This will, I guess be the first blog post that I write in my room and will then take on a thumb drive to the computer room.
I went through my 4 gigabytes of monthly data in something like 3 days. This happened through the streaming of videos.
I don’t know what kind of viruses or malware or spyware is on the Android government issued “Obama” phone I have.
I’m pretty sure the program was started, not because "it’s a basic human right to have the ability to call 911 in an emergency," as per the original rationale claimed by the Obama government, but as a way to keep track of people.
More accurate than going door to door to take a census, since about 18% of the population has no door to knock on, unless tent flaps count as doors…
And, they are propaganda tools. The Google search engine is the default, with its bias baked in, and its algorithms that function something like in that movie: Clockwork Orange.
In that movie, subjects were shown a series of video images and their reactions to them monitored. I think the upshot of that was that it could be determined what exactly the subject fears the most out of all their fears; and that somehow played into the plot.
The Google algorithm was doing the same thing.
By 2020 it had become possible for someone to tell some Joe at Google: “Deliver me this election!” and, by golly, notwithstanding any kind of tampering with ballots and harvesting, it came to pass that in about half of the population, an abject hatred of the Trump candidate was fomented.
That turned out to be like taking candy from a baby; shocking how easily beliefs can be manipulated.
Nothing else mattered, as long as everybody was doing the “I hate Trump” dance (and, if you don't, then I hate you too).
Just let the algorithm do its work; there will be people ready to murder those who refuse to take a certain experimental medication that hadn’t been properly subjected to clinical trials, etc…
Now, the Affordable Connectivity Program has ended (but I thought it was a basic human right to have access to 911…?)
Now, I'm in search of some unlimited data plan so I can have the internet in my apartment.
Being still, at this point, an aspiring artist, It's just the cost of doing business in 2025. I’m thinking that a better phone would also be a better video camera, a better sound recorder, and it will not be blacklisted by the same algorithm I’ve been going on about.
Somewhere, some bit is set to a zero instead of a one, which marks me as a person to be suppressed; my ideas should not be allowed to proliferate. Joe doesn’t benefit from me…
And a new phone number would decouple me from every instance where the old number has been flagged with: “anti-vaxer, election denier, climate hoax skeptic.." Suppress his content; limit his visibility, hide him from search results, exile this guy!”
Get a new phone, become a new person, in 2025….
So, where was I?
There were these people (“Mexicans,” we called them) in St. Augustine back around 2009 who rode bikes and seemed to all have day jobs in construction, and were paid in cash. They could be seen breaking one hundred dollar bills at all the convenience stores, to buy typically an 8 pack of Ramen noodles, a 6 pack of Corona beer and an international phone card -never cigarettes or lottery tickets- and maybe something like diapers or laundry soap (although it was usually the females who took care of household items
-clothes for kids, Lysol of course, and laundry supplies -to include fabric softeners, bleaches; dryer sheets; the whole nine yards.)
Karrie, my “Mexican” girlfriend used to wake up a little before the sun came up, and leave our tent for the deep woods.
The sound of breaking sticks off in the distance seemed to put me into a deeper, more relaxing, sleep; secure that I was in the knowledge of having Karrie.
The sleep I got out there was actually pleasurable. Waking up with the sun shining on the tent, seeing the shadows of anoles crawling on it; and with a whole 14 hour day ahead that didn’t have to begin until I was good and rested totally restored.
I would have likewise started the previous day with caffeine, then busked somewhere for the “morning people,” then probably taken a break to move to a different “night” spot, where the first alcoholic drink would be consumed shortly after the sun went down.
I find it hard, now, to believe I felt so well all the time given that I drank stuff like “Hurricane” malt liquor -the kind of flavored “ale” that is boosted up to around the 8% alcohol level by adding grain alcohol.
Rule of thumb: Avoid beverages that are named after disasters, or things that are dangerous.
Colt 45’s, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, the Shlitz bull, and even the "mad dog" of MD40 repute, all too dangerous to drink...
I was also into the high fructose corn syrup type of energy drinks, getting my days off to jittery but productive starts.
How optimistic I was in 2009.
Now, my friend Jacob is in jeopardy of losing his house and his car, and it is hitting him really hard, as if it would be the end of the world, and he’s feeling suicidal.
I’m trying to somehow convey to him that there is a freedom that comes from not having to spend the first 2 and a half hours of each workday paying for a car that is necessary for getting to work.
And not having “broken even” around 6 and a half hours into that same day by having earned rent, utilities and ‘miscellaneous expenses related to owning or renting a house” type expenditures…
The World According To Joe
I think the low key objection to homeless people stems from their not paying in to The System, the one that has been set up by and for “the owners” of the world.
Joe owns a business that employs 500 people.
He also owns a tenement building where they all live and about 30% of what Joe pays them comes back to him in the form of rent payments.
Maybe there is a cafeteria at work where employees can buy their lunch from Joe.
Maybe Joe owns a used car lot, where an employee can get a special deal on a car, so she can get to work and back. She can pay in installments, with an 8% interest rate being charged on the outstanding balance, type of thing. Through the Bank of Joe, of course..
So, given that the police basically work for the Joe’s of the world, it isn’t surprising that often officers who are doing a “sweep” of the homeless, in areas where a bunch of Joe’s are expected to arrive for a homecoming college football game, will cop an attitude (excuse the pun) and say things like: “You don’t pay taxes!” derisively as they bag up the persons possessions for disposal.
“You just sit there and play your guitar, hoping that someone is going to come along and give you money, you disgust me!!”
It’s really because the cop’s boss, Joe, is not benefiting from the arrangement, which means it sets a bad precedent for anyone else who might consider unyoking themselves from Joe’s team.
