Will Los Lonely Boys Hire Me?

Well, they should, if you ask me.

Big if.  Finally I decided to get tickets for Los Lonelys. They will be at a relatively small venue for them, I think.  Belly Up Tavern in Solana beach.  Very near where I work. I've never been there, and I rarely go to any sort of concert.  Especially if it costs money, involves a lot of people, parking, and other hoopla most people handle as if it is normal.

  

Now I'm thinking, what if by some stroke you managed to jam with them.  ?   Then I thought, you wouldn't even be prepared.  Better check it out. Sure enough, Heaven is in F#, a key I manage to avoid generally.  I have F# among my practice harps, but I do not have a B which is the cross position harp for F#.  Cross is always five above, counting sharps and flats, or I think music nits call it a fourth above.  Musselwhite and I count five.  Learned it in his book.

I went ahead and pulled up a video of a live performance of Heaven, used my F#, and concluded I could hang using either key harp, and not feel bad about it.  I have to say, to jam with them would be something, I think.   Much of their music just hits me right.

Maybe my friend M, who will be tagging along, will somehow let Henry of LLB know they should waste some time and money on a harp player exactly like me.  She is not shy and also a fan.  Could happen.  I am such a putz and coward, women always run interference for me.  I must be shameless because I feel no remorse over this.

The first time I played in public sober was in Jamaica.  That time E. was responsible for initiating that deal.  It was a staff-guest talent show at a resort.  House band was reggae, with a keyboard playing music director who really had it going on.  Seems it was mostly keyboard, bass, and drums.

Anyway, we jammed off a riff and it was amazing.  The point is, I am now a New England Patriots fan for life as a result, and it is a clear case of a woman facilitating my progress in ways I never would have done on my own.

Women taught me most of what I know, or at least made it possible.  Men instinctively wanted to kill me for most of life, while pretending not.  It is too bad.  I did not notice all these things until way too late, and not that long ago.

Anyway, you never know.

I could use my gig harps and play along with LLB using a B harp, but I don't do that.  I'd have to walk across the room, and I prefer to reserve 1st string harps for rehearsals and shows.  Remind me--I should get a new A minor harp.  And a new B minor, maybe.

If you see those guys, let them know I could be hired cheap and will jam for free.  Lucky them.

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That Contract Sanction is Still On

Some time ago, I believe I tried to arrange a hit on myself.  I probably should have gone to Murder Inc. dot com.  If there is such a site; afraid to check.

Anyway, the new fee is $2000.00.  I have no idea how the collection arrangements should be made. No way I pay in advance and get ripped off.  No, you have to off me first.

You could maybe stipulated that I have it on me, then you just take it when done.  But what if you prefer to the far away sniper method?  That changes things.

Oh well.  Still on, and the money is there.  You just have to figure out how to do the job and collect.

It is a gray Wednesday, and after a brief period of relief, I am again plagued by my perennial angst over wasting a perfectly good life, and by some standards, good mind, body and dozens of friendships.

No wonder it is as it is.  Now I am too tired to fix it.  Oh well.  Got at least two gigs this weekend, plus stuff with veterans' music therapy stuff, plus I don't know what else music-wise.  

The thing is, I am getting really sick of playing, sick of music, and totally sick of whatever opinions and causes lame nobody musicians, and their famous cousins, embrace.  Show people are the biggest dumbasses when it comes to how the world should be organized and operate.  Really the proud idiocy often overshadows and eclipses any value their talent may bring.

A perfect example is one of my favorite guitar players running around in a big Che T-shirt grinning like a freshly lobotomized zombie.  What a moron.  Great player but dumb as a rock.  Sorry, Carlos S., I do mean you.

You can know things, see things, understand things, yet still be so personally conflicted or in grief that you cannot do anything much worthwhile.  Even though you may not be doing bad stuff.  Just nothing, mostly.  It is no fun.  You cannot pretend to believe what the sheep around you pretend to believe.  You set yourself up for ridicule and torment.  Why?  Casting pearls before swine in the classic sense. You know they are dumb but you assume they mean well.

Assumptions are often wrong.  Lately, most of my assumptions are wrong.  But I still hate that nonsense about when you assume you make an ass out of u and me.  Nonsense!  Assumption is a reasonable part of trying to make sense of life and keep from getting eaten alive.  I assume that running into a pack of wolves yelling "bad dog" would be a mistake.

