugal to a fault types, taking advantage of some super discounted "off season" vacation package; and they arrive here well aware that nothing will undo their plot to experience NOLA on "28 Dollars A Day," like throwing a 20 dollar bill in a busker's hat.

As I started to formulate plans to finally make a trip up the coast, busking my way from city to city, there were certain loose ends I needed to tie up.

I found a person (Elizabet from Building C) who agreed to watch over Harold for up to a month. I got confirmation from the Sacred Heart management that they wouldn't throw all the contents of my apartment in the dumpster and clean it out in preparation of renting it to someone else, should I disappear for more than X amount of days (and, as a matter of fact, since my rent and utility payments are directly deposited into their coffers each month, they would allow me to be gone for up to 6 months any given year).

There is the matter of getting a new battery for my phone so I can chronicle the journey on this blog, as well as check in with Elizabet, be able to call 911 in any potential emergency, etc....

That would just require me to submit to the "new donors" program at the Octapharma Plasma place in Gretna, where I could come up with something like $400 in a couple weeks and be able to set off with at least a financial cushion of sorts -so that if disaster were to strike, I might at least be able to make it back home; or if that disaster comes in the form of being thrown in jail by some municipality that views me as just one more indigent panhandler with no means of recourse against a corrupt system that stands to profit by keeping me incarcerated; I would at least have cash enough on me in order to buy stamped envelopes and a pad and pen, to maintain contact with the outside world (and to avoid incurring the lengthened sentence that inmates who never receive a visit or a letter are prone to be punished with...nobody seems to care about this guy, why should we? type of thing...).

I've blogged extensively on matters pertaining to the criminal justice system before (see August, 2011, the time I was arrested in Baton Rouge).

An Unplanned, Forced Rehab 

As I was weighing the pros and cons of making such a journey; I knew that, in addition to there not being much going on here in August the time was also right, in order to take advantage of the weather -October can be too late in the year to go to New England without having to pack an extra jacket.
One thing that I had been taking for granted was the good state of health I was in. I should have added to the "pros" column the fact that I was in good health and had an abundance of energy.

I came down with some kind of respiratory virus exactly a week ago. I have spent the past week alternately laying down on the bed in a 88 degree room, wrapped in a heavy quilt, sweating into it until it became heavy with moisture, then drinking as much spring water as my stomach could hold, while washing down 4 Ibuprofen pills; then repeating the process.

There were a couple times when the fever seemed to have broken; but then came back with a vengeance as night fell.

It was a whole week away from drugs and alcohol, kratom and cigarettes, weed and even food; as I opted to "starve a fever."

The tumultuous dreams and mental static were like kindling thrown onto the fire of the 103.5 fever, and I ultimately and fortunately came through it feeling like a new person.

There were times when I lay there hating just about every thing I could think of. When a movie played in my mind which jumped from one stupid and/or embarrassing scene from my past, to the next.

I kept fighting to breathe deeply and be in the present moment; and I believe it was only the fasting which eventually insulated me from the power of thought; and I was able to avoid breaking down and calling my mom to ask her to wire me money so I could buy Nyquil; or going to the hospital, which would have belied almost every belief I have and been an admission of defeat, in some sense.

I knew that, by continually smoking unfinished cigarettes off the sidewalks of New Orleans, I was potentially exposing myself to any disease from anywhere in the world, but I guess I thought my otherwise healthy lifestyle plus all the n.a.t.u_r_a_l im.m_u_n_i.t.y I had garnered from all those cigarette butts, had made me bullet proof.

I'm OK now, one week later. I just have some loose mucous in my lungs, which hot showers seem to be helping me get rid of; and I'm, once again, thinking about the journey to New England.

And, another issue about said trip as been addressed. It has to do with the question of whether or not I was going to use the liquid encouragement of drinking in order to propel me forward along the way. Would a 50 dollar tip from some well wisher in Savannah wind up funding a bottle of scotch which would have me passed out under some bush as the bus to Athens, that I have a ticket for in my pocket, leaves the station? In that case it would be better if the well wisher just threw the money in a wishing well, instead...

