One Post In Nine Days Unacceptable

A Work-Around For The Problem Of Not Posting Daily
So, here is the work-around:

As Harold is suggesting to me in the picture to the right, I should post daily  some little update, while continuing to work on and "save as draft" the longer stories which I keep wanting to add a little more to each passing day, and which take at least 9 days, in some cases, for me to publish...

To Be Continued?

There is always the "to be continued..." option, but, because blogger puts the most recent post at the top then, someone visiting the page might suffer from "thrownness" (which is a philosophical term that I learned in 1985, from a Philosophy major, who told me it is: "A belief that you came from nowhere and are going nowhere," i.e. you were just thrown into a universe that is not self-explanatory)

Frank Zappa might believe in thrownness, because he has a song that has the lyrics: "I come from nowhere; I'm going nowhere..."

Of course, I could start a post with: "Continued from last post..."

So, this is my daily post from the Wednesday that is today,

It is about the be the last day of April, 2020.

Notable about this date: 4 more days until food stamp card gets $194 put on it -balance of about 4 dollars on current month, but am on an apple juice fast, and think I have enough (see photo above) to get by.

1 more day before Bobby in building C gets his economic stimulus check, which he told me will be something like $2,800, I guess because he is getting social security, plus disability, and perhaps the fact that he used to make a lot of money climbing high towers to install cell phone equipment, when he worked.

14 more days before I might get my own economic stimulus check, after I visitied the irs.gov website and applied for one under the "non-filers" status.

This is for people who didn't file a tax return the past two years, and it could be because of having had no income. As far as their computer is concerned, I had no income and thus, didn't file.

This might be of interest to Craig N., blog reader* who is a busker who was in the same boat as me a while back in thinking that we were the ones who were going to be left to our own devices and would have to busk our way back to solvency, rather than get help from our rich uncle Donald...

*@Craig: I had a fear that you saw the "Virus Song" video (which, after watching myself a few days after doing, I found to be cringe-worthy to the max) and decided to stop "following" me...I didn't realize how much this guy truly sucks, type of thing. I hope this is not the case (that I truly suck, LOL) and that you are alright; and that you and I both get a check...

Stimulus Wish List (and other things difficult to repeat 3 times rapidly)

I have started a "wish list" for if/when I get the stimulus, and have added one of those "Guitar Hero" type video games to the list. A friend of mine had one that was attached to his TV and his gaming console thing (of which I know nothing about) and after messing with the thing for about a half hour, I noticed an improvement in my guitar playing later on that same night; and I have since wanted to get one of those things.

His was called Guitar (something) and attached to his electric guitar. One of the cool things was that, when you hit a correct note it would display in green, with red being for off notes, but there were a plethora of hues between green and red which showed when you were bending a note into (hopefully) pitch.

Item #2: A better home stereo speaker system -one that I don't have to mangle the wires around the jack to, in order to get sound to come out of both speakers.

Item #3: Perhaps my first really expensive harmonica, like one of the Susuki models that can be at least 100 bucks.

-New blade for my juicer
-Power adapters for the 2 "extra" laptops that I have been keeping the past year, so I can fire them up, load Linux on them and then maybe dedicate one to writing, one to music (by loading the Ubuntu Studio version of Linux, which is optimized for music production -there's that "latency" word, again-
-etc...

Kratomic Bomb

So, Jacob and I were in a little convenience store that sits within a quarter mile of his house.
I noticed that they had packets of kratom for sale, in the same kind of glass case that is used to keep stuff like pot pipes, erection pills, CBD oils and other valuables.

The store down the street from me has a similar case, but the kratom in it works out to being roughly twice the cost of sending away (and waiting 3 business days) for.

They had the same kind of deal in one packet that contained 30 grams for $19.99.

But then, they had one which was $29.99 for 3 ounces (84 grams) -a better deal, but not as good as an identical package sitting next to it, which was marked $24.99 -two different prices for the same product.

And then, there was a "it must be mis-labeled" packet of 8 ounces (a half pound!!) of Maeng Da kratom for $29.99.

The last one works out to being 4 dollars per ounce -less than half of the cost of an ounce that you would have to wait 3 (business) days for through AuthenticKrarom.com.

My mom had just sent me 60 dollars, and it was a bitter pill to swallow; the idea of spending half of it right off the top...

But then, I thought to myself that I was going to be getting kratom one way or another over in the future, at 9 bucks per ounce; so why not grab some at 4 bucks per ounce?

It was almost God's way of insuring that I would have kratom; which keeps me away from alcohol or other things, like gabapentin; instead of other things, like alcohol.

I still have money for Harold's food, I thought. And I am on a juice fast, upon which I only spend money on a gallon of spring water a day, and so I went ahead and bought the half pound of Maeng Da kratom and; look at me go, I've already written all of this, and the day is only an hour old (it is 10:27 PM).

I feel that I have very little to lose, by fasting, anyways...

Home Brewing During Lockdown

It's a must!

Since all of this lock down (nonsense) has made me hearken back to the times I have been locked up in jail, being surrounded by books and coffee, and all the free time in the world, I suppose it follows that I would eventually take up the hobby of home brewing (apple) wine.

I have a ton of apples.

When I was locked up in Jacksonville, Florida, I was getting drunk every night off of "wine" that I made by pouring the orange juice that we got on our breakfast trays every morning (in addition to the cartons of it that I could acquire from other inmates by bartering, say, the green eggs that frequently came on the same tray, for 2 cartons of, giving me 16 ounces of juice, in exchange for eggs that had never seen a chicken in their lives).

I would wash off the apples that we also got all the time, then cut them up using the plastic knives that we were given -knives just barely suitable for that task, but not applicable to the infliction of a lethal wound to anybody- and shove them through the bung hole of the bottle, along with whatever raisins I had, and the crust off a slice of bread (to add yeast).

I can remember once selling my cheeseburger (on a Thursday -cheeseburger day) for, I think it was 9 apples, to an ambitious detainee who apparently loved cheeseburgers -even jail ones- enough to go around begging all 60 or so guys for their apples.

Once again, I learned that there are people in this world who probably consume no fruits or vegetables at all, in their diets. I was able to buy these items rather cheaply at meal time (or just ask somebody for theirs as they were on their way to dump them in the garbage pail).

Once, and only once, during a 4 month incarceration, a single prune made its appearance on everybody's tray, occupying the partition usually reserved for pudding (hydrogenated soybean oil laden pudding -"Yuck; I'll trade you mine for your orange juice in the morning" type pudding- and I believe I was blessed with almost every other guy's prune that day, a total of almost 60, all for free.
Once the other inmates saw me getting the prune of one guy, a chorus of "You can have mine too" erupted, and I soon needed both hands to steady my tray; such was the heap of prunes on it. They worked wonders on my digestive tract.

The raisins, by the way, only came affixed to the top of a certain "creme filled cookie," and I got those by walking around and spotting them on the trays of inmates who had actually removed them, before eating their cookies; why spoil a "creme filled cookie" by eating something that might actually be healthy along with it? was, I guess the rationale.

Once the ingredients were in the bottle, the lid was screwed in place, so as to not let any oxygen into the bottle, since it is an anaerobic environment in which the desirable yeast ferments.

Then, within 48 hours the bottle would begin to visibly bulge and bubbles could be seen rising upwards through the liquid.