Hell with it.  One shot, one kill.  That is the USA Marine sniper's credo.   Let it apply here, should you accept this mission.  How to actually collect the money is still not totally settled.  Just tell them I said so, and use password "nincompoop".   Some survivor is bound to pay if you use the password.

Crooked As Norm Is Not New

In the year 2000 I was in Greensboro, NC working at the airport.  Night shift when possible.  Good times and dark times.  What's new?  Except--even in the most nonsensical paralyzing depression, I have never felt as far gone in the old pit of despair since moving out west.

The location is only incidental.  It was held up as the motive and reason in itself, but the truth was I needed major reset.  Not like that Hillary button either.  To a grand degree it worked but learning not to be an ultra depressed or otherwise defective idiot takes time.  It can be done.

The story, though is set at Greensboro airport in the year 2000.  A young girl left a purse at the gate.  I think she was maybe 11 or so.  She was gone, flight was gone, last of the day had come in.   The other agents there wanted to take the money.  Can you believe that?  There was ID, and I was able to discover destination and arranged to ship it out on flights that would return it to her within a day.

But the crazy thing is that I was odd man out, or at least in the minority for not being a heartless petty thief.  But I remember a few years before that, in Miami the "edgy" action news reporter, actually ridiculed a guy who found like 50K and turned it in.  She called him a schmuck.  Precursor to news source for most of America being comedy shows and roasts.

The point is, people have been dirtbags, and celebrating that fact, for a long time.  The up side is that this dirtbaggery is not some new facet of the evolution of the species.  In some quadrants it is declining.  The problem is, dirtbags multiply at an exponentially higher rate than non dirt bags.  So the planet is getting overloaded with lunatics, zealots, ultra creeps.   Violent ones.

With luck they kill one another off. That again beings me to abortion.  Most people want nothing to do with it.  But the ones who are really thrilled with it, and use ending pregnancy, to avoid childbirth, are best off not multiplying in most cases.  If they kill themselves and one another, it is the only way decent people, who leave others to live their lives in peace and liberty, can thrive.

Well, one way they can thrive.

I am still stunned by that little airport incident, even though the crew in Memphis, when I moved there, was the thievingest, back stabbing, sorry, crooked, lazy conniving bunch of snakes I've ever had the pleasure to work with.  There were a few good agents.  Out of about 18, I think maybe 3 or 4 weren't a total waste or major thief.

The fact that I remain stunned indicates that I remain a bit naive.

Thanks for the Subsidies

Kind of like thanks for the memories.  Except I don't much like my memories.

I just tend to think that rather than demand that America cover my healthcare and pittance of a pension (social security), I feel it more appropriate to thank those who pay for this.  If the world weren't insane, none of this would be as it is.

People are mean and crazy and mostly not given to logic and reason, with no internal    checks and balances on greed and jealousy.

So we run around the block to cure diseases, funding the middleman charity which has a vested interest in the disease being perpetually treated, not cured.

Things slowly move along when it comes to personal freedom, disease cure or more effective treatment. They do progress though, in spite of all.  Eventually.

I do not want life to be brutal.  My choices and defects have made me vulnerable to such things.  And the odd illness just about guarantees trouble if I don't take certain measures.  But none of that is anyone else's fault.  I can't in good conscience go scream and yell at rich people to "pay their fair share".  I am sure they pay plenty.  Many hire people and they pay, too.  I pay.  But I take, too.

It was the law.  Now, I don't know but I have already been domesticated.  So throwing me into the world to fend for myself is probably going to be more unpleasant for me than if you keep me on the dole.

But I wouldn't blame you.  I'd figure something out.  Or else I wouldn't.  60-40 in favor of would.

I think maybe the whole thing is a game.  Not sure.  Either it is an elaborate plan to enact a clandestine form of euthanasia, or else it is just another opportunity, like ACA1, to reward certain entities in a bill so convoluted, only the beneficiaries know for sure.  Maybe different cronies this time.  And people will be freaking that they will lose what they have.  I suspect some last minute trickery so that little changes.  What I have heard seems bizarre.  Another "savings account"?  Like social security?  Best kill off the boomers for that to be useful.

What a racket.  And what a shame that people are all being ugly.  Don't bite the hands that feeds you. And don't be screwing with the kitchen help--or no telling what you'll get fed.
That's reality.  It doesn't mean it is all morally right.  It really is not. Moral corruption is what has caused the world to be poor and miserable, for the most part.  If that needs explaining, just forget I ever said it.

