---- Me, And The Horse I Rode In On

Some would say, "And the horse on which I arrived"; being overly concerned about ending sentences with words like on, in, of, and other prepositions.   I don't care.  

And the more I read discussions among the compulsively rationalizing academic people who are certain that they could and should change the world, and that they know what is best for "the masses" or the "99%", the less I care about anything that smacks of, "look how smart and educated I am".

But that is irrelevant.   I'm always starting off on irrelevant tangents.  I knew I was only imagining a certain something that is never ever going to cross my path.  It is my sentence for past transgressions.   Most of the sentence was commuted, so why complain?  I have no right to do that.

If all goes well, I may end up being of some use.  People often think they are useful or helpful in a positive way, but they don't really know.  They can hope, and I believe that it is right to have a good motive.  But the true nature of the result in the big picture,  grand scheme of things is unknown.  Or at least I think it is.

I know some screw-ups say, "look at me, don't do what I did or you'll end up like me.  Learn from my mistakes."  And they think they are helpful.  I don't think I learn much from the mistakes of others.  Maybe a little, sometimes, but not much.  I hardly seem to learn from my own mistakes.  Or so it seems at times.

In the old days I'd just drink and drive better than that screw up.  It did not work out well, but there were plenty of other people making obvious mistakes from which I did not learn.

Rode in on one of those, probably.  Or else I'll ride out on one

As far as other things that hit me where I live, I guess I most like and crave the companionship of those who are unlikely to ever be able to take me and my glitches.  

That thing.  I can't explain it, and no one else can.  "He's alright if you can get past 'that'".   I guess no one has ever put it better than my brother.  At least it gave me a clue. Sort of.

It is what makes me wonder about life and beyond.  And I tend not to believe anyone who claims absolute faith, or absolute disbelief and lack of faith.  Right now, I believe nothing and no one.  

As long as I want nothing and expect nothing from anyone, I am safe.  If I am safe I feel no love or anything else for anyone.  I can't help but feel a little so I try to be useful just to keep from going totally crazy in a sad sort of way.  Well, I do feel but I'd rather just put that aside, and acknowledge no love or anything else. That better states the process.

People are mostly very unkind in the ways it matters the most, so I have to dodge that because I do not enjoy it at all.   Stay on the giving end, like a sort of guerrilla philanthropist; do what you can then get the hell out of Dodge, except I'm not one whose deeds involve much money.

I think I have finally learned a little bit.  I give up on most things--I just can't control much in life.  And it is about time to decide the question that never seems to go away for long.   

Some things in Sochi make sense.  Not the NBC people there, but some things.

Winter Olympics are the best. If there is reincarnation, bring me back as a downhill skier or one of those people who flies around on a snowboard

Or just put it off. I'm in no mood for chronic questions.  Kick that one down the road, again.

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Feeling Lyrical

Being an ascetic is not all it is cracked up to be.  Not that it is really cracked up to be anything.  Or that I am disciplined in the art of self denial.  But maybe in some way I am.

Now I am confused, once again.  I hope you're happy!!!

Today at the Sombrero. Cliff playing a song I wrote.  Wasn't my idea but I like it.

"no more mr nice guy, no more mr easy, call me mr spice guy, call me mr sleazy!" Has to do with Oprah and Dr Phil, Cosmo, etc. convincing women their love life sucks.  Was kind of a joke, but Cliff saw the lyrics and ran with it. People like it, much to my surprise

Ever notice when people say, "I hope you're happy!!", they don't really mean it at all?   I used to be so naive and gullible that I half believed they might actually be serious.  That often led to a peculiar dynamic.  Like when southerners say, "Oh no! Don't rush off so soon!"  They mean, nice seeing you, bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Go home now.  Took me forever to realize that.

When I figured out their real meaning about hoping I was happy, I'd feel compelled to prove I wasn't happy, just to please them and not be hated for happiness in their world where it is all my fault.  That is a mistake.  I'd advise doing everything you can to be even happier when confronted with that bit of sarcastic well wishing.

I'm feeling lyrical.  The never ending (or beginning) tune that keeps evolving in my mind, with ever changing lyrics found a new phrase I like.  Even the phrase has no definite beginning, but I'm saving this part:...time stands still, until she says goodbye.

