Portraying Silly Lad Displaying Frilly Fad At The Lilly Pad Making Hillbilly Mad

 

It's hard to keep pace with the French Quarter these days.

Stuff like avoiding energy sapping foods like Zebra Cakes; getting 8 hours of sleep and having clean clothes; keeping the kitchen clean, taking care of Harold and the usual daily chores, when added to the need to be playing at a high level from say 10:30 in the evening until 2:40 the next morning makes it so I have been waking up and immediately beginning to prepare for the next busking session.

It being Sunday night, I am curious about the Lafitt's sound system that they had been blasting the past couple nights.

It seems like a crass attempt to make more money by using an area of the block which is about 4 times bigger than the inside of the bar, to accommodate additional people who become transfixing by the 90 decibel sound system, that seems to always be playing hip hop music. This has the effect of garnishing "the oldest bar in America" with the latest willy-nilly fads in music; at the expense of the old fashioned piano guy.

Only about 15 or so people can crowd around his piano; but almost 100 people can shake their bodies to the likes of 50 Cent (who is going to appear in Canada as '38 Cent," I've heard) and the latter just moves more over-priced drinks, in plastic cups. So, the place has the aura of 1772 about it, still has the original bricks and everything from back when it was a used as a front for fencing pirated goods out the back door and past what is now Lilly's pool. Sitting in the candle lit place, it is easy to feel like you are back in the 18th century; the mule drawn carts going past, the gas lamps lighting the neighborhood streets. It's just like the 18th century, just with 50 Cent there, rapping away...

So, out with the intimacy of the piano bar with its caricature of Billy Joel at the helm; and the intimacy of me playing by Lilly's stoop, and in with the thumping bass and the mostly white crowd that can become quite unsettling when they start to sing along with Cardi B, and they know every word... 

Solopsistic To A Fault

 I guess it would be hypocritical for me to criticize some others for being solipsistic when I, well...

About a month ago now, I had made some kind of connection.

I had done one of the meditations based upon The Law of Attraction, and basically had enlisted the help of the universe in helping me achieve my goal which at the time, was the conquering of all addictions.

I came out of that particular session of laying on my couch with headphones on, and visualizing myself in a verdant field where there appeared a glowing portal, awash in white light, and had stepped through that door in my imagination, and all that, like you're supposed to do....

I like that particular channel because the young and attractive Asian girl who "guides" you through the meditation never asks you to "like' or subscribe or go to her Patreon or anything...she just thanks you for having meditated with her.

And so, I liked and subscribed...

But, after having finished the 30 minute guided meditation, I came out of it feeling like I had a leg up in conquering my addictions.

Immediately, Jacob texted me about coming over and jamming with J.R., whom I have referred to as "A206" before. That's because of his apartment number, not the way he tunes his guitar. Although his A string has probably been closer to 206 hz, rather than the 220 that would have it in "concert pitch."

Here I was, just 20 minutes after having done the meditation and deep breathing and visualizations to cure me of addictions, and Jacob was texting me about wanting to jam with J.R. in A 206, but his feeling that some weed would be in order, in order to elevate that experience from us jamming with a drunk with an out of tune guitar, to us jamming stoned with a drunk with an out of tune guitar; big difference...

It wasn't lost upon me, the fact that I was already considering smoking weed after having had such a nice meditation, guided by a young Asian lady with an incredible body, and feeling like I had a breastplate of righteousness in place to help me ward off temptation.

Well, Jacob never got back to me that night, after I had texted him back saying that J.R. usually kept some weed at his place and that getting stoned and jamming with him would probably be academic...

After Jacob didn't respond, I kind of felt like I had dodged a bullet and that the powers in the universe that I had invoked in guiding me along the path of sobriety could still work their magic.

So, I sat in my place, drinking juice and doing the Wim Hof breathing exercises and thinking that it might have been a blessing in disguise that Jacob had never gotten back to me; because it seemed rather silly to have formed such a resolve in my heart to live a life free of substances, but to have automatically caved in to "the real world" like a person who leaves a prayer circle where he prayed for strength of some sort, only to fall prey to the old habits as soon as their agents reared their heads...

It turned out that Jacob had gotten in a minor car accident and would not be able to make it to Sacred Heart with whatever weed he might have come in to...

I believe in that sort of thing to point of being an adherent of the "be careful what you pray for" mentality.