This pressure needed to be alleviated regularly with a few turns of the cap, which allowed it to escape, as it emitted a sound like the air being let out of a tire. They would hiss for up to 20 seconds if you had not done it in a while (more than 3 hours).
If you forget to do this, you will be reminded when the flanges around the bottom of 20 ounce soda bottles (designed to create the optical illusion that there is more soda in the bottle than there actually is) would pop outward, so that the bottle would become cylinder shaped instead. That's when letting the gas out would take up to around 30 seconds, it seemed.

After this fermentation process died down (on about days 5 through 7, when only a short hiss would be emitted after unscrewing the cap enough, the wine would probably be at about 3% alcohol, and ready to drink, if you didn't mind the heavy flavor of yeast.

After 14 days, enough of the yeast would have basically died from being poisoned by the waste product of their indulgence in the sugar, namely, an alcohol level high enough to kill them.

They would have fallen to the bottom of the bottle as sediment, sort of like a coral reef, I always thought.

I also always thought about the human race eventually making our whole planet uninhabitable because of the poison of our own waste products, but I digress...

This 14 day process yielded a wine that was not bad at all, especially when paired with a couple ice cubes in a cup. It just had to be poured gingerly, sacrificing the ounce or so at the bottom, so that none of the sediment would be drawn out of the bottle along with the wine.

I was also in a position to order, through the commissary, white cotton socks, to use as strainers, turning them into yellowish cotton sock, but turning out a wine that was noticeably better than that of anyone who had no money in their account. and couldn't biu socks, nor the 20 ounce bottles of Fanta orange soda. It takes money to make money, as they say.

I could have starting selling the wine back to other inmates for more cheeseburgers than I paid for the apples and orange juice; become a real tycoon; but I drank it.

I was in there as a material witness for the state of Florida in a murder trial.

This was through the machinations of a guy from the state's attorney general's office named George Beteh.
I was told somewhere along the way that George was the number 3 prosecutor for the entire state of Florida, and that his specialty was murder trials, and that he had sent more convicts to the electric chair in Starke, Florida^ than any other prosecutor. He had been hand picked by the state's attorney general to handle this particular case, and it would be a moment for him to shine, with all eyes upon him, so high was the profile of the case, which involved the fatal shooting of an unarmed and innocent man, who left behind a wife and 5 year old daughter. The families picture had been blown up and put on the front page of the local newspaper, along with a plea for anyone with information to come forward.
It was only another day or so before they arrested a guy I knew named Bobby Quesnel.


So, just because the number 3 prosecutor in the state was bucking to be number 2, and my testimony was important to his case, as damning evidence against Bobby, as that was the name of my acquaintance,* and because I was a homeless guy who lived in the woods in covert, underground "houses" that I fashioned using pickax and shovel and lumber, implanting grave doubts in his mind about his ability to find me come trial time, he finagled a way to incarcerate me in the Duval County Jail.
123 days of my life were spent there, just so George could just ring for me, when he needed my testimony.

Given those circumstances, I was confined to the nicest part of the jail.
A lot of the other guy's were being held as witnesses against "bigger fish" and thus were shielded against possible retribution by them by being put in the pod where I was.

A lot of them were "officially" being held for trial pursuant to warrants that the state was able to dig out of its ass, or rather its morass of paperwork...a fine from 10 years prior that had never been paid, was a fine reason for picking someone up whom they didn't want to have to go searching for. Some of the charges were laughable.

One guy, who had shown himself to be unreliable about staying in contact with the states attorney (in between , was arrested while walking down the street, shortly after he was subpoenaed to testify in some important trial, for being a peeping tom voyeurism?) and was scheduled to appear on that charge shortly after the big trial was to be.

It kind of makes you think twice about coming forth as a witness, despite the Crimestoppers reward.

Another category were those who were wealthy enough to be able to actually hire a lawyer to sue the jail over something, rather than to just threaten it, like so many inmates, who didn't get a pillow, or who requested to see the nurse then had to wait 3 or 4 days to be allowed to do so.
Or for having listed "soy" as an allergen on their intake form, but then being served the pudding, anyways.

There was a guy (named Donald Black, originally from Moose, Wyoming, population 80, FYI) who was a wealthy corporate CEO or something, and lived in a big house in the same gated community where Jacksonville Jaguar players lived, who adopted a little girl from, I forget what country, whom he then then attempted to make his wife.
There was some fraud involved, such as his having paid a lady to marry him, so as to simplify the adoption process.
He was in my pod.

So, such is the zoning of the Duval County Jail. If the sixth floor (referred to as: "The Planet of the Apes" among Caucasians who are out of earshot of African Americans) was the south side of Chicago (the baddest part of town) then, I was living in Park City, Utah (where the water is pure and the Osmonds hail from) or something.

"So, you were in the suburbs, then..."

What gets me is that, the entire system has to be in on the shenanigans.

Didn't it strike the F.B.I. agent who peacefully arrested me in Federal Way, Washington as odd that he was to pick me up on a charge of writing a worthless check on the opposite side of the continent.

What did the two(!) agents think, who had flown all the way across the country (at an expense to the state of $943 for each of their tickets each way, plus $943 for me on the return trip [I was able to glance at the price on them, when they produced them for the boarding stewardess] plus the cost of our meals, which one of them swiped a plastic card with the Florida "flamingo" logo on it to pay for, in addition to their having to have been lodged overnight, after the 8 hour flight the day before) after becoming curious over what the big deal was about me, and looking at my paperwork to learn that about 5 grand was being spent to bring me to justice on a charge of writing a worthless check for $967.00?

The agents informed me that they were not allowed to talk to me about "anything about that," after I had tried to assure them that I wasn't going to try to bolt on them, and that they didn't have to handcuff me for the whole flight to Jacksonville.

The two guys who had accosted me at the BP station where I worked (which was about .4 miles from where I had fashioned myself a beautiful, but invisible, home in the woods) had both been in sport coats and ties.

One of them, a stocky white man, showed me a badge, told me to toss the cigarette I was smoking and to go with the second guy, a large black man, who merely walked alongside me to the Crown Victoria he had pulled up in, and then opened the front door and gestured me into the passenger seat (not the cage in back) where I sat without being handcuffed, as he drove us to the Kings County Jail, where I was placed in an open dormitory which was like a lounge with a TV and a coffee table laden with magazines. There was a bookshelf full of books and about a half dozen bunk beds, where the half dozen of us that were there were each able to get a bottom bunk.

In the morning another two F.B.I. guys arrived to bring me to the airport for an 8 hour flight to Jacksonville which I did have to endure being handcuffed for.

They were also, apparently, forbidden to discuss anything about my being a witness in any murder trial, or anything. What murder trial? We're here concerning a worthless check!


The original "offer" made by George Beteh over a long distance payphone connection from downtown Jacksonville, to Federal Way, Washington, was for me to be able to go to the airport on my own, where a ticket would be waiting with my name on it, and then I would be flown to The River City, where I would check into a hotel, all expenses paid, and be given a per diem, as I whiled away the weeks leading up to the trial, living like a tourist.
Like a reward for my testimony. Who knows how large the per diem would be, coming from a state that seemed to consider 5 grand chump change...

The agents who had picked me up at the BP station might have been under the assumption that I would willingly surrender myself and acquiesce to being brought back to Florida, and in fact I would probably try to break free of any handcuffs that were restraining me from being able to take advantage of such a deal. They may have even given me a rental car, so I could scoot around, visiting friends.


Little did I know that the trial wouldn't go off until the middle of July (I was picked up in Federal Way on October 27th of the previous year). The trial would be "pushed back" several times, because of them losing track of witnesses, ironically. 


