A Strange and Partly Charmed Life

As of yesterday I have been a non drinker for longer than I was a drinker by three years. What this means is that for 24 years I have had no good excuse for acts of stupidity, poor judgement, incompetence, self delusion and self destruction. So much easier to have something to blame, as if without that something I'd be a filthy rich hero. Blaming society is tempting but doesn't carry a lot of weight.

Maybe my earlier powerless over women is a good excuse. Doesn't really wash but there are plenty of guys who would say, "Hell yea. It's HER fault!!". I can't really go that route. One thing I have learned in the last 24 years is that A) many women actually do have feelings (who knew?), and B) It is not really easier for them, contrary to how it appears. It is just different. Things balance.

I can easily pee outside. I can hardly become a trophy husband. I can have sex without getting pregnant, no matter what, yet I can't render people, men in particular, helpless with a look. A woman can turn a table over on a man in public, or make a scene otherwise, and still come out looking like the victim. A man can't do that--I don't know why. It is very strange. The threat of loud scene will make a man squirm and gives the woman the cards. She can slap or else and get away with it. It is part of the balance. And it is a balance. We can all be victims, but the truth is it's yin and yang. Just life.

Perhaps the long extended effort to meld the sexes will blur these distinctions and then we'll go back to might makes right. Or something.

Too big a picture for me. I think I'm getting fat again and soon my pants will be too tight. I will have to cut back on the potato chips. I'm not really that chubby(oops. meant in the non freudian and non biblical sense) so just cutting back consciously on fatso food and amounts will do the trick in a week or so. Wouldn't it be cool if initial weight gain all went to a really useful place which would be fun and impressive? Maybe not. There could conceivably be drawbacks and it may limit certain possibilities. never mind--just messin' with your head. as it were

They're Playing Ladies' Lingerie Without Me!!!

Back in the Memphis days, the band had this gig every year, it seems, at Dillard's. They had a special post-Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas hooplah day which involved special rates for good customers and card holders, food, and general festivity in the store. They had us set up over near the lingerie department. It was great. Should have changed the name of the band to "The Underwear Bombers".

I was talking to one of the guys today and found out they are doing it again this year--this weekend. I'm jealous. And my buddy Ms Rose is going to be there and sing a couple of tunes. Supposedly she still remembers me and asks how I'm doing. We had a stage chemistry I've rarely experienced. It was as if I could do no wrong and she could do no wrong, and it was a blast. No one would ever look at me and guess I'm the guy most likely to get picked for the team by a seasoned soul singer. Just shows how little most people know. I would have guessed it. My old band mates were surprised.
Anyway, it does me good to know Rose is still healthy and singing. That is one very kind, talented woman.

Sometimes I miss the South. I also miss playing electric sometimes. Present group has got the vocals and a creativity that has barely been scratched. If I were not here, then I'd be missing them.

For a guy who knows zilch, and hasn't a clue, I've managed to play with some pretty good musicians and in some unusual places. But, after all these years, I still say the most bizarre gig was with Marvin's Rockabillys at the Whitsett Men's Gun Club. I did not realize the true nature of the place until later. And their just slightly underage daughters---what a mess--I managed to escape those aggressive, lunatic, jailbait and get-you-shot-by-daddy little darlin's.

Their drunk redneck daddys were pushing me dance with them. "Too good to dance with my girl?" Then when I did (I wasn't one for dancing much--friggin Marvin played slow songs to help me out), one girl was trying to set up a tryst. I went along with it but didn't show up at the appointed place and time---afraid on the spot rejection would be met with cries of "rape" and target practice at the gun club. It was way weird. I drank, and else, at that time. If you try that at home, I recommend heavy hallucinogenics, and fast exit car.

Page 83, and uh oh, it may be a chemical swing

Whenever I have this sudden feeling of well being, especially after days or weeks of fighting a feeling of doom, I wonder if it is the result of efforts to chase away the blues or the result of a chemical balance swing. If you ride such highs, the crash is that much worse. I've learned to attempt to separate the lie out of the highs and the lows. Both tend to produce false premises in the mind.

But, in reality, I'd say I have more reason to be enthusiastic about life than not. Doesn't mean I'm able to do that internally much of the time- only intellectually. It's complicated to explain, simple to coach. If I were the coach, I'd say, "Ignore any ups and any downs. Just do what is in front of you without opinions about whether it or you are good enough, whether you are competent; just do it and shut up." You have no idea how hard it is for me to just do that.

That is why good or bad I continue with my book. Up to page 83 now. If I can finish it, I will have won one for life. Besides, if anyone doesn't like this story, then fine. But if they deem it a lousy story, they are wrong. There are things I didn't like which have been hugely popular and influential. What if those people had gone by my reaction? No matter my opinion of their work, it would have been pretty stupid to let my view carry any weight.

In my case, too, it is foolish to let my view carry any weight. If I do, I'll trash everything I've done, on a depressed whim, deciding it is terrible and and an embarrassment to my good name (what a joke). So, that is another of the things I've almost learned after all these years; ignore my own criticism unless it is actually focussed enough to produce a refinement or improvement to the project at hand.

There must have been a few rejections I've internalized, which gained residence in my mind. Rejection does suck, but the odds are those rejecting you probably deserve your rejection. I'd love to believe that, deep in my cells and bones, but I probably don't, even though it is true.

Uncle Me

If I can't be the patriarch everywhere I go, I guess uncle is next best. And don't say, "what about matriarch?". I won't even go there.

It's pretty cool to realize that some attachments defy explanation; just the way it is. That's how it works with some of my SD people. There is a bond and that's that. In the case of this young girl, perhaps we both have something similar in how we process the world of our senses. It's probably easier for me. I learn a lot from the perseverance and guts of this one. It is great to be considered somewhere between surrogate father (not that she doesn't have a great step dad), uncle, and friend. There is just a bit of mutual tolerance and loyalty there which is like an understood, unannounced pact that no matter what, we each have an ally.



This is one of the great things about moving out west to SD county; the chance to play a part in some lives which I won't detail here. Unusual things. More to life than meets the eye.

I'm busted broke so anyone expecting the obligatory gift can forget it. Even so, I like this time of year. I can make it what I choose. I'd never expect someone to produce a gift for me, so when I can't do it, I don't think they should think less of me. Those in the know realize that when I have money, I'll spend most of it on them. There have been some who were impossible to figure; no way to know what to give them, either materially or of myself. I guess you just can't always win in that way, or don't always belong in every association that occurs along the path.

Splendid Day For Football

Miami won. San Diego won. Maybe I'll start paying closer attention.
Oh, and best of all, FSU beat Florida!!! That is always a treat.

With all the scary weather reports and such, you would not believe what beautiful day this was, especially since I had to go do some piddly work for a couple of hours. That cold blue sky contrasted with those dusty off-white boulders all over the scrubby mountains. It just looks good. No wonder there are so many horse people out here. The land just seems like the kind of place people would ride horses. Maybe that is why so many cowboy movies were made in hills just like these, and maybe even these a time or two.

=====Another note of minor victory====
I don't know if this happens to others like it does to me, but sometimes the simplest chore will go undone forever, even years. It will be a thing that seems routine and simple to most people, but I will balk and even lose confidence in my ability to do it. These things are rarely anything major, but they become a symbolic road block; like a representative of the demons that haunt me. Whatever the thing is, it will become the one thing I must do before life can move on, yet I will fail to tackle it day after day. It is kind of absurd.

After buying fancy Bosch spark plugs maybe six months ago, if not more, and being sure I had the right socket, looking up info on this car on the net, I did nothing. All the forums were full of cautions and horror stories. You have to remove a thing or two to get to them, and even then a universal and a couple of extensions are needed.

I also had a new oil catcher; one that is big enough that the oil won't shoot past it, and then when you move it under the stream, and the rush is over it won't miss on the other side. Everything for a swell oil change and spark plug replacement were sitting right here. For a long damned time.

Now, if this had been for some doting girl, I would have tackled the job immediately. For me, no way. That hesitation lasted months, then when oil change time came, it was added to the job that wasn't getting done. I decided I need to do it myself because I am a rather poor boy and I need to do it myself.

Yesterday, I fought all my usual ways and means of sidetracking myself and set out to do the job in the windy and cool, yet sunny day. As far as I know, I did not cross thread the plugs--a big worry on the net. I did not splash oil all over the universe. It was one of those well planned, very neat jobs. The plugs were far easier than advertised, and the switchout probably took less time than the oil change.

I think it needed plugs. The old ones were a dandy color but the post that is supposed to be a cylinder sticking up was a little pointy cone. The new ones are made like that. They don't need gapping. Some kind of platinum things with a prong on each side pointing at one another.

Could be my imagination but I think this car has noticeably more power, and I know the idle is smoother.