I had just told Jacob to come over and that we would probably be able to get stoned and jam out with J.R., and that it might even produce an interesting recording of us playing the music, interspersed with J.R. ejaculating about whatever the Takka Vodka muse had moved him to expound upon.

The guy has the odious habit of telling the same stories repeatedly and of living in the past. All a person would have to do, when J.R. is drunk (meaning after 8 AM most days) would be to mention, say, Alice Cooper, the late 70's pop icon, and that would, I have found, cause the guy to immediately start to sing the praises of Alice, both figuratively and literally as, I have seen him typically launch into unruly, loud and out of tune performances of some of Mr. Cooper's biggest hits.

J.R. doesn't seem to care, or even be aware of, the fact that he might have sang the same songs to me, his face 7 inches from mine, the last time I unwittingly invoke the name of Alice Cooper. Ditto for Eric Clapton or, God forbid you should mention Robin Trower. That latter mention would call forth from J.R. the songs that Trower did which were instrumentals; so, instead of having loud and out of tune words sung, 7 inches from your face, you would get J.R.'s imitation of an electric guitar...

After some time went by without Jacob texting me back, I got the sense that it was all to the good of those that love the Lord, type of thing, but I didn't know about his car crash thing.

But, after watching more guided meditation videos, it was soon 2:30 in the morning, or so, and time to let Harold in.

That was when I discovered the broken body of J.R,. laying at the bottom of the staircase leading to A 206.

He had fallen down the stairs, on his way up them, as it turned out, and had dislocated a shoulder and broken a thumb. So, double down on the reality that there wouldn't be any jamming on guitars at all hours of the night, smoking weed and drinking cheap vodka...

Then, the next day I woke up and one thing led to another and I congratulated myself on having achieved 24 hours sober, although the universe had helped me in that regard by wreaking Jacob's car and tossing J.R. down the stairs. I still rode out on my bike and thought that I would at least ride by the spot where weed was sold. If it was readily available, like if I just happened to pull up when one of the dealers was reaching into a large sack of it and blessing people with deals in great handfuls, then I thought I might get some; despite having done the guided meditations and invoked the universe to aid me.

If it was a bunch of b.s., like I would have to give someone my money and then wait for them to return with the weed, then I would know for sure that the universe was telling me something, and I would probably read the tea leaves and figure out that things were conspiring to help me along on my journey.

As I approached the spot where they sell weed, I saw a familiar grey car, that was driven by an obese black guy who, upon seeing me approach would roll down his window and call to me as I rode past, trying to sell me weed or trying to get me to run to the nearby Banks Meat Market to get him a half pint of cheap vodka. I guess, being so obese, it was a chore for him to even get out of his vehicle and walk into the store to buy the stuff.

I had often done him that favor; kind of proud of the fact that I was white and that he saw in me someone who would buy his vodka for him, not go out the back door of the store with the money, and not want to take a couple gulps off his bottle for the trouble, type of thing. I'm proud of the trustworthiness of my race (even though there seems to be more and more white people who are pieces of crap, these days; a disturbing trend...)

Well, the big guy didn't seem to notice me approaching on my bike this time; in fact, he didn't even move when I rode up. He was dead.

He died in the driver's seat of his car, with his head tilted back and his mouth wide open, as if amazed at the sight of his dome light.

So, no, I wouldn't be buying any weed from him.

"So...no half pint of vodka, I keep the change, today?" I facetiously asked his corpse.

Be careful what you pray for.

I just got in from a Tuesday night when I played from midnight until about an hour after, and made 6 bucks.

"The Quarter is packed," Tim the security guard, who I have noticed has been wrong about just about everything, from the weather "It's gonna be raining all night," to that, said to me on my way out.

I must have seen about 11 people. They say it is because of the vaccine mandates that the mayor has put into place that there is barely a shadow of the crowds that Mardi Gras used to attract here.

That, and the spike in violent crime in the city, where the race of the perpetrators aren't reported in the news; just that it was a couple of young men; color not important...

I Butter Not

• Broken Plate
• Broken String

Unbelievable how many hits on a blog post you can get (181 on the last one) just by mentioning something like "hand grenades" in the title. I guess people are Googling such things these days...

Butter Fingers

I watched a Youtube video about cooking oils in which the guy panned certain oils as being "poison."

These were the exact oils that I had grown to suspect myself as having an intolerance, or outright allergies to, years ago.