But, the problem with the proposed arrangement was that I no longer had any "Daniel" ID on me. I had been living and working under a different alias, and had acquired "valid" Washington State ID to go with it. That's kind of why I wasn't worried about the worthless check warrant. I had a clean slate, with no credit history, no criminal record, and the world was embracing me. Jobs were easy to get and life was easy.

I could have just continued working, and living in the woods, never to re-emerge as Daniel, but the federal marshals had taken to harassing my parents in Massachusetts, showing up at their door and giving them only the vague information that I was being sought "in connection with a murder in Florida," which, my father took to mean that I had obviously killed someone, otherwise, why would the federal marshals be at the door?
They said that they could subpoena their mail deliveries so as to possibly intercept any letter that I might have send, to use the postmark to zero in on me.
And, I think they even said that (if they wanted to) they could enter their house and start tearing it apart, right then and there, looking for clues to my whereabouts.
And, if we find out you're lying...
And the fact is that, they had their murdered in custody, Beteh just wanted my little bit of testimony to prove that it was premeditated (Bobby had been talking to me and Beth about taking his gun and "going out and doing what I have to do," a coupe weeks before he actually went out and robbed a Dominos Pizza place, shooting and killing a guy in the process.

Then, after Beth repeated the conversation to them (she had already written him off and was already looking for the next guy who would be willing to rob and kill just to keep her in jewelry) Beteh needed to find me so I could corroborate it; otherwise it was just hearsay.

And this was just so he could push for the death penalty.

And that was important enough to him to justify scaring the hell out of an elderly couple, and having them living with the dreadful thought that their son may have killed someone, and that there was a nationwide manhunt underway for him.
 
I swear some of these "justice" people live in their own realities. Them and their "by any means necessary attitudes.

So, I got in touch with Beteh, and he asked me if I had ID and if I could get to the Seatac Airport in the following days.

I couldn't think of how I could ask him to put the ticket in a different name without arousing suspicion..."Oh, that's just an alternative identity that I use some time, not to worry, George"...so I was kind of in a pickle.

And, little did I know that, given the circumstance of my having left Jacksonville, then began a new life with a different identity, the defense attorney was going to pounce on the opportunity to try to get Bobby off by accusing me of being the perpetrator of the crime, weaving an intricate plot in which I was trying to frame Bobby to get him out of the way, because I was in love with Beth.

Heck, just the fact that I left Jacksonville shortly after the murder, and was found living in the woods at the total opposite end of the continent and that I had dyed my hair a different color, might have been enough for some fickle Grand Jury to indict me.

There were actually several other rather bizarre coincidences that could be woven into a story that made it seem plausible that I was the real killer.

The trial kept getting pushed back, and eventually they couldn't hold me any longer by law, on a charge such as a worthless check. There are some "speedy trial" kind of laws on the books.

So, they wound up letting me out of jail, right before that limit was reached; most likely, because they had to; although Beteh framed it as if he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart: "I can't, in good conscious, just keep you in here indefinitely while they keep pushing the trial date back..."

"Good conscious?!? You send people to the electric chair, you godless, ruthlessly and ambitious Indian bastard!"

How many times have you been so stellar in your performance, so good in the courtroom that you were able to send an innocent man to be fried by 10,000 volts?

Do you have a nickname for that?

Do you go home and kiss your wife and say: "I pulled the rabbit out of the hat again, today, dear?
And then kiss your kids and say: Daddy loves you so much, and he's going to send you both to Ivy League law schools?"


George hadn't shown any kindness in his heart after he figured out a way to lock me up and save the state the expense of the hotel and the per diem and the rental car, and the freedom, had he?

They let me out in late February of 2000, but somehow (they are all in it together) arranged it so that I would be on probation, with the stipulations that I wouldn't leave the area, or I would be violated and put back in jail, and that I had to call in every Thursday morning to George's secretary to "report in" that I was still alive and able to testify.

The next Thursday at 9:00 Am, I called in, as instructed. His secretary was pretty brief: "So, you're alright? Good. I'll be expecting to hear from you next week, bye."

The next week, I did call in. From Federal Way, Washington.

I wanted to go back to my house in the woods to get my backpack, because I had some good weed in it, plus I had a good bottle of white wine that I had been looking forward to drinking after I got off work on the morning of October 28th, about 4 months prior.

"Hello, how are you doing?" asked his secretary.

"Pretty good."

"Are you still staying at the same place, with your girlfriend?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Then there was a slight pause on her end.

"Where are are you calling from, because the line sounds a little weird."

"Oh, I'm at the beach..."

This wasn't really a lie because I was indeed at the beach, I was just looking out at the Pacific, and not the Atlantic ocean.

"Oh, Alright, be sure to call in next week, same time...bye."

It is quite plausible that a call coming in to her downtown office from Jacksonville Beach would sound just as "weird" as one coming from 3,500 miles away. There is just something scratchy and static filled about Jacksonville beach phone lines, maybe because of all the hurricane damage and the salt water getting into the relays, or something.

So I was able to get my backpack with the weed still in it, my Mark Palermo ID still in it (I guess the feds either never searched it, or were only concerned with dragging me back to Jacksonville) and was able to get my last couple paychecks from the BP to go with a third one that was in my house in the woods.

I went to Trader Joe's and bought some fish, and had one last fish-grilling over the fire, along with the bottle of white wine, which was still where I had put it in my house -the wisdom of making your house invisible from every angle...

I have a feeling that certain people might have freaked out had it come to light how much money was spent, how many corners were cut and by what means I was brought back to Florida; which extradition laws were skirted, who it was that Beteh called for which favor, and perhaps which articles of jurisprudence were breached behind Beteh's gung ho efforts to get the witness he wanted on the stand.


The point I'm trying to make is that, when I was in jail, I brewed a lot of wine.
The guards never shook down our block looking for contraband, probably as a reward for us testifying for the state. 

*He was the thug boyfriend of a girl whose family I knew well, and even stayed with for almost a year after I moved to Florida.
I met the guy, and found him to be of slight figure, weighing probably 130 pounds, half Hispanic and half white -looking sort of like M&M, the rapper, if you shrunk M&M down a size or two, by putting him in a dryer, or whatever.
I think Bobby used the whole thug image thing as a defense, given that he was not a very physically imposing fellow.
I call that The Bulldog Persona.
In Bobby's case, he looked like the stereotypical "skinny little spic that is very fast with a knife, which he will brandish in a heartbeat," type of guy. Not to stereotype, though...

^Starke, was notable, besides being the home of "Old Sparkey" as being a notorious speed trap, where you had better have a speedometer in your car which has been finely calibrated, before you drive that stretch of Rt. 301, so that it won't be reading 45 miles per hour exactly, when you are really doing 45.015 miles per hour, otherwise, you will get slammed with a ticket and hit with a hefty fine. I guess that little burg has to pay its electric bill somehow...

I Am Attacked With A Broomstick By "Dennis Rodman"

I Am Assaulted By A Stick Wielding Man
When I went out to play on the corner of Canal Street, and Jefferson Davis Parkway on Tuesday, I made 2 one dollar bills and a breakfast bar, the latter, handed to me by a lady who said that she wished she had cash, and that she was glad to see that I was playing music. She stopped short of adding: "...instead of just holding a sign."

I had gotten there at around 6:15 PM, which gave me about an hour of daylight.
Just before the curtain came down on the daylight, I looked down the sidewalk to see a man wearing a bandana over his face and swinging a stick the size of a broom stick to and fro, in a manner similar to the guy in the movie Indiana Jones (I think) who was performing a war dance to include swinging a machete threateningly and advancing towards the protagonist before being dispatchd by the latter by a high caliber slug, delivered from a large pistol that the protagonist was carrying.

