E Pluribus Unum -All The "High Minded Drivel" We Will Ever Need

Brown Bags, Bandaged Arms And Microphone Thumpings

It was just by serendipity that, choosing to watch a video on Youtube entitled: "Sid Vicious, The Final 24 Hours" made me think of the line in a Neil Young song about Johnny Rotten.

The Sex Pistols reminded me of a group of buskers I had seen on my way home from busking, the previous night. Their "singer" sang a lot like Johnny Rotten, and I would say that they were very drunk, except I didn't know this to be a fact; maybe I could amend that to: "Well, they were on something!" but again; I didn't know this to be a fact. I'm careful about making assumptions, these days.

Sid Vicious the bass "player" for that iconic punk rock band, actually had a bandage wrapped around his arm, right at the elbow, which happens to be a popular spot used by heroin addicts to find a vein. That is as much a dead giveaway that he had been shooting up, as a black bag being held by a person coming out of a sex shop is that he has something naughty in his possession.

For The Sake Of The Children

I remember that, in Texas, when I was there in 1982, you could drink beer in public, but it had to be in a brown paper bag. Someone said that this was so it wouldn't look like there were a bunch of people walking around drinking in public. Seeing people walking around with the easily recognized Budweiser can in their hands would make the city look bad, the person had speculated, as to what the reason was for the bags.

But, the state made the mistake of not requiring every canned beverage to be in a brown paper bag, which would have created a double-blind situation, whereby, nobody would know how many people were actually getting drunk in public, because they might all be drinking soda. 

But the paper bags were such a dead giveaway, that I concluded it must have been done for the sake of the children, who would be too naive to be able to assume that someone standing on the sidewalk swilling down a can of something in a brown bag was most likely drinking beer, and this would do what for the children? Shield them from the harsh reality that x amount of the citizens of their city are drinkers?

Heroin stories maybe just vicious rumors...

So, there was Sid Vicious, up on stage under the bright lights, shirtless and with a bandage wrapped around one of his arms at the elbow. And, maybe the bandage was there to hide a heroin addiction from the impressionable youths in the audience, by hiding the evidence of such. Doing as good a job of it as the black plastic bag in the hand of some guy walking out of the Hustler Store does...

There can be no doubt that Sid really shot up to fame in the late 1970's, though...

States like Texas should make every business send the merchandise they sell out the door in black plastic bags. To allow the citizens to immerse themselves in the wistful illusion that nobody drinks in public nor owns a dildo.

Or, to the cynical; that everybody does. 

But, do it for the children!

Seeing Johnny Rotten reminded me of the Neil Young song, "Hey, Hey, My, My," that makes mention of him, which I appended to the list of "songs that I know, but might have forgotten about" and gave me the idea to Google Neil, and I was soon watching that legend playing the acoustic guitar and harmonica, just like I do, and I was able to see how he had his microphones set up to capture both his vocals and harmonica.

I''m surprised that I hadn't thought of Googling him already, given that I have been trying to solve my microphone problem. It took some serendipity and a circuitous course to get there. Maybe Sid Vicious didn't die in vain (excuse the pun) when he overdosed on heroin, as depicted in the documentary. 

Sid Vicious, and the girl who turned him on.

 To shooting up Heroin.

The story surrounding the incident was salacious enough to be deemed video-worthy, which ultimately led to me gaining some insight into how to set up my microphone; that has to count for something...so, the world is a better place because Sid Vicious lived.

I was amused to hear, in the Neil Young video, a thump or two, in spots where, despite his professional gear, the microphone banged on something when he was jamming really hard on a song; just like mine does, at times.I'll bet most of the audience didn't even notice it, but I did, because the same exact sound is one of the banes of my existence.

 

Revenge Of The Bleach Guzzling Witch Doctor Profiteers

$40.50 Saturday

I could only go for about 95 minutes, my first time busking in about 19 months.

Some left over Halloween Jam photos

The decision to not ride the bike on the somewhat soft tires was ill advised as, the street cars are still not going past the site of the building that collapsed a couple years ago. Even though there is nothing there now except an empty lot with a fence around it.

So, I wound up having to walk almost a mile with my guitar and backpack, which had the amp in it that probably weighs around 7 pounds. Being on day 4 of the juice fast had me feeling weak and focusing upon just putting one foot in front of the other.

I was surprised to see how much the Quarter was back to the normal of before the whole pandemic. There was the rapper guy on Canal Street, who sounded like he has gotten a little better at free-styling since a year and a half ago. Then a couple amplified black guys doing R&B a couple blocks apart on Royal Street, in between whom I saw that Bilal was out in front of his art gallery. He is the mafioso type, who dresses like Al Capone and even smokes cigars.

He befriended me a couple years after I got here, and has even said that I could play on the side of his gallery. That is a high traffic spot, but noisy. The Lilly Pad has gotten almost as noisy lately though, with the amplified pedicabs that like to park outside the bar and advertise the fact that their cabs are equipped with sound systems.

Tanya the violinist was at the corner of St. Louis and Royal, using a sound system of her own to play along with. I don't think that has the same "charm" as when she had a live accompanist in the form of Dorise Blackmon, but it allows her to do an even greater diversity of music. She was even rapping over something one time when I walked past.

She was smiling and playing for about a dozen people, but, for the first time ever, I heard her play some notes that didn't have perfect intonation. I wonder if she has Parkinson's Disease or some other "degenerative" thing, but is still playing for as long as she can before she is unable to hold on to the bow any more.

I know my ear hasn't gotten better to the point where I can now hear every little imperfection; I mean in the past 2 weeks of not drinking or drugging, that is. I didn't stop to say hello, because she has been rude to me the past couple times I did so. Of course that was almost 2 years ago,now.

She might feel slighted because after she stopped playing with Dorise, I just wasn't as interested in her music. Mostly because the soundtracks that she played along with were unrecognizable to me; like it was Hungarian Opera, or something. And I didn't even recognize the stuff she was rapping to the couple times I heard her doing that.

So, she might think that it had been because of Dorise that I used to hang around them for at the very least a half hour almost every single day. But that was because I was living under the wharf and they were right along my route to the Lily Pad, plus the fact that I was drinking and they were right along my route to the Unique Store for "more beer" every night..

Chinese people are hard to understand, said my friend Howard Westra (whom I also fell out of visiting, with the February 2019 Superbowl, right before the pandemic being the last time I saw him. It's strange how you just stop thinking about people sometimes and can't understand why. Maybe I could think about why I haven't really had the desire to take the bus across the river to see how ol' Howard is doing; if he's still alive, even.

I have the phone number to one of his housemates (I can't call Howard directly because he is just about deaf) and I could call him right now to see how Howard is doing. But, why don't I do it?

It has to do with a saying that my high school Philosophy teacher once uttered that goes something like: "Ashamed of not having made contact, we avoid contact."

When I got to the Lily Pad there was a young, long dark haired guy with a guitar across the street from the bar, not too far from where I set up. As I was setting up, he moved to Lily's other step, just 40 feet away. There was a skinny kid with him who was playing some kind of percussion thing.

I called Lilly to see if she was in the mood for shooing them away. But, after I started playing, they left. It may be that he is a novice guitarist and didn't want to compete with someone of my experience. He did say "good luck" to me in a not unfriendly way as he walked past.

One of the minor contributors

I told him that it had been a year and a half since I had "done this" and then added; "Yeah, I used to play here every night before the virus thing" so as to prepare him for seeing me there "every night" from now on. Maybe I won't have to enlist Lilly to protect my territory.

Right now, getting my sound back to where I can get people to listen for more than 5 minutes is a much more pressing issue. Ahead of protecting my turf; with the fact that I might have Covid-19 a not too distant third.

I just heard Ben Shapiro or someone say that there is only a 1% chance of dying from the thing. I believe him, and not the guy who "graduated at the top of his law school class" who actually graduated 76th out of 88 students...

As far as being 2 weeks free of drugs and alcohol, the thought of calling Howard's housemates to see how he is doing just gave me the strongest urge to drink a couple beers that I have had in the whole two weeks.

Having money now is going to up the temptation.

I messed up the juice only fast earlier by making a stew out of the winter vegetables of potato, onion, carrot, horseradish and ginger root in alkaline water and MCT oil, with salt and pepper.

And then obliterated it with a chocolate chip cookie out of the machine which I washed down with strong coffee.

But, I persist in trying to feel happy and grateful for what I have.

As far as busking tonight, it is Sunday, and I will probably watch football. I have been up for about 18 hours as I sit here, and a normal person would start his 8 hours of sleep now.

I'll have to put new strings on the guitar; the ones on it were horrendous last night. And I'll have to come up with a list of songs that I can play loudly without screwing up -ones that are meant to be played loudly. I was pushing way too hard last night, which kind of negated all the improvements I've made to my playing, by practicing the Mel Bay stuff. The accuracy I honed went out the window when I started overplaying.

It's a wonder I was able to average about 27 bucks per hour; I certainly didn't deserve it. It might just be that people are assuming that musicians get no unemployment and on top of that, had no opportunity to even work, for a long time.

I'll have to start running through songs to reclaim them from the memory void. Maybe take 12 songs each day to play through at home before going out. And to definitely make a list of a thousand songs and laminate it to weather-proof it and take it with me to remind me of what I know...

I knew that if I went out too early, I might be worn out by the time the heavy pedestrian traffic, which is typical of the 11 p.m. until about 1:30 a.m. would pass by the Lily Pad.

So I had waited until it was approaching 11 o' clock before going to the street car stop. Not having played out there for a year and seven months, I expected to be out of shape. The practicing I had done at home could never match the urgency that comes from busking, when there are people who stop to listen. That is when you block out the pain of the blisters that might be forming on the fingertips, and push through until the end of the song.

Kevin Bape reacts to what the trick-or-treaters are saying into the microphone, which was brought to the door, in lieu of actual candy. They were given an opportunity to be on "our album."

Musically, it was an F+ if I had to give it a grade.

First of all, I was unable to locate a milk crate to sit on, and sitting "Indian style" on the only box I could find in the Lafitt's trash can, a very low one -all of the taller boxes were flimsy, and I would have had to stuff them with folded up pieces of cardboard or something to make them solid enough and raise myself to at least milk crate level.

The amp added a sweet sound to the harmonica, but having it an inch or so in front of that meant that it was maybe 2 and a half inches from my mouth, so that it only added a slight boost in volume to my vocals. I'm going to have to come up with a work-around for that.

Sitting so low put me in an awkward position as far as being able to look up in order to make eye contact with people without moving my lips "off" the microphone. Being at least up on a milk crate would help that situation. I might have to position the mic in front of my nose and aim it downward, that way I could tilt my head up to sing, and then downward for harmonica solos, which don't require the same eye contact as when I might be improvising lyrics and want to play off of what I see of the people. Like, noticing someone wearing a Grateful Dead shirt and changing to a Dead song on the fly...

I started out with the Beatles "Golden Slumbers," and, within 5 minutes someone had thrown 3 bucks in my basket, saying something about me sounding good. That was believable at that point, but, things kind of eroded due to memory lapses of chords and lyrics. I don't think I have ever played so bad in all of my years of busking.

At one point, a couple guys threw a big wad of maybe 30 bucks, with a lot of them missing the basket, so I had to go to scooping them up and putting all but a few of them in my pocket. It would have been an awful time for someone to run off with the thing, stealing the first 30 or so bucks that I have made in 19 months...

"My first tip in a year and a half!" I said to the first guy that threw the 3 bucks..

It was embarrassing, forget the chords to "Little Wing," after a couple guys had sat down on Lily's step to my right and seemed like they were getting comfortable as if planning upon listening to me for longer than they did, due to me screwing up. I had to make the excuse of "This is my first time out here in a year and a half," before I thought one of them might say: "Dude, you need to find a new profession.

There was a lot of noise, and even with the amp, I found myself over playing. I need to work on that, because it leads to missed notes. Better to play more softly and accurately than to have people a greater distance away hear you sucking, I always say.

But, the 40 bucks took me from 55 cents up to $41.10, closing the gap some between myself and Elon Musk. I don't feel the disparity as much, nor resent him for his wealth as much, now that we are closer to being in the same economic class.

The Colors Of Resistance

• Blue Sky, Not A Cloud In Sight
  
• Red Tape Blocks Refund

There was not a cloud in the sky, when I woke up at 2 in the afternoon, feeling feverish, for the 4th day in a row. I had a cup of coffee, then put the TV on to see college football, and started to feel not as sick, in short order.

I'm going out there in a few minutes..

I got to sit in the sun and sip the coffee for a while, and then I bagged up the cat food and brought it to Winn Dixie to try to get a refund, planning upon putting air in the tires of the bike and then getting kratom. I would manage feeding Harold through other devices.

If I got kratom, I would bring some with me to the Lily Pad in a bottle of water.

The juice is giving me enough energy so that I can go about my business feeling hungry, but not weak, and being in a gregarious mood. With a water only fast, you get to the point where you see stars flashing like fireworks in your eyes when you stand up. I can remember busking after 12 days of water only; feeling like I could barely make it to the spot, but then having all my energy go to my fingers as soon as I started to play. I made some of my best money that way; it was as if people were drawn to me.

"Not a cloud in the sky," I said to one of the Winn Dixie employees, as I was locking my bike. I went in the men's room and stuffed a pocket with toilet paper, then went to the Customer Service area.

There was a slightly rounded middle aged black lady with thick plastic framed glasses waiting for one person in front of her to finish. She was grabbing lottery tickets out of the rack when I walked up.

I took my place near her, and, as I looked her over, I tried to guess what numbers she was playing. She seemed to have sixes and nines "written all over her."*

"You're playing 4669, aren't you?" I pleasantly asked.

"Excuse me?" she said, but was smiling as if she thought she had heard me right, but wasn't sure.

I smiled and said: "I was just trying to guess what numbers you were playing; you look like you have a sixes and nines, vibe."

I then told her the story of how I had once gone to the lotteries' website and seen that "my" number, 427, had not come up in over 9 years, at the time I had checked; which meant that it had gone over 3,000 days without coming up, when the odds are that it would come up once every 1,000 days.

"So, I played it for a year and it never came up; in fact, after a while, the people who worked at the Unique store would greet me with: 'Not today!' as soon as I walked, in..."

She grabbed a Cash 3 slip and slid it towards me on the counter. "Here, play 427, and I'll pay for it," she said. Then she handed me a black ink pen.

I filled in the number and then noticed that I had two slips stuck together and had filled out the top one. I separated the two.

"Sometimes they stick together," the lady said.

The Indian looking customer service lady was very hesitant after I put the cat food in front of her, seeming to become a bit more cooperative after I told the story about having been in the store late at night. "She told me Customer Service opened at nine..."