So, anyway.  I am skeptical of the sustainability, and ultimate quality and availability of healthcare under proposed system or the present one.  However I am ever in your debt for what subsidies you've provided. Unfortunately, I think insurance is still way ahead of the game, and your subsidies may be pure profit to them.  That's a twist.  Couldn't afford it without you, yet even with a rare disease, I am paying as much as I am using, and you are just paying.

True, though, all that could change instantly if I progressed to other med.  Then you be paying like 100k a year for stuff that seems like it ought be a bit cheaper. Who knows. FDA probably accounts for a lot of that.  Some of this stuff has minor side effects. Or few people suffer those.  At least up to a point.  Right now, your forced subsidies to me provide some vague peace of mind in case it goes south. But I suspect they will try to mouse me if it gets expensive.

The sicker you are, the more games they play trying to not pay up or cover the logical treatments/medications.   You get too fatigued to navigate the mess and play advocate for yourself.  So you die, is what I think they count on.  Otherwise why deny the obvious and typical treatments?

It happens.

Thanks.  Love and kisses.  Keep it up.  I will endeavor to make you proud.  Especially those of you who did not yell or throw bottles at horses while stopping traffic.

I Haven't A Clue, and Maybe I'm Not Alone

Flash back awhile; Nancy said, "We have to pass it to see what is in it!", or words to that effect.  So, by hook or by crook they passed the Affordable healthcare act.  Obamacare.  I still do not know what was in the bill.  Not really.

I knew I had to have insurance by a certain time or I'd be banished to the desert.  So, my friend the broker finagled some high subsidized deal that allowed me choice.  The part we faked is saying I made slightly more than I did.  If you were poorer, they forbade you from paying the extra for a plan with enough choice and freedom that you don't die waiting for competent dx.

So, that was lucky.  Because I had gone out of pocket before the insurance time, and that may be considered proof of pre-existing condition, I guess I benefitted from the law.  I honestly do not know.

But now, the repeal and replace bit seems potentially problematic and not well considered.  Or well considered but unaffected by collateral damage.  Calculated collateral damage.

It could be just me, I don't avail myself of the news much lately.  But I haven't heard much description of specifically is wrong with what is there now, and what specifically is replacing it.  And why.  I haven't heard a lot of what do you do when you already encouraged the dependence of some on whatever care options.  Some of those people are not going to do well if there is sudden change.'

People forget that disabled people and people in pain do not find it easy to do all the admin work it takes to survive broke and in need of medical goods and services.  So changing it and requiring new hoops to jump may be a waste.  I am not much of a fan of this system but that is pretty much how it will go.  Now to find ways to limit decision powers of the official decision makers over medical activities.

I often think it is all a play.  I've never been fond of the democratic party.  Not at all.  But, in modern times,  the republicans go out of their way to be complete caricatures of weirdos, I think, in effort to make the dems look sane.

I was unable to really read the obamacare bill, though I skimmed it.  Convoluted and went on for thousands of pages. Just the outline is nuts.  It takes a robot to read it.  Pelosi bluffed.  They passed it--we don't really know what's in it.

And this new one, no idea, really.  I hear people panicked and people saying it will do this or that.  They always do that with bills.  They claim effects but not specifics of how.  It'll do all these things...

So even if they pass it, all I will know is if I am one who gets the rug pulled out from under.   I can accept it if I am.  America is paying.  But I would rather not see it happen to some other people I know who may not be so fatalistic.

I have a feeling that any bill passed would be pretty much what we have now.  I find the whole thing hotly discussed but very poorly articulated; the whole thing about what is wrong, what they plan to do, and how will it then be better.  And is it within the power of the fed gov in the first place?

Oh well.  I have no idea what is what.  Too many people are actually hostile, emotionally invested, and convinced they are doomed.  The last point makes addressing the previous ones impossible.   But Unless I am sure, I can't try to convince anyone that they aren't doomed.

A Confederacy of Conspiracy? Or Else...

When I step back, and try my best to look at things without my usual, natural bias regarding certain cultures, which I find obnoxious, annoying, or repulsive, and while suspending my usual disdain of centralized authority and government organizations which give power to people like those in administration at S Miami Jr High, many years ago, it tends to pique my skepticism of current news information and governmental activity rather than relieve it.  It is very hard to suspend resentment and dislike for the Mr. Bobo people of the world and of government.  He is the one who informed me and my mother that I was tone deaf at age twelve.  Jerk.  Public school.  Conformist camp.  Idiots reign supreme.
I had no idea what he was asking and told him so.