What had complicated the matter of using elimination diets in order to determine which foods might have been bothering me was a fact that I have only recently come to fully understand, which is that oils can take up to 10 days to leave the system.

I would stop eating a certain thing for a few days, but then would apparently react to a different substance which I would flag as being a allergen, unaware that it was just the offending oil in the body that was still interacting and becoming a co-allergen.

One example was when I once had a bowl of cereal in milk, and then broke out in hives an hour later after drinking a glass of orange juice.

"Orange juice can cause hives," it is said. So can tomatoes and strawberries and almost any other citrus fruit.

Inventing The Weal

Except orange juice never gave me hives (or weals, as some medical literature referred to them, as in "a crop of weals" -I always hated that term, especially when beset by them) when I drank it on an empty stomach, or especially without having milk in my system.

Another time, after drinking milk and petting a cat, I put lotion on my face, and it was as if the oil in the cat's fir combined with the lotion and sunk into my skin making my face itch as if a thousand mosquitoes had landed on it and were biting away.

Never having been allergic to oranges or cats (I now have an orange cat, for Pete's sake) I theorized that it was the presence of the first allergen, milk, which was combining in some way as a co-allergen to produce the reaction.

"Nonsense, son; you drink all the milk you want!" a dermatologist, whom I was paying something like 80 bucks per hour, told me at the time.

Spaceman Dan

He prescribed me something called Atarax and gave me injections of hydrocortisone, I believe it was called -it was pink and looked like a syringe full of Milk of Magnesia, I recall.

For the areas effected with eczema, my hands and forearms usually, but not unlimited to other places like my face, I was given what looked like a Vaseline based salve and told to apply it to the rash and then wrap the areas in what looked like Saran Wrap, and to sleep that way, so that the skin would become hydrated overnight.

The pink shots made all itching stop, as immediately as a shot of heroin might hit a user of it. "How do you feel now?" the dermatologist would ask, after injecting me, and with a smug grin that kind of implied that he might add: "How expensive does 80 bucks an hour seem now?"

That was his ace in the hole, the pink stuff, along with the antihistamine pills that he warned me, might make me feel drowsy. Everything else, the salve and the plastic wrap, and his advice to take only lukewarm showers, never hot; and to pat myself dry afterwards, never rub, were things that I could have taken upon myself to practice without having to visit the good doctor every 2 weeks, so he could look at my skin and then ask me: "So, are you still taking lukewarm showers and patting yourself dry? Good, keep it up; that will be 80 dollars..."

But, after about the 3rd visit, he was pumping me full of what looked like 3 times the original amount of pink stuff, and the Atarax had indeed made me drowsy to the point that my nickname, given alongside the photo in my 8th grade yearbook was "spaceman." That was kind of a surprise to me, as I didn't really feel like I was a spaceman, probably because I was totally unaware of myself as I daydreamed and stared off into...well, the cosmos.

I continued to take the Atarax and to eat my trays of food alongside my fellow students in the cafeteria every day. It became a ritual; put the tray down in front of you; open the little carton of milk, and then start eating.

Thanks to the power of the human mind, though, I had a breakthrough.

During my sophomore year, I started having bouts of nausea, at random times that epileptics would understand, along with the fear that comes from that randomness. What if I'm up in front of the class giving an oral report, and I suddenly puke? What kind of "oral report" would that be?

There were a few occasions when I had to jump out of my chair in the middle of class and make a beeline for the boy's room, perhaps casting a glance towards a bewildered teacher and pointing to my stomach on the way out; leaving her to wonder: ...if T. S. Eliot has this effect on him; what's going to happen when we get to E. E. Cummings?

But then, as soon as I had gotten to the boy's room, I would feel fine; in fact better than fine, I would feel like I couldn't puke even if I tried to make myself..

"Let The Body Do What The Body Can Do..."-Wim Hof

This went on for a couple weeks, and I was just starting to develop a constant foreboding of when the next time would come when I was sure I was going to cover my desk in puke but then would wind up alone in a bathroom feeling just fine.

Then, it so happened that I was in the cafeteria and had just put my tray down in front of me and was reaching for the carton of milk, when I felt the nausea welling up. I withdrew my hand, preparing, I thought, to make another run for the boy's room. But, when I took my hand away from the carton of milk, the nausea went away. Then, as an experiment, I reached for it again, and I could actually feel the nausea going up my arm and heading for my stomach area.