How I lose confidence like this is a mystery. I've done considerably more complicated work. I just don't like auto work. You can be good enough at something but not like it. Saying I'm good at it may be an overstatement. I can do what I have to do and not leave things worse for it. I admire those who like it enough that they become fast at it as well as competent. I couldn't do it day after day. That's one direction I can strike off the list.

Good thing people are not all the same--despite what some may say. Otherwise no one would want to work on cars, or else everyone would, depending how the dice roll.

It's A Dark and Stormy Night

If I'm not mistaken, much of SD county is experiencing record lows for this time of year. Standard SoCal garb won't cut it. You might even need a jacket, and a warm shirt with a T shirt. Sandals or flipflops would be foolish footwear these days. I think it may be the new ice age, except there is little ice other than way up and out in the boonies. Even boonier than Ballistic Mountain.

Maybe the new chilled air age. The good thing is that we are getting a fair amount of rainfall. Out here, rain is good. Fires do not like wet brush.

Nowhere I'd rather be when it is windy and rainy than here in the Ballistic Cabin, or Kabin to lightweight Kampers like myself. Except this is not camping (or kamping), this is home sweet home, for now. Running water, refrigerator, two burner hot plate stove, the portable euro convection oven and much much more.

It must be Thanksgiving that did this to me. I started realizing what an ingrate I can be. Plenty of resources at hand but I haven't made the most of them. To really be grateful for things like a marginally useful brain, arms, hands legs, etc., you'd think one would make use of those things rather than let them atrophy.

I was having a time not letting myself get morbidly down into bluesville, lately. Knowing that it takes nothing but a switch to throw in the mind for that to go away, I tried not to let it win but to just run its course. The trick is to make no big decisions and avoid confrontation. Generally try not to do anything too stupid, because in that frame of mind, I will.

So, no big thing has changed but the last few days have shown me pure blue sky and the electric way things look on those cool sunny days. Very nice out here. And I saw friends that reminded me I am human without as much as saying it. Good company and good examples.

I'm glad to be here. It is an improvement over much of my life, and I know holds some key for which way to go. I guess I'll work it out so all things serve as a benefit. But I'd never recommend the route I've taken, overall. There are less painful and dangerous ways, I think. Maybe this was the only way I could do things. It's what I did, so like it or not it must have been how I wanted to do it. Probably I just didn't see the side effects at the time.

That's alright as long as I know where someone might have been helped along by what I had to offer. Oh well.

Rain, Baby, rain

Pardon Me, You SOB

I had to slow down to keep from running over a wild turkey crossing the street.

To me the traditional presidential pardon of a turkey or two before Thanksgiving is a sickening piece of PR. They cheerfully perform that photo op while the pleas of people really being held for bad reason sit unattended in the White House legal bureaucracy. Military people who were railroaded for unknown political reasons, like Lt Michael Behenna.

He's doing time as the result of a kangaroo court, not unlike the mock trials prosecuted by Johnny Sutton; withholding evidence, preventing the defense from using facts that are key in the case.

Thousands of petitions are languishing in the executive department maze. I guarantee more than a few deserve full pardon or to be released for time served. Obama has yet to pardon even one person. Bush was not very good on that either. It proves these bastards are disconnected and do not truly wake up thinking how they can make our miserable little people lives better, as they claim. Not George, and not Barack. They couldn't care less about any pain they could legitimately and rightly relieve.



But some over fed, hormone filled mutant excuses for birds get a pardon. Hahahaha, yazz, yaz, big fun. That kind of thing in public funded life makes me want to puke--but that would be a waste of food, and food costs a bundle. The real devious PR behind it is the implication that an elected executive has God-like power. Power over life and death. It is a not so subtle mockery of the electorate, in reality. And, I think, a bit of a warning. A way to scare the weak while smiling and being jovial.


Obviously this junkie died before a pardon could arrive--note syringe still in. So sad.

In The Wilds of Descanso

There are times, all too frequently, when I have to hang out somewhere out in the boonies with the coyotes and turkeys, away from home, and reassess my thinking. Attitude adjustment I suppose. I'm often in need of this lately. I base that on the premise that opportunity is before me and only I impede the embracing of such things in my life. Of course, thoughts tend to stray to more abstract matters and things further outside of my control.

Today, things seemed to me wrong in some way. All the things that make so little sense. And, as always, matters of rights and freedoms came to mind. That is probably because of the puzzling arguments I hear lately regarding airport security, among other odd official phenomena.

"If it makes me safe, I'm all for it" is one of the most common reactions to ever thorough searching. Then there is the corollary suggestion that flying is not a right and you suspend all rights when buying a ticket. I see conducting mutually voluntary commerce, sex, or other interactions as a right, not a privilege. Abuse rights and certainly you have to lose them so you don't deny the rights of the other person.