Time is so non-linear to me.  If I'm in a certain space because of the person I'm with or the conversation, or when focussing on something that has my passionate attention, it is like visiting another dimension where there is no time.  Then I come back to earth, or wherever it is that bills get paid and police hide in the bushes, and hours may have passed.  Or even days.

That dimension is my favorite.  That is why I play music.  It may only be a few minutes of that state of suspended animation, but it is like setting foot in Heaven for a brief time.  Once in a blue moon or maybe once in a hundred blue moons a certain person's company or attention can put you there.  But it is the most fragile of ways into that space because of the reality of the material world and all the ways there are to screw it up.

Do you run?  What do you do when you are so unprepared?  Kick yourself for giving up and almost going broke?  Or maybe deciding you will not give up and just trust the only things that ever worked.

There is a tuning in sort of thing that is the only way I ever managed anything.  It is hard to explain.  Even when I would do heavy math.  Others always seemed to have some strict explainable methodology, and credited their wonderful superior intelligence.   I always felt guilty because it didn't seem to work the same with me, even if I did very well at whatever it was.

Even when I was learning to fly.  I lucked into an instructor who must have got it.  And I did well enough that on the commercial check ride the inspector asked if I minded doing certain landings over, and would I tell him how I did it so he could better help students having trouble.  Cool.  But what do you do?  It's like Chevy Chase in Caddy Shack, "be the ball".

The point is, in deference to some of my beloved relatives who dispute any other dimensions than those we see, who dispute any Prime Mover or intelligence behind life, creation, and all that is, I have tried to operate "normally", as if I am the prime mover, and I do not do so well with that.  When I throw that out the window and trust that "thing" which involves tuning in rather than forcing the thought or action, I do better.

When I was little, like seven to ten years old, and I had the chance to run with a football against kids in the neighborhood, just about all of whom were older, I enjoyed that other dimension, timeless feeling.  And I did very well.  Coaches tried to recruit me for little league but the family said no.  But I knew that feeling of not thinking, just being.  Believe it or not, that was a spiritual space.  I see that now.

Blind faith is about all there is to go on sometimes.  But you have to incorporate doing stuff.  I'm not explaining this well.  Simply put, my impulsive course of action is to self destruct, rush in when I should hold back and be patient, or be negligently inactive when I should move--anything to avoid true success and hit the mark.

And now, I have to avoid panic or any stupid fear based radical action.  I know something about what I want (for lack of better way to put it), more than I have in I don't know how long; maybe ever.

Whatever happens I am not going back to where I was ever in the past. And if I don't get my way, then maybe I need to alter what constitutes my way.  Except I know what I know, and it would be almost easier not to.  It will be OK.  I think something is OK.  But it changes everything I can't be a slacker any more.  This is really not easy.  Odd that good things, positive change, and the right thing are often met with internal freak out madness.  That's because I want what I want right this minute, and  see now immediate way.  We shall see.

Long Way From Home

Once in awhile I tend to wonder if I've done more harm than good in the big balance of things.  In the small balance, I'm fairly certain I have, but the small balance only concerns management of my life and abilities.  Big picture includes cases in which someone's life may have been improved because I was in the right place at the right time.

Overall, you can't know for sure about things; one second sooner or later doing something could set off an unpredictable chain of events and some important person might be saved or destroyed.  You just don't know.

The best description of this is in Mark Twain's short story, the Mysterious Stranger.  It is my favorite of anything I've ever read by him.  That is probably because it gives plausibility to the idea that had I done everything right, I may have found myself in some odd circumstance of timing which led to awful consequences to others through no cognitive fault of mine--just wrong place at wrong time.

No use contemplating hypotheticals, especially if they bring sadness and regret. And it also could serve to temper the back patting one might indulge for supposed good deeds.

Even so, when I am able to call my long time friend, whom I'll call Mr X, it does bring some solace.  Mr X called me the day before my birthday, sixteen years ago, desperate to find out where I had gone some years prior to find out how to stop drinking.  He'd been told by doctors that he was going to die quick, and he'd had some very scary episodes.

I was already in another state, and times were tough.  K and her mom P had hit the road back to Miami.  I was exhausted from three years of enjoying raising the child, and trying to shield her and myself from her mother's irresponsible and odd (redneck) behavior.  My bad.  I was foolish.  But I tried.  There came a time when I had to draw the line at certain behavior.  No other choice, I guess.

