Now This is More Like It

Maybe video will appear, plenty of people were recording us with their phones at the American Legion event.  We were outdoors under a nice big oak on a plywood stage.  Perfect for my cowboy boot flamenco routine.

The whole thing was a pleasant surprise.  Chris has become better and better.  Emily, too.  And I was motivated to ignore my depressing inner dialog mantras for awhile and just see what I could do with the sounds I could add to the mix.

Those who knew me will think of me as a damned harmonica player when I kick.  I only do it because I would fall off the edge if I didn't.  I'd rather be a cutting edge engineer or physicist.  Or some such thing.  A little late.

I have no idea how this works;  Chris and Em are the least experienced of people that I have regularly backed, been part of the band.  Yet, they seem to be the best paying, and in many ways, the most beloved by audiences.   There is an automatic kind of kinship they seem to have with people.

This cool afternoon and evening with the enthusiastic crowd and just the freewheeling nature of this group, I felt like turning out something to help the event hold attention.

But they are heading out in a day.  I think their Texas day jobs are working out well.  They both work for a large contractor.  I think he is doing more hands on superintendent sort of stuff, but not a ton of hours, and she's full time in estimating.  They are still hounding me to move and still scheming feasible plans.

They needn't push.  I plan to visit before the first of the year.  Hopefully I will remain here Christmas.  If I travel I hope for October.  I'll see what's what.  I have some schemes worked out.

Lately I have had more work, mostly fixing the damage and chaos created and left at the place by our esteemed guests.  The resort home at, in, and around which I do various things, but to say I am a handiman or housekeeper or window washer would all be false, and true.   If things remain as is for awhile, I can save enough to replace this car with another Forester of more recent year, and fewer miles.  I narrowly missed one that was really nice and a price I could have paid, but felt it.  Still, way less than I paid the first time.  But that one was nearly new, like this one was.  Now, 272,000 + miles.

I'd probably keep this car as the work car, with tools and mess.  The other would be the road car.  Then one of those lightweight camper trailers which include some comfort but not some other things. I could actually probably hack it.  I am actually keeping an eye out for both the vehicle and the camper.    It fits in to one interesting possibility in Tx.

Then again, I just don't know.  I guess a good idea would be to visit, and see.   Maybe see if I can cope with the heat or not.  I was raised in heat.  Miami.  Geez, they even named the basketball team heat.  What's that tell you?  (that's rhetorical, you needn't respond)

So, I expected the drunk part to screw it all up.  Could have gone either way, but being outside, it worked out.  Also a large contingent of not drunk people were outside.  They liked the music, and they liked avoiding being confined in a building with the perpetually drunk.

The fact that I used to be a drunk person doesn't prevent me from acknowledging the totally obnoxious and annoying nature of most drunks.  There is the variety which is like insistent insanity.  No win.  Win meaning peace. Unmolested personal peace.

I recognized the majority of the non drunk people.  And some on the edge of alcohol doing a real number on them.

So, I have gone to nearly mixing it up with a worthless baby boomer, about my age, one night, to inspired playing with almost millennials and a crowd that could be rowdy without the sort of rude nonsense I witnessed at the Belly up.  Places that run the way that place does rake it in, but they really offer no real customer service, just alcohol and some token food. Maybe good burgers.  Who knows.  No way I wanted to navigate that zoo.

All those people packed standing in the open place in front of the stage.  It is a large area.  The majority of people were packed in that area. All standing.  And pushing against the sitdown people around the edge.  In some universes the fire code would not allow this sort of bulk people packing,    If there had been any sort of fire or panic causing event, requiring evacuation, some people would get hurt.  No doubt.  Creepy baby boomers, I hope.

Never Again

I like Los Lonely Boys, so I went to see them at a local venue that for some reason books a lot of great bands for a night as they travel wherever.  Belly Up Tavern.

Band yes.  That venue, no.  A big mix on age.  The most obnoxious contingent, of course, being drunk baby boomers.  The place is really an insult.

They pack people in, mostly standing and being obnoxious in what would be a dance floor area.  Tall people to the front.  Embarrassing.  

I used to drink, and I guess I forgot about places like that.  They bring in good bands, and have a drunk sort of crowd.  That is life to many.  I almost got in a fight with a guy.  And I was thinking psychotic.  If he had gone for the assault he promised, I had decided how to best disable him, maybe bust ear drums or put out eyes.  I settled for saying keep off of me and f*** off.  He said something else and I said F*** you f***ing moron.  He was a bully.  I know the kind, taller than most, and just big enough to intimidate the uninformed.  But they only push it where resistance is low.  Cowards and creeps.  Baby boomers.  The creepiest generation.  And I had to be born in it.

