I, Too, Disagree

Geez.  I happened to read a post--a few or more down from this.  OMG.  What a bunch of garbage!  I don't even agree with myself.  Wha..???

Conspiracy? Perhaps THAT is what makes a Subaru a Subaru

Sometimes one finds that he needs to replace parking lights and such on his 2008 Subaru Forester.  No longer just for LGBT, etc.  So, to replace some bