Every Now and Then They Stop and Listen

Most musical events which are jam or open mic are peopled by those who want to play, and catch up socially with others when they aren't playing.  They talk through the other people playing.  After all, almost everyone there plays.  Or so it seems.

I've been noticing who and what gets everyone's attention and holds it.  At a thing I checked out the other evening, a guy named Bobby was playing a few of his original songs.  The redneck trouble makers playing pool in the back stopped and were moving to the music making positive yet unintelligible comments.

Other than that the crowd was as loud as whoever was playing,  Bobby is not loud or flashy.  He is good, and likable as well.  Mostly he's good and not a fake.  He comes from the heart.

So, tonight I was at a place with lots of talking and I relayed to Sande the Bobby observation.  We had yet to play and she wanted to do an original that has never been heard and a couple of songs in spanish that I never heard.  Mexican I guess.

I told her that people would listen, that I wasn't worried.  The talking had become rather loud.

They stopped, and they listened, and I was thrilled to play on Mexican/ Spanish songs, even though I need some practice--that music goes not where I automatically expect from habit.  They go elsewhere.  It worked out pretty well I think.

The cool thing was that a few minutes before time I said, "they'll listen to us because they should!"
Seeing the attentive, smiling faces and people moving and dancing proved I am learning what gets and holds interest.  It often coincides with what is most fun to do.

I Can't Stop It,a song by Sande

This wasn't a gig.  Just got together at Renegade bar--From the show Renegade--the Lamas kid---anyway, the guitar on left didn't play when we were at the ranch.  We had more sound there, and a bass player and I don't know.  I was filling in the guitar on what was up and then confused myself about keys. I do that sort of thing when I'm guessing what's coming.  Sande set up a gopro cam and recorded this.  This was almost like just sitting around jamming a little laid back stuff to me.  I like the challenge of the violin.  I also like it that Warren is classically trained and has done a lot, so I can take cues here and there.  Although in this I'm cuing for others to partake in the instrumental.  It's to prove to myself I can hold back.  Also usually the keys are more prominent.  We've just started playing together.  Rick, the keyboard also has a lot of real training; plays with a college symphony way out east of here  El Centro.  Long way.  I renewed my driver's license there. Crowded.  Few English speakers in line, but quicker than normal places in San Diego county.

That might be the second--or first-- time playing that song.  I've got a cd of her doing it solo, just to have a feel for it.

I like her original songs a lot.  There are many more.



Maybe we need to set up a Sande riser, kind of like a drum riser.   She stands about 2' 10" so a riser could help her be eye to eye with the rest of us,

Why I'm Still Not A Carnivore

It would be way better to be an omnivore.  A true omnivore.  You could eat well where I live if you like things like rabbit.   You could kill dinner every day with a rock.  I suggest acquiring this taste if you are already a carnivore.  Squirrel too.  They're everywhere.

But here we go, Master Chef final.  Appetizers?   Ha.  One is fixing pig's ear, and the other cooking an octopus.  That does not seem appetizing to me.  I can usually empathize, even if I don't eat something.  No way can I do it with these things.

That's supposed to get your appetite going.  Can't even imagine that.

But I'll bet lots of people love these items.  More for you with me around.  That is good, and I'm glad to be of service in that way.

Heal Thyself, Musician

If I were, I would.  In some ways maybe I am.  I think I have good sense and a little tiny bit of knowledge.  Enough so that I can clue guitar players in on what key they are in if I know the chords they are playing, and if they capo up I can tell them where they are.  They don't always know because they don't know keyboard and only know the guitar chords and how the strings are tuned.

Some very good players, very good songwriters fit that description.  That doesn't make me a musician, just someone with sense who knows a thing or two.  Anyway, I think the original saying is a Biblical thing and they said, "physician" not "musician".

I changed it to suit myself like I do all Biblical things.  Another lie.  I don't actually do that so drastically.  I just do not, can not, believe in the zero sum game of punishment and sin.   Executing me does not wash it clean if you kill someone.  It just doesn't.  I don't believe the whole purpose and message of Christ is that the Creator tortured him beyond belief to make everyone else's screwups OK.

Forgiveness and redemption I go with, but not some other things.  And I do think that for however many hundreds of years the Church has played that and much else wrong. It makes it easier to control people.  Guilt is one hell of a tool.  I should know.  I was infused with at least the average dose given Catholic and Jewish children.  But my dose did not include the antidote.  Most likely I'm wrong.

I can't pretend to believe it in ways that I don't.  I can't understand how pouring a bunch of pain on someone over there fixes people over here.  Although most mothers go through a whole lot of pain trying to keep their children safe and well.  Just bringing them into existence...

Another story.  I'm not healed and it sucks.   This weather sets me off every few hours if I am not careful.  Just the drive to work in 100F temps found me unable to tolerate the great outdoors to do my job upon arrival.

I hope it either goes away quick or can be fixed whenever I do the next blood test.  The last two have been progressively outside the blood box.  So maybe the next one will include an obvious item they can pronounce, like incurable imminent death.  Or easily dealt with blood thing leeches can cure.

Of course, anymore, it feels like anything to do with medicine is already overrun with leeches.  What I don't think people get is that the doctors and practitioners aren't the leeches.  It is the system which forces them to test you for prostate cancer if you're a woman, just to cover any possible liability.

Obviously, that was a fabricated exaggeration to make a point.  I've found that people cannot follow thoughts most of the time, and cannot discern hyperbole from a hyperbola, so I have to watch myself if I don't want trouble.

But I'm not saying I don't want trouble.  Jury's out on that.  I still like the songs of Sande Lollis and I like playing with her.  She's a good soul I think.

But whatever is going on, I either want it fixed soon, or I want it to kill me quick.  That is how it is.  If I was a woman I might feel differently.  I've concluded that women are almost all way tougher and stronger than I am, so they are unlikely to relate to this at all.  I can relate to it and that is how I feel.

Ever since Christmas I've realized I'm an unproductive waste of life; no kids, wife, long term career or major benefit to anyone.  My family somehow held up that mirror and I got the message.  I won't go back to gaze in that looking glass again anytime soon.  It is not intentional for the most part, and I am in total agreement.  I just think it rude for a family member to make such views so clear even if not directly stated.  If I point out why others are a waste of humanity, and describe your life to a tee in describing them, come on.

Oh well.  That trivia is the least of my worries.

This heat has caused me to think it is no wonder the people in the mideast are such angry, raving, head chopping, woman hating, lunatic worshipping psychopaths.  It's the relentless heat and sunshine.  It's worse than Arizona, where the sun never sets, and no matter what you do, it is always in your eyes.  Southern Arizona.  At least in Arizona they don't mind if the women wear skimpy clothes and think and drive, and such.

The longer we pretend that the majority of Islam is sane, the more trouble we're in for.  I found a copy of the koran, in English, on an airplane.  I perused it for quite some time.  All manner of instructions about when to kill people and when not, and who to kill.  As long as you aren't in their way, you should be safe.  I guess that is the moderate viewpoint.  That's the difference between this recent activity and the Inquisition; nothing in Christian holy books really gave any justification to that stuff.
But the muslim holy book is very easily interpreted to justify any abuse of infidels.

The Great Pretense seems to apply to any group that is irrational, and troublesome and devoid of logic, and who make real pain in the ass neighbors.  Has nothing to do with any ethnicity--the problem is the behavior.  But we pretend that obnoxious behavior is somehow a wonderful expression of multiculturalism.

I think this physical issue is making me into an angry, yet proud, islamophobe and a phobe when it comes to all manner of lies and pushy bullshit entitlement and aggression.

No Film At 11

It must be something to do with me and video.  I tried twice with the Memphis band to get people to operate my video camera.  I put it on a tripod.  I said, "you don't have to do anything but make sure it is on and doesn't get stolen.  If you feel like it, zoom in when there's a solo, but that is not even necessary.