This guy had a bead on me, as I stood there, playing the guitar and harmonica for any motorist who cared to turn down their stereo and roll down their window, as they waiting for the light to change.

He swung his broom stick and walked right up to me and then uttered the confusing phrase: "Do you know how many trans men die each year; and do you know how many Bob Dylan imitators there are?"

 
He had put the end of his stick in my tip basket and flicked it a few feet from where it stood, containing only a fake five dollar bill, and was knocking my bike over while he said this.
He then turned the stick on my guitar and managed to whack it once on the neck and to hit my knuckles, as I blocked another attempt at hitting it.

As soon as I opened my mouth to say whatever a person say's to respond to such a query, he held his hand out and said: "No!" and then walked off.
This had all taken place near a pretty large tree, the trunk of which was occluding the vision of a cop in a van parked across the street, which I didn't notice until after I started packing up, since it had started to get dark and I had started to re-tune my guitar, before thinking: screw it, it's getting dark and I have made enough for a can of cat food and a couple cigars.

As soon as I rode off the cop followed suit, leading me to wonder if he was looking out for me. That is possible if it was one of the cops who is a "friend" of mine, from seeing me in the Quarter the past 9 years.

The Big Tree That I Played Next To; Site of Attack

And, so, that was Tuesday.

Wednesday, I called my mom, who told me that she had sent money that should probably arrive the next day. This helped me to get over the guy with the stick, who had a face very similar to Dennis Rodman (who probably single-handedly blew the Detroit Pistons chance of beating the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1988 NBA Championship game 7 by making a boneheaded decision as time was expiring on the game; but that is water under the bridge.

Thursday, the money came, and I was riding down to the Brown Derby store when I saw the guy, sitting on a porch with a couple other guys, minus the bandana, but still looking like Dennis Rodman.

We made eye contact as I rode past on the sidewalk.

I decided to stop and pull out my phone, as if I was texting my friends to come and beat him up or something, when I heard him say to someone else: "Let him call the police..."

This just about confirmed that he was the guy.

Did he want to identify himself thus, or is it such a habit in black people to talk so loudly that anyone within 100 feet is privy to their conversation?

I don't know; but I know I will probably see him again, and that he is the one who has to stress out over whether or not I am the type to seek revenge.

He was making it a point to only disturb my possessions, and was only trying to hit my guitar when I blocked the blow with my knuckles; so it would be escalating the situation to attack his person in any way.

"Do you know how many trans men die each year?!?"

I figured that what happened was due to the fact that he had probably just walked by "Bongo," who is a cross dresser and who has recently been evicted from Sacred Heart for having fallen way behind on his rent. He had been getting his monthly benefit checks, but had been applying them towards things other than rent. He put himself in the situation he is in, in other words.

He decided to set up camp on the steps of the church right by Sacred Heart, as if petitioning to get back in, or hoping someone is going to come along and rescue him; probably another cross dressing weirdo, wanting to rescue one of his own.

So, the guy might have become infuriated over the fact that I still have resident status at the apartments, while a perfectly good trans sexual cross dresser type has been booted out. That is the closest thing to sense that I can make out of his actions.
Unlimited Potential
But, I was in a good mood because my neighbor Wayne has once again allowed me access to his unlimited broadband data connection. He had shut it off on my about 6 months ago after I had tried to surf the dark web using the Tor browser, which caused some kind of glitch on his network which he apparently was suspicious of, and I was suddenly unable to connect to his wi-fi, no explanation or mentioning at all of it from him.

After I asked him if he had disconnected it, he became evasive and I just went away assuming that he had barred me from it.

Now, I have unlimited Internet access and can while away the hours of being locked down because of the virus

A Gargantuan Effort

I Don't Want To Spoil The Bunch

And so, after I woke up at 11:41 PM, threw on a shirt and went over to the school across the street to find that the "community food bank" people had left early (again), I walked back to Sacred Heart, past a few people who could have easily informed me that the food people were gone, as they saw me headed that way, holding a canvas "food" bag, and went inside.

Once inside I saw about a dozen apples on the table, which had been left by residents. I can understand why they are included with the meals.

The idea being that "an apple a day will keep the doctor away," -despite the container of sugary cereal?

They, the apples, are also placed in the Styrofoam containers alongside the gumbo or beans and rice where they each fight it out over the inside temperature, with the refrigerated apples being warmed by the "hot" food and vice-versa. Mediocrity is the end result.

Would You Like An Apple Pie With That?

This would be like McDonald's putting cold milkshakes in the same bags with the hamburger and fries and the apple pie that they had up-sold you.

Also, the apples are hard to chew, and probably about 75% of the Sacred Heart residents wear dentures (or are waiting for their last few teeth to fall out so they can start to wear them) so "an apple a day, so the dentist can stay" might also apply.

I am probably the only resident here who owns a juicer.

I was able to ascertain that Monday's hot meal choices were, yet again, gumbo in one container, and red beans and rice in the other.

Saving My Skin

I figured that there was about 20 cents worth of rice, another 20 cents worth of beans, maybe 20 cents worth of green beans, or broccoli (one crown, and the rest stalks) and that it wasn't worth it to me to capitalize upon this free item, at the expense of ingesting the partially hydrogenated soybean oil that is almost certainly an ingredient because, why ruin a perfectly cheap meal by preparing it with an expensive oil like olive or avocado?

Hydrogenated soybean oil makes my scalp start itching within hours, along with swelling the glands in my neck and giving me a headache, usually on just one side, accompanied by a stiff neck, on that same side. It causes my face to itch, probably because the swollen glands put pressure on the nerves running from the neck to it, so that my own hair irritates me whenever it brushes against the skin when the wind blows it, or something.

Then, if I scratch it (something that I have found it impossible not to do) it becomes inflamed and dries out, becoming flaky and giving me dandruff on the scalp and what could best be described as dandruff of the face; around the bridge and sides of the nose and under my eyebrows. This can take up to 2 weeks to completely go away. All that, for an 87 cent meal.

The apple is probably the most valuable single item included, based upon a $1.49/lb. price that Red Delicious or "Gala" apples are typically sold at.

So, I felt like I had dodged a bullet by not having gotten there early enough to snag a container of gumbo, because I was just hungry enough that I might have eaten some. I had planned upon giving that to my friend Bobby, in building C, though.

Instead, I took the dozen or so apples off the table, and went back to my room, where I deposited them in my kitchen along with the rest that I have accumulated, after juicing a half dozen of them, adding a couple raw carrots and a pinch of Himalayan pink salt to the mix.

No doctor within 10 miles...

Then, it was off to Rouses Market, pursuant to the application that I have completed online.

I didn't see anyone who looked like the store manager.

There was a guy behind the customer service area in the glassed-in enclosure where all the cash goes, who was wearing a red shirt, but there were also other red shirts in other areas of the store. I was looking for someone wearing business attire, adorned by a gold enamored tag over the breast pocket with his or her name on it.

I decided against asking any of the black employees that I saw, if the store manager was present. I was just stressed out enough that, if that employee had just stared at me without even answering (a common response from their ilk) I might have jeopardized my chance of being hired by asking: "Are you deaf, or just stupid?"

As I have mentioned in this blog before, the African Americans seem to feel that their jobs don't entail them speaking to white people at all, other than to maybe say: "Next in line!," or to bark the total price of their purchase at them.

