Chapter 1052015

Just putting up posts like someone with an audience and something to say!

Well, who knows...

Not knowing if it was because of inner alarms of undefined trigger, or general anxiety about all the dead end depression, or because it just wasn't working, I canceled playing at hardrock with G and Richard Resonator.  I always like playing with Richard so I gave the trio idea for this a shot. We ran through stuff yesterday, at the ranch, and it became clear that G, who has real difficulty with the patterns of things like consistent timing structure; ex, 4/4 time and you do this for four measures, etc.  Measures will lengthen a beat or two, etc. under G's guidance.  It can be a mess.

Anyway, since they had played this stuff several times lately, G seemed more comfortable just the two of them.  That is how it seemed to me.  Richard and I wanted to play but found it hard to interact while trying to react with light speed to his unpredictable style.  Plus I was not enjoying the music.  So, it was no fun, and on the one song I did feel a little comfortable, G said I was throwing him off and wanted me to sit out.

I'd rather just play that song and go home.  Most of the others are just not me.

I gave it overnight in case I was being impulsive, then I told them it would go better without me that I felt uncomfortable with the material and wouldn't do it publicly feeling that way.

Then I hear that after the gig, G tells Richard I bailed on the gig because I don't like playing with Richard.  That is so wrong.  First, you don't disregard someone's feelings with info that is not yours to share, true or not.  But in this case it is completely false.  Opposite of true.

I have sung the praises of R.R. to everyone.  Especially after the recording studio experience for the Marine.  Richard's dobro set the feel of that whole project.  It was fantastic, and I told everyone I played with during that period how good it was etc.  So, for someone to do that is a little over the top.

Why he could not accept that I felt it wasn't working and that it was better just tow of them, I do not know.  I guess he'd have to conclude that the nature of him makes it hard for two people to back him.

This is the junior high kind of nonsense you get when you try to play music with people.   It does not get better with age, overall.  It gets worse.

It is too bad there wasn't something solid enough that we could play because we each have odd styles and play off one another real well.  It works.

It was good he called to clear the air.  He'd heard I had said good things so G's idea that I wanted to avoid him sounded off to him.  But he's like me, hanging by a thread, and doesn't need to be kicked in the gut.  In his case, I get why.  In mine, I have no idea.  But here I am, and it is getting freaky lately.  So, little things like being able to mean something on a call like that help. That is why you better keep the people around that you have.  You may not know just how great you have it until you have become the last one standing in your barren little world.

I know.  Maybe I don't know how great I have it in my barren little world, compared to where I'll be if I don't find  way to see the good and the hope and function as if I care.  It is paradoxical but I think I have to do for others in some way in order to get a handle on, or motivation to tackle, my own mess.

The Difference, so far

In the overly dramatic recounting of the Katrina New Orleans saga, all you heard was blame and helplessness, and people shooting at rescue choppers, and looting.  Many of the stories about racist nursing home owners and heartless ones proved 100% false and the people maligned were actually very compassionate and had risked everything to help people.

Never let fact in the way.  It wasn't a Katrina issue, it was "you live below sea level and the dutch boy is pulling his finger from the dyke at any minute" issue.   You need to be sure the levees are in order and that redundant systems are in place.  Otherwise, all it takes is one little thing and it is all history.

No.  It was Bush's fault because he hates black people.  According to people like Spike Jones, and many others who weighed in with creative fiction at the time,  white people are obsessed with race and think about it all the time.  So, they made a weather event to kill black people.  They made them shoot at helicopters and Bush is an obsessed racist.

Come on.  New Orleans, at least that district they always talk about was populated with morons. Their state and city were governed by morons and opportunists.  No surprise; most places are.

Anyway.  In Columbia you hear about people finding creative ways to help one another.  Maybe soon they will blame someone and start massively stealing and looting.  But so far, they do not react like they did in Louisiana.  Maybe the governor and general population are a little more removed from the idea that government is a parental sort of god which can do anything on a whim.  I prayed to the government to come get me and they didn't so I drowned.

It would be such torture to many people with various ailments and limitations to deal with that sort of flooding and lack.  Shortage of everything in such times.  All is wet, rainy, under water.  What if you are in a wheel chair or just sick?  Rough times.  I still blame Bush.  And Lyndon Johnson.

The Same Common Sense Folks...

...who gave us common sense no-knock SWAT raids, often killing innocent or ill people, getting the wrong address, maiming babies with flash bang grenades, etc., are the same ones we expect to successfully deal with common sense gun control?  These lunatics are the ones who are to decide who is a threat?  That is the trouble.

Sooner than later, whoever philosophically disagrees with those in power will be labeled as mentally ill, and domestic terrorists.  Already those who think man can control the cycles of climate suggest jailing those who publicly claim otherwise.

That is why I am skeptical when I here demagoguery like Obama's half truth riddled speech, and others clamoring for more laws.  All the facts have yet to surface. We do know that unprotected, and disarmed places have more butchery by madmen.  When governments do it, it is OK.  When lone lunatics ruin the lives of others it is a call for more power to be given to government.  I am not of that school.

But I am not of any school, today.  Except I am not of the school who uses the word "folks" very much.  I did here to mimic the president in his folksy overuse of the word.

Band Wagons and Whatnot

Everyone is hopping on half baked crusades regarding guns.  It is a macabre thing that generates these reactions.  But the reactions are invariably full of half truths and emotional outburst more than anything useful.  All the usual "we need to...".  I rarely find myself comfortable in those "we" statements.

For one thing, I wasn't involved in the events which bring on all the madness.  And I certainly wasn't involved in making the laws regulating the people and places involved.  So maybe "you" need to seek common sense or rethink the restrictions and such. I don't.  And I don't often come down on the side of regulation if it is at all avoidable.  Simply because I do not have much faith in those who enforce laws, or create them, when it comes to reason and honor.

Enforcement culture is as far from a "common sense approach"  as it gets.  In about every area.  Or it can be.  Depends upon who is wearing the official gun at the time.

We can expect a rash of feel good, depending upon your predetermined viewpoint, slogans pasted over famous people's likenesses, even though they most likely never said what is being tacitly credited to them.  I saw one with Morgan Freeman and it said something comparing two unrelated events to demonstrate the duplicitous nature of how people view things in this country vs others.

I do not think Morgan had anything to do with that bit of propaganda.  No matter.  When it was pointed out that some woman's over the top essay encouraging "us" to "DO SOMETHING!!!" contained several false statements, wrong figures, blatant lies,  one supporter tried to equate the false statements with misplaced commas and such.  Admitting the lies but then saying it was being picky to be skeptical of the conclusion merely because the facts used to support it were false.

You can't reason in that environment.  I offer no answers or anything.  I will say that propaganda can be annoying.  They all use the term "common sense" in pushing gun laws.  That is lame.  99.9% of the people using that phrase only use it because that is what all their talking points say.

And it goes on.  There are stats regarding Honduras vs the US based on false premise.  Like so many things, sense of any kind seems lost.  I see places where fires have jumped highways and it would not hurt much to broaden the firebreak a bit to hamper the next one without totally ruining things.  No. Lets just let the dry weeds run up to the edge of the rd and hope the slightest spark doesn't touch it because that is all it will take.  We will worry most of the year, every year, because we can't do anything man made to protect mankind because we are bad and not natural.

Hell with it.  Just trying to write something other than health news or articulated fear and mental paralysis.