That was when I discovered that thing about myself and milk. I don't know whether to call it an allergy or an intolerance.

I stopped drinking milk and, within a couple days, all the rashes cleared up.

I even felt like I no longer needed to see a dermatologist and it was during my next visit to mine when I gave him the wonderful news about having discovered what I thought was causing the eczema and the histamine, etc.

That was when, instead of telling me that that was great, uttered the infamous: "Nonsense, son. You drink all the milk you want!" statement, and then went on to tell me that I needed the protein and the calcium and that there was no such thing as someone being allergic to milk.

It took a bit of courage for a 15 year old to go against the opinion of such a learned man; but I continued to eliminate milk from my diet, and never needed to go back to his office for another pink shot.

This led to me discovering how deeply certain beliefs had become entrenched in so many people as I encountered a lot of head shaking and some derisive chuckling from people after telling them I didn't drink milk; and even one guy of about my age who, direly warned me: "I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen; one day you're gonna be walking down the street and the bones in your legs are just going to snap in half!"

Moving forward, I started to become more sensitive to milk; having eliminated the daily half gallon, or whatever, of it that I was having foisted upon my as part of The American Diet, my body became more finely tuned so that the presence of a little bit of the stuff in anything would cause eczema to flare up.

It was befuddling at first, when I would start to have reactions to all kinds of foods that seemed to have no rhyme or reason, until I read the ingredients. I'm allergic to pudding now, wtf?! Oh, yeah pancakes are made with milk, you didn't know that? Same for French Toast and scrambled eggs.

It got the the point where I was mainly just eating oatmeal, rather than foray into the minefield which the grocery store had become. I avoided Restaurants and diners, rather than learn that "We always add a little milk to the oatmeal; to thicken it up, otherwise it's too bland" a few hours after leaving the place, when the glands in my throat started swelling up and the itching started.

I preferred the blandness of plain oatmeal to that just fine.

Some Esoteric Stuff

Then, during my senior year of high school there was a talk given in the auditorium by a chiropractor and nutritionist named Doctor Delisle.

He was roundly perceived to be a quack by just about every one of the hundred or so students who heard him. He denounced The American Diet and pointed out the danger in what most of those present lived on; the kids who ate white powdered doughnuts washed down with Coke a Cola for breakfast and then ate the school lunch before having a bag of Doritos on the way home from school along with another soda, and then maybe went to McDonald's for dinner.

One girl was in tears after he described the damage to fetuses that could occur through a mother's poor dietary decisions. That's kind of how we all found out that that girl was pregnant...

But, Doctor Delisle ended his talk by raising his voice and announcing: "You'd be better off living off nothing but oatmeal!"

So, as all the other kids exited the auditorium shaking their heads, mumbling and saying things like: "He can pry my white powdered doughnuts from my cold dead hands!" I approached the table that he was gathering his papers off of. I was the only one there.

"Hi, I live off nothing but oatmeal," I said.

"Oh, so you're the one," he answered.

Doctor Delisle was into "some really esoteric stuff," as a Catholic priest (who taught at the school I had come from and who liked to fondle teen aged boys) once put it. 

He was a devotee of some Indian based religion and would make a yearly pilgrimage to sit at the feet of the Dali Lama, or whomever it was.

He meditated for a few hours every day and had had some kind of vision during that morning's one. Through it, he had gleaned that, while he would be giving a talk to a hundred or so high school kids, he would be essentially be there to make contact with just one individual. I guess he would know him (me) by the fact that he ate nothing but oatmeal.

And, so began a new chapter in my own spiritual growth as I began to have my bones cracked by a guy who didn't believe they were going to break in half because I didn't drink milk.

That whole saga is mostly written and is slated to post itself automatically at some point which was in the distant future when I wrote it 7 years ago (although, I think I need to reschedule it, because it is set for April of this year: 2022).

But, back to the present.

I saw the video about the different fats, with olive oil and coconut oil being touted as healthy; and all the ones that I have discovered through using my own body as a laboratory to be poison, being designated as just such by "the guy in the video" (a very well credentialed doctor of some kind).

 Those bad oils would be canola, corn, soybean and "vegetable" (soybean, again) etc.

To the 2 healthy oils, he added butter, which kind of surprised me. He made the point that it must come from grass fed cows, otherwise it might be just as bad as the bad ones. The olive and coconut oils must be organic, for the same reason.