The cop probably isn’t even cognizant of why this is his attitude.
There are lots of people who are unconsciously doing the bidding of the Joe’s of the world.
As long as the cop goes on duty with the “right” attitude towards “them,” and is helping to preserve the “stigma” attached to all the “get a job!!” homeless people, then he is a useful idiot.
In 2009, it was possible to live like a king as a homeless busker.
Karrie and I were homeless in a pretty posh section of Jacksonville.
The land that we camped on was designated as either “protected wetlands,” or a “bird sanctuary,” depending upon which map you looked at.
The lands were not wet at all, but more like a hardwood forest. And while there were plenty of birds taking sanctuary there (including a grey owl with wings about 4 feet across) this designation was most likely an attempt to keep anyone from bulldozing the hardwoods and building houses there. The people who lived at the end of cul-de-sacs all around the perimeter of the protected wetlands had nothing but privacy behind their houses, in the form of about a mile of woods. About a half mile in the forest was bisected by a lazy river that was about 20 feet wide for most of its length, and this offered more insulation against anyone deciding to hike their way through the woods to see where it might lead. One would want to have hip boots to cross that river that had all the signs of being a water moccasin sanctuary.
It was very much a white part of Jacksonville.
Across the river, there was poverty, mostly white people in trailer parks. You could do pretty well living cheaply in a trailer and, through the magic of a car, be able drive across the 3.7 mile Buckman Bridge to get to where the wages were higher, and it was safer.
People had birdbaths in their front yards that they might have paid a couple hundred buck for, which were still there when the sun came up.
And so, as homeless people, we were able to sleep out of sight, where even the fires we built couldn’t be seen by civilization. The sound of breaking branches at 4:30 a.m. were pretty much inaudible to the public.
But, coming out onto the clean streets to sit at a picnic table in a trash free grassy area, wearing clean clothes and busking was generally deemed a noble profession by most; one worthy of having spare change thrown in support of it.
It seemed that only the business owners of certain ethnic backgrounds were averse to allowing buskers.
An Algerian guy comes to mind as one who told me to move away from the front of his restaurant. My friend Larry was a short order cook for a while at the place and this guy would whistle for him like a dog when he needed him, and Larry wasn’t allowed to sit at the bar alongside this owner and whatever friends he had hanging out with him.
Conversely, a Moroccan lady working at a convenience store, upon seeing a guitar on my back said: “Why don’t you sit out front and play and see if you can make any money!” She had taken the words out of my mouth; I was just getting to: “Would you mind if I sat out there, off to the side, and played for a while?”
I used to make the rounds of businesses, and it eventually boiled down to see who was working the shift somewhere, whether or not it was ok to busk.
I used to bring the Moroccan lady things that I would get from diving in a dumpster behind a certain Walgreen’s.
Things like bottles of expensive shampoos and conditioners that got leaked on by one of the other bottles in a case that might have fallen off the back of a truck. Or large boxes of Russell Stover candies that had “Happy Valentine’s Day” labeled on them, found by the dozen the day after Valentine’s day.
I would be too unassuming to set a price anywhere near what the stuff might be worth to someone. It seemed like half off would be fair, but when dealing with a $30 bottle of shampoo, I couldn’t bring myself to ask of her any more than “just give me 3 bucks,” to which she would usually offer me 20 bucks for the whole lot of it, 5 boxes of Russell Stover chocolates and all. I was happy to be able to give her a great deal in turn for letting me busk.
About 2 and a half Hurricanes into the busking session, I would start to get sloppy in my playing and would get one more Hurricane for the bike ride home, usually with about 25 pounds of food in a box balanced on my handlebars.
This would have come from the Winn Dixie dumpster across the street from this same Kangaroo Store.
Going in the thing with a flashlight, I would discover about $350 worth of meat that was still cool from being taken out of the meat case a few hours before it was to “expire,” bagged up and thrown in. There was always plenty of produce and cheeses (for Karrie) and even egg cartons with one or two out of 18 eggs broken inside. Yes, cooked lobsters in Saran wrapped Styrofoams with prices like $28.43 on them were occasionally to be found.
Every so often a car would drive by the dumpster -there was a pool hall behind the plaza- and every so often, through a rolled down window could be heard someone saying: “Get a job!!” I always wondered if whomever said it was having lobster and fillet mignon burritos that night, too…
Karrie would return with an armful of sticks about an inch thick, for kindling. That would be my cue to come out of the tent and start the fire. Karrie claimed to not know how to start a fire. She had been burned as an infant, by a step parent who had set the trailer on fire, out in Dalton, Georgia. Her whole back, as well as parts of her arms bore the scar tissue from that episode, the upshot of which being that Karrie had become “disabled,” as a result of disfigurement which put her at a disadvantage as far as being employable. “People don’t want to have a waitress bringing them their food who has these ugly scars all up her arm, it grosses them out,” she once said on that matter.
The same parents (who probably intentionally burned her in that way) were able to get some kind of power of attorney over her and she claimed that they had kicked her out of the house, but were still receiving her disability checks every month, as if she lived there under their care, type of thing.
I met a guy in St. Augustine who had said he was from Dalton, Georgia. I told him about my girlfriend from there and, as the conversation turned in whatever direction, mentioned that she had been badly burned, as an infant.
The guy said he knew someone else from there who had suffered the same fate.
So, Karrie didn’t know how to start a fire.
I did, and would have coffee, along with a large kettle of water that she would have fetched from behind a nearby building, heating up.
Karrie took this time to remove the blankets from the tent, then spray its floor down with Lysol, then hang the blankets on a clothes line, and spray them too, as they would then be left to "air" out in the daylight.
The kettle of hot water was used for washing clothes and dishes.
