Norton Buffalo, he left and I didn't even know

Oct 30, 2009, Norton Buffalo , I can't seem to say died, I suffer from magical thinking and mystology, and in his case, mistology, he ceased life on this plane. He was a great harp player and composer. Some of my favorite stuff is on the albums with him and guitar wizard Roy Rogers. Not the Dale Evans cowboy.

They did several albums together. Slideways is a great one. Norton did some of the scores for Garfield and Charlie Brown. Who knew? And guess what? He was not quite as old as I am. I envy lives well lived. I'm convinced I don't know how to do that. In the mean time I try not to lie cheat steal or otherwise cause trouble. That's why I don't drink. That was the sort of disaster which eludes you somewhat until you can clearly look back at it. Or get thrown out of places or lose friends cars and money, and maybe your soul. Sorry, just how it goes. I may not have ever lost anything, but think I did.


I'm sorry to see Norton go.

Ricochet Reckoning

Few people in the world like to be told what to do less than I do. Plenty of people enjoy ordering others around more than I do. Often people either like being told what to do or like telling others what to do. Maybe they are happier. I respect neither approach when it involves non-consenting adults.

Even so, sometimes I think I need someone to dictate my every move so I don't get sidetracked and forget why I got out of bed or drove fifty miles on any given day. One minute I am giving someone a little info on harmonica playing, the next I find I have become almost a biographer of a sexually confused instrumental genius. But for what? No gain there. I know more about some strangers than I know about friends.

That may be a sign of the times. I'll bet hordes of people know more about various celebrities than they do about reasonably close acquaintances; birthdays, likes, dislikes, list of ex relationships, etc. That is strange. Must be an aspect of human nature. Kind of like people who wear their compassion on their sleeve, T-shirt, ball cap, and bumper sticker, yet by-pass all the possibilities in their own backyard, even their own country to go adopt kids from exotic lands, even if it requires bending the laws. Sort of like designer international baby acquisition. No offense Angelina. Not much, anyway. Poor Brad.

See? Why do I know more about lunatic publicity nuts than about real people who've actually broken bread with me? And I'm a mild case.

You have no idea how confusing basic life within civilization is to me, and how it works on me. The one thing that appears certain is that I will leave almost no footprint whatsoever. Contrary to the hypocrites who promote such things, that is not a good feeling. And it is not the way one is supposed to live life unless he's a squirrel or a snail.

I regularly forget that the big "save the planet" routine is still running its of the road, lost from all reason course. Hell we have a new "green" Toyota dealership in El Cajon. What defines a green car dealership? They have power lines running to the place. People will buy anything. I wouldn't mind except all that becomes an excuse to tell people what to do, mind their business, kill the economy and ensure that we don't produce our own cheap petrol. Oil fields do not appear to be as big a blight on the landscape as wind farms. I like both, but the logic of environmental mythology has become beyond absurd.

OK. Screw it. I'm more distressed about the zero footprint life.

Maybe I'll Hit the Bean Blossom Blues Fest again

Oddly, Ricci is headlining again. Same as 2007, when I went there to test my ability to camp and speak to strangers.

Speak of the devil, I was just discussing him in the harp player section of last post. This playing is him cruising, nothing close to the full scope of his music, but a taste---strange tunes, fantastic instrumentals.



Might as well add this one too. Was that a beer in the last one? I think it had to be soda or water. He's been sober for several years, and you cannot play like that drunk. He does chain smoke, or did. Quite a phenomenon.


Got to check this one out. This guy is to harp beyond what Hendrix was to guitar.
This is some wild acoustic

He's a master at bending notes up as well as down, not a common skill. Have to have the harmonica reeds adjusted right. His are professionally reworked by a guy that has about a year waiting list. Takes a $25.00 harp and turns it into about a $300 harp. You figure he's got roughly 20 in his harp box, plus others. Between the electronics and pure talent, I find what Jason does inspiring. You can see from the last video that his range is not just the result of fancy electronics.

*****Now I find this wild crew is playing San Diego on Mar 20, right down there on Shelter Island. maybe I'd go, maybe not. Only $10 which is pretty fair for this kind of quality. His guitar player is getting high praise in blues magazines and such. I think Ricci's up for best instrumentalist at the Blues awards this year.

Hyper Mentobia

That is all I know to call it. A little free time and a few stimuli and my mind takes off. I'm not referring to substances when I say stimuli. Just things that come to my attention. These mind racing episodes do not occur all the time, just periodically; sometimes every few hours, every few days or every few weeks. Not necessarily in that order.