At least as it stands now, after having come through an unplanned, forced week-long rehab, I don't smoke, drink nor do drugs. And that might be "the" way to busk one's way from city to city to see family and friends for the first time in 17 years...

A Time To Move; A Time To Remain

It's Saturday night at 10 p.m., and I'm already back from the Quarter.

I got half way down there then realized I hadn't brought the key to one of my tuning pegs; it had fallen off after the screw worked its way loose and I hadn't tightened down its replacement yet, thinking I would probably just replace the whole thing.

I would have to find some thing in the Quarter to act as a screwdriver. I decided that, since I had also planned to file my nails down more, and had forgotten to do that, I would just ride around a bit looking for free stuff. I suppose I will try to go and get 75 bucks from the plasma place; and hopefully that will be my last visit to the one in East New Orleans.

Not that I expect the one in Gretna to be markedly different; but they will give me the "new donor" bonus of 100 bucks for my first 8 donations or whatever it is. It's just an unpleasant experience at the Bio Mat place on Bullard Road. The black ladies that work there won't speak to a white guy. And that rudeness is enough of a drag to make me stop going there. I can say almost anything in the way of just trying to be civil and comment about the weather or something and the black lady, whose job it is to shove a needle in my vein and hook me up to a machine will not even return a word; as soon as she has finished whatever she has to do in order to hook me up; she will turn and walk off. Then, she will be seen and heard chatting to to black people on the other machines.

I'm thinking of waiting until after I've donated and they unhook me to raise my voice towards a white guy who seems to be the manger: "Say, are you the manager, sir? I guess I just want to say that this is the last donation I'm going to make here, because of rude way in which I'm treated repeatedly when I come here. The people that stick me never say a word to me except 'keep pumping.' If I say hi to them or talk about the weather or something, in a friendly way; they just stare back at me then walk away as soon as they're done with the machine. This is apparently the wrong place for a white guy to donate.."

I have a tentative plan to hit the other place a few times and, as soon as I have a couple hundred bucks in my pocket, to hit the road and busk my way up to New England to visit family and friends. I might stop in Jacksonville, Savannah, Ashville, Charlottesville, and then from there get a Greyhound all the way to Boston, with perhaps a stop in Providence, Rhode Island, because I have an undefined fascination for that city...

I'll get a new battery for my phone and so will be able to post here with photos and stories. I'm also going to get a sleeping bag of some kind, so then I'll only have to worry about food and finding a laundromat to wash the 2 sets of clothes that I'm not wearing type of thing. I'll avoid the homeless shelters, except for taking showers there.

Ignore-Leans, Louisiana (Or Ig-Nawlins) However You Spell It

A Race Cold War Raging

15 years ago, I dubbed the Crescent City: "Ignore-Leans."

I was offended and, in a lot of cases pissed off by being ignored by almost everyone on the street; but especially in the cases where I had tried to say something cheerful and witty; only to see the person I had tried to communicate with, not even turn her head towards me.

I eventually discovered that it's like there is a wall around everyone here; and the first thing you say to someone gets ignored by default. But it also gives them a chance to process what you said, and at that point a lot of people might let down their shield and have a civil conversation.

But that was in 2010. It's now thirteen years later; and there is a cold race war raging.

Now, there is solidarity among blacks in not speaking to white people. The black ladies in their late 20's that work at the plasma place will say the 2 words: "Keep pumping," and will endure no further conversation with me. Meanwhile, they are holding friendly conversations with the other donors, who all happen to be black, if we're noticing such minutia. 

This is also the Land of Misinformation, to the degree that people of a different race than (me, in my experience) will intentionally give erroneous directions and/or information in general in response to casual inquiries about directions or how late a certain business stays open, etc.

"Oh, No; Ain't Nothin' But Swamp For 15 Miles, That Way..."

Back in 2010, after I got off the boxcar that I rode in from Mobile, Alabama, the first person I encountered, a black guy in probably his late 20's actually pointed me in the opposite direction of the French Quarter. I must have come across as quite a stock character, walking up with a guitar and backpack on and asking:"Which way is it to the French Quarter?" And at about 1:45 in the morning. I was 6 miles from my intended destination as it was but, had I started off in the direction that the guy had pointed, I would have been traversing "nothing but swamp for 15 miles," according to the second person I asked, trying to get a second opinion.

This was an elderly black lady, who pointed me the right way, but cautioned me that it would be "about 10 miles."

That 6 mile walk to the Quarter, I could probably retrace the route of, had I a map. Going on to live here, I became familiar with a lot of the areas I walked through in the wee hours of the morning with a guitar and backpack on my back. I had shown up with $1.27, I believe it was, in my pocket. This I spent on a can of malt liquor inside the little convenience store that I found 5 pennies laying in the parking lot of, near the payphones. This was 2010; and they still had payphones....

It is etched in my memory because I would stop at every bus stop kiosk I came to and avail myself of the map, at the ones that had maps, at least. The "You Are Here" feature on the maps provided encouragement to me, who was thinking he had to walk 10 miles. The malt liquor steeled my nerves, but soon I was pretty darned thirsty. But, after walking for, say, 10 minutes from one bus stop to the next, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had progressed maybe a whole inch on the map; and I was able to adjust the mileage figure given to me by the elderly black lady, who was well meaning, just not extremely exacting in her understanding of the geography of the area. This can be forgiven, when weighed against the fact that she had pointed me in the right direction.

I walked through areas that I would become familiar with the names of from the evening news reporting on violent crimes. But, I might have looked like a "bait" guy with a guitar and backpack; a little too easy, something fishy about that -you got a skinny white boy walking right through crack town at 2:30 in the morning; with, it looks like a guitar on his back...neah, that's a setup!- type of thing. Or maybe the grace of God.

Somehow, I had gotten on to Rampart Street and, in relative safety, walked along it until it had branched off and I was right at the Superdome. I had been finding half full water bottles and the occasional Gatorade in the trash cans at the bus stops that I passed; it seemed to be just enough, nothing extra to carry and not too full as to be bloated on Gator-sugar, or whatever. It was probably 90 degrees; as well as being my first exposure to "the humidity."

And, by the same grace; at the Superdome, I saw this scaffold abutting one of the very high walls of the venue. And the scaffold was wrapped in tarps all the way around and there was even a flap that I had to push my way through in order to enter a space that was about the dimensions of the back of a tractor trailer type truck. And it was about 30 degrees cooler than the outside air! The tarps were trapping the super cooled air that was seeping in from under a door at the other end from where the flap was. I'm sure this was something done intentionally by the work crew to keep it cool in the area where they were doing their construction. 

I saw evidence of someone having slept there. But, it was around 3:30 in the morning and whoever it was hadn't come home yet; so I slept like a baby. In the morning, I got my bearings, in a sense, and walked into the Quarter to make my first dollar. When you are living outdoors, for all intents and purposes, and you come across a little tarp building that is 30 degrees cooler and nowhere near as humid; it is a cause to be grateful. I guess I had been somewhat grateful for having made the "10 mile" walk to end up feeling that I had managed to arrive at the French Quarter, with the site of the coliseum just a 5 minute walk to there.

Sue Too Scared To Sleep At The Secret Spot, So I Join Her At Her's

Who knows how rejuvenating a slumber done in air 30 degrees cooler than what an outdoor living person would be walking through the rest of the day wound up being and how much energy I had on reserve because I am sure I reached a deeper level of sleep than a person sleeping in the 88 degree, say, heat. 

The next day, I launched my busking career in the Quarter; and only had enjoyed a few nights of sleeping atop an imaginary snow capped mountain at the construction site before meeting Sue, "the Colombian lady," as referred to in this blog from around 2012.
Sue had shown up wherever I was playing and had played, a pretty rhythmic accompaniment to what I was doing on one of those shakers that are the same size and shape as "large" chicken eggs, and are full of pellets, evocative of the pellets of corn that chickens might eat. I think whomever came up with the idea of encapsulating corn kernels to make a musical shaker; and then probably thought of how their invention had chicken feed inside it, and so why not shape the instrument like an egg?

Sue and I wound up hanging around a bit. She contributed nicely on the egg. At one point Sue put her egg away; after I started playing songs she wasn't familiar with -the mark of a true pro, I thought. She had been trying to psych me up to play more uptempo and egg driven songs; and admittedly, her suggestions were good; but then I was hesitant for the same reason she had put away her egg; being not totally familiar with certain Rolling Stones, Bob Seger and Bad Company songs and wanting to put my egg up, rather than present tattered versions of the songs; or ones done in a rhythm that turns out to be not an egg-friendly groove, type of thing...

Anyways, I'm going to work on some music I recorded using a novel setup involving singing through a mic with the output speaker right by the phone; and everything else being just at room level. The singing mic picks up a little bit of the acoustic guitar, so there's the notes ricocheting around the room, being churned like cream into reverberation.. Plus, some of it was going through the mic and coming out of the amp right in front of the phone....It should be interesting to see what kind of sound I got; so I'm off to hopefully download it off the Bandlab website and start "engineering" it; LOL

The point of this post is that; there is a hostility out there; with a lot of it being African American hatred directed towards, what I'm guessing is straight white older males.

Close to 100% of the greetings I gave to black people at the WalMart, for example, were returned with icy cold stares and very few of them said a word in response. One guy I remember well because he actually looked at me with a normal, relaxed face, but then as if he suddenly recognizing me as being the embodiment of Evil itself, put a scowl on his face. He did that just as I was greeting him with a "How's it going?" or something, based upon his initial facial expression. But, by the time I got to "going," or whatever, I was being stared at malevolently, the dude he was walking with -'nother black guy.- also made some kind of head shaking gesture that seemed to convey disapproval.

Anyways; it is so incredibly bad, as far as there being a cold civil war raging between the black's and white's, at least in East New Orleans in 2023.

It's like, I can't tell a joke to people who happen to be around me, at the check out area at WalMart, or whatever.. I think it was in McDonalds, when I was buying a $1.43 hamburger, mostly so I could break a 20 to get bus fare; There was a crack in one of the dining room windows and I said something like: "That Hamburglar doesn't give up, eh?" to silence and icy stares from East New Orleans.

Could Boost Be Biased?

I blame the phones. The free "government" phones that are given away on sidewalks to qualified individuals. They really are nice phones and, recently, tablets have been in the offing. It really makes me feel that the government cares about my right to have access to the Internet, type of thing. But it came with Google products kind of hard wired into the operating system. And, I can see how some algorithm is shunting people to either one group or another. There, they will see and hear everything they already believe and have it reinforced all day long. And, if they are the type who stares at their screen from sunup to sundown, then their vulnerability level would be off the charts. 

It would take a pretty good hacker -one that can write a little code- to use anything else to run your free phone with unlimited data.

But I'm reminded of 2020 when I went to the little store and one of the cashiers was standing out front angrily puffing away at a cigarette. When I asked her if she had had a troubling experience with a customer and was taking a break to blow off some steam (she was puffing away like a donkey; I don't know why I picture that particular animal but...)

She threw her butt at the ground and then ground it into the asphalt while uttering: "All I know is we need a new president!"

When I tried to ask her why she held that opinion, it was like she absolutely couldn't believe I had to ask her that. "Everything, everywhere; don't you get facebook and Instagram or Youtube?! In other words, have I been living in a cave.

I explained how, because of the way someone with power enough to do so is sowing discord amongst the races using that very device in her hand -"more dangerous than the cigarette in your other.."

She wound up only being able to give "Brexit," in describing one of the sins of Donald Trump; and quoted the comment of "Mexicans are rapists!!" which she attributed to the "Brexit" man.
"I get the total opposite on my phone; they're trying to start a race war or something," was all I could think of saying to the girl who has been staring at a screen every time I have seen her...

And roughly one half of the population is propagandized in a way to make them literally hate the other half. Everyone who gets the free phone can be made to vote a certain way to the degree that that person is gullible and can be hypnotized.

"Who controls the cell towers controls society"   =Me; just now...