A Creole Wouldn't Lie

There was an affable looking white/Creole lady working the register in the liquor section and so I went there to pay for a Bang energy drink and to tell her that I had completed an application online, whereupon she informed me that "the hiring manager" was not there, but would be in first thing in the morning.

That may have been the time of day when the recent hire, whom I had run into outside the store, had gotten his job -the one who had encouraged me to put in the application. The one who looked like a homeless bum in a Rouses Market uniform...

The lady further informed me that they had gotten a lot of applications "because of all the service industry workers laid off," -not quite the picture painted by the guy outside the store- and suggested that I submit a paper resume, to give them something to remember me by.

She also recommended that I return first thing in the morning.

She was kind of reinforcing what I had already learned ages ago about getting a job. The best way is to persistently arrive first thing in the morning and greet the manager with something like: "I just figured I'd come by and see if anything has opened up."

If you do this 5 days a week, while at the same time, he or she is plagued by people on the payroll who can only be relied upon to show up maybe 4 days a week on average (with their work week being curtailed by "a family emergency," an illness, a hangover, car troubles, a twisted ankle, a birthday, a wife's birthday, a child's birthday, an unexpected visit by relatives, a pipe bursting, a boogie man in their closet, etc.) then the manager might conclude that you have been showing up more to work there than some of the people who work there; and hire you.

Then they can then wait for an opportunity to terminate a pain in the ass employee ("Message me a a picture of the boogie man, and you can keep your job; it's that simple!" type of thing).

And, of course the paper resume bespeaks of your having gone through all the trouble of finding an online resume template, filling in the blanks, and then clicking the print button. Not muchwork, but still probably more than a lot of their staff get accomplished every day...

So, at this point, I think that, if I'm going to make some gargantuan effort at producing income, I might as well apply that towards playing music at a nearby street corner.

These are "held down" by skeezers, but those skeezers seem to occupy the spots for no more than an hour or two, before running off to the liquor store or a crack dealer.

Plus, who is going to walk up to me in Rouses Market, after I have mopped up a spill and say: "I really enjoyed that!" and hand me a 50 dollar "tip"?

So, as I sit here, a blog post that I started about 4 hours ago (interrupted by 3 trips to the coffee maker and back) is almost done.

1,343 words in 4 hours is hardly going to meet any editorial deadlines.

Plus, now it is already first thing in the morning and I haven't slept yet; I've been up writing a blog post and drinking coffee.

The apple juice cleanse hit a bit of a road bump in the form of a few spoonfuls of peanut butter. I did smear it on an apple, though, after taking a bite out of the thing to make room for it...

And, I had planned upon washing some clothes to wear to Rouses, but after I stuffed my laundry bag with the things I wanted to wash, it attracted Harold the cat, who soon thereafter occupied it and began to knead the garments with his front paws, before making a bed of it.

I didn't have the heart to kick him out of it.

So, things have conspired to keep me from going to Rouses. The staying up all night, the not getting the laundry done...

The boogie man in the closet was the clincher, though.

I should be able to sleep until right before the mail lady comes with, hopefully, the ounce of kratom that I ordered last Wednesday, using the last of my money.

"I Don't Know"

As the sun came up on this Monday morning, and rose to almost its zenith, I woke up and looked at my clock to see what is becoming the familiar time of about 11:40 AM.

This gives me 20 minutes, ostensibly, to run over to the community food bank that is open on Mondays and Wednesdays, lately, from, according to their sign, 9 AM thru 12 PM.

Last Wednesday, I woke up at 11:38 AM, and ran over there to find that they had packed up and left, taking their coolers and tables with them.

This, I saw as a blessing in disguise, as, another battery of their gumbo and red beans and rice which is made with love, albeit, soybean oil, was probably going to kick my immune system into allergy mode.

Plus, I was still able to take about 75 Red Delicious apples that people had removed from their packages and left on the table in the lobby.

There is no better time than a crisis like this to embark upon a juice fast, and now I have copious amounts of apples, and a juicer.

The more cravings and appetites and addictions I can tame over the next month or so, the better.

Then, I thought about the online application that I put in at Rouses Market (dot com) and decided, after having gone to the food bank to find them not there again and having grabbed another 20 apples or so, that I will now ride my bike up to Rouses Market and ask to speak to the manager, bringing to his attention the fact that I live just 7 minutes away by bicycle, and that I am available to work any time.

Wow, It's Really Tuesday Already?

It is the first of the month, and a lot of residents at our building are going to get their monthly checks from the taxpayers.

It will be interesting to see what happens.
As the cubist rendering to the right shows; I am doing fine.

I am pretty sure that panhandling has slumped lately; as the people they are begging now have concerns about their own survival.

With cops being some of the few people working, and with the roads and sidewalks bereft of people, the crack dealers pulling up to the front of our

building and having brief exchanges with the residents is going to stick out like a sore thumb, and maybe we will have some genuine "bad boys, what 'cha gonna do" type s*** going down for our viewing pleasure tonight, shortly after midnight, after the money arrives at an ATM near you.
"Most Popular All Time"
I have changed the "Most Popular This Year" widget on the right to become most popular, all time. I found out it was set for most popular last year, and so it was never going to change. 
I had wondered why it was the same three posts being "featured," unwavering.
To this day, I have no idea why the scary moment post got so many hits. There must have been a glitch somewhere. One of the mysteries of the universe....  

@Craig

What piques my interest is that, the "community food basket" type thing that is set up at the elementary school across the street from our building is giving out some good food, like a gumbo that has hearty chunks of chicken in it, but that copious amounts of cow's milk is also handed out, along with the fact that such a large percentage of people don't eat the peas and corn that is in the other well in the tray, and they leave their apples on the donation table.
I'm more worried about what people are eating than the virus.
Also, the guy who stopped and gave me a bag of what amounted to "sweets," made me wonder how many people are living on a diet of honey buns and Doritos, and how many of them are on meds, prescribed for any one of the top ten causes of death in America (with heart disease topping the list).
It's not a matter of longevity to me, rather, quality of life. 
I am going to send about a dozen of those apples through my juicer, and I guarantee that I will feel like a million dollars after I start my day by drinking it.
Compared to the $35,187 that the guy who lives off honey buns probably feels like right now...
 

Coronavirus Covid-19 Fact Not Fear

This goes out to my blog family first; are we all on the same page here, about the virus?

The Virus Song

This is fresh news, above, by the way, and it ties into the post.
I Get The Bag of Coffee
I got the bag of coffee from the only Starbucks open in the city.

I had arrived yesterday, when a white lady named Kayla told me that she would be working today, and that I could just call from outside the store and we could work out the sale of the one pound bag of freshly ground coffee.

It is my guess that Kayla is the manager and that she might have an interest in making even just one more sale during this downturn in the economy.

And, it is my guess that the portly African American girl, who might have been 20 years old was not, who cracked the door open about a foot and informed me "We're only selling things through the mobile app and through the drive through."


Before I could even begin to tell her about my conversation with Kayla, she rebuffed me by repeating, like a parrot, the same phrase, before closing and locking the door.

So, I looked into the store and tried to make sign language quality signals in order to tell them -it was another heavy set black girl and a skinny white guy who was a bit tan skinned like a Mediterranean- that, when I called the number that comes up on Google, I got the "person hasn't set up a voice mail account" message and then am disconnected.
I was apparently unable to do this using hand signals.

At one point the white guy approached the door and was perhaps about to open it, but right about then, I had given up and decided to try to communicate to them through the drive through.