Francisco is learning to play harmonica. He's done some time on one of those big guitars doing bass for a mariachi group. He likes blues. So I was asked to give him a list of artists whose CDs would be good in helping him learn. I tried to avoid some of those guys who play a style that seems impossible to learn, like Jason Ricci. I started with Little Walter, of course. He's the one that first found "the sound". It seems too complicated to explain that I learned by a very little bit of exposure to John Mayall and Sonny Boy Williamson, but mostly tried to get the same feel as Eric Clapton's guitar rides when he played with Cream. He actually started with Mayall but that's another matter entirely.

That caused me to check out all sorts of harp players on line and I ended up listening to various samples, and watching plenty of videos. It makes me want to get serious and get electric. Maybe I will before I am way too old, which I may already be. Hell with that. I'll just put a bag over my head, or entire body, and who'll be any the wiser?

Sugar Blue is still playing and has done some good stuff in the USA during the last couple of years. Jason Ricci, I think is still going. He's relative young for a harp player. Most of the best hit their stride later than a lot of other musicians. Ricci is in his early 30's and has pushed the envelope on what you can do with a harp. In some ways he is the best going. He's gay, which just goes to show you---just because you're gay doesn't mean you can't play the hell out of blues/jazz/funk/ way out there music.

He actually gave a little seminar at the Indiana harp event which was the prelude to the Tour and my great escape from total stagnation. Nice guy and very bright. He doesn't sound gay. I should have asked him why. He does often look the part, just no gay voicing.

There aren't but a few girl harmonica players that are any good. I remember seeing one and I forget her name, which is a shame. That chick was good. The implications could spell magic. Again, that's an entirely different matter.

My mind has gone from energy self sufficiency thoughts and ponderings to remembering when I was responsible for little K and her errant mother. When she was 7, I recall walking with her to her mom's job. We'd encounter people I knew from work and they would assume I was the bio dad. They said she had my eyes or other similarities. Mostly, at that time, she shared some of the sense of humor. I liked being a responsible guardian. You have to hold her hand or the little goof ball will walk in front of a speeding train or who knows what. When she was a little younger than that she liked to get too tired to walk so I'd carry her. That is actually one of the highlights of my life; carrying a little kid up three flights of stairs. And generally attempting to make a secure happy place. Don't ever try that with a moron, lunatic, alcoholic, or drug addict.

Anyway, I guess there was some good that came from it. We can only hope. It wouldn't make sense for it to be a happily ever after thing. That is just not the way it usually works. I probably never would have started and kept playing music if I'd known how to live a reasonable life, and if I'd not be running from that sadness since at least four years old. I still don't know what threw the switch but I know it was thrown by the time I turned 4, but not for most of being 3. That mystery still puzzles me at times. Then again, my life is over 2/3 done, so no need to dwell on the useless.

I'm saving up, I hope, to take a long trip this summer. Maybe a road trip. while it is still legal to drive for the hell of it. One way or another. The whole bit of playing blues harp has been such a love-hate relationship. One minute I really want to be playing, and the next I hate every thought of it. It amplifies the fact that I have lost much that I love just because I am how I am, and the music seems to be part of that off beat aspect. I think it is a sign of my defectiveness. Then again, I get mad enough to want to play anyway and just figuratively throw my finger up at all the loss and everyone else.

It makes no sense. I wish I understood. St Francis claimed it is better to seek to understand than to be understood. For one thing you will never be understood so it is smart to get that part out of your mind ASAP.

Massa-kissed, and Rahm a Dahm a Ding dong

Strange as it sounds, I don't think anyone actually believes it is out of the day to day Washington envelope for naked men to be bullying other naked men in the figuratively smoke filled back rooms of the legislative process. And anyone familiar with a scintilla of Rahm's resume and reputation would find it hard not to believe he is not beyond pistol whipping members of congress, in the lewdest possible sense of the phrase.

Be that as it may. What strikes me, and what is being totally ignored, is the fact that we have paid to build a gym for representatives in Congress. I can't afford gym membership, and I do not see that as essential for doing the job they allegedly do. Why can't they just join the Y or maybe use some of that extra money, they always seem to get under guise of consulting and such, and pay for their own exercise and entertainment. As flabby as most of them appear, I think they just like the excuse to look at one another in the shower.

Lord help me, for every time I look at the situation I come slightly closer to thinking a citizen strike, pure revolution is in order. Only to put it under the restraints it should be under. The laws already exist. Why should they get to buy gas for their cars cheaper, drink, party and travel the world on our dime? The President and necessary ambassadors, OK, travel. These other thieves, not without real reasons. And usually the reasons are not so valid. I am not willing to send Nancy Pelosi to Italy to do genealogy research, or to Amsterdam with all those others to sample some Dutch ganga for enhancing the senses to detect the warming of the globe.