One time I got pictures of a bar ceiling and bottles of booze and it was turned off when it should be on.  The other time the sound was ok but more of the video was of port-o-lets, tarmac, sky, tarmac, building walls, tarmac, port-o-lets than of the band.  It was on a tripod.  WTF?

I'm almost positive that time was due to a deep seeded issue which drives that person to seek conflict while pretending never to do such a thing.  I used to think she must have been mad at me, but now I believe it was some need for me to mad.  I did not scream and yell.  Even then I smelled a subconscious trap.  Subconscious because I don't think she even knows it was an obviously bizarre thing to do.  Just leave it and make sure it doesn't get stolen, I said.  Any closeups are just an option.

This time the cam was not mine and none of the responsibility was mine.  In any case we played in front of a camera, once again on a tripod, which was only turned on after the show was over.  On and off had somehow been confused.  New cam and I don't know.

The way I am these days I'm sure it is my evil doomed mojo, karma, dharma, and bad vibes that cause it to happen.  That's all stupid but I just don't want to be mad at anyone because it wasn't my stuff anyway, and it won't fix anything.  So, I take it out on myself I guess.  "You no good waste of space, you can't get video right even when it isn't your video and someone else is responsible."

Musicians are all crazy or jerks or both anyway.  We like their music and they make it to offset their troublesome ways.  That's my theory.  Most people like music but how many really like the behavior of those creating it?  Don't answer.  I don't, so that means no one likes them.

That thread keeps getting a little thinner.

So, no video and that sucks. And I know I jinxed it, so as a result I pronounce all musicians to be jerks--and that's only to keep from putting down a more vulgar name.  See how this works?   And do you see why you shouldn't pay a lot of attention to anything I say?   At least as far as opinions about people.

But you mark my words and watch the way it goes out driving; it is always the person in the DODGE...


100F degree weather in east county San Diego.  This is not pleasant.  And out of nowhere it rained.  Didn't cool things down for more than a minute.  Just made it steamy, muggy and not fit for human consumption.  There is a reason SD has Stepford weather; something about the place makes it really unusually uncomfortable when it slides out of the norm.  I used to laugh because 80 is just a hhot day elsewhere.  Here it is tragic and feels different.  Maybe they will DO SOMETHING in Sacramento.  I know, tax everything!!!  That is what is supposed to fix weather.  I saw it on a chart on facebook.  It was put out by the World Consortium on DOING SOMETHING!!!  Be sure to say that with breathless urgency. "We have to DO SOMETHING to fix weather, human nature, gravity and other realities..,.

Hoping for Film At 11

These are certainly strange days.  Again, I thought I might be nearly cured of ailments because I have done a lot of work in the hot sun lately without the attack of being skinned alive one molecule thick layer at a time.  Or so it seems.

I was wrong.  I was at work and it came on like gangbusters--whatever a gang buster is.  I'm all for busting gangs--I despise people who hang packs, like hyenas.  Sorry, Hell's Angels, you suck, too.

Anyway, I kept trying to keep it at bay after it began and did OK long enough for others to leave, then it got bad enough I was yelling and screaming, sort of.  Crazy.

But tonight I met up with the Enter Blue Sky people--I do not call people folks if I can help it.  Only when it makes solid sense.  So we met up at a jam place, a musician bar.  A lot of those people are halfway making a living playing.

We only did three songs, but it is the first time I've play out in public with them, and only the fourth time playing with Sande.  It is the second time everyone was present.  That makes a bug difference.  I don't do it the same.  The unique sound really seemed to grab people and the last song brought down the house.   They clapped in the middle of my solo, which was an attempt at spontaneous combustion in B minor.   All original tunes by Sande.  I love her material.  I only hope it all translates to the video which will be made tomorrow by her husband.