In fact it is really the job of the airline to decide what constitutes security but with our upside down tort system, this way lessens chance of lawsuit. Were an airline to conduct themselves prior to 9-11, and maybe after, the way TSA now does, they would surely be in court. What those who continually go with the idea that "if it makes the world safer I will offer my various body cavities for official review" do not understand or consider is that it does not make the world a safer place.

It would do absolutely nothing to promote safety to search me, take my pocket knife, or even my slingshot. That is because I am not one to bring down a plane on which I am a passenger. Now had I been flagged by family and security agencies abroad, had I not the proper documents to even travel to the US, and had these facts been ignored, so I was able to board a plane with a peter bomb stuffed in my underwear, then I'd pose a threat.

It would appear that the problem there was ignoring intelligence and reality to the point that one has to contemplate the possibility of a set up. The solution is not to treat all flyers as if they are terrorists or homicidal lunatics, but to act when a known problem arrives at the airport to board a flight. Another aspect of the solution is to accept that life is not safe, and you can never eliminate all of its many threats.

Assume that there was an in-home assault in your city, and you want to be safe. Are you then going to insist that everyone who comes to your door, whether friend family or meter reader, lay down with arms behind their backs so you can frisk them and maybe cuff them before they gain audience with you or you let them in? Just because that neighbor down the street, the little old lady who makes rhubarb pie, is known to you doesn't mean she isn't an aggressive home invader. Best to be safe, don't you think? Considering the number of flights and passengers, your odds of encountering a rhubarb bomb wielding neighbor are very close to those of encountering an exploding passenger.

Now, if there is a gang nearby, you are likely to automatically profile when one of its members bangs on your door. Not because of race but because of known insignia and gang identification. Would you feel guilty pulling out the 12 gauge to have handy as you determine the intent of the gang member? You didn't treat the accountant next door this way when she came by to see if you had plans for Thanksgiving. You really should have frisked her. Twice. ******

The reasoning we have come to accept is the same. But since people put this as in under Obama watch, many make excuses for it while others rebel but often for the wrong reasons. Chertoff put in the mandate to install the new imaging machines before he left his post and went to work for the outfit that sells them. That was during the Bush regime. We no longer have administrations. That died when we quit being a constitutional republic. We now have regimes. The fact that Obama hasn't canned this, and drastically reigned in Homeland security department does fall on him. Allowing that nazi of a nincompoop Janet Napolitano to run anything but away also falls squarely on the big O. But that is not the point.

Just curious why both George and Barack appointed nazi imbeciles to that post.

The point is that more than one writer in early to mid 20th century was absolutely right about how things would go. I believe Huxley was the one who said that people would willingly welcome a slave state, even demand it. Whoever said it was right. We've been undergoing a kind of martial law for some time. It has crept in very incrementally. Since no civilization of any size has ever managed to really secure individual freedom, it hasn't been that difficult to reverse the trend in the most promising of these so that we are running away from liberty rather than toward it. It is nauseatingly laughable to hear all the excuses given to gain public support of their own oppression. Everything from patriotism to equality to security. All bullshit.

Now I have to wonder about this Korea situation. Wars used to be good ways to pull out of economic woes. Considering we've been making pretend wars for years, maybe it doesn't work so well these days. I tend to doubt the idea that most wars are as represented or accidental.

Anyway, the whole setup seemed wrong when I was thinking about it. Something in the way of going about things is off. Can't quite put my finger on it. It is a vague indictment of civilization in general. Not the concept, but some common direction it took worldwide. And I don't mean that as far as inventing, producing and elevating the standard of living. Back to nature is fine, but most enjoyably done from a nice cabin in the woods with running water and a refrigerator, among other things. And getting there, and out, is better done in a car than on foot except as a lark. Having the choice is everything.

*****Just to clear the record, no accountant chick lives next door, nor did any come by my house, so the whole frisking thing was purely for hypothetical discussion. No one comes here. My Welcome mat says "Unwelcome, Get Lost"********
*********another lie. The mat says nothing at all

75 and counting

Slow going is an under statement. However! I'm 3/4 of the way through with page 75. It is rare that I write more than a half page at a sitting, lately,(except blog posts-I go on indefinitely) but I still have the basic idea in mind.

I had to do some research and asking around about a certain topic. Since one of my family members is an expert, and loves to pontificate, I was able to get plenty of what I needed from a phone call. It is just a particular event in the story but not entirely germane to the basic flow of events. Plot seems a rather ambitious description, but I guess that is what it is.