This guy Massa is one whose credibility can't be taken too seriously. Then again, some of it adds up. The part I have no doubt about is that they have built themselves exercise facilities with public money. We have let freedom degenerate into monarchy. That is not how it ought to be. It's been going on forever, I guess, just progressively worse over time.

So the smoke clouds the view. He groped, he chased around the shower, on and on. The whole time not giving a second's thought to the arrogant entitlement which underpins the entire scene. Groping is a mild metaphor, and like good abuse victims we pretend it isn't happening. Many of us actually do the rationalizing for our abusers, somehow thinking their power will rub off on us. Not me.

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Just to clarify: the above is in reference to the noisy, messy resignation of Rep. Eric Massa from Congress. He is under ethics violations investigation for chumminess unbecoming a legislator. Sounds like making odd advances toward young male aides. He claims he's been set up because he is not going with the flow as laid out by Obama et al. Oddly, he thinks they are too conservative. He relayed a story about Rahm Emmanuel confronting him in a naked chest poking incident in the congrssional gym showers. He says they have now shower curtains. Figures. There are more perverts and sex offenders in DC government than n all the states combined. Well, if you exclude the capital of California maybe.

Disapproving Phantoms

Writing here offers me a measuring device to monitor how much I concern myself with opinions (mostly hypothetical) of others, and how much I assume my thoughts and rants would meet with disapproval (also hypothetical, mostly) of friends and acquaintances. The less I write, the more I am assuming people would roll their eyes and scoff. Since I am already isolated enough, I don't risk what I see as my very fragile connection to humanity. They would be idiots to scoff, but most people have their idiotic moments. I know I do, and believe I also have lucid enough moments when I can discern the idiocy of others. I'm just a little less condemning in some ways.

Or I think I am.

Most people are snobs, whether they know it or not. The disdain of "the rich" and disgust at one who has never had to skip a meal for economic reasons, be rejected from a stupid job, etc. is a face of snobbery in itself. Of course there is the usual kind which is based on money, education, esoteric knowledge of secret fads known only to the very chic. Then there is a very peculiar sort of snobbery which is somewhat double jointed. That is the sort of money which eschews the gaucheness of new money, and at the same time abhors the injustices and arrogance of old money, all the while enjoying the society and wealth of each.

Usually, I think that sort of snobbery comes from employed insiders, writers, artists and the like, who enjoy the benefits of rubbing shoulders and being friends with the rich and powerful, but somehow feel guilty for it. Often they come from such money themselves, then grow to believe their subsidized lifestyle, impossible from the noble guilt vocation they've chosen, is a grudging entitlement. They become smugly superior. I've seen it and I've read it. Snobs, snubbing snobs.

I bet I do it too, but can't quite find the self honesty to admit to myself or others where my snobbery falls. It could be that some people see it. I know I have less of that than I once did. I'm not sure that is good. Maybe if I had more pride, false or otherwise, I'd have more of everything else.

It must be a sort of inverse snobbery that I would dread being the brunt of such things in certain venues. Probably less sensitive in many situations. Still the areas it touches are not very beneficial. It would be great to outgrow destructive snobbery and grow into pleasant, entertaining, beneficial snobbery. The kind the guys at the Club enjoy. Very confusing.

Private Gum Shoe, or ballistic Fife, or Private Ballistic Dick

My strange ballisticTour of a life lands me in unforeseen places, serving functions not commonly listed on my resume, assuming I have one. Tonight I am guarding a dwelling high on a hill overlooking San Diego bay, and downtown SD beyond.

In case no one remembers Barney Fife, I guess I should call this portion of my enterprise the private whatever. Or ballistic whatnot. I have a radio playing Mexican music downstairs to confuse the enemy. And I am armed with, um, arms. Two of them. I can always throw my shoes at any evil doers, should they be so foolish as to molest the premises on my watch.

The view is the sort I'd seen in Architectural Digest years ago. The spreads they did of houses with decks that overlooked hot shot cities. This is the very bay where they tested the America's Cup boat. It is not out there at this moment.

I left the lowest level dark with a metal chair precariously placed in the stairwell so that they'd either trip, make noise or be otherwise inconvenienced should the intruder try to come in from down there. Too bad good old fashioned, deadly man traps are frowned upon in the courts. I see nothing wrong with rigging a shotgun to go off if someone enters uninvited.