So the guy eventually disappeared, reappeared, then vanished.  The setup of the venue is one that you can only take advantage of if you know the score.  Wait in line for the doors to open, hoping to get a seat at one of the side semi bleacher sort of seats with bench table.  But chances are the people who bought separate tickets for the happy hour, hours earlier, also had show tickets and scooped up all the tables.  The rest are just serving as shills to bolster the pride in idiocy that characterizes a lot of pop culture, and maybe all culture.

Interestingly the people around us in line were really nice, entertaining people.  They knew more what they were in for and how they liked to approach it.   Really it was a series of unfortunate events that made the event disaster for me.  Not so much for my friend M, but to some extent, that may say it all.  That is good if she had a fine time.  It was mostly payback for helping me do some work at home.

I should be grateful, a year or two ago, I could not have risked being stuck somewhere where I might be triggered for one of the pruritus episodes.  So that part is better.  Been trying to get more exercise.  Work is good for that.   I need to take advantage of the sneaky slippers program offered in my insurance.  Go to the gym on the insurance company because you are a feisty senior.  

I have always hated the age terms.  Even in my 30's I wanted to barf listening to TV news blathering about, "Well, the rain didn't dampen the spirits of these feisty seniors, as they make their way to Montana's Beartooth Pass on skateboards!  Yaz, (name of co-anchor or weather person), it just goes to show age is but a number"

Then co-anchor responds, laughingly, " well, I hope I can just walk when I'm that age.  Already, I'm feeling the aches in my bones, trying to get out of bed in the morning.  My hat's off to these sexy seniors."  Hahaha.  Fun is had by all.  Seriously, I do not have the blueprint of the best alternative, but this cannot be the best way for civilization to evolve.  It just doesn't feel right.

But that is probably the definition of how a depressive or other mental case feels.   But is it a trick because we've evolved from co-anchor banter and good idiotic humor, to panels of self proclaimed experts, mostly spouting the same hysteria and drivel, while screaming over one another, especially the designated devil's advocate or caricature of the opposition.

It is strange how all of it so reminds me of the Dade County public schools, that I attended as a confused and dying youth.   It has not changed.  Schools are the biggest bullies since out of control police.  Maybe worse.  In the name of protecting and preventing bullying, they invariably throw the less malleable, yet not malicious, inmates into the collateral damage gutter and go on.   Not born with extra points for their condition of birth.  And not born with money.  But not destitute enough for the state to take over.  Which does have its advantages.

I have very little to say that would be favorable, even though the actual academics were mostly high quality.  The treatment and pretense was peculiar, and Miami kids had a very large percentage of thugs and jerks.  I wonder of many of the failed on purpose so they'd be bigger than their classmates, facilitating their desire to fight but not get hit.  They could extort lunch money, destroy property of others for no reason, force others to give test answers, etc.

I now go to another drunk venue, the American Legion in Alpine.  The plus side is that we will be outside, it is with Valor and Lace.  Chris and Emily.  Resonator/dobro man is in TX and could not make it back this weekend.  So Chris and Em and Richard all live close in TX now, them permanently, Richard temporarily for close to a year.   So it is outside, haven't seen them for while, and all that.  The sad side is the degree of alcoholism there and the sometimes obnoxious character that assumes.  After last night I guess I will be subdued.  Plus I am playing with a Marine scout sniper.  No one will step too far out of line.

Time Flies and Flutters

  IT  has been an interesting month or so.   Some of it highlights my good fortune, considering my compulsive negligence when it comes to nurturing and maintaining my own life and best interests.  This whole forced medical thing can sometimes be worked to some benefit.

Being old and poor but not destitute is a winner in the medical world, for the moment.  I made just enough that they allowed me to elect insurance which gives choice and I can refer myself to a cancer hack or orthopedic doctor.  Since rare diseases get misdiagnosed by the average nitwit, this setup allowed me to skip the fools and get to decent specialists.   I dodged a bullet there.

It was through my own research and long distance consultation with a friend's brother-in-law/hematologist that we got things narrowed down.  Hard to imagine now that showers had become a very painful ordeal, and high humidity could be torture.  I could not let water splash on me and leave it.   Those were rougher times in many ways.

But I got the stuff done.  Expensive stuff.  Mutation tests and other stuff which I will forego in future.  Colonoscopy and endoscopy can be over rated, and they can create problems which were not there.  I will avoid that in future.

Finally I even got a primary care babe.  I swear, in another life, I would have to be married to her.  In my eyes she is perfect.  If I knew her better, who knows.  Anyway, she's good news.