There was total silence for about ten seconds before I said into the speaker: "Hey, I know I'm not supposed to go to the drive through on a bike, but..."
And then the voice of the Mediterranean looking guy came through the speaker and took my order. He even ground the coffee for me.

Once I was at the window, I encountered an icy hostility from the two black ladies.

One of them took my gift cards from me and checked the balance, because I told her I wasn't sure how much was on each of two cards. She then handed me back the cards.

I started to make idle talk about how they were the only Starbucks open, when I was cut off again and asked what it was I was "getting."

Why, that bag of freshly ground coffee that's sitting right by your elbow on the shelf that wasn't there a minute ago....

I told her that Kayla had told me she was going to be there today.
She said that Kayla might have worked in the morning and then gone home; she wasn't sure, though.

I left there thinking that the white guy who had actually helped me to purchase the bag of coffee (a $16 item) was ahead of the curve, so to speak.

Of course, I am going to fire off an e-mail to Starbucks headquarters and commend the guy, and Kayla and to give them a brief essay about the work culture of the others, who really give off the vibe that they feel like their job might require them to serve white customers in some capacity, but nowhere in the description is it implicit that they have to smile or be nice, and that after dispatching whatever duties are required of them can stand there and stare at the white customer and refuse to even acknowledge anything the customer might say in the way of friendly conversation.

I Play At "Piss Pass"

But, then, on the way back home, I noticed that the bridge at Clairborne and Canal Streets had been totally cleared of homeless people, as shown in the news clip above.

There wasn't even anyone at the spot where the concrete is worn smooth by the ever presence of a sign flier.

The homeless had been shunted to a hotel nearby and none had even stuck around to beg, it appeared.

So, I got home and quickly grabbed my gear, changed a string, tuned up and headed for that very spot.

I quickly learned a few things.

One, I figured out from how people would roll their windows down to listen to me, but wouldn't keep them down very long.

I was singing:

"The virus...began when a bat bit Miley Cyrus...
And then she kissed Selena Gomez, and put her tongue in her mouth
and began to spread it north and south...
The virus...started when a bat bit Miley Cyrus...etc."

To a shuffle beat,
And, I got a couple half smiles and a dollar and a bag that wound up to have Oreo Cookies in two flavors, and a half a pound cake or something that also had a ton of sugar it it.

Then, it hit me (no pun intended).

The stench of The Homeless was still emanating from under the bridge, having been freshly stirred up, as a matter of fact, in their hasty exodus just hours earlier; headed for the hotel.

"A spot's reputation precedes it..." -me

I was upwind from it.

So were the motorists, who were rolling their windows back up after just a few seconds. It must have smelled to them like the corona virus itself blowing into their cars. It would be easy for them to imagine the whole tent community as having been infected by each other.

This is what I was telling the second guy who gave me anything, a dollar. He was a 20 something Jamaican guy who had gold front teeth. He had pulled his car about 12 feet past me and had asked: "Where's the music?"

I had my back turned and was tuning up.

He countered that the virus came here during Mardi Gras, because people came here from all over the world. And, it would have no more chance of being clustered under the bridge than anywhere else; despite the odor.

That particular bridge, which I have ridden past countless times, I had given the nickname to of: "Piss Pass," for a while, because of that stench; and I later upgraded, I believe, the legend for that stretch to The Gallway.

After figuring that out, I looked across to the other side of the bridge. The sinking sun had it awash in a warm yellow light.

I packed up and quickly went to the other side. It was like night and day.

The sun in my face seemed to brighten my outlook, and to help me to pray it, and I got another dollar and more food.

Peace, Love And Mr. T

A guy and a girl who looked to be in their early twenties stopped and offered me a burrito, which they guaranteed was going to be delicious.

When I hesitated, fumbling for the words to tell them that I was allergic to soy (and that I didn't want to play Russian roulette with a burrito) I heard the girl say: "Oh, I understand!"

And then they placed the burrito down on the sidewalk about 6 feet from me.
"The six foot rule, I understand," she said.

She then told me that she would back off and "You can come and get it..."
That was so endearing that I no longer had the heart to reject it. It was more important to me to walk up to them to assure them that I wasn't going to be afraid of any disease.

I can remember hugging a person who had contracted A.I.D.S. back when I was in college in '86 when that disease was believed to be like leprosy on steroids and transmittable through things like hugs.

I got home and could not resist a few of the lemon flavored Oreos.

Then, I remembered the burrito, wrapped in tin foil upon which someone had drawn the symbols of the peace sign, a heart shape and capital letter "A" with a circle drawn around it.

There were no words, but I imagine it all meant peace, love and, let's never forget The A Team, with Mr. T, and all...

The Burrito Sucks Me In

The burrito was just plain heavy, which made it irresistible.
As I held it in my hands, I realized that I could gain back maybe 2 of the pounds that I have surely lost in the past week in one fell swoop, by eating it.

It was incredibly delicious with salsa type fresh onions and tomato cubes and rice and maybe chicken and...mayonnaise.

I kept putting it back in the microwave for 9 seconds here, another 11 there until the cheese inside had become molten, and I polished it off.

All I could think about in the bliss of eating it was the kid that I had gotten pissed off at the day before, whom Bobby had described as being messed up in the head and, in particular, a binge eater.

The Mentally Ill Milennial Skeezer Of Sacred Heart

The kid has only been at Sacred Heart a couple months and had skeezed me the first time I ever saw him. He had asked me if I had something to eat, some "little" thing.

He had prefaced it by asking me if he could "ask a favor," of me, which had immediately put me in the mind of being pitched by a skeezer.

I have heard that from at least a couple dozen various sorts who, to a man asked me to do them the favor of giving them money. It must be believed that framing it as a favor works well as a skeezing approach.


He is apparently living here because of having been deemed mentally disabled by some authority and looks to be no more than 20 years old.

He was in the lobby and had started to follow me as I passed through it.
I figured that he wanted to worm his way into Bobby's apartment, no doubt to try to skeeze him for something -he was going to walk behind me so he would be there when Bobby opened the door; something he might not have been doing for the kid, who looks like he has never had a haircut but has kept it in control by periodically ripping clumps of it out of his head.

He has a terrible complexion, probably because of the binge eating.

But, I had been rude to him. I was already sweating the stress of having to go out and play on the very spots where all the bums that I have been deriding are always begging.

I thought it was going to feel like this great poetic justice thing or of karma coming home to roost or something.

But, after Bobby called the kid a binge eater, I told him that he might just be the norm for a milennial.

Maybe one of the traits of their generation.

But, it was him that I was thinking about as the burrito wallowed in my mouth.

I wondered if, by being rude to him, I had taken upon myself some of his karma.

Because, I have been accumulating tons of apples and was well into a multi day cleanse, which had me in a calm state of mind, despite not having figured out the way to make money.

So, what I learned was that the reputation of a spot precedes it, and I felt like I was paying for the sins of every rude, strung out skeezer who ever used the place as a latrine and a place to sleep, and, by busking there, I was associating with them, in a way.

I noticed a lot of black men turning their own music up louder rather than turning down so they could hear me.

I have decided to next try it at a more middle class white location. The corner nearby where a few of my neighbors are always flying their signs would a a step in that direction.

I will be brainstorming upon places where the volume would be low enough, and the foot traffic high enough during these times.

I really seem to have all the materials in hand to go on an extended apple cleanse diet.