I set the lottery slip aside, and put the money the black lady had given me, in my pocket.

She had initially glanced at the receipt and claimed that it didn't match the cat food I was trying to return. A closer look revealed that it did.

I had thought that I could get a cash refund and then apply it towards kratom and filling my bike tires, which are a little low; partly because the air temperature outside was probably 90 degrees when I pumped them up, but now it would be in the upper 50's when I would be riding to the Lilly Pad.

She scanned the box and then told me to swipe my card.

The lady that gave it to me had purchased it off her ATM card. I didn't have that. They could only refund the money by crediting it to that card. I could only swap the box for the same brand and variety, but maybe in a different flavor. 

So, I rolled the dice and grabbed a 24 pack of the same stuff in "Gravy Lovers" flavor, because Harold generally likes gravy.
When I returned there was a long line, partly because of me. The Indian looking lady had to find a manager to ask if she could give me a cash refund. She couldn't.

Who knows, I might be a scammer who found the receipt in the trash and then went and grabbed the matching item off a shelf on the sly...Shouldn't each individual box have an identifier on it, though, so they could tell if it had been sold?

I returned to the end of the line where an older black man waited. He wanted to use the Western Union and so I suggested he go to the front of the line to see if there might be a person other than the lady, who handles the Western Union stuff. "Maybe the manager guy does it anyways, so why wait for the lady to finish with all these people in front of us."

He went to the front, but returned, cussing under his breath, it seemed. "They must lump the Western Union together with the lottery and their returns and stuff, so 'one line for all,'" I said, trying to console him.

Since I was still holding the lottery slip, we got on the subject of that, and I was telling him that I associated numbers with colors, like green is 5, and red is 2, type of thing.

I used the example of the red white and blue striped shirt he was wearing as looking like a 6, a 2 and a 9 to me.

Then, I told him that I thought I did this because of the color codes on resisters from when when I worked in electronics.

Should we switch these so white is zero?

When I go to play my lottery numbers, I see what colors jump out at me in my surroundings, and come up with a number..

Right: Is it racist, to have black as zero and white up there with precious object colors, like silver and gold? Probably. That will have to be changed around to the exact opposite, perhaps...

I decided to kill some time while the line grew shorter (gambling that it would) and went to grab water and juice for the fast, plus a couple energy drinks..

I will probably bring the juice with me when I go out to busk; the presence of the bottle might make it easier to ward off people trying to offer me alcoholic drinks; something that happens at least every other night out there.

I'm ready to go, psychologically, feeling kind of weak physically because of the fast, which is in day 3, and the flu-like feeling I've had over the same 3 days.

"We Take This Seriously!"

When I was going to the men's room to get toilet paper, there was a rather portly couple who had a pudgy kid about 4 or 5 years old in a cart.

They were all kind of sandy blond haired with very white, almost pink skin.

The lady was in the process of getting a needle stuck in her arm as I walked by.

When I came out of the men's room not long after, I saw that one of the pharmacists was handing the lady a plastic card.

"Oh, do they give you a card, to show that you're vaccinated?" I asked.

I had wondered about that; in case I had to show some kind of proof to Lilly, who is the closest thing to an employer that I have, that I am "safe."

The guy, who was just getting into the injection seat, that his partner had vacated, mumbled "Yeah..."

But, the woman, kind of snapped at me: "We take this seriously; we already have cards!" then looked at me askance.

In the next half second, I kind of assessed them as: she was a school teacher, or a stay at home mom who watched CNN all day, who knitted or sewed as a hobby, was probably from Missouri, and played cards on the weekends with small groups or friends; all of them masked the whole time.
While her husband had a gutter cleaning business and drove a pickup with the name (his) of the business on it; and that they both went to a Baptist church that was heavy on dogma and light on mysticism, and they probably met a lot of future gutter cleaning customers there, so they lived in a close knit circle..

The little rusty headed kid in the card smiled bemusedly at me; and didn't seem to harbor any resentment towards me.

I felt like saying:

"Oh, I've had the (ugga bugga) already, this is my third time, as matter of fact. [at that point they would move away from me a bit, pulling the cart with them].
Each time it's been less severe, though, and this Dalmatian variety is just making me feel a little feverish in the morning, but after a strong cup of coffee I'm fine.

I got it at the nursing home where I work as an aide, wiping fecal matter out of the butt cracks of 90 years olds with hot soapy towels, changing their diapers and catching the virus; 3 times now; I was just asking because I'm afraid my employer is going to try to make me get the shots, even though I obviously have immunity... and I'll have to walk away from my job which is going to really hurt me because I've gotten pretty attached to the residents there. Some of them never get any visitors, and I hope I don't sound too pretentious in saying, a lot of them are probably going to miss me, that's all.."

Then I would feel like adding: The (ugga bugga) sucks, but I'm sure you've had worse bugs in your lives...but I know you've never had a worse president in your lives!"

And, then just walking away..

"...OK, except for maybe Jimmy Carter..."

But, instead I just walked away. She might have worked at a nursing home herself and been able to see through my "exaggeration."

As I was leaving the store, the black man with the striped shirt approached me and, keeping his voice down, said: "You know after all that, they told me that the Western Union was down...they could 'a told me that in the first place!"

Yeah, they could have. And, they probably could have given me a cash refund.

One other thing is, when I went to play the lottery ticket, I found that I was holding a blank ticket. That means the one I filled out might have wound up with the ones the lady who bought it for me played. I must have separated them and kept the wrong one. Wouldn't it be bizarre if it wins? The Indian looking lady might have scooped it up from where I had sat it next to the machine, thinking I was leaving the blank one..

Then, seeing that it was filled out, the lady could have sent it through the machine with the rest of the lady's considerable stack of them...

I'm going to use my free street car pass to go out to busk; that way I can sit around a little longer; and won't have to ride the bike on day 3 of a fast; even though I could...it's just a daunting prospect to consider doing so in the state I'm in. (Not Lousiana, I mean the state of weakness from the cleansing fast...)
*Epilogue: The number that came up that night was 619, so I wasn't far off in seeing "sixes and nines written all over her," I guess.

Nothing Wrong With The Old Lignt (Updated)

Where is my spotlight?

I am thinking about going out to play. The one I used to use started acting like it was haunted, during the hurricane Ida power outage.

It would go out for no reason and then come back on when I tried it a half hour later..or not. The last time it went out, I luckily had my olive oil in tuna cans candles lit.

I guess nowhere is my failure to see the big picture during my drinking and drugging period more evident than in the fact that I could be out there jamming away and standing a good chance of making toilet paper money, if I just had a darned......

I just thought of something...the spotlight I used to use before Bobby gave me the rechargeable one...it's in one of my closets...and I had bought a bunch of the kind of batteries that fit it for other things, like the singing bird clock back when I was getting "pandemic unemployment" money raining on me...

I very much could go out and play.

I woke up feeling like I had a fever for the third day in a row; and for the third day in a row am feeling back to normal a couple hours after waking...good enough to busk...

At first it didn't work after I put the brand new Duracell's in it; but after scraping the rust off the terminals from the batteries that had been in there probably 4 years, voila! Bright as hell!

I don't want to be premature; but if the spotlight works, I could be out there, under it and playing by midnight, conservative estimate....then play until about 2:30 and come back home with good food for Harold and toilet paper; and maybe some kind of Covid stuff from Walgreen's, in case that is what I have..