I am sorry I went that road, but it was probably the sanest, most stable three years of K's life.  Maybe that is good.  I've never been the same since, though I have tried to shake it.  I left Miami too soon, but couldn't sit by and watch what public Dade county kindergarten was doing to poor little K.  Not to mention the home scene with P and her parents.  Yikes.  This is the trap for people who compulsively jump on the white horse thinking they are rescuers.  Often it is best to mind your own affairs.

Oh well.  Mr X survived, and understands my type of mentality.  It was nice to call and hear what I need to hear.  I want to smoke like crazy.  But how will that change anything for the better?  I almost did, but a little voice inside urged me to leave the store as I waited in line, and for once I listened, walking out without wasting money on nonsense and self destruction.

Here's the truth.  I'm weak, brilliant, lonely and find my pride is easily rattled if anyone notices anything except my brilliance.  I need to find more work of some kind.  I've ruled out stripper even though I can do some spiffy dance moves.  The market for me stripping is not a lucrative one.  Don't want to sell drugs, be a hit man, or work in a bar.

I do like water and air purification but don't know much about water.  It is a wide open field because I think the technology probably exists to do cheaper, better desalination but it is just not realized, even though people are messing with it here and there.  The FL Keys and Southern California should be getting their water off their coasts rather than bringing it in from other regions.  One day it will be cheaper to remove the salt.

I was astounded to discover how much of SoCal gets its water.  Crazy.  Colorado river?

Anyway.  My friend was able to catch up with another friend back then, on my birthday, and things worked out.  He's in AZ now.  And now he's able to help me get my mind in the right place when it needs fixing.

If I had not left Miami when I did, no telling where I'd be now.  If I leave here, where would I go?  A cheaper place maybe.  Or maybe to nowhere.

I was going to tell the can o pee flying story.  I sure hope it didn't land on anyone.   Wouldn't that be troubling after all these years if they nabbed me for that?

So, we have some work tomorrow.  Nice that the house manager expressed concern that someone might "scoop me up and take me away" paying me a tidy sum.   She has a higher opinion of my worth than I do sometimes.  God, get rid of this damned recurring impulse to smoke!  It just rushed over me again.

Why do some people have that misguided urge to self destruct?   Maybe lack of challenging and positive activity.   And that feeling like I'm never home.  I left Memphis in search of home, and this is closer to it, but not yet.

Home will be found when true integrity is achieved; mind body and spirit all in sync.   I had it once or twice, for a short time.   One day I'll have it again, I hope.   It seems like it is all about women, but it isn't.  That doesn't prevent me from being pretty sure when and where that situation will resolve, if it ever does.  It was so nice before leaving Miami that time when I was frequently presented with tempting requests but I was taken and always said, "no thanks.  Besides, I'd only break your heart."

Karma will kick you right where it hurts the most.   Well, this was a long post, the purpose of which was to fire me up a little so I can say I am not giving up.  Plus some people around here tend to rely on me as an elder in the world of people trying not to wake up dead under a dumpster.  Silly them.   I tell them ignorance is their friend in many ways.  Only a few understand how that applies.

I guess I could change my approach somewhat; maybe list my good deeds and not acknowledge the fog that presses in on me 99% of the time.  There are times when it is less heavy; when  I'm super enthused, or when something creates an adrenaline rush.

Anger gives a little rush but not the right kind. It makes it worse, unless it is the type that responds to perceived rejection or lack of respect by propelling me into some kind of action.  But that is rare.  No, I'm better served with blind internal zealotry and faith that I can be of some good use.

Karma put me here.  I know both sides of most of the things I experience, good and bad.  The down side of now is no mystery regarding how it came to be.  But the permanence of such unpleasantness may be mitigated by choice.  Doing the right thing usually doesn't please everyone, including me, especially at first.

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Speaking of a long way from home, this proves I woke up on another planet:
Your tax dollars and something surreal at work.  WTF?  Thank you, I no longer feel like the craziest guy in the room--whoever is behind this has me beat, hands down!

This just cannot be real.  No no no.  I have a higher opinion of humanity than to think they go along with this.  

California Dreaming part 252014

You think I'm making this stuff up about California cops, particularly Highway Patrol?

A car rolled over on a major highway, locally.  The cop did not like where the firefighter parked.  He pulls him away from treating the two injured people to arrest him.  All caught on the news. It is on video.  This still makes it look pleasant, but on video the cop is being all out of control coplike.
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And just because I liked it, I lifted this photo from the Free State Project---that is a New Hampshire thing, with a lot of radicals not all too different from me.  I keep toying with the idea of moving there, but it is cold, and maybe I won't.  Tough days.