I had never gone so far as to try grass fed butter, and so I bought some grass fed Irish Butter at Rouses; it was even on sale.

I made a kettle of popcorn and added some of the butter to it.

I hadn't eaten more than a few kernels of it when Harold appeared at his feeding spot and meowed.

It was then that I grabbed his favorite plate from a shelf, which immediately slipped from my buttery fingers and shattered on the counter.

I should have taken that as a sign, but instead, ate all the popcorn and have been suffering the past 3 days from eczema that reminds me of the old "Nonsense, son; you drink all the milk you want!" days..

I am about to do a guided meditation for "positive energy" I think it is; and then will cautiously and without regard for the outcome, go out and busk from maybe 9:30 until as long as I can go. I will bring a list of songs I know with me and try to put together a 3 hour "set" of music.

I broke a string last night -the first one of the year; and continued to play but quit after just making 8 bucks because the sound of the guitar, after having done a haphazard repair to the broken one was not up to my standards.

I got Harold 2 cans of food and myself 2 shots of Yukon Jack and rode home.

My biggest regrets are the Yukon Jack and the half box of cereal that it made me eat upon getting home. In water, with a little honey added, not milk; that would have been nonsense...

Hand Grenades And Tips Flowing

 

65 and sunny.

I have yet to do the breathing exercises and then sit in the sun for a half hour...

Will have to go to the store to maybe get some kratom, which I haven't had any of in 3 weeks or so.

This will give me a chance to see if the Venmo card automatically has funds put on it when people tip my using that particular app which is starting to replace cash in people's pockets with digital currency on their phones.

At some point, I will print out the scan code thing so people can just aim their phone cameras at the thing.

I don't know how much better I would have done had I remembered to bring one little adapter so I could have used the amp. But it seemed like business as usual with the same types of people doing the same things. Outside of less of them having cash, but rather CashApp or Venmo on their phones..

Hand Grenade drinks, and tips flowing for all...

Teetering On The Brink

 Here And Now

I'm not going to go out. The 47 degrees is a feasible temperature to busk in; but the number of people, seen here from a current webcam shot, has "12 dollar night" written all over it.

In fact, I've been doing this so long, I can already guess that it will be one five dollar bill, and about 7 ones. But, as soon as I think this, I have to amend it to a more positive thought; which would be to think that the guy who sits down and talks to me for 2 hours and then leaves me 2 or 3 hundred bucks, is out there...

I let my practice of Wim Hof breathing exercises and meditation lapse for just one day, yesterday, and I can already feel the disquietude engendered by that. The reason was that I had a full stomach, and I had remembered Wim saying that the best time to do the exercises was first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach. This makes sense in that, the oxygen that floods the brain cells during the "recovery" breaths, would be vied for by the stomach, which is trying to digest food. It's always better to meditate, regardless of circumstances, though; and I would have gotten something out of it.

I have continued to have the happy coincidences and small miracles happen each day. It becomes kind of a chore to wake up with nothing and put myself in a happy and grateful state of mind and tell myself "It's alright, something is waiting just around the corner; something magnificent..."

And, then go out, such as I did Saturday night, when I stopped to see Patrick, to see if he wanted me to make another run to the store for him.

He didn't, but had a bottle of wine that he had somehow acquired and had gone so far as to have screwed the corkscrew into the top of. He told me that I was welcome to it.

And, so, we hung out; I tried to play his guitar, which is strung for a left handed player, with the strings being "upside-down" to any right handed player. We smoked some of his killer weed and I left at about 11 pm, to go to the grocery store before they closed at midnight.

With a whole bottle of wine in me, I barely remembered having gone to the store the next morning and had to reconstruct the trip by looking at the items that I had bought, which brought back some of the memories.

That led me to the realization that these happy coincidences and "miracles" are not necessarily manifested by someone giving you a bottle of wine out of the blue.

If They Would Really Hire Me... 

A decision needs to be made about getting a regular job, and perhaps giving up on the busking. Was I fooling myself into thinking that I was providing a valuable service by playing "peaceful" music out there, to sooth the savage beasts, out there?

Like I was practicing a High Art and, as such, was improving the community; and had the ability to make someone's day. There is enormous power in music and art; to be playing a song that means something to someone is the type of experience that made me think "I wouldn't trade this for anything in the world..."