It is 11 o' clock on the nose. After packing up my stuff, most of which is already organized from the Halloween night jam; which also gave the headset mic a test run, I could certainly play from 11:30 until maybe 2 AM...
In the old days, that would average me about 50 bucks; but I think I'm better now...

Update

OK, gathering up my stuff to go out to busk took me from 11 o' clock until almost midnight...

First, I thought that I had left an adapter at Jacob's studio (the "MOC" -for "museum of crap," a designation that shouldn't be mysterious to anyone who looks at yesterday's photos; not that a full sized plastic skeleton should be considered crap by anyone..) and it took me about 10 minutes of searching for what wound up being right in front of me all the time; I was just looking at it backward, I thought I had to adapt a tiny cord to a big one to go into the Yamaha portable amp, but I had an adapter that could plug into the tiny hole which had a big socket that would allow me to remove the tiny cord from the equation....

If it took you ten minutes to figure out what I just said, then, welcome to the club; so I was set back ten minutes looking for something I didn't need.

But, as soon as I became grateful for the fact that I had 90% of my gear intact and was only missing an adapter was when the solution dawned upon me.

It had been the same thing after I thought of using the spotlight that had been in mothballs for 4 years.. I started to think that I had no batteries, but replaced that thought with: I have everything I need, and more than enough...
As soon as I thought that, the Singing Bird Clock sang it's 11 o' clock song, telling me, in effect: "I have two AA batteries you can borrow; my time will just be wrong when you get home, or maybe not, if you return exactly 12 hours from now..."

Guitar, capo, picks, tuner, harmonicas, harmonica brace, spotlight, amp, mic, pre-amp, cables....was I forgetting anything...

Err, maybe the tip basket, that might be a necessary evil as busking equipment (although I will be playing as a service to humanity).

I retrieved the tip basket, from where it has sat in a closet since April 9th, 2020, but where was the laminated sign which read: "The Tiposaurus Rarely Bites" and had a doodle of that creature on it? The plastic reptile was there, but not the sign..

I spent another 10 minutes making another sign, after having had to look around for paper suitable to the task, which wound up being right in front of me, also.

I had drawn a picture using that paper, and it took me a while to see that the rest of the sheets of paper were behind the picture, propping it up.

Still, every problem had a solution that was right in front of me; but it was now 12 o' clock midnight, and everything was packed and ready to go.

I decided to walk to the front lobby and maybe see if I could pick a butt out of the ashtray that the security people mostly use; they have jobs, and so there is usually some tobacco in there; but then thought: Why don't I just get on my bike and ride to the ashtray, on my way out to busk..?

Then, I squeezed the tires on the bike. The back one was pretty soft, indeed.

Walking across the parking lot, I noticed a couple things. One was that the 57 degrees that the security lady told me it was, off her phone, felt pretty chilly, not too cold to play, but, given that I was on day 2 of a juice only fast, I didn't feel like I was producing any heat to counter the cold, stiff breeze that was whistling through my ribs...

Is it crazy, to wake up at 10:30 in the evening, after having laid down at 4 o' clock with busking not even an afterthought, and to feel like I had a fever, and then to walk across the parking lot feeling weak and light-headed from a fast, but to go out and busk, following a wild hare idea?

The cold temperature would further decompress the soft tire on the bike; the added weight of all the gear would flatten it even more...I might get a pinch flat...

As soon as I replaced that thought with a positive one, a street car went by, and spoke to me. It said: "Just take me; you have 2 free ride passes on your couch, remember?"

And, there it was. I could do anything I wanted. I could be out there playing by 1 a.m. at the latest (I would have to walk about 8 minutes from the closest street car stop to the Lilly Pad, to the Lilly Pad...

When do you give up, and err on the side of caution? It seemed like there was an obstacle at every turn, yet a solution at every turn...like all things work to the good of the man who truly wants to busk and will brook no resistance.

The singing bird clock is now chirping 1 in the morning; and I have an aching in the pit of my stomach, a sense of loss and missed opportunity, and of having chickened out; and of having had a path illuminated in front of me, where all obstacles ahead of me would wind up to be only mirages..but not having tread it....I feel like a wimp, who could have stoked a spark within me that might be on the verge of going out; and rekindled the kind of fire, that once had me walking 38 miles, over the course of 2 days and included sleeping in the grass behind a church after night fell, flat broke, except for the (surprising amount of) change that I found in the breakdown lanes I walked, all of it pock marked from having been run over by cars, plus whatever I made by plopping myself down, unbidden, in front of each convenience store I encountered along the way and playing until an emplyee came out to tell me I couldn't do so (usually, for "insurance reasons") which I then spent on a Sobe drink, to quench my thirst, before continuing to walk through the 95 degree air; intent upon making it to Ponte Vedra Beach in time for the TPC golf tournament which would attract hundreds of millionaires to that community; because I had been promised by a friend who managed a little liquor store, not far from the golf course where Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer had won tournaments, that I could put my tip basket out, in front of his store, and play over the course of that 4 day event, washing up behind the place using his hose, type of thing....what happened to that? What has changed in 14 years?

All that aside (after running through my mind) I decided that I will make a more pre-planned go of it, tomorrow. I just hope the spark doesn't go out while I sleep tonight; which will be tomorrow

It would have been incredible, people would have exclaimed: "You're back!" and dropped 20 dollar bills in my basket, I just know it..." Yeah, yeah, shut up, mind!

Check Those O-Rings!

On the brighter side, it might be warmer tomorrow night and I will have time to come up with at least one brand new song to play, which will give me a sense of freshness and trailblazing...

I can bring my gear into the recreational area of Sacred Heart Apartments, and act as if it was the Lilly Pad, and give it all a test run. One question is whether the headset microphone is going to thump against the harmonica brace when I am playing the harp vigorously and shaking my head around when doing so. I might have to wad up something like a gauze bandage and wrap either the stem to the microphone, or the spot on the brace where it might thump. That test has to be done. Maybe it was good that I didn't launch the "Shuttle Challenger" on a whim tonight. One more test needs to be done...

Then, I can go to Winn Dixie to get a refund for the 20 dollar box of cat food the young lady gave me, along with the receipt; then ride up to The Herb Shop to buy an ounce or two of kratom, then ride to the gas station to fully inflate the tires on the bike; and then I will be back in business, Saturday, November 7th, 2021...(my grandfather on my mother's side's birthday, if my memory from childhood serves me).

Stone Cold Sober, As A Matter of Fact...

• Anger At Google Premature
  Anger At Running Out Of Cash Premature
  Anger At "Wokism" Valid

I have sinned...

Late night rally quells shadow ban suspicion...

I broke from and abandoned for just a while, the principles of The Law of Attraction yesterday; and allowed myself to feel anger over what I had perceived as having been blocked by Google from appearing in anyone's news feed, or in any search results to a person who Googles an exact term or phrase that I might have written.

Yesterday's stats fall more in line with the "million chimpanzees typing away for a million years" about which, it is posited, that there would be like a 50% chance that one of them would randomly type the preamble to the U.S. Constitution (or whatever example the statistician used) word for word.

How that relates to this blog is that, given the number of chimps, er, humans who are searching for stuff on the Internet, in a typical day, a consistent number of people will wind up clicking on this blog, due to a phrase or something I used.

What I like about The Law of Attraction is that I can kind of brag about it here without that usurping the power of it, or diverting my momentum towards having everything magically appear, or more accurately, for me to discover that it (the solution) had been right in front of me, all along.