My Facebook Proclamation On Smoke Alarms In General

So, right now, taking first place in the category of "blessings in disguise" that have been spawned by the social climate we are now in; I imagine that our smoke detectors have been designated as being racist due to it almost always being a person of color who passes out on vodka and leaves a pan of sausages on the stove... 

Of course if you knocked on doors at random in Sacred Heart Apartments, it would almost always be a person of color come to da doh, you heard me? 

Hopefully, that will remain beside the point and we will no longer be oppressed by a system that is going to send a fireman to your apartment -with the combination of realizing that your whole place is in a cloud of smoke, combined with them beating their ax blades on the door, being enough to traumatize (the firemen enter some apartments and use the same blades to bust out one or more windows; -emergency ventilation measure; in case the occupant was literally down to his last few gasps of oxygen and they would be saving him. (the windows are sealed shut here, to prevent unauthorized entry). 

Of course ushering him quickly out into the fresh air of the hallway would accomplish the same thing; leaving one to wonder if they don't bust the windows out so that the bill for their replacement would be sent out to somewhere which would somehow have emergency ventilation funds on hand, but I digress....

Sunday I, once again just missed the street car that would have given me a chance to get on a #62 bus that would arrive at the plasma place before 3 pm. I realized the error I had made upon getting to where the #62 stops and that I had just missed the 1:40 pm. departure. So, I took a short walk to the Quarter, knowing that the transfer I had, was an "outgoing" one, and that the driver might not let me ride back home on it, and that it was almost 100 degrees out, but having decided to take advantage of being that close to the Quarter; by conducting a scavenge for weed, tobacco and, that was about it; I wasn't looking for any alcoholic drinks; although, as I persist in advertising; one can just walk around the French Quarter getting drunk for free off super strong drinks that people couldn't finish a round number of and so, left the remainder atop a newspaper kiosk, with all the others. A very humane treatment of drinkers less fortunate than thou, if you ask me. So, indigent alcoholics, come one, come all...
Any way, the point of this photo caption is that, as soon as I crossed to the sidewalk made of marble, because it's in front of a hotel, and had just said, half aloud: Maybe I'll have some luck over here, I espied an object that looked like a dead Palmetto bug that had perhaps been crushed under a shoe, but was, in fact, the first of a series of fat cigar sized roaches all along the sidewalks, After making one circuit of the block of Bourbon and Royal Streets that The Unique Grocery sits on, I gathered up the amount of bud seen in the photo atop the book I was going to read while donating plasma...("falling leaves," I'll say!)
The street car guy let me ride, so I returned home, thinking I would at least have weed and Youtube...

 

It used to be, that I would have to be careful when even lighting a piece of paper off the stove to use to light a cigarette (when my lighter is dead, type of thing)...for fear of setting the darned thing off. Now, you can literally fall asleep with the pan of sausage on "5" on the stove; and when the smoke gets thick enough to wake you up; you wake up, utter a mild oath, then get your damned pan off the stove and under some water; and you live and learn, without having to involve the New Orleans Fire Department. 

In my particular case, I would have to personally pay for the windows being busted out, and, so I've been fortunate (and maybe privileged) in that they've never busted any during their 3 or 4 visits to A 110.

In my encounters with them; they have just met me at the door; after having knocked with only fists, whereupon I had filled them in -the visage of an angel in a cloud- about the water steaming out of the rice, and how I got to it before more than a few wisps of smoke had escaped.

I would always direct the conversation towards what a shame it is they have to work so hard because of these ridiculously sensitive smoke alarms; and would propose that, should our alarm go off and we are to avert "burning the whole place down"-like, by getting to the pan before it bursts into a big orange ball of flame and starts the ceiling on fire type of thing -we could notify the security lady up front that, yeah it was my alarm but it's under control, "And then she could call you guy's off and you could keep playing poker at the station, or whatever, instead of coming out here"

I don't know how many of my windows I have saved that way...

Anyways I don't want to walk a half mile in the 105 degree heat to get a lighter, when I've got a stove and now that those devices of systemic oppression have been disentangled from the tentacles of The State and now that, what we burn in the privacy of our own homes, shall be our own darned business's!