There was a time in Mobile, when I was sitting in the little glass enclosed cubby hole in a quiet area that I chose to play at for just that reason, although plenty of people asked: "Why don't you go up there by the clubs, that's where all the people are?"

"Well, you're here, aren't you?" I always thought, but never said.

That particular night, I was working on a Luther Vandross or Teddy Pendergrass, or Al Green (I don't know enough about the genre to not confuse them) song called "Here And Now," and a young black couple came along and stopped and started dancing about 12 feet in front of me, as I did my best to stay on beat; while wondering at first if they were mocking my attempt at a smooth R&B love song.

The guy came over with tears in his eyes and put 40 bucks in my hat telling me that that song was the one that had united them, either at some dance or some club (where all the people are). The breaking of the tip into 2 bills (like one from each of them) seemed to convey that they had been equal in their appreciation. A perfect reflection of selfless love..

The fact that my homeless musician looking self was probably the most unlikely source of such a song probably contributed to their sense that there had been some some sort of divine cause and effect involved in me being there doing that very un-homeless musician-like song. I would be expected to be singing about walking in Memphis with my feet ten feet off of Beale Street, right?

I sure remember being able to sing a lot better, back in 2011. 

I think the Wim Hof breathing stuff was just what the doctor ordered to get me back there. 

Part of the problems has been the stifling atmosphere of Sacred Heart Apartments, where the more you pour your heart and soul into a song, the better your chances of being written up for violating the noise ordinance. 

Though, I can hear a mentor of mine from the past saying "That's a cop-out!" Maybe it is. I suppose if I gave everyone a dollar or a cigarette who asked for one around here, those write ups would cease and desist....

The sleeping pills are the cop out.

Doing Both

A sensible person might ask: Why don't you work a regular job during the week, and then maybe go out for one or two nights on the weekends?

That way, I wouldn't be relying upon the busking to pay for itself in the form of batteries for the amp and spotlight, strings and harmonicas, etc. But, if the busking can't pay for that, than the busker isn't doing it right. I'm sure Tanya Huang has taken a pay cut of late, but is probably getting by; at least batteries are probably not a major concern of hers. Those would be more like that a crazy person is going to come along and blame the virus on her because she is Chinese and give her grief over it, or worse.

Cutting down to one or two nights would lead to a situation where I wasn't a constant presence on Lilly's stoop, and other street people would invariably try to claim it as their dealing spot or their skeezing perch...

My thoughts and moods are teetering right now. 

I go from feeling happy and grateful and optimistic, to dwelling upon the fact that Bobby once gave me enough sleeping pills to sleep forever, and they are still in my medicine cabinet... 

Had I seen a street full of people then I probably would have put on an extra sweatshirt and rode down there. At least that would have given me the exercise and fresh air, and I would be playing for potentially enough money to at least replace the batteries that the amp would drain down...

There used to always seem to be a reward of some kind or other for going out to play. So many times I have said to myself: "I'm glad I came out," and it was often on nights such as tonight.

It just takes one person who wants to sit and talk to somebody whom she doesn't have to wonder about the motives of. The guitar and the milk crate are enough of an anchor, so that the person won't have to worry about being followed home, or otherwise coerced into something. She might conclude that, here is not a predator waiting for a victim to come along. Unless it is a predator using a guitar to lure them in, I suppose...

Another Day For Harold

Earlier, I bought a lady a cup of yogurt in exchange for Harold's cat food, at the Winn Dixie, and so I'll let him in soon from the 47 degree night. 

Then, I should probably do a "guided" meditation from off Youtube. In fact I think I should just download a couple of them, so I'm not using so much data by streaming them every time I meditate. I'll have to meditate upon the efficacy of that...

Addiction Personified

Dom knocked on my door in the late afternoon. He was up to his usual trick of offering me a swig of his vodka and Kool Aid, or whatever he drinks. I guess his plan is to get someone to hang out with him all night by meting out little sips of vodka here and there, smoking weed at some point, and then subjecting them to his eventual highly animated, garbled conversation.

He might mention some song or group, possibly along with a story about him having seen them in concert at The Warehouse, a lot of times, and then sing one of their songs, loudly and out of tune, in between pontificating over how great the song is.

A Song From '72

Some of these people are old and incapacitated and no longer play guitar solos for arenas full of people; but people like Dom still sing their 50 year old hit songs, loudly and out of tune, and talk about how great they are/were.