Tiny changes that I have made, like sitting in the sun for 20 minutes each day upon waking, instead of in the dingy apartment which might promote depression, has had a great positive effect.

A couple days ago, it was me deciding to turn down the beggars around the building in the most polite way with an open heart, type of thing.

Instead of pressing to outdo myself in sarcasm; "No, today is Wednesday; Thursday is the day I walk around handing out money to everyone I see. You must have gotten your days confused..." type of thing, I now try to genuinely feel for them, put myself in their shoes, metaphorically, and kindly tell them that I wished that I did have a couple bucks I could spare. Then I might even add: I wouldn't have to be feeding my cat cans of salmon off my food card, if I had cash..."

10 minutes later, a knock at my door and it's the same guy, holding a couple cans of cat food in one of Harold's favorite flavor; "Here, these been in my cabinet from when this girl was staying with me, and she had a cat," who then tells me that, right after he talked to me, he found 5 dollars laying in the hallway on his way back to his apartment. "So, I'm good to go; this'll get me my cigars and a couple cans of beer!"

Today, it was myself refusing to feel anxiety over the fact that I was flat broke and down to a couple tablespoons of kratom.

Kratom has been the thing that seems to be helping me go from waking up feeling like I might have Covid-19 to feeling chipper a few hours later.

I sat there and came up with the 3 things that I am happy about and grateful for and then, against the resistance of feeling like I had the flu, was able to muster up a degree of the "feeling" of those two things. It is the emotion which is what gives impetus to The Law of Attraction.

I thought about how grateful I was that I had just seen a video of a guy who was able to inject himself with the e-coli bacteria and then, through willful control of his immune system, make it so that, within 15 minutes, it was totally out of his blood stream. He was being interviewed by Russell Brand and also spoke about how he has climbed the Himalayan mountains in nothing but a pair of shorts.

He had Russell strip down and join him in the ice cold waters of the Thames River, claiming that clothing was keeping human beings from the kind of full sensual contact with nature.

And so, I was grateful to have seen that and remembered myself having been able to ward off sickness in the past by doing my own version of willing it away.

There was always a part of me that almost wanted to get sick, so as to lay down after doping myself with Nyquil and maybe even have others attend to me, like there was an element of slipping into a hot bath tub to being sick.

What I would do was to pretend I was staring up into a clear blue sky and then pretend someone was telling me that the sky was green. I would agree with them: "Yes, the sky is green," while knowing in the back of my mind that the truth was that it is blue and I was looking right at it.

Then, I would marshal a sort of energy by tapping into that "knowing" part of my consciousness; which is so strong and certain that I could even say that the sky is green, and then translate the "even though I know it isn't" into "I'm not going to get sick." Sort of like, the sky is blue and I'm not going to get sick become mated together logically. I would usually feel a sense of something akin to discomfort, but of the type that I feel when it is time to get out of the nice warm bath water, and to stand up and towel off and then go off to work, or something. A sense that it's not going to be as cozy and lazy as staying in the tub, but it is done out of a sense of duty, like when the break is over and it is time to get back to work.

There have been other days when I wound up being glad that I went to work, rather than stay in bed "sick," because by the time I felt "much better" there seemed to be more facets to it. I'm going to get my full paycheck; I'm going to be more resilient against illness, type of thing.

So, I was grateful and happy and managed to feel so, to a degree.

Despite being broke, and having no toilet paper...

Then, despite being broke, and having no toilet paper and a lighter that had died the night before, so I had to light the butts that I found in ashtrays off of my stove, I didn't look at things in a negative light. I was happy to have gone the entire day before on the juice fast, only caving in at the very end by eating the remains of a can of tuna fish, after Harold was full, mixed with a can of sweet peas that I had found just sitting somewhere -the Law of Attraction often works like that- and equally glad that it only took a small can of prune juice to get back on track, and happy that I had just enough toilet paper to finish the job.

Imaginary, Transitory Dream People

It was about 10 o' clock at night and I prepared to go to Winn Dixie, where I would go into the men's room to stuff a pocket full of toilet paper. I had an imaginary argument in my head with an imagined person in a Winn Dixie uniform which went something like:

"If I were to take a crap in there, I would have used the same amount of paper that I'm taking; I'm just going to use it at home, instead of here...    

And, plus, I will be flushing my own toilet, thereby saving you guys the 1.3 liters of water that your energy star compliant bowl would have used. I'm not stealing toilet paper, I'm doing you a favor. Your welcome." type of thing.

The imaginary Winn Dixie person was satisfied, and off I went on my bike, happy and grateful that its tires have been holding air, and feeling it.

Before I got to the Winn Dixie, I stopped by the Voodoo Tattoo shop to look for the American Spirit snipes that one of their employees throws in the road, just off the sidewalk. I didn't see any, but saw, what turned out to be an empty cigarette box, but I picked it up anyways, to use to hold whatever snipes I might find while out.

Seeing me do this, some guy who was in front of the Red Door bar asked me if I wanted a snipe, he turned out to be homeless. "I pick them up, too." he said. We got in a conversation during which I mentioned that a couple cigarettes would last me all night because I broke them up and smoked the tobacco out of a "one-hitter," which is a pipe that is the same dimensions as a cigarette, and painted to look like one to a cop who is any distance away at all. It is used to smoke that really potent weed that you really only need a couple pinches of to get high off.

The guy found this amusing. "Not, me, I'm like a Hoover Vacuum cleaner when it comes to cigarettes.

Rather than undergoing a risky surgical procedure I've elected to just leave the deer growing out of the back of my head; it's not hurting anyone... 

He said that he had been homeless since Hurricane Ida, prompting me to tell him my own Ida story, which included the part about how it had been a blessing in disguise when we were forced to evacuate our building "Because that qualified us for the 500 dollar check that FEMA was giving to anyone who was forced to evacuate..."

He lamented that his dwelling in Metarie had been declared "habitable" -"even though it was missing half its roof" and that he hadn't gotten anything from FEMA.

I then tried to console him with the fact that my 500 dollars had really been a curse in disguise of a blessing in disguise because it had led to me having turned into an alcoholic; repeating the adage that "Money is the worst thing you can give to an addict," then going on to tell him that that was the reason I had purposely let myself run out of it, and why I preferred to be picking up snipes, rather than telling myself night after night that I was going to stop drinking the next day.

I was feeling grateful for the fact that, since embarking on the juice fast, as flawed as it had been with its starts and stops, and me not having cleared that last hurdle of quitting tobacco, though I had cut down considerably with the one-hitter, to 2 cigarettes a night; I was having more meaningful conversations with a lot of the people that I was meeting; with our quick friendship being an example; and was just feeling the gratitude when he asked: "Do you want a lighter?"

"Sure, I would love a lighter; you can't light a one-hitter off the stove unless you twist a length of toilet paper into like a long wick after dampening it in oil, then touch that to a burner; but that's a lot of work for one puff of tobacco," ...not that I'm complaining...happy and grateful, happy and grateful...the Law of Attraction...

I had never thought this sucks, my lighter died, because the Law states that this would attract other things that suck into my realm; and in doing so, in accordance with the Law, I had attracted another lighter into my life. I had never really been without a lighter...

And, I wasn't out of kratom, as we shall see.

Once in Winn Dixie, I stuffed a pocket full of toilet paper; then grabbed two cans of Fancy Feast, and set out to find someone whom I might buy one of their items for off my food card in exchange for them paying cash for Harold's food.