One Manifesto Away from a Cabin in the Woods

That is how a stand up comedienne, whose day job is hair shop owner, described me.  I am not the unabomber. Is that how he spelled it?  Anyway, I liked the description.  The woman is funny, but for the first time ever with her, I do not care for the haircut.

That is what happens when you go in angry.  I have not been angry in a long time.  Anyone who bothers to read this stuff may not know that, but it is true.  I rarely feel that physical anger that engulfs your whole body from the inside like it could explode.  I get over it.

Lots of people pretend they never feel any of these things.  I find that there is a fine line between raging sadness looking to explode, and passion for an idea or principle.  Or just passion for anything.  I think many people are liars whether they know it or not.   I see a lot of that with hard core atheists and hard core evangelical types.  Both seem so unsure of their beliefs that they have to beat you up with them in an effort to convince themselves.

The extreme example would be those people who will behead you for saying anything they don't like about their imaginary deceased friend, pbuh.  Or even drawing a picture or cartoon of him, or for pointing out that their culture and brand of religion is mass psychosis, bless their black little hearts.

This is why I do not believe in predestination, that every move of every person is already mapped out and known in the mind of God.  I'm just not on board that it works that way.  What could be a bigger waste of time than that?   No, it's free will.  God would never have mapped out the behavior of various newsmen, Ted Kennedy, Kim Jong Un, his dad, Che, Fidel, many prosecutors and lawyers, the El Cajon branch of the CA highway patrol, etc.

Just not buying it.  Neither do I buy the substitutes people keep craving in the form of omnipotent governmental entities.  And maybe google.  Friggin google is becoming infused and enmeshed in and with all that is.  And google pretends to know your every thought, and tries to anticipate your thoughts as if they are already mapped out and it knows.

This causes me to believe that google wants you to believe that it is God, and that it knows your destiny.  I refuse to give in and cooperate, wherever resistance is still possible.

So why am I angry?   I'm angry because of my own deficiencies, and the misguided consciousness of my fellow humans which allows an authoritarian police state which baffles me to exist.  And I'm angry because I don't know what I want, and when I think I do, I don't know how to get it.  And I'm angry for caring.

Anger separates a person from others and from whatever spiritual thing there is.  You wouldn't know it since so many people who claim to be on a spiritual path seem loud and angry.  But that is why I do not follow such people or believe their sincerity.  They want to be sincere, maybe.  Their egos must be as much in control as mine.  But I do not want anyone looking to me for holiness.

I tracked down my errant friend.  Not in jail or a hospital.  I thought he ran away from home but he says he got kicked out.  I see both sides and want none of that aspect.   Girls just want money and power, and drunks just want to drink.  Can't blame God for that mess.  He drinks, she kicks him out and she takes what he provided.  A match made in heaven. Born again virgins unite. Both have their points, though it seems she's being a bit financially opportunistic as she stands on principle.  Tough one.
Sometimes a guy like that drinks for a day just to get cut loose, I think.   And she put up with it a few times in the past because of the financial security.  Security(money) trumps a nice guy every time, so I hope I never again hear some woman complain about there being no nice guys around.  They do not want them and everyone knows this---another part of the big pretense.

I wish I'd never been able to glimpse past the big pretense on so many matters.  It left me cynical and questioning the nature of life, reality and spirit.  It can't be that flat and worthless and empty.  People can't be that shallow, not even me.  Can they?
I guess so..
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Ever Think They May Be Right?

Once in awhile, when I know someone misses my point, or misreads my intent, I get a little angry and confused.

First I think, "Hey you don't get it at all", and if it has to do with something like cops or professors whining about pay while playing that selfless public servant card, I add name calling--in my mind--like perverted bully moron liar.  My experience with police and teachers, other than a few stellar standouts has not been good.  The public school teachers and administrators in many places should be thrilled that they haven't been subjected to the scrutiny priests and some others have enjoyed.

South Miami schools, especially the junior high, would have lost all the phys ed coaches, most of the faculty, and most of the administration, had justice been in the neighborhood.  Other schools would have probably fared somewhat better, but still taken a good hit.  The Big Pretense in matters of public "service" and male-female relationships has been around a long long time.