A new experience for everyone I guess.  Harmonica is rarely paired up with high quality violin and keyboards.  With her driving rhythm guitar, and the bass and drums, it works.   Never been in a band of six before.  And they pulled me in last.  The blend is unique when we pull it off.  I'm very nervous, and excited about this. It is fun, keeps me off the streets, and out from under a dumpster breathing my last.  So, it is good.

Apparently I am not healed yet.   Well, who is?

I really want to change some stuff.  Like how I live.  Not so much where, just how.

Now that I think of it, it is pretty cool that I got enthusiastic reactions while I was doing my solo on that last song.  A little lighter fluid and the combustion would have occurred.    That was the only time that happened all night.  Every other time they just waited until the end for applause.  But there was some whooping in between, here and there.

What a sick glutton for approval or adoration or whatever it is that separates performers from sane and balanced individuals.  I always admired sane and balanced  to the extreeme and longed to be that.  At this point I'm thinking, "Forget that.  Go to plan B.

So, A Violin Player, Keyboard Player, Harmonica Man, and A Chick Singer Play a Ranch

Today the keyboard guy is off for a rehearsal with a symphony at a college off east in the desert somewhere.  They pay him to do it.

The violin player is another classically trained guy who tends to rock out.  The surprise is that they both consider me something good on stage.  Must be because I moonwalk and have good rhythm.   Maybe I'm stretching the truth with the moonwalk part.

There's a bass player and a drummer, as well.  They may be temporary and replaced due to scheduling issues down the road.  For Friday they are in.   The woman who sings plays guitar and has lots of original material.  She's very intense and full of joy and passion when she performs so I like her.

I didn't know what to think the first time I saw her.  She's very short and her hair is even shorter.  I was thinking many things which don't seem to be accurate.  Then she started playing and it stopped me in my tracks.  Intense and she rocks.  I like her songs too.

I was the last to be added to this group.  It surprised me since I rarely play with piano and you wouldn't think it would blend with violin.  But I am good at altering what I do so it does blend and the sound is pretty cool sometimes.

Also for the first time in forever, I'm playing with someone who suggested a name that isn't the same as four other bands in the same state or those nearby.  I can never understand why people want a name that's been done, and done.  It is a weird name but I like it, and I'm happy it is not a copy.

Enter the Blue Sky.  And she's a graphic designer so there is a nice graphic with it.  My job is trying to be ready with almost no practice and only one so far that included the fiddle.  I play very differently with no violin there so I'm flying almost blind.  That's alright.  The fiddle and I are both considered unique players in our small circle and a bit beyond.

I just hope I'm not as spaced out exhausted as I feel today.  Not sure why. Probably to do with the things that have been plaguing me for the last six months.  That has evolved so that the severity of some of the symptoms can usually be contained.  People tend to adapt and compensate for things after awhile.  Even I do that sometimes.  The thread keeps getting thinner is how I feel.

First see if I can get through Friday, then find a way to pay California the extortion they want.  I am not so sure I owe them anything but I think it easier and cheaper to pay this time.  Otherwise they could freeze assets or steal them outright.  I really hate what people have allowed to evolve in this country as far as governmental power and methods.  Very unimaginative and cruel.

But just look at comments on any news story.  Or any story.  It can be a story about dogs in the Yukon and someone will bring Obama or Republican party bashing into it.  Amazing.  F---ng MORONS!!
But most of those who do OK under this setup seem to consider me the moron for rebelling and for not going along and thriving.  They have a point.  They are still wrong and contributing to theft and murder while pretending otherwise but that covers 90% of the taxpaying public.  The non-taxpaying public represent a disproportionate number of the thieves rapists and murderers so there's that.

You subsidize them, you're an accessory to the crime.  But we pretend the bulk of riffraff aren't really riffraff and it is all a big misunderstanding.  Or we make them cops and irs agents.  How can anyone with the irs sincerely think they are doing the right thing?  Misanthropic bastards.

OK.  So I find a few hundred to pay the insanely greedy state of California just to avoid what I've known to happen to others who had no other income happening.  And they wonder why people are homeless and on food stamps.  I'm getting worked up big time.