So, I even willingly accepted antibiotics.  They have it down to a five day thing.  I used to not handle them well at all.  Anyway, there may be a reason why they were invented.

I still wonder if I should just embrace the vagabond life, score one of those mini campers, like the egg shaped ones.  The very back is like an outdoor, covered kitchen, and the inside is mostly bed.  There are different shapes and kinds of lightweight campers out there.

It is a thought.  Sometimes you can get a gig doing part time work at a campground in exchange for free hook up and such.  There are entire websites devoted to the working camper community.  They migrate sometimes.  Sometimes stay for awhile at one spot.

My friend the ex math teacher, marine, resonator player, ex drummer, has a gig like that in Texas.  He has a fifth wheel set up, so his trailer has as much space as my cabin just about.  I have higher ceilings.  I must say, I have become hooked on high ceilings.  Had that in Memphis too.  The resonator is planning to stick with his gig for a year and cone back to SD because of family/grandkids.   Makes sense to me.

Finally broke down and got a 5 x 8 storage space in Alpine.  It is up some stairs but a good place.  Already, just from tools that need sorting, mostly, the floor space is mostly taken.  Some things get stacked.  I plan to organize it all in the next month, getting rid of what does not in any way bring joy.

I finally dumped the last souvenirs from New Zealand.  It is a great country and all that, but in the context of my personal visit and experiences related to the place, but not the fault of the place, there is nothing about it that gives me joy.  So, I donated jacket and other textiles geared toward jingoistic New Zealanders and tourists.   They only brought a dark wish for selective amnesia, and a sense of self loathing.  No joy.  No joy,  then it must go.

Got that from the cute Japanese girl's book about tidying up and her experiences with hopeless people, who must not be that hopeless, because they can afford to hire her.  Anyway she has done well with her hobby and compulsion to clean up.  I have made much progress, even at this late stage of life.  Much of life life has been spent rejecting my true nature, which is not chaotic and self destructive.  Even though it seems so.  That is reactive.  Reactive depression or just reaction.

People only harass or try to criticize others for things that aren't theirs to critique, when they can get away with it.  Hi, I'm your friend, your life sucks, your writing sucks, you should do so much better.  I only say this because I am a friend, and friends don't let friends under achieve.  Really?

That is the rationale of one whose concept of personal boundaries has been bastardized under veil of some altruistic sounding rationalizations.   End result is, the critic wields some kind of power as long as you sit still for it; "You should...blablabla"  Critic dictating down to you.  It is an ego trip.  Worst thing is, such people get furious at your reluctance to be harangued over that which is not anyone else's business.  Unbelievable, but a sign of the times.  Everyone loves excuses which give them license to judge, control, and critique the lives of others.

Like drugs were used to kill the 4th amendment, smoking was perfect for giving people the excuse to exercise power over others.  Certainly there was some element of legitimacy.  You don't smoke in confined areas forcing others to put up with your smoke.   But then it became a thing of fanatics making a big show of coughing and bitching when you were outdoors and downwind of them.

Then public officials start involving themselves in your diet, your obesity, your sugar intake, etc.   Public health costs is the rationale, yet most of those officials are bloated and over indulgent, themselves.  Ridiculous that people go right along.  Any excuse to push into the lives and business of others, while taking money from them at gunpoint.

So, obviously, whatever that school of thought is that says, "it's OK for friends to demean and judge friends in the name of their higher good", is not a school of thought to which I adhere.  Never liked it.  I think it is where politicians, mostly democrats, but repubs, too, as well as public schools, made me sick to my stomach.  They love that soviet style of intrusive propaganda and use of force to make you go along with it.

Work is too weird to describe.  One minute I expect to be fired, the next, I am in demand to solve problems.  The manager almost never listens.  His solutions are the craziest things I have ever heard.  I do my best to present things to him in such a way that he is not encouraged to give a point of view or solution.  I won't try to recall a good example.  It is often some impossible suggestion or is actually what we suggested originally but he nixed it, and now he is suggesting it like it is a new brilliant thought.  OK.

The best thing is that my Texas pals will be back to play a gig in Alpine on Sat.  I am their harp guy, so I will be playing.  They will be trying to figure out how to get me to move to their area in the Austin area.  I hear Austin is not what it was.  It is getting a little obnoxious, as far as the music scene.

But outlying areas in TX are going full guns if you are country, and probably being a badass Marine scout sniper doesn't hurt.

I refuse to give in to whatever "it" is; depression, psychosis, neurosis, fatigue, chronic conundrum, etc.   I do give in but not entirely.  I am not giving up.

What Is a Myeloproliferative Neoplasm (MPN)?