Certain rules of the pretense code are simply not to be violated.  It is a secret, tacit ritual.  We pretend.  And some of us rebel, and rebel, and wonder what to do, and this group tends to angrily do themselves no big favors in the scheme of things.  Eventually it can tire one out to the point where he stops and thinks, "Maybe I am wrong and They are right".

So, that person, someone like me, tries to put away that emotional feeling that makes him want to single handedly run a Cuban blockade in a speedboat or crash the California roadblocks at 80 MPH.

He settles down.  "Why am I so enraged?"  Oh, it must be that he's misunderstood.  I don't know if he's like me or not at this point, but I stop and say, "You nearsighted nincompoop!!  Of course you are misunderstood!".  That's why the holy man said it is better to seek to understand than to be understood.  He knew I don't even understand myself, and people rarely get anything straight.

If you've ever been close to a news story and read or watched the official report you know the truth is rarely put out without some falsehood to accompany it.

They are probably part right.  People will miss the mark.  You'll feel like you have been somehow stamped with a false label.  Best to leave it.  Efforts to correct the record tend to further confuse it.  And there may be something worthwhile in the half truths laid before you.

Hell with it.  If those you think are impostors and charlatans really are, time and circumstance will tell.

This sort of abstract nonsense is the kind of thing that covers one's own reality, and probably one's own illness.  Better to ignore some things.

Famous people and friends can wake up dead with a needle in their arm or pills and bottles scattered about.  It gets tiring and old.  The wise thing is to know just how close to this circumstance indulging frustration can take a guy.  So it is best not to indulge frustration to that extent.  Better to gain a little understanding rather than to expect or crave to be understood.  Worry over being misunderstood has put many in the grave, and under the dumpster.

Happy f'ing bithday, misfit

Look! A Gringo at the DMV (try not to stare, niños)

From joeh comment on last post, it sounds like NJ has much saner DMV than CA

The light made the screen on phone unreadable, so I kept pushing the virtual imaginary button which has doubts concerning the humanity of my finger, therefore it only reacts in moments of weakness, like when the phone is pointed somewhere other than the place I want to photograph.  This is outside DMV in El Centro--just a stones throw, or a burro's trot, from Mejico.  

When I first went through the process to get  California driver's license, someone typed in the wrong month of birth.  They make you wait for the license.  It is mailed to you at their leisure.  I don't recall that being the case in any of the other states where I have had a driver's license.  

So, when I finally got my certificate of Privilege to drive, the birthdate listed made me almost a half year younger.  I left it that way. 

It wasn't my mistake, besides what real business is it of this state when I was born?  And in the words of the supposed president-elect, "At this point, what difference does it make?" (screech, grimace, pound table)

The best picture was the last one in NC in the mid '90s.  But that was long ago.  

We were all beautiful back then, but didn't know it.  Maybe we are beautiful now, too, and are still too dense to know it.

Not relevant to story but a nice picture with significance if you were there, or if you are me.  If not, ignore or create your own version of the meaning of life

Speaking of beautiful, this is a holy spot, hallowed ground near the home of my youth.  At least to me, and maybe to that little tiny pup.  That tree knows that there was a time when I was considered OK, and not to be reviled.  Good to know.  If I knew then what I know now...I'm drawing a blank.  I keep wondering what I'd do now if I knew now what I am supposed to know.  I don't want to look back to now thinking, "if only I'd known then...".  Screw that.

So, I already knew that California DMV is notoriously crowded, slow, tedious, and incompetent.  That, and the alleged real time, wait-time info online prompted me to drive 70 miles to El Centro, rather than 25 miles to El Cajon---right there close to the vile El Cajon headquarters of the Highway Patrol.  

I'll take my chances with Mexican drug lords in El Centro rather than deal with El Cajon Highway Patrol--at least I know I'll be dealing with a more decent class of person. 

I'd heard it is quicker in El Centro.  That is way out east, middle of nowhere, kind of in the desert.  The place was packed.  It was exactly like places I remember seeing as a kid in Guatemala City, and other 3rd world Latin American places.  It was one of the stark differences back then; people in the 3rd world had to sit around, wait hours in line for bureaucratic nonsense.  For everything really.  

Americans thought they were lucky because it was not like that here.  "Oh, it'll never be like that in the States!!  all that waiting in line, subject to the whims of government bureaucrats...not in America, by Godtt!!"  Oh yea?