I saw two potential victims, er, nice people and one of them was in the direction of the alkaline water, which I was going to get, so as to attempt the cleansing fast once more; so I figured this person was the one.

Then, my attention was drawn to the section where all the coffee flavored beverages were. These are usually made up of just the 3 ingredients of: coffee, sugar, milk. What's the difference between that, and just making coffee at home with sugar and milk in it, and then keeping it in the refrigerator; in a bottle with a cap on it, even? I have always thought, about those drinks.

I had a sudden urge to take one to the register and pay for it, so I could drink it while I walked around the store. Was this just the hunger talking? 

I had only eaten a half can of tuna with some sweet peas the past 24 hours. Did I really want an energy boost, or was it the milk and sugar -the fast wreaking milk and sugar- that I was actually craving?

What sealed the deal was when I saw that Coke, that "woke" corporation, had its own coffee type beverage. I stared at the bottle for a second, remembering a time when I was homeless and had no water at my campsite, so I wound up mixing instant coffee with, you guessed it, Coke.

You paint "Let's Go, Brandon" on one of them things; then fly it over his house in Delaware, huh?

That was enough to dissuade me from buying a coffee beverage to walk around the store with. I didn't dwell on the negative memory of that hideous concoction, though -the Law of Attraction states that that would only attract more hideous concoctions into my life (what you think about is what becomes reality) and so I was just happy and grateful that I had had such an interesting life experience as mixing instant coffee with Coke under a wharf and gazing at the broken and giggly reflections of the rising sun off the Mississippi River; and I felt the emotion of gratitude.

I then went and grabbed the alkaline water which, along with juice like the pear juice I had in my basket was to be the only thing I was going to live off of for the next 10 to 14 days. We're making another attempt at the fast again, right?

From around the corner I heard the voices of what turned out to be a young lady and a young man, who looked like potential cat food for people food traders. She was pushing a cart that had what looked like healthy foods in it; a good sign.

I approached them, and tried to address them simultaneously "Would you be willing to let me pay for some of your food on my food card in exchange for you paying cash for this cat food?" I began to say.

I noticed that the lady had turned away from me slightly, as if deferring any interactions with strangers to the man, as per the traditional manner that I had grown up with.

But the guy had basically turned his back to me when I was mid sentence.

This allowed me to practice the art of batting away negative thoughts as if they were bats flying towards me, trying to go into my brain and I was holding an imaginary baseball bat. Don't even let the negative thought in. I don't know if it was going to be from the family of thoughts that include: That's rude, turning your back on someone when they're speaking to you...typical New Orleans denizen, that's why I call it Ignorleans..what a jerk...or whatever it was going to be. I won't ever know because I batted it away (like it was a bat) and switched to; It's so cool that they had alkaline water, the shelf was empty yesterday; I can't wait to get home and do nothing but drink juice and alkaline water for the next two weeks; how my life will come back under my control then....so happy and grateful, and I can feel the emotion...

No sooner had I done all that, I noticed that the guy had a hearing aids in both his ears. They were those big flesh colored ones that fill the whole ear cavity; not easily noticeable at first. It appeared, and became more evident later, that he was embarrassed by them, and so, had turned his back away from me; not that he hadn't heard me...unless he needs new batteries.

Thus relieved, I then held out the 2 cans of Fancy Feast to the young lady, who then told me that she would buy cat food, and that I didn't need to give her anything off my food card, despite me insisting.

"For your cat," she said; then immediately evinced a bit of embarrassment herself, perhaps thinking that I might have interpreted it as: You're on your own, but a defenseless animal, I'm willing to help...I wouldn't do if it was for you, type of thing.

"I have a cat," she quickly added. "The only thing is; I'm gonna be in the store for a hot minute." She turned the full page list she was holding towards me.

"Oh, I'm usually the one they are hinting to when they come on and say 'The store will be closing in 5 minutes, or whatever."

She glanced a little doubtfully at my basket, which was already full looking, with the gallon of water, the pear juice and a couple Monster Zero drinks that I mix my kratom into (I'm not down to my last tablespoon of it; I have more than enough kratom; I'm happy and grateful for the never ending kratom which I am about to receive...) and probably thought that it looked like I was pretty much done shopping.

"I read the ingredients on everything and it takes me forever; besides, they close in less than an hour; I would stand on my head for an hour to feed Harold..."

She didn't seem like the "Aww..." type but I knew that invoking the name of a cat named Harold was going to tug at her heartstrings.

"OK, just look for me up front."

Having some time to kill, I drifted into the produce department, walking on air at the prospect of being able to say "I got something you like!" to Harold, who has borne the plain canned tuna like a trooper, helping me through this critical period when I can't allow myself to have money.

There was a lady looking through the bags of potatoes which drew my attention to the "winter" foods; and I grabbed an acorn squash and a ginger root; things that grow underground where the frost can't harm them; and then saw that they had huge horseradish roots, 3 of them, with the smallest being about a pound and a half. I grabbed it, despite there not being a price for them posted anywhere...this foot long horseradish root might be 15 bucks, I thought, but something told me to get it. When you think you might have a (albeit over-hyped) virus, and your doctor is a muse inside your head; you aren't in a position to question a huge horseradish root that is just suddenly there in front of you, I've always thought...

As soon as I picked up the horseradish root, it became a magic wand, and the lady appeared holding a bag laden with cat food in the form of a 24 pack in a box, along with a large bag of Temptations treats, which I know Harold likes, and a couple of small, containers of the healthy type stuff that boasts being nothing but the meat, no fillers, no hormones, no grains nor additives, which I know Harold hates.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that Harold hates that kind; but I was instantly transported back in my mind to being 12 years old on Christmas, and opening a present that I already knew was an album, despite an attempt to disguise it by stuffing some wadded up paper in with it and the fact that my main gift was a stereo system; preparing to act pleasantly surprised, then peeling back the paper, to uncover a Jefferson Starship's Red Octopus album.

"Oh, wow! Is this the one with.." (flipping it over) "Oh, yeah, 'Miracles!'" and then, picking up the next present to unwrap, a little square-ish box, and shaking it a little and unable to resist the sense of humor that is still getting me in trouble to this day, saying: "Maybe this one is earplugs!"

But, I was able to manage: "He does like tuna..." 

She had apparently gotten the most expensive stuff she could find. It was the gourmet version of Fancy Feast, which is already a gourmet version of regular cat food.

She encouraged me to go back and feel free to swap the 24 pack (which was about 20 bucks) for a different flavor or a different kind, whatever...

I thanked her heartily, and told her that "Harold say's 'meow'" and she walked off.

Then, I went to see about swapping the Creamy Delights for stuff that I'm sure he likes.I am "once bitten twice shy" as far as getting stuck with large amounts of food that Harold turns his whole body away from when encountering it in his bowl, and something told me not to roll the dice this time. I'm actually about 4 times bitten, 5 times shy...

A came around the corner to see the boyfriend of the lady, who seemed to be searching one of the beverage aisles in vain. He greeted me, while removing his "hearing aids," which I now think might have been some kind of smart devices that go in the ears like headphones because, why would he take them out to converse with me if he's hard of hearing? And that would explain why he had seemed to not even hear me the first time I saw him; he might have been listening to an audio book, or something.

He said that he had been all up and down that beverage aisle and couldn't find something. I asked what it was he was looking for "because I scoured that aisle the other day looking for prune juice; I might have seen what you were looking for..."