I'm resolving to not rely upon other people, even if it is to offer to pick them up something at the store, in exchange for cat food money. There is just too much going on with empty shelves and having to decide what flavor of something to get, if they are out of the flavor the person wants.

Of course, that's where cell phones can come in handy. But, unlike those whom I recently complained about as being glued to their screens all day, Dom and Patrick typically have phones that are out of minutes, or that are sitting in other rooms while the stereo is playing loudly in the one they're sitting in, singing along loudly and out of tune with a song from '72.

Am Spending Time In The Cabin

It's cold, but not so cold that I couldn't be out there busking, even in just a pair of shorts; if I were to follow the Wim Hof Method and start buying bags of ice every morning, to fill my tub with, adding just enough liquid to cover my body, then submerging myself in it for maybe 44 minutes a day. 

I think I would be out there, busking in this current weather, if I were that far along with the Wim Hof method. There would be money to be made.

There is a certain function that statisticians are familiar with; especially the ones who use statistics to debunk certain theories that are based upon fallacious assumptions, based upon statistics.

In the case of the Wim Hof method; you might think that jumping into a tub of ice every morning is having great and positive effects upon those disciples of Wim's that are all in on the program.

But, the statistician might posit that, the types of people who will submerge themselves in ice baths every morning as an extreme measure to bring about an improvement in their health, are not the average people; they might have something else going for them. In other words, the same will power that drives them into the ice bath may overlap into other areas of their lives; they may have the discipline to stay on a rigid diet and to force themselves outside to jog x miles a day, etc.

So, the Wim Hof Method, which could ostensibly help anyone to boost their immune systems, alkalize their bloodstreams and cure their mental illnesses, winds up not helping everyone, but only those who have the will to do whatever it takes to become healthy. And, it might be argued that those individuals already have a strong mind to begin with.

The scientific way to test Wim's method would be to grab some sickly person who could never bring themselves to get in a tub of ice water on a cold morning when they are already shivering upon waking; and only desirous of a mug of hot chocolate and sitting by a roaring fire to start their day; and to physically grab that individual and throw him or her into the ice water, against their will. They might hate you at first, and would probably avoid you the next morning; but, if they developed a strong immune system; then they would be improving the sample of data used to determine the effectiveness of Wim's program.

The same variable comes into play when considering such a thing as "generous people are generally more happy" than stingy people. The same statisticians might conjecture that the people's generosity is an outcropping of their happiness, and not that the act of being generous is what, in turn, is causing them to be happy. 

I didn't want to rely upon any other person today, so, instead of walking to the store with Dom, where he would be the only person with money, and would be able to use that as leverage, to basically purchase the company of the person who is broke and hanging out with him to a good degree because of wanting to get something off him; I decided to just ride to Patrick's house, where he would have been laid up for two days since I last saw him; and the half gallon of milk and dozen eggs, etc. would be just running out.

This turned out to be a pretty good decision, over the one of hanging out with Dom all night, just in hopes of getting drunk and stoned.

The 34 degree night was kind of a blessing for me, as I didn't have to wonder if I should be out there playing; I was able to sleep like a baby knowing I wasn't missing anything out there; there wasn't a group of tourists wanting to sing "American Pie" in its entirety and then throw a fifty dollar tip; the tourists were all inside, somewhere, just like me; so I was able to do the guided meditations and the breathing exercises and wake up feeling refreshed.

No need to ruin that with Dom's cheap whiskey.

At least Patrick is an interesting person; he has a pet bird as well as a half dozen pet fish in a huge 90 gallon tank. And so, he's interesting.

He seems knowledgeable on a variety of subjects; but has been argumentative in the past, especially when I disagreed on one, and one time had become angry after I had started talking about an idea that I had just thought up for a device that would allow hobbyists to run their little electric powered cars around their plastic tracks in times that would be groundbreaking in the sport.

It basically involved measuring just how fast the little car could go around the corners, without flipping over, and then setting a maximum speed marker on the little joystick device that racers use, so that, when the kids (or grown man like Patrick's) car came to the corners in the track, he could put his joystick into a certain notch which would keep the speed at the maximum possible for negotiating the turn.

Patrick had become angry and accused me of trying to take all the fun out of the great sport of electric Hot Wheel racing, or whatever it was that he was referring to as a hobby that even grown men persist, in as a hobby. Everyone has seen those black plastic tracks with the grooves and the electrical strips.