Yippee.  We have become so happily multi-cultural that we now do our DMV just like they used to do everything in those countries.  We even brought them over here so it would look the same.  I always liked the people, but they smiled at me more when I was 7 years old than they do now.

I was the only gringo in the place.  Must have been a hundred people.

I'm thinking the pretty lady treated me special so no one could accuse her of racism or profiling.  Plus I had my ducks in a row, and did my best to appear pleasant and nice.  She did not abuse the obvious minority guy.

There was a glitch in the mysterious computer file on me which made it appear that I'd have to take a test.  That probably wouldn't be too big a problem except it would mean going to the back of another line, filling out more forms and maybe not getting done within the two hours before the place closed.  

Plus, if the test involved road things I'd be OK, but I remember on some driving tests it was all about various penalties for various alcohol related infractions.  I don't know specific penalties.  I don't do things of that nature.  They fry you if you drink and drive, and if you text and drive.  Not smart to do either one anyway.  Oh well.

I don't know how I got through so quick, as it was.  I think the first lady expedited things and gave me a quicker number--F-033.  And then the other one, the pretty one I just mentioned, looked at this and that, took in my lost puppy look when the test was mentioned, scribbled a bunch of stuff on what must have been my Permanent Record, and said forget the test.

So now I have a piece of paper for a license and hope the real deal shows in the mail.  Except I still have the old one with the bogus birthday which, on its face, is good until May.  It is so rare that I have ever lived in one place long enough for license renewal, I can't recall the last time.  

All I recall is getting a new license in a new state.  I would have kept car and license registered Tennessee had not the car got totaled.  It seemed the thing to be CA officially in the aftermath and during the insurance battles.  

Maybe I was wrong about that.

If you have credentials from a freer state, it pays to keep them if you can swing it.  

Thirty three dollars to renew a driver's license?  We aren't talking commercial or any of that.  Luckily I had more cash on me than I usually carry.  I thought maybe twelve or fifteen.  

And the picture is going to be really odd this time.  I think I had an expression which looked a lot like a Rodney Dangerfield impersonation.  His surprised victim expression.

Looking around the place, it did spook me.  All these people, many with little children, forced to sit in a hot crowded room in order to satisfy the state's need to control.  

I honestly do not care if they have licenses.  They probably can't drive worth a damn anyway.  So what.  Just like now, if you can't cover financially, and do not have insurance, then they ought to deport you or throw you out of the mainstream of people.  

In CA the DMV does nothing to improve the odds of responsible people behind the wheel.  So why bother?

Oh yea.  "Driving is a privilege"... said in my most serious authoritarian Dad voice. 

(a privilege granted whether or not you will do harm or be safe.  Unsafe people think it is ok if they drive as long as the state says it is OK.  Another case where the State substitutes for God and conscience.)

They told me I'd outgrow my semi-anarchist leanings.  Once again, They were wrong.  I'd be OK with dropping the requirement for driver's licenses.  But I'd also be OK with shooting up the cars of little punks who hop in cars and make trouble for others.  

I drove around South Miami at night when I was 12, in an MGA hardtop, sitting on 2 Miami phone books, with lots of friends packed in there.  You can fit a lot of little kids into a car.  We were polite and safe.  Of course we thought we were being anonymous and no one would know.  They never did, either.  So age is not a problem.  Behavior and competence.

Anyway, it worked out, but the scene, which I should have photographed, looked exactly like the scenes from poor countries with authoritarian inefficient, maddening dogmatic bureaucracies.   I did not take a photo because I already stood out like a priest in a whorehouse, and I did not want to disturb the peace.  

But if I had taken a photo and told you it was the holding tank for people awaiting their fate in a Cuban court for being critics of the Revolution or dissidents, no one would doubt it.  

The setup makes everyone look like a convict begging for a reprieve. 

Then I went here to contemplate my future, and songs of the heart.

.So cool.  We got a little rain!!!  That is a big deal in this part of the world.  Crazy.

That's because they are constantly worrying about fire, and low water supply, and doing very little that makes sense to mitigate either problem.  Most anything that could or would be done is illegal or meets with unreasonable and unsound activism of one sort or other.  When statists, collectivists and Luddites join forces, nothing is possible except the painfully bizarre.