Just part of my glitch, but no one got it.  He was so unbelievably wrong.  Public schools.  We are supposed to believe they are healthy swell outfits.  I'd say the system is highly flawed.  Just look at the windowless new schools they put up. Huge institutions that look and behave like prisons.  Usually too large to operate well.  Criminal how it works.  And now cops all over the place.  That should not be the norm in schools.

Turns out I am far from tone deaf.  But that is a very good example of how self important academics and people in power can promote lies and get by with it due to their credentials.  "Scientists say!..blablabla"  Who are these scientists?

Once upon a time all the cool stuff mostly came out of Bell Labs.  Now anyone titled "scientist"  is on a government payroll doing whatever keeps the money coming.  In the world of government funding, that means not stepping on the wrong toes, and often is of no value to anyone.

That is all well and good.

My questioning of the entire big picture stuff troubles me.  That is because it makes no sense.   I still think republicans play foil for democrats and couldn't survive without them.  They pretend to be the resistance.  But then they get all gung ho about laws that serve no real benefit as if that is the most pressing problem there is.

I hate to say it, but if you aren't my wife, and I don't know you, I do not care if you carry your babies to term.  If anyone is really honest, you know damned well you wish some of the aberrant wacko, violent, ignorant people around would fail to multiply.  And no way are you happy to see them preggers.  In any case, it is not a crisis.  The crisis is trying populate the earth with incompetent idiots who can't take care of anyone or any thing.

Again, that is beside the point.  It is a case in which the pretend resistance--not neo progressive BS resistance movement, but the pretend republican resistance to the Left's totalitarian dreams--goes off on a tangent so that the bipartisan stage play, cronyism and graft can go on without any real trouble.  A decoy cause that people fall for. Because they cannot figure out what government ought to do.

My trouble is that I find heavy duty religious ritual to be abhorrent, particularly islamic craziness, and I have no doubt that we have aided terrorists abroad or created fertile ground for trouble.  No idea why.  I have never approved of our mideast strategy, but perhaps I am too stupid to appreciate it.  What I am not too stupid to do is to think how someone could wreak havoc on a budget, if they really wanted to do that.

In reality, about 75% of personnel at border patrol are Mexican descent.  The ones I have seen at interior checkpoints.   

But it is not happening.  Airport security, border patrol agents a hundred miles from the border, the homeland security nonsense, none of this would stop the easy things I know one could do.  I will not describe these things because it does no good to put things out there.  Someone might do it.

My question is whether the threat is misrepresented; why, and how.  I only wonder because if they are as nimble, numerous, and determined as represented, why have there not been worse disasters?
It is a strange thing.  My only conclusion is that these people are not as suicidal as it seems.  They just draft the fools and mentally challenged for that.  Maybe.  It is puzzling.  Maybe they figure if the push it too much people would say hell with it and raze mosques in the US or something.

In any case, I do not think the truth is anywhere near the surface.  And I am not sure where it is.  I watch people bury themselves in all the progressive talking points on facebook.  No way they can be promoting all that and doing any double checking.  But when it is mentioned, they freak out and throw another bushel of half truths at you.

 It will wear you down if you actually go for reason.   I think it is because people are driven to feel like part of a dedicated crowd, and they are too lazy to really look at the holes in the stories and the slant, and too motivated to be embraced by their peer group to go against the grain.  Cowards in a sense.  They know they haven't any really reliable info, quite often, but it feels good for their image and alleged viewpoint so they ride along.

What has happened is that we have accepted a system in which we have to trust all to proper authorities.  We give up rights, are asked for our papers or why we are driving down the street.  I cannot drive to Texas or AZ or back into CA without checkpoint stops by border patrol asking me where I am going and why, if I am a citizen, etc.  And some of these are many miles from the border, and on roads that never ever cross a national border.  It is nuts.  So, to those agents, NO THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.  (what You call service--I call it legal bullying and worse)

In the military, your oath is to protect the constitution.  I imagine that word is forbidden to these "public servants" and those with homeland security.  You think even half know what the 4th amendment is?  Of course, elected officials are equally disinterested in the rights and freedoms of others.  This is life by government approval.  And there are many Mr Bobo types in positions to approve or deny.  