Out of one hundred meals that come into the building from the elementary school across the street which has been turned into a "community feeding" station, at least half of the apples out of them are being left on the table in the lobby which has become the de facto donation table, where anything espied upon is fair game. I usually get a dirty look from one particular heavy set black lady of a security guard, one who wears "moo moo" dresses instead of the white shirt and black pants of all the other security personnel that man that desk by the donation table.

But, I believe she is one of those (at the risk of sounding like a bigot) black people who believe that the white man has so many privileges already, in the color of his skin, that it is despicable for him to take charity, such as things left on the donation table, when there are much more unfortunate people around, that might want them.

But, I guess, tomorrow, I will be playing The Virus Song at the intersection of Jeff Davis and Canal Streets.

He had to come down.

Jeff Davis just had the statue of his likeness torn down, but his street continues to glorify slave-holding (one pothole at a time).

There is a spot on the sidewalk right across from where I will hopefully be busking where the ground undulates palpably every time a heavy vehicle rumbles by when the light is green. I believe there is a giant sink-hole waiting to happen there; one that might even swallow up The Higher Ground Irish Pub, where I have often picked the ashtrays.

But, I have fallen into the giant sinkhole of binge eating.

I ate the burrito. Then I polished off the lemon flavored Oreo cookies along with strong coffee from the only Starbucks that is open. And one that will soon get an email from the headquarters commending the gentleman who ground my coffee just a bit more course than "paper filter" and chastising the two black girls for their anti social manners....but, I digress.

The day had started off with me accompanying Bobby to the Rouses Market. Bobby, who is sitting pretty and waiting for economic stimulus to come, as he is an SSI recipient, or whatever.

I went with him so he could buy me a drink and a can of cat food.

Then, I wound up riding around and went to to investigate the dumpster outside The Fresh Market.

It was just as I thought; heavy stuff piled on top of pieces of cardboard laid flat over the food items.

I confirmed this by ripping through a small section of the cardboard to discover a white plastic bag containing about a half dozen plastic containers of strawberries in yogurt, tightly sealed and still cold.

Like an idiot, I took only one of them, thinking then that it was some kind of heavy cream, and not yogurt that the strawberries were in. I can get away with eating yogurt, maybe because of the probiotics, who knows.

So, I ate the yogurt before I went to the Gallway to play, and it seemed to have opened up the floodgates for an avalanche of sugar to have hit me.
Nor were the two little containers of Lucky Charms cereal safe, and soon became part of the carnage...

I guess it will be back on the apple diet tomorrow. Almost everyone who gets the community meals leaves their apples up front. Which means they they normally live off all the other stuff, besides the apples. No wonder they are prone to health issues...

A Silver Lining?

• Work Stoppage To Strike Illegal Immigrants

"COVID 19," I guess I'll call this ugly thing...

I think I was "dissociating" the past couple days; trying not to think of the fact that I had nothing, and no way to get anything.*

But then, yesterday, I hopped on my bike, and armed with misinformation, set out to get a bag of ground coffee from Starbucks.

I have always confused Claibourne Street with Carollton Street, and I did so again, yesterday.

Arriving in the 2800 block of the latter street, to see no Starbucks, I realized my mistake and headed towards the former street.

But, had it been a mistake?

On a certain corner, I saw an older black man with an acoustic guitar, standing at the corner where beggars are a fixtures, holding signs.

He had his case open and was apparently jamming away and probably making pretty good money, if my past experiences in Florida are any indication.
He was way out of the French Quarter, in the part of the city where people are still seen, going to an from jobs that are virus-proof, like health care workers and security guards...lot's of security guards.

So, there was the solution.

The only problem would be finding a corner where I could jam away with maybe a sign that reads: "No stimulus money for the lowly musician" or something. Just about any corner in the city is going to be contested by bums who might feel like they own the real estate: "That's my chair and my cooler right there; it just stays there; ain't nobody messes with it; they all know this is my corner; I been here 18 years, since before Katrina..." etc.

But, then I realized that the corners right around our building have been "held down" by certain residents of Sacred Heart.
And, since they are not formidable physical specimens, I wouldn't have to bring a sharp knife with me when attempting to occupy their corners and play music.

I could also tell them that I stood to make 4 times as much as they would, because of "actually doing something" (and the fact that the people who travel that way every day have never seen me there before and I don't look like a drug addict -compared to them, at least) and that, if they hardly make anything after taking the spot from me, I would, I don't know, buy them a couple beers, or something.

Then the good news came that 6 gigabytes of data are to be given to myself and any other Assurance Wireless government phone holder, for free to help with the current crisis.

And, I believe that the stimulus checks that will be meted out to "everybody" will be to everybody who took the 5 minutes to enroll in the census for 2020.
This will yield a more accurate census count, most definitely, and will put the squeeze on the illegal immigrants.

As long as their jobs are closed down, where they work for cash under the table, and they are not on the census roll call, then, well. What goes around comes around; maybe they will feel like they are getting screwed by the system, for a change.

I saw Latinos standing in line for the food bank at the school across the street from our building, which gives out food each morning (most of which [milk, soy] I won't eat) and it was the probably the first time I have ever seen a Latino anywhere like that.

It could be that everything is fine and the Mexican mafia is keeping them in work and money and that they are just adding the free food like icing on the cake (since no ID is required to get the bags of food, just walk up) and that they are just getting over as much as possible, but it could mean that, because of the virus, we are making headway in solving the problem of undocumented immigrants.

A Time To Stay In And Get Something Of Note Accomplished

• I Refuse To Harbor A Negative Attitude Over The World Crisis
• Regrets; I've Had A Few...

It would be so easy to cop an attitude over the COVID 19 virus thing.

This is truly a thing that hits the busker just about the hardest.

I have no verifiable job that I might receive unemployment compensation for, over the next few? months.

There are no people on the street by the Lilly Pad, because they have no reason for being there, with all the bars closed...

So, the "reality" is that, I guess it is mine to just starve to death, as that seems to be the fate that awaits a busker during a global pandemic.

I am in a better position than most to know how to handle such a situation, though.

Food
There is a list posted in the lobby at Sacred Heart, of places that are apparently giving away food, with Monday through Friday noted, and upon each day at least a dozen addresses given.

These are pretty far and wide, a cursory glance combined with my limited knowledge of the streets in the New Orleans area, showed me.

But, I think if I were to use Google Maps, I could mark out a route and then, donning my backpack tommorow morning, hop on my bke and maybe make a 10 mile loop, getting to the first food bank at around the 9 AM that they almost all seemed to "open" at, and then, depending upon how long the line and the wait is, make it to as many more of them that I can before the 12 PM that they almost all seemed to "close" at.

I could conceivably do this all 5 days this coming week, and maybe fill my pantry that way.

At that point, I will just have to tighten my belt and try to forego all of the non-food items that cash might have once been applied to.

Man really can live without tobacco, alcohol, pot, kratom and coffee...

Nix that last one, I just remembered that I have about 30 dollars left on the Starbucks gift card the The Lidgley's sent from Hertfordshire, this past Christmas. Thank you, Lidgley's; I will be awake and alert throughout the entire crisis!

Diving For Health

Last week, I was riding my bike at around 3 AM, when I decided, out of curiosity (and drunkeness -it was the last relapse, in that regard) to investigate the dumpster at the edge of the Fresh Market parking lot.

I found it to be business as usual in that, the food being thrown out which still had value (in order to perpetuate the image of it being a "fresh" market, the management [especially after they first opened and people were getting a "first impression" of the place] has an ambitious policy of refreshing the inventory, so that when you walk in, all you see are the hues of fresh food everywhere; no wilting on the lettuce, only the reddest of meat, and not a bruise on a mango.