./

DMV

What a weird thing is the California motor vehicle place.  You can make a convenient appointment, but the first available time will be in three weeks, and don't plan to have choice of day or time.

Best bet is to drive 70 miles east, out to El Centro, and just forget the appointment routine.  The probably won't be able to speak English.  That's OK.  I don't speak government, so that puts us on equal footing.  We won't understand one another, and neither of us will really care.

These agencies are more foreign to me than to most people, as near as I can tell.  They are as unpleasant too me as an occupying army or local gang might be to the average person.  I do my best to suck it up.  Many people don't find the bullying of authority to be anything peculiar or wrong.

Those are the same people who would have found slavery the way of society, no matter if they were slave or master, which is pretty much the majority, considering it was the norm for thousands of years in every part of the world until europeans decided it was no good.  Now most people act like they would never go along with such heavy handed business.  But that is only because that is what everyone else seems to think.

They go along with the whole DMV "Driving is a privilege not a right" routine.  Who is granting this privilege?  The same people who have made jumping through the hoops to get the privilege renewed a privilege.  If you are lucky, you can get an appointment to get your privilege.  It is a privilege to get the red tape handled, not a right.

Driving is a privilege.  Driving sanely and safely is obviously and option; like turn signals on BMWs.

I'm going to drive almost to Yuma because it will end up taking less time than waiting around in El Cajon or San Diego.  Out there, most people are illegal anyway and don't need no stinking driver's license.  Sanctuary cities and all that.  I don't know how the get it ll worked out, but it seems they can do OK.  Cops only beat on them if they think no legal services will be brought to bear.

That is the big myth in the US.  People think police are out to nail citizens based on race or ethnicity.  They do like all bullies and target those who are least threatening to them.  If they think you can bring nasty lawyers down on them then they lay off.  It is about power, and that sometimes coincides with race.

I'm always polite at the DMV, and pretend that I respect the people there and what they represent.   The truth is that I do not respect "the badge", the agency, the state or the way the state is set up.  That makes me a liar.  I do respect the workers there, to a small degree.  They do not see themselves as part of anything bad.  Such workers rarely do.   And the public largely plays its role too.  People herd in there and indicate a need to be guided and prodded to behave halfway civilly.  They like the firm control of the surrogate parent the state has become.

I can't change it, but I don't think it is good to pretend it is OK and wonderful, either.  I've never liked bullies of any kind.  But even in childhood I noticed that if a kid gained acceptance by his bullies, he'd immediately conform to their mode of behavior and bully someone else as soon as he got the chance.  So, by conforming properly so that the state doesn't torture people they feel all responsible and support measures taken against those who don't readily conform.  It is the old weak willed, no principles game in action all over again.

The trick is to maintain one's integrity while not falling into the trap of fighting everyone and everything in a fruitless quest of some kind.  Don't tilt at windmills like Don Quixote.

I think the set up is wrong and unholy.  Many others have no issue with it, as long as they think the force of the state and the whims and prejudices and perversions of those with badges won't be brought down to harm them.  It doesn't occur to them that this is not the way people should be treated and peace maintained.  Driving is a privilege, as is living, sleeping, walking around taking in the sights, fishing, and washing windows.  It's all a privilege, granted grudgingly by the state, overseen by armed an deadly agents.

I find all that quite bizarre.  That most normal, and otherwise decent, people do not find it so puzzles me greatly.  It makes me wonder if I am simply not seeing what I think I see.  Is the sky not really blue on a cloudless day?  Is water not really wet?  My perception of reality must be distorted, or else most people have been duped.  Or maybe just bullied to the point of compliance a pretense.  And pretense has become such a habit that they don't dare stop.  And maybe people don't even know how to stop.

Most find every reason to convince themselves that they aren't pretending.   No doubt there are studies to back them up, depending up the issue and needs of the day.  Sometimes new studies trash old ones, and then newer ones reaffirm the ones that got trashed.

It may well be the the evolution of the species requires a collectivist majority of the easily led who fear being weird or different, all enjoying the herd mentality and whatever privileges they are granted.  They get to choose teams with which to identify, and so they can have internal enemies.  They can bicker over the best ways to combat common enemies like poverty, terrorism, drugs, inequality, and even privilege itself.  The important thing is to confine their thinking within that framework.