There have been a few things I had to research. I should keep track so I will know how educational this endeavor has been. It certainly is a psychological thriller to me. Sometimes I want to be sure they all get their hearts broken and their spirits smashed, and other times--most of the time--I can't help but wanting things to work well for the protagonists. Maybe I think I have no heart left and a smashed spirit during those angry times, and get mean with my characters. It doesn't last. I'm not a sadist, apparently. The antagonists get off easier than they should for the most part, but it ain't over yet.

At this rate I won't finish until summer. That is just not right.

I think the reason I have a few copies out there to select individuals is so that I don't suddenly decide it is all garbage and trash it. These are people that any one of which could keep me going if I think they are hooked. One person particularly likes certain aspects and has a desire to know what is next. The others probably humor me. But they do it nicely. I just want to finish this. No one is likely to be influenced or inspired so it will mostly be the story I wrote because I had to finish something. It's shocking how important it is to me, because it has become one of those anchors that keeps me on this side of the
thousand foot drop off.

That is what you have to do if you aren't going to get drugs to mellow the mind or smooth the mood, and if you are of a yoyo nature which might qualify you for such. You find excuses, tricks you can play on yourself, etc. Why not? What is being combated is a mind which lies to its host organism. Just trying to fight the lies. They cannot often be hit head on because the lie is usually more convincing than the defense against it. Like the big black crayon blob that resembles an angry circle which you tell your troubled child, "Oh yes!!! That is the best cow I've ever seen" after the kid says, "It's a COW, d'uh'uh!" (May I point out that your kid is not only a terrible artist but a brat)

But that's neither here nor there, Better to raise a psycho with high self esteem than a doormat.

Anyway, this is how the mind does things. I never would have believed it but I was proven wrong about 24 years ago, much to my alarm and surprise. Minds will work to get fed whatever it is that satisfies the chemical craving to which it has become accustomed. That is why some depressed people do all they can to amplify the depression. Not because it is fun, but because it produces the chemical thing the brain is into, even when it is a drag and miserable. Same thing with most addiction, although I can tell you a straight out drug addict is a different animal than an alcoholic. Some say it is all the same, but it isn't really. There may be things in common and the way out may be similar, but it is a different breed, like all the other types of addicts. Similar but different. Lots of people do not agree with me and that is OK.

My book is easier to read, most of the time, than my essays. I'm somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way through I think. A book should be no less than 220 pages I think.

City Abuzz; RAIN predicted!!!

Run out and buy milk and bread. Stock up on canned food, locate the candles. Looks like it might rain in San Diego county and everyone you talk to is excited to warn you of the upcoming weather aberration. BE CAREFUL!!! It is supposed to rain, and there may be WIND!! The whole county is buzzing with the news.

Those who keep up with extended forecasts, especially in East County (the boondock hills where I live) also are announcing that next week we may get snow. It is highly unlikely any would stick for long where I live, but Pine Valley could actually hold the dust for a day.

What this means to point Loma and other coastal areas of town is that they may get some rain and temperatures could drop all the way down to maybe 60 degrees Fahrenheit! I'm sure the Micro-Climate Action Team weather people have already announced possible safe haven shelters for those without an adequate furnace or a roof overhead. They do the same when temps reach 80.

So, if anyone who pays attention doesn't hear from me for awhile, it is probably because I am seeking refuge under the bed until the crisis is over. Or, if I hear neighbors panicking out on the muddy street, I may be braving the rain and cold to bring stability to the region. I'm like that; a compulsive purveyor of stability.

We can only hope the water doesn't fill the 1000 foot or so valley, flooding me out. Flash floods are a real possibility down below as the water tends to find little creeks as it runs downhill and over the road. It doesn't tend to stand. It runs.

And just when I got through bragging on our temperate climate, micro climate to be precise. This can only be attributed to global climate change caused by too many cattle, too much mexican food, and non-hybrid vehicles and airplanes. It was never like this back before the Europeans showed up. Since I am native born American, I feel free to criticize people of other continents.

You wouldn't believe all the English and Australian accents out here. I blame them for this issue (even though I suspect half those accents are fake--the influence of Hollywood on this state). Of course Aussies aren't generally European either. It's those Brits and their neighbors to blame, I tell you. And I bet the Aussies are in cahoots.

Whatever the case, it will probably RAIN, and that presents a crisis. The excitement and dread in the air are so thick you could cut them with a knife. These are frightening times in southern most SoCal.