He began reaching in one of his pockets. "I have this coupon for a free drink," he said and then unfolded what turned out to be one for a free coffee flavored Coke!

"Oh, those are in a different section, for some strange reason," I said, before leading him to the next aisle over where he was happy to see the very drink that I had been staring at 10 minutes prior, after having gotten some wild hare urge to sip a coffee flavored beverage while walking around the store.

If that paintball had hit me any harder; I might look like the guy on the right now...

The cashier said that she couldn't do a refund, but that customer service opens at 9 in the morning.

"Well, can I swap this for a different flavor of the same kind?"

"No, not after it has been tendered," she said.

"But I didn't even leave the store with this box, it's as if I accidentally bought the wrong flavor and I just want to switch it for another one of the same brand and the same price; what harm would be done?" 

Here comes another bat; headed for my head...
"Yeah, I can see your point, they are probably inventoried by each variety so they will know how many of each individual flavor to order each week, type of thing; no problem"

"Like I said, you can come back at 9 in the morning and return it, swap it, buy something else, whatever..."

That was a blessing in disguise, because, had I swapped for a different variety, it wouldn't have matched what was on the receipt and I wouldn't have been able to get a refund.

With the Law of Attraction, very often the think you want is right in front of you.

"There's my 20 dollar 3 ounce bag of kratom, right there!" I thought, while symbolically smacking my hand on my forehead. There was a reason the lady got such a funky flavor and spent so much; she was trying to get me the kratom instead; that's what I need to get through this Covid-18 b.s.

I'm not down to my last tablespoon of kratom; I never thought I was, I never will be! I'm just going to attract more and more of everything good into my life; and into the lives of those around me. "The Secret" is the Law of Attraction.

I will do the same thing every night for Harold's food needs; 2 cans at a time, instead of 24...

And, as soon as I go back to busking, it will be clear sailing; alcohol and drug free, and without having to worry about vax, or no vax; I might be in the 1% of the population for which no mandate of any kind could ever apply. I'm happy and grateful for that...

Those people on the left (MSNBC, CNN) have been totally brainwashed and are doing the bidding of Big Pharma; such lemmings, but I digress.

I've got cat food to return and kratom to buy and some music tracks to work on, in order to get something from the Halloweeny Jam posted up here.
I had no idea, when I was stoned all the time that not being stoned all the time can be so fruitful. I guess, if you know you are being deceived then you aren't actually being deceived, type of thing.. well, I have an ashtray to pick, later...

 

They've Got Me Back Where They Want Me?

• More B. S. With Shadow Banning?
  
• Halloween Night Jam 
•  I Think I Have Covid 
•  Lack Of Cash Turns Me Into Toilet Paper Thief

We can't have Street Musician Daniel getting over a thousand hits on any of his posts, now can we? He has a "woke" index of .0014 -not good at all!

It may be because a post I did last week garnered a lot of traffic, and one of those 1,148 people flagged the blog as being misinformation, but Google has me right back to getting 8 viewers a day.

I can't wait until the backlash from this kind of crap stirs up people like Dave Chapelle and Russell Brand to push for the breaking up of this monopoly on the dissemination of content on the Internet.

I have found that on Reddit.com, there are discussion groups on almost anything you can think of. And on the ones I have read that are concerned with privacy and censorship etc. there are people who actually advise others to avoid certain terms, and the list includes basically anything considered a current event. If you write about the Virginia gubernatorial race, for example, your post will be sent to some woke lemming who will apply his "judgement" as to whether or not the public should be able to see what you had to say on the topic.

This blog is just a dress rehearsal for when I start a blog "from scratch" under a different name, using a different SIM card in my hot spot phone, and a different Google account, etc.

Another part of me, though, wants to just try to make the best content possible for those 8 people. Then, they could selectively share it with people they trust. It would grow my readership slowly, but surely.

What good is it to get thousands of eyeballs on your stuff if just one of them is going to "report this blog" to the gestapo.

I won't get mad, I'll just outsmart the algorithm. I don't even feel like writing any more; as in any more, ever.

Halloween Jam

Meanwhile, Jacob sent me a nice photo of our Halloween night jam; a jam that did indeed take place as planned, despite some mild doubts that I had expressed in Friday's post, I think it was.

I chalk it up to the fact that Jacob and I have both been drug free, and thus, not subject to the fluctuations in blood sugar levels and their attendant mood swings which could have a person all high and psyched up to make music one minute; and then "just not feeling up to it" 24 hours later.

However, pot still wound up being a chief factor in governing the proceedings. The rest of the band showed up for the occasion, in the midst of making frantic arrangements for getting stoned, despite evidence that they had already done so, in the act of them ravenously consuming almost the whole bowl of candy which had been provided by the owner of the house, near the doorway, for trick-or-treat-ers.
Having encountered it upon walking in, and before either Jacob or I noticed the chewing sounds and could stop them, it never stood a chance of having enough in it to handle the surge of kids in costumes, outside of some kind of miracle being performed, akin to feeding a multitude of people off of one loaf of bread and a fish...

We couldn't start jamming right away because a run had to be made to the store to procure a "gar" (short for a cigar to be used to roll a "blunt" [a term for a cigar emptied of tobacco and then re-packed with marijuana]) which was made, while Jacob and I rode off in the same direction to get Eddie. 

Then, another trip had to be made to "the lake" so the blunt could be smoked out of view of the security cameras that the owner of the house monitors, and since there wasn't room for Eddie in the car that the candy eaters had arrived in, Jacob and I drove him, and another guy who had inexplicably been abandoned by them -he might have been dropped off in a different car- to the lake, even though we weren't going to participate in the smoking of the weed. 

All this running around being done burning gas which is almost 3 bucks a gallon; and yet another example of how convoluted things get when getting stoned is the number one priority.

We got back and were just getting warmed up when the doorbell began to ring and we were treated to the sight of the most diverse imaginable group of trick-or-treaters from Bob, the owner of the house's neighborhood.

Bob is a straight white male, in his straight white oasis, with his "Jesus 2024" sign stuck in the lawn and his TV with the dial that broke off with it tuned to Fox News. A handful of darts thrown at a map of the world would have a decent chance of landing on the countries of origin of all the people that live on Bob's street. That is, unless you were a good dart thrower and aimed at the United States...

Covid Symptoms

I have probably picked up the virus from smoking butts out of the ashtray from the bar on the corner. I've woken up feeling like I was coming down with the flu the past couple days, and this morning some beet juice I drank tasted metallic and I could hardly taste nor smell my coffee.

But, just as it was yesterday, after blowing my nose a few times, I felt back to normal by mid day.

I'm done here. The shadow banning is just pissing me off and now I will just walk around, spreading my misinformation in person. That's OK, because I can't reach millions of people that way, right Zuckerberg and you woke assholes?!

The climate is warming and we all need to swallow down high priced pharmaceuticals to stop it, right woke assholes? 

I'm, or course, just saying this because of the white privilege that I don't even realize I have, right woke assholes?!

I've had the regular flu and it was worse than this, go to hell, Fauci and company!

Or should I say Fauci and drug companies? You make me sick, Fauci; get it? You're the Minister of Health or whatever; and you make me sick!

Biden should just wear a Pfizer pin on his lapel.

I should get a chemistry set and start making my own drugs; claim that they cure some disease and get lobbyists to pay off the FDA people to get it approved....that way I would be able to buy toilet paper instead of wadding it up in my pockets in the Winn Dixie men's room. Or the women's room, if I am identifying that way that day....