I play Friday night at 8 pm at a big three day thing at a ranch in Ramona.  People will be camping, parking RVs, etc.  I'll probably play and then go home.  I'm in no mood to humor drunk campers.

Some Pictures Are Worth Being In, Others No

That's about all I have to say about that.   So, I am avoiding the pictures that needn't include me, and attempting to figure out where I should take up space.

OK. That really is vague.  I'm tired of humoring potentially dangerous lunatics because I don't find their enabling spouses so unpleasant.  See the deal?  Enablers and those in toxic codependency are often a large part of the intolerable problem.  If I do the same thing over and over in these cases, wondering why the snake bit me, I am a contributor to my own difficulties and can't legitimately complain.

Biting snakes bite because that is what they do.  Simple as that.  And as much as I might want to pretend that rattler is a cute puppy, my wishes will not change the nature of the viper.  And no matter what others say, a rattle snake is what it is.

That explains things.   It a metaphorical sense.  I have not dealt with any actual snakes or bears or other wildlife lately.  I thought I'd clear that up.  Last time I resorted to verbal symbolic illustration some people thought crazy things.

The Most Current Wackwittery Is Multiplying Like Rabid Rabbits in Heat

It is such a strange time.  There is absolutely no shortage of material, but after non stop crazy bombs one becomes numb and apathetic.  I do.  That makes me wonder if it isn't how it is done; just keep throwing down acts of incredible shamelessness, and nerve, and after awhile no one even calls you on it.

We are at that stage as a species, I think.  Where to even start?  I'll stick just to the USA.   Someone actually thought putting non-citizens on juries makes sense.  I don't think they've managed it yet, but just the fact that anyone would entertain the idea...

OH, explain to me how Al Sharpton was able to channel the desires of Michael Brown in the great beyond, yet Al cannot give a good, accurate real accounting of Michael's last moments.  He pretends to know but he mostly channels Mike's wish to be some thing---what was it?  Something about changing America?

I can't even channel Al and he's not dead.  I still don't know what he's talking about.  I guess we have more in common than I first thought.

Boots?  Bosnia, again?  Estonia and them.  Hell yea.

I don't want to talk about that because then I have to talk about Obama, and that is about like trying to rationally discuss the prophet, pbuh,  with a muslim.  Whatever you do, do not draw a cartoon or other rendering of him, pbuh.  Not even a stick representation of him on the back window of the mini van.  Nothing.

Are we still pretending that CAIR and other such outfits are honest and not sympathetic to radical jihadists?  To get into that I have to get into things I don't want to discuss.

Maybe I can use the fact that some unimaginably weird new insanity is probably just around the corner in this neck of civilization.  It always is.  I use that fact to give me a reason to bother.

It is how I see things lately.  I see relative value in people; meaning some probably have more value to the species, the human race, than others.  I rank myself about as close to zero as one can be.   I'm sure there are some plusses, but also minuses to offset that, but it nets out at zero, plus or minus a wee mite.

People who produce worthwhile and relatively happy offspring are up toward the top, of course.  After that would be people who actually invent something useful or cure a disease or problem.   Then those who find ways to remain in the human race providing some good service or whatever.  But not isolated and of no use.

You know, I actually felt bad for the North Korean psycho leader that time the Onion named him sexiest man alive.  Kim Jong-Un.  This is a real person who has power over a lot of people.  Enough to be a real pain to the world.

And I still want a cigarette.  Eight months.  I'm in the habit of not smoking even though I always want to.  I hope I don't and maybe sooner or later I won't have craving for cigarettes.  I don't crave thge burning of things, the mess, smell and some of that.  I miss the cost of course.  The amount of money it takes for that hobby is substantial.  I tend to buy other things.  Like now I cannot wear any of the usual size jeans and pants.  I had to buy some jeans and pants that I could get into. I've never weighed more than I do now.

I tied my record for chubbiest I've ever been.   This came on in a hurry.  Everything is changing and I don't know why.  I'm more and more able to be a little active without feeling like red ants are attacking.  So, now I have to do more and eat a lot less.  If I let it go further it will be exponentially more difficult to lose any weight or chubbiness.  I know this to be true.

When you think about someone losing fifty pounds, I doubt it registers how amazing that really is.  It is very tough to make such changes.  All I have to do is drop 20 pounds.  But that is a lot.  Four five pound bags of potatoes. Over twenty cans of Bustelo--way over twenty; then cans are 10 oz. each.

I  can't see anywhere that bags of potatoes or cans of Cafe Bustelo would fit.  Perhaps belly fat is very dense.  It must have a much greater mass per unit of volume.  My belly may be as dense and heavy as Portland Cement.  Yet is is softer.  Yea, try to explain that with evolution, professor.

You know, the UN is a lot like The Onion online.   They are really a joke, but none of those who are the butts of the jokes are aware of their own goofiness.  It is too bad that in this case people can or have been killed, impoverished, raped and used at the pleasure and discretion of idiotic masters.

Oh yea, Sande asked me to play a gig in Ramona.  A weekend, three day, camp out deal on some ranch.  May just show up, play, and hit the road.  Or I may camp a night.  I'll probably not do that because I doubt I have a ready hot shower there.  I still have to have that safety net. Sande L is an unusual woman--married, and I guess her kids are college age. Never seen them but know she used to cart kids around.  Anyone, she is one of those who is both strange enough, nice enough, and just an intense good singer.  A cut above, at least.  Sande is Unique enough I could see her playing Sat. night live or one of those.  She does not look like what you hear when she performs.  The contrast works well for her.

Anyway, she's been playing with a violin, bass, drummer, and her guitar.  And now they added me, at least for this show.  I hope it works.  She is good.  Oh and a keyboard player.  I know all of those guys.   This is quite a compliment.  I hope I don't blow it.  I feel like I'm in one of those spells in which it feels like I'm submerged in jello or mud.  And one of those spells in which I just give up and mess up.  I will probably not do that.  These people expect a lot from me. That is flattering, and pressure too.

I know the word; Sincere.  This is as real and sincere as any music I'm liable to accompany.  This is educated company.  Violin who has played everything from symphonies to bluegrass. Keyboard about the same broad scope of ability and experience.

So, we do some practice thurs and sun.  The thing is fri, sept 12th.  My brother's birthday.

Then they have another duck guy quote.  I didn't read the whole thing because I don't care what the duck guy says.  He has no power and I can only hope it is out of context or something.

The bigger picture is that a guy who makes duck calls seems to see the intractability and insanity of at least one religion.  No whether he really believes it is convert or die, I don't know because the blurb did not indicate convert to what.  I think he meant renounce or die.  Renounce your ways and quit the mass murder, sadistic behavior, etc. or we'll have to force you to stop, which means better stock up on chocolates and nylons for those scores of virgins who've been waiting  a long time just for you.

It's real.  No way does it seem real.  If I wrote the script of reality, even including some cynicism, I'd never have imaged in this century, beheading and crucifixions,  the whole duck thing, Jerry Brown, seventy two virgins, boots on the ground, Bill Maher,  really.  I just wouldn't think this stuff would fly, but it does.

What comic book writer created Al Sharpton?!  I'm convinced it is a genetic predisposition to use good information, and creative, brilliant logic to promote false conclusions.  It is just what they do.  That is the only explanation for why a university president would be behind the same political forces as the most blood thirsty of gang members.  And it makes them feel good that they managed to cleverly disguise their faulty logic so that they could feel as if they stand shoulder to shoulder with their badass brethren.  Makes the effete feel tough.

It's all a joke of some kind.  Or at least a con.  Maybe humans are mostly crazy.  But how humans ever figured out how to make metals and engines and friggin glass--imagine the first person to notice how cool melted sand can be--how did people figure it out?  They don't even know.  Lots of things that no one knows.  Allegedly no one.  Must be some pieces missing here.