But, Patrick was showing me a track that he actually has, and telling me that there are serious, competitive races with prize money involved, held at certain times and places, where people race their little electric cars.

It took me only a while to wonder why nobody ever tested the cars to see what their very maximum speeds could be in negotiating the corners and then to set some kind of regulator in the joystick, so a person could use that to win races and prize money.

Patrick had almost kicked me out of the house, that time. Why couldn't I just leave an innocent hobby alone, why try to hack it with a high tech improvement?

Well, because I remember racing those cars as a ten year old and how the thing that took the fun out of racing was that you had to be very careful not to flip your car over when it came to the turns. If you knew exactly where to put the control lever so that your car would go the maximum speed around the turn, without flipping over, then that would be very useful, I was thinking.

Patrick seems more reasonable, these days, if not maybe just a little more sober.

He still claims to have hung out with Jim Morrison, and the bass player from Credence Clearwater Revival, and has several stories involving famous people. He was a roadie, or something, for Sly And The Family Stone; and somehow hung around with Doctor John, and also wound up backstage at Stevie Ray Vaughan shows -said the guy sweat a lot in those silk shirts he always wore, and that he "stunk" after playing his show and coming backstage where Patrick somehow was there to smell him.

Threatening Skies

 

39 Degrees

I am within 7 hours of being able to use the food card; it had run out with 13 days of month left; last month.

We aren't worried about Russian nuclear missiles penetrating the cloud cover and annihilating people, though, just about the inch or two of rain. 

It is a cold front that is causing rain as it hits warmer and more moist air, I'm guessing; plus, the lower temperatures drop the dew point so the air can hold less moisture.

After the cold and rain will come colder air but no rain.

So, basically, I ride to the store either in the current chilly rain; or wait for the rain to stop then ride through glove weather of 24 degrees, perhaps.

Surviving As A Courier

3 Friends, 3 Mishaps Within 3 Days

Over a 3 day stretch, Patrick was pushed over on his bike and cracked his ribs; Dom fell down the stairs, dislocating a shoulder and breaking a thumb, and Jacob got in a minor car accident

Instead of relying upon others, I have gone out to try to play, the past couple nights, finding hardly any tourists on Monda night, and then encountering rain Tuesday night.

Last night, I wound up visiting Dom in A 206, who is still recovering from his fall down the stairs, and who was willing to let me roll cigarettes using his machine and gave me a swig of vodka and then asked me if I would make a run to the grocery store for him, which I did, in exchange for a couple bucks so I could get Harold something to eat.

Then, on my way to the Quarter, I stopped and saw Patrick, who is also laid up with a couple of cracked ribs and so I made a run to the store for him, picking up milk and eggs, cooking oil and a 2 liter bottle of Coke; along with a can of food for Harold.

It's raining pretty hard out there now, and I think I'll go knock on Dom's door to see if he needs me to make another store run after it lets up. 

It is supposed to do so after a cold front blows in that is going to drop the temperatures below 30 degrees at some point during the night.

I just got back from the ENT doctor, who managed to pull wax out of my ears which have been ringing lately. The ringing seems to be subdued already, but I will have to see if it gets even better over the coming days. There were a couple strands of Harold's orange hair stuck to the wax that came out. It's everywhere.

Tonight will be cold enough to stay in and juice a bunch of carrots that I have in the fridge, so that I don't have to drink tap water. In another 31 hours, as I sit here, I will get more food on my card; so things seem to be set up nicely for me to do a lot of Wim Hof breathing stuff; maybe even explore some yoga, and do a "guided" meditation off Youtube- maybe the one about attracting income.

I'm becoming convinced that, were I to try to get a job at Family Dollar (which has a "work today; get paid tonight" poster stuck up in various places in their store) I wouldn't be selling out, or abandoning the life of the starving artist. I find that it helps to go out to busk having not eaten all day or even the last 3 days, but going out there flat broke has no apparent bearing upon the outcome. If anything, I play better, secure in the knowledge that I don't have to make anything; and will still have everything I need.

Having something to sing about is important, but the days of me being able to sing about the life of living under the wharf and surviving "on the streets" is over; and so I don't think I have to worry about my creativity being stifled because I'm putting in a few hours here and there at the Family Dollar. Apartment dwelling life hasn't necessarily been a wellspring of creative ideas, and so, doing the "9 to 5" thing isn't going to hurt me too much.

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?