I hope my 8 readers get a chuckle over that....

The Oddball Out, With Fiery Eyes No One Could Steal...

I stayed up into the morning, watching Russell Brand videos and didn't fall asleep until after Jeopardy at 11 and, somewhere in the middle of "25 Words Or Less" which comes on after.

I took my glasses off and laid my head on my pillow (a wadded up bed sheet) taking advantage of the fact that that is one of the few shows you can watch without actually watching. The contestants can't see the answers on the screen in front of the home viewers, so it is possible to play right along with them if you can't either. You will hear a beep if the player says the right word...

You can also fall asleep pretty quickly after taking your glasses off and laying your head on your pillow while listening to that show...

Waking up at 7 in the (Monday) evening, I had one thought in my head. And that was that I had (in a dream, perhaps) deciphered the meaning of one of the lines in the song "Lyin' Eyes," by The Eagles..

I remember getting into an argument with someone before over another Eagles's song, after I had insisted that the line in "Hotel California" which he thought was: "Amanda's Tiffany-twisted; she's got a Mercedes Benz" was actually more correctly written as: "She's got the Mercedes bends" and then tried to explain that the writer meant that the girl in the song had "come up" too fast in society and, like a scuba diver who comes up too fast, had gotten the societal equivalent of the "bends" which would cause the diver to cramp up and bend forward at the waist. The singer even punctuates the line with a grunting noise like the diver might utter.

The obtuse person I was arguing with was adamant that the line was merely "She's got a Mercedes Benz (automobile)" and there was no (excuse the pun) deeper meaning to it.

I have been waiting for the day that one of the songwriters might come to New Orleans on vacation, and I would have the opportunity to confirm, at least to my own satisfaction, that I was right about that song line. I'm already convinced, though. The person I was arguing with was clueless.

So I woke up seeing new meaning in "Lyin' Eyes."

The song is about a wife who is cheating on her husband, who has lost interest in her, with some young guy across town. But, she is unable to conceal the relationship from him because her lying eyes give her away.

The line that I had in my head upon waking was: "On the other side of town a boy is waiting, with fiery eyes and dreams no one can steal..."

It dawned upon me that the "no one can steal" part of the line is irony, based upon the fact that it paints him as being the winner because he has something (fiery eyes and dreams) that can't be stolen from him; while the poor husband has something, in his wife, which is being stolen right before our ears. 

That's really all it was for me, something as trivial as finding new meaning in a song while I slept; notwithstanding it being one of the best songs ever written...

4 Days, And A Wake Up

I had slept through Jeopardy and had to snap the TV off before Wheel of Fortune started to annoy me with its virtue signaling in the body of a "token gay black guy," bending over to spin the wheel with a big toothy grin on his face ("Big money; big money!!") -a fixture on that show now- talk about the Mercedes bends..

The end of today will make 5 days without drinking, give or take a day, I'll have to check my records if I intend to do a running tally of "days sober." I will have to if I ever want to busk again. Drunk is no way to go through that endeavor.

I've managed to do this despite screwing up my intended extended juice only cleansing fast.

Update: I just got back from the Winn Dixie with more prune and apple juice along with spring water and will try once again..

Left: "There's a spiritual component to anorexia. That's why people do these fasts in many religions; cause when you starve the body, there's almost a mental clarity that takes over, and that's what I think becomes addicting for most people. When you study anorexia you find that it's usually a manifestation of people trying to assert control over their lives. And that's what it is; it's the one thing that you can control, when you feel like there's chaos -what you put in your mouth, what you put in your body..." -Candace Owens

Having quelled the addictions to things, there is no urgency to go out and busk, with even the fact that I'm out of toilet paper becoming less critical, due to the fast; so it is an all around positive thing...

"It's The Human Spirit; We Want To Be Valuable, We Want To Create" - Candace Owens

Almost everyone in the building has gotten their "first of the month" money from the government for their disabilities, with myself being just about the only oddball out. 

Candace Owens

I have always refused to play their game of finding a doctor willing to send paperwork off to the Social Security people, pursuant to a diagnosis of me being mentally disabled because of me hearing dogs barking in my head.

And then going to a lawyer whom anyone in our building could recommend, who, for a 10% cut of any retroactive benefit amount I might wind up getting, would get the ball rolling and do all the paper and leg work, and I would soon be getting my own "crazy check" on the first day of each month. They think I am literally crazy to not be doing so.

Combined with busking every night, under the table, that might make for a comfortable financial situation for me.

It has always been pride in my ability to take care of myself, and a desire to play by the rules, that has stopped me. I have become enraged at people whom I have seen taking advantage of the system and, on some level, felt superior to them; or at the very least, thought of them as being pieces of welfare "trash," all take and no give, type of thing. I was also worried that it might take the wind out of my sails as far as me applying myself to something that would be rewarding to me and society.

But, hey, maybe I am becoming a little more woke now and am starting to see the abuses of "the system."

I have learned that the ultra rich have become even more so lately, thanks to the "tragedy" of the pandemic; and that, in order to add an 8th "zero" to the end of their net worth figure, millions have suffered.

Maybe us working class people are like the donkey in Orwell's "Animal Farm" ("I will work harder!") and are living off the stale crumbs that fall from the tables of the elite. Maybe we have a right to complain about how little we are given and how much we are exploited.

I remember how, just 15 years ago, I hated the police; referring to the ones in Florida as "fancy pants." It was as if they harbored a resentment of someone who lived rent free on land which had been designated as a bird sanctuary -free if you have wings and a beak, but if you walked on two legs you should work and pay a landlord and the taxman and suffer along with everyone else who hadn't been born into privilege.

"You don't pay taxes, you just play your guitar and hope people will come along and give you money; you make me sick!" said Officer Chutz, of the Baton Rouge police force, back in August of 2011, as he was arresting me after I had made the "admission" that I had drank a 24 ounce can of Lime-A-Rita." There were fancy pants in Louisiana too, I had concluded, as I sat in jail for 45 days on a charge of "public intoxication."

But, then, in New Orleans, I had become a member of the protected class of "hospitality workers" who served in the tourist industry, and watched as police hauled off to jail individuals who might have been harassing me as I busked. One time a crusty "traveling kid" type had been reaching for my bottle of wine and my cigarettes "Oh, can I get some of this; can I have one of these, do you mind?" behind the philosophy that we were "all out here together" and that, when a tourist gives something to one of us, they are really giving it to all of us. It's the "rainbow" way, type of thing. 

"Let me play the guitar for a while, I can make us some money; mine fell off the back of a train and broke..."

"I have every right in the world to be here, this is a public street!" he had told the cop, to no avail because they found him in violation of the selectively enforced ordinance against "obstructing a public passageway," because he had been sitting down on the sidewalk, where "one of these drunk tourists might trip over you."

"What about him (me); he's sitting down!"

"We know him..." 

And too know, know, know cops is to love, love, love cops; and I do, yes I do; honest, I do.

And, from the time I started busking in 2007, until I finally decided to do the thing (by way of St. Augustine, Florida and Mobile, Alabama) hardly a week went by without someone coming upon without saying: "Why don't you go to New Orleans?' as if that would solve all my problems.

There is a familiar ring now, to the refrain of "Why don't you get a crazy check?" which hardly a month goes by without me hearing.

For now, I am still the oddball out, though.