This is a phone pic, and it is night so it doesn't do much justice to the view. Just consider that this is how it would look if your eyesight was impaired with cataracts or something.


This is unrelated. Just another phone pice from a couple of days ago when I swung by the 6000 ft place to get some altitude on Mt Leguna, as the sun was setting behind me.


So, here I am. I broke out the inflatable Morgan bed, and my sleeping bag. I even brought the camp stove and an espresso maker, just in case. The walls are enclosed and some lights work. It is much less messy than my place and they are in the middle of construction. I wonder if that should make me worry.

Winter Olympics: part 3, or so

You know you are a winter olympics lunatic when you vow to despise NBC for life because you live way out in the coyote hills with only a rabbit ears driven TV which gets only ABC and CBS, and because NBC is a [expletive deleted], they only show bits of things on stupid video shorts online, and they have no taste in what they show, so you rarely get the good stuff, but on your long drives home from work, civilization, etc. you listen to the radio station which carries olympics, and being such a glutton for anything going on in Vancouver, you actually try to form a mental picture of the USA couple doing their ICE DANCE routine, puzzling over what is meant when the announcer says they moved into "a butterfly" at the finale of their program. I think he said "a perfect butterfly". Ice Dancing on the radio, and I listened intently because it was Live Winter Olympics. I wasn't even drunk.



My first awareness of winter Olympics was when Jean Claude Killy took a few medals in Grenoble, France. That's 42 years ago. Yikes. 1968.

Now, this was something I wished I could go for, but living in Miami, and being mired in other dysfunctional non-sense, not to mention the pressure of the draft, even seeing snow was out of reach, let alone skiing it. Somehow ice dancing and figure skating never stirred me to the point where I would say without qualification that I would absolutely do that with my life should I reincarnate in some appropriate form which would allow the chance. I do understand dedicating that sort of time and focus to figure skating or anything else of that nature.

Those people think they miss out on cool stuff, but they are actually not missing a thing. Only Hollywood and misguided ne'er-do-wells would make them believe that. I'd love to be in the right place at the right time to have such a single minded passion, but I believe snow boarding or downhill skiing would be more my choice.

Thanks AM 1700 San Diego for not being as screwed up as NBC. Good thing mental pictures come easily to me, accurate or not.
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Not exactly winter olympics, but one could argue it fits in with the topic of hitting the slopes. Or something. I found the brunette's gaze especially intriguing.

Jayne Mansfield. This was prior to the era of implants. At least they were uncommon, if done at all. Maybe reduction would have been wise. Or not.

Another Post bites the dust

More and more, I will write about a topic then figure it is too politically incorrect, liable to be misconstrued, not worth it. The way things go, half of my views are considered semi illegal anyway. I have been shocked that anyone who does not approve of certain long standing agencies of our government gets labeled as a right wing kook who is likely to be a trouble maker of the worst variety. That is unfortunate. Believing in freedom and seeing the way crossing certain lines doesn't justify ends, and in fact comes back around to be used in unexpected ways, is a far cry from any sort of ethnic bias or threat to polite society. The assault on free speech and the independent individual is a bizarre development, but has always been there in one form or another. Now it is becoming a little more broad and insidious.

Song of the South; part 2010

Another of the surprises which befell me after moving to SoCal is the general attitude toward the south. It comes out in off-handed comments on radio and TV, and elsewhere. Clearly, these people have not experienced much of that region.

Just like CA, it depends upon where you live whether you are surrounded by rednecks and ignorance and narrow mindedness, or not. CA is a beautiful place with a mostly nice attitude, but there is an abundance of what would be considered rednecks if we were in the South. Often people appear to be one dimensional, then when you know them one on one they prove to be intelligent and kind.

Most of my life has been spent in various parts of the South. I guess I get defensive when I hear an obviously uninformed slur which is born of a Hollywood construct. I lived in several parts of that region and I still consider parts of NC to be among the best places in the country.

I think it is the same mentality that suggests the public is too stupid to know how to govern themselves, that also assumes that people in the heartland and in the south are somehow too narrow to read or hold passports. I've heard rants to that affect on air America before it went belly up for the last time. It is often the stuff of the banter of smarmy political comic commentators.

Most people do not enjoy hearing their group lampooned or slammed, regardless of the basis of delineation; race, region, hair color, etc. When it is done from an obviously uninformed perspective it annoys. Most of us can laugh at ourselves, and do. But the humor comes from the knowing first hand of which we speak. When the outsider paints the picture based on hearsay and Hollywood stereotypes, then we don't laugh.