If anyone really wants to make trouble they can.  Gangs and violent criminals in the US are a bigger problem,  Our solution---harass normal citizens who mind their own business and want to exercise a bit of freedom, while hurting no one.  So they have put a damper on the bulk of the population, doing nada to eradicate the obvious problems.  It is absolutely bizarre ad makes one wonder WTF?

I think we have been elaborately duped in so many ways.  It is nuts.  Ever wonder what our objective really is in most of the places where we consume bullets and bombs?  I believe the bullet sales people are quite pleased with the endless gravy train.  Comes down to people love to make other people do what they want and money.  But don't underestimate that vicarious power greed.  Those are the ones who say, "If you got nothing to hide, then nothing to worry about".  Life by permission, and those idiots imagine themsleves as part of the judgement and approval process. Pricks

Feb 28 Was Rare Disease Day

Nothing says parrtayy! like a day devoted to rare diseases, I always say.

Here's how I know.  A message, wrapped around a rock thrown at my window.  It missed and bounced off the cottage shingles.

Dear John0   

Today is Rare Disease Day! We know from speaking to people around the world that Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPNs) touch so many more lives than we realize. Many people are only a few degrees of separation from someone living with PV, ET and MF, but don't know it. 

They go on talking for awhile.  No idea what they said but I believe they end with a pitch for donations; worthy cause, save lives, blablablablabla.

Something about how charities and public education do things, and the way they use the language that grates on me.  Greatly.

So run around a rare block and let all your friends see you running around the block in your effort to cure MPNs and all other cancer and poverty and whatnot.  It will surely do the trick.

In my case, I often think I am getting better, and often think it could go south at any moment.   I find myself becoming grouchy and frustrated.  In no mood to hear about politics too much.  Especially don't want to hear how someone has to be an awful person to support politics you hate, etc.

I understand your reasoning but you are wrong.  It is because you do not realize that your wayward ex-friend does not agree to the premises upon which you base your argument.   You aren't a thief if you support more taxes, unless you hold to the premise that money taken by force by government (taxes) constitutes armed robbery.

See?  It's like saying that anyone who could support a white supremacist, misogynist ( i want equal time for misandrists), racist president is no friend of mine. Awful, deplorable, despicable you.

The problem is that most of those supporting your nightmare politician do not agree to the charges leveled, above.  But if it is said over and over in all your talking points, and the machinations of those controlling the conversation and trying to mold your opinion, you can forget to consider that perhaps your lost friends disagree with all that list of adjectives attached to your representative.

I notice that a lot of this is out there, where the dubious premises are stated like agreed upon facts.  Like "settled science" to use another political propaganda tool and a nonsensical statement.

Rare Disease Day 2017 MPN Researcher Spotlight — Dr. Robert Kralovics from MPN Research on Vimeo.
As long as both sides look out the window and say things like, "Oh my God, it is hotter than ever; proof that the earth is heating up like crazy and it is cause by humans", or "Look at all that snow!  More than ever.  Show me your global warming now!", we are doomed.

Can't help but think of the antics of government when the term "rare disease" is mentioned.

No matter whether you consider the climate to have been radically changed by man or not, that is not how it works.  Also, if you think any trend in your lifetime is significant enough to make a judgement about future climate, or even present, you have an inflated view of your place and time.

The old climate argument is a brilliant and probably evil, PR coup.  The real argument is not scientific, it is political.  What is presented as the whole picture ignores the fact that one can agree with the hockey stick graph, or any other thing like that, but not agree with a political solution in the form of taxes and nefarious global shenanigans.

By vaguely associating the anti government approach with holocaust deniers is a nice touch,  And, like they are doing with the current president's supporters, they are advocating suspension of your rights to be heard, and a sick legal license to behave in a hateful manner toward their foes.  That is the way of organized mobs.

And the Left has made the bold move to become one big hate filled mob, beating people up in the name of love and humanity.  I honestly am not sure what is up with the Right, except they are sick of the behavior of the left.

But all these racist, xenophobic, blablabla descriptions have zero to do with how this election came out or how people view themselves and their motives for rejecting the Clinton/Obama era Left.

Never has it been clearer that both parties are scammers, and both put on a play that people seem to believe is real.  It becomes real whenever you have mobs about.