Over time the people who don't or won't fit will get weeded out.    Force is an effective tool, and the state claims a monopoly on the right to use force as it sees fit.   It will grudgingly cede the privilege of self defense to an individual,  but it is a risky privilege to exercise.  It may or may not land one in as much difficulty as the assault from which he was defending himself.   It is a roll of the dice.

El Centro, here we come, with a battery of documentation in hand, hoping to prove our existence to the satisfaction of a state whose mistyped numbers place my entrance into this life at a time a couple of hundred days different than other agencies and states have claimed for many many years.  Should be fun.

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Pirate Poet Pauper or King

Of those choices I think pirate or king are most likely the ones which provide the most satisfaction.  I think I know first hand what the other two have to offer.

Most overly sentimental or passionate souls who find no avenue of understanding or sensible means of expression are probably poets.  Just another word for nutcase.  Kings are annoying, in concept, but tend to live well and get all the women they want.  Women like power and wealth, regardless what you may have heard, and kings have both.  Ergo, kings attract mucho wimmins.

No such thing as altruistic love, soulmate, etc.  Mercenary females, idealistic males.  The former do not settle for the latter, and the latter do not land the most desirable of women unless they parlay their idealism into power, fame, and/or wealth.

Even so, I still believe.  I'm an idealist.  Strange thing to be, considering I just spelled out the case against the poet's soul, against soul mates, meant to be, and all that.  Maybe it is a manifestation of my compulsion to lose, to self destruct.

Or maybe it is a result of the sort of knowledge one can't prove, but knows if he's ever glimpsed the face of God.  I guess you'll never know, unless you've been where I've been.  But how would you, or I, know if you have or not?

I guess if we meet in a dream, or our spirits cross paths floating, flying out in a dimension which accommodates such activities, then we'll know what we know, and the question will be put to rest.  If we were to do that, we'd be on to something, and I bet it would be bliss.

But what are the chances of that?  Let's say I find that magic vibration that launches me off into that dimension of dream-like travel beyond time and limit.  Odds seem slim that anything special is going to be there on the same wavelength, ready to find me.  

But out there, or in there--as the case may be, things aren't bound by the same rules, and what seems likely or unlikely here and now, can be different. So we go full circle.

It is good to be how I am, or it is hopeless, but maybe it is good, etc.  The world within or without the world that gets all the press may be the better deal, the bigger deal, and a welcome relief.

If you can unravel this one, kudos to you.  Sometimes you do best when you accept what you can't completely control, and enjoy the seat of your pants flying that is the only option that remains for some of us.   Nothing else ever worked anyway, even back when normal seemed a reasonable possibility.

I will find out, and maybe you will be there, or here, with me.

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What's a Guy to Do?

It makes no sense, but I am determined to figure this out.   But if I look at my history, I never settle down confidently with the nice person, or else I gamble it all on the deceptive ingrate.  In fairness, most experiences were with the nice people, and I just resisted going all in, or else I didn't feel  I could be accepted for the reality of who I am.  

Bla bla bla.  I look back and think, "Who cares?  Take control, whiner."  One thing for sure, advice from others in matters of the heart is total garbage.

They do not know, and always tend to push me to be who I am not, and really do not want to be.  I have defects, glitches, and occasional flashes of brilliance, and if there is the right kind of respect and affection, I am loyal and a servant to the death, if need be.  At least I think so.

Some people can't get past the glitchy, whatever it is.  But others actually like that aspect.  My compulsion to try for a normalcy I'll never achieve often led me to seek approval where it would never be.  Dumb.  No good or bad in that.  All about inner conflict, trusting true essence and all that. 

Whatever I am, it is almost a universal truth that the opinions of others about what to do with my heart, and how, ought to be ignored, and, unless it involves a heads up regarding dishonesty or psycho antics, such opinions ought not be offered.  Mildly positive things are OK, like, "Oh she's a spiffy looking chick" or "Wow she can jump high and kick a ball far!!".  You know, the usual comments which don't delve into too much depth.

It looks to me like I need to make some money.  Maybe figure out how to put what I have left to work. It is scary, but I will just see and hope to do the right thing.  It is nice to know what I do want, for a change, but I will follow whatever proves to be the ultimate best path.  It almost makes me cry, though, because I do know something or someone has really got a hold o me.

Just the way it is.  If you don't like it,  you are probably wrong, but that's OK.  Life works out alright if you let it.

love this song.  I'm simple and unsophisticated I guess.  I like what I like and that's that