This, I fathomed, would necessitate them throwing away a lot of food, as soon as it its past its peak.

This is where my flashlight and my backpack come in.

Business as usual is to throw the foods that still have value in the dumpster first, at the bottom and rear of it, and then to cover it with things like cardboard, to hide it, and then throw heavy things on top, so the cardboard can't be easily liftet in order to take a peek under it.

I didn't smell any bleach, bless their hearts.

That time, I only grabbed about 10 pounds of bananas from one of the heavier boxes that were on top of the cardboard -I guess they thought that brown spotted bananas had value only as a cardboard weight, or that, if someone like myself were hungry enough, they weren't going to begrudge me bananas (a 20 dollar fillet Mignon slab that is only starting to grey around the edges is a different story. I can understand an employee, who might only net $65 a day working there thinking it unfair that the homeless guy who sleeps behind the fence should enjoy lamb roasted over a fire, with maybe even a bottle of fine wine that has a scuffed or mangled label, or a crack in the glass around the cork not big enough to let any wine out, but still making it un-saleable, well, you get the picture...the employee is going to go home and eat Ramen Noodles with a bag of Doritos and salsa that night and, well, it might not seem fair to him or her. And, hence the practice of burying and weighing things down.

The person such as myself would have to get right inside of the thing, flashlight in hand, and probably have to temporarily remove some of the heavier items to get at the stuff below. I say "temporarily," because, leaving a mess of trash in my wake would be one of the surest ways to wind up smelling bleach upon my next visit.

So, it is Sunday afternoon, the sun is sinking low. I am charging up my usb flashlight and getting my backpack ready, and I hope to bring home some casabas or something shortly after the place closes at 10 PM. I would imagine some of the employees remain there an extra hour or two to wax the floor, etc.
I'm not so much worried about being "caught" going in there, as about gettting there to find someone else already attacking it. I'm sure they would share, to an extent; but it would be exasperating to see them having gathered a $400 pile of meat and wine: "All this stuff is mine!" and then handing me some bruised bananas: "You can have this..." type of thing. But, that would just be envy at work on my part. Geez, I haven't even gone down there yet, and I'm already envisioning fighting over casabas...

New Series: My Biggest Regrets In Life


#10: Not having answered wholesale, the entire poll of questions in the inventory of the lady judge in Ocala, Florida. This is not a major one, ranking tenth, but, I occasionally think about it.

2011, Ocala, Florida

On this particular morning, I had been probably about the last of the 20 or so called in front of the judge.

I had been locked up overnight for having opened a big can of beer in a little park right by the little convenience store where I had bought it.

I suppose, if I were super intelligent, I would have postulated that, surely the park across the street from the beer store was so inviting, with its benches to sit on and drink a beer, its trees to sit under and do the same, that it most likely had become like a certain corner on a certain road which becomes used as a speed trap (after the cops notice that most people have a natural inclination to come down that certain slope at a rate of speed over whatever curiously low rate is posted on a sign, which probably only becomes completely visible to the driver after it is too late. She might see the sign and the cops holding radar guns at the same instant, as a matter of fact).

So, the idyllic little oasis across the street from the beer store had been patrolled by actual Ocala, Florida cops posing as citizens just out looking for tranquility in the same park.

It was from under a Hawaiian shirt, that the cop flashed me his badge.
But, I was the last of the 20 or so to be seen.

I am intelligent to know that this is usually the best of signs.

The few times in my life that I had basically been summarily cut loose from jail by a judge or prosecutor that might have felt sorry for me, or felt that the arresting officers had actually abused me, I had been adjudicated such as just about the last person still left in the courtroom.

It usually involved some kind of paperwork which the judge would sign which would abnegate and override any sentence that might be mandated by the statutes.

These were usually exhorbitant in the cases where I was found to have more than one ID on me, and was subsequently charged with some kind of fraud, which was the "tip of the iceberg" charge levied against someone in that situation, as a means of holding him in custody, while the ocean below was explored.

Given the rash of identity theivery and the public's outcry against it, there was often some kind of a minimum sentence put in place, as a deterent, of course..."Man gets 25 years for bilking elderly out of their life savings," type of thing.

So, on those couple occasions when, after a thorough investigation revealed that my other ID was not connected to any bank accounts, or wire transfers of huge sums of money to the Antilles Islands; and didn't appear on the radar of the FBI, state of local police, Secret Service, Militsiya, Federal Security Service, KGB, etc., and it had been decided by decent prosecutors and a compassionate judge (usually after my being allowed to speak about my purposes for having obtained an extra license under the name of a dearly departed friend of mine (so I could keep my pizza deliver job at Dominos) I was usually brought back to the courtroom at the end of the day (3 PM or so -it must be nice to work as a courtroom official) when I usually stood at the podium in an almost empty courtroom and it was agreed between all parties concerned that the judge would sign some kind of injunction and I would be set free that day, and not 36 months later as mandated by the statute.

This was done, I assume, to minimize the number of witnesses to this act, which might be spun by some as His Honor having been lenient, or maybe to have given only a slap on the wrist to a white man, depending upon the perspective.

But, as I went before the judge in Ocala, who was a middle aged, white woman, and despite the fact that there were still a gaggle of less fortunate orange jumpsuit clad others in the room, waiting for the transportation van to come and take them back to the jail, I was pretty sure that I was going to be cut loose, because; as Her Honor stated in the course of the proceedings; "This isn't exactly the crime of the century."

The most likely reason that I was the last one called in this case, was that some kind of check was being run upon me, in case the public drinking charge was just the tip of the iceberg, type of thing...

But, given Her Honor's light mood, and apparent sense of humor, I was, like a person at the end of a diving board, just about to launch into a solioquey, after her first question of "What is your name?"

I was going to say: "It's Daniel McKenna, your honor."

And, then, heading her off at the pass, I would append: "I'm 48 years old, I was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I went as far as an associate's degree in college. I can read, write and understand English ("despite what my English Comp professor might say") [waits for the tittering to subside from the gallery].

I am entering a plea of guilty on this charge of drinking in public. I understand that, by entering such a plea, I am giving up certain rights, such as the right to a jury trial, the right to face my accusers, and the right to appeal.

I am entering this plea willingly. I am not being coerced by anyone, and I am not currently under the influence of any drugs or alcohol."

After having heard her run through the list almost 20 times, one question at a time, for the people before me, and thinking This has got to be the part of her job she hates the most; I had been so close to doing that.

I imagined her smiling and then striking the gavel while ejaculating: "Case dismissed!" before sighing and perhaps saying: "If only every defendant were like this!," maybe telling me "Sir, you just made my day!"

But, what had stopped me was imagining her saying: "It sounds like you're no stranger to being a defendant in a courtroom," and then throwing the book at me, as would befit such an incorrigible.

But, I will never know, now.

That is, I am going to arbitrarily say, #10 on my Top 10 Regrets In Life list -not having done that. I found the judge attractive, also, and it would have pleased me to make her smile...and to show off my ability to memorize a list of questions after hearing them a few times.

The series: My Top 10 Regrets In Life will continue, with #9 coming shortly.

"Will somebody put the Lime Away away while I'm away?" -something I once said when I worked at Dominos, where we used the product called Lime Away.

Bobby from building C bought me an ounce of kratom this morning, out of the blue. This comes at a good time, as I am stuck in the house working on music, writing and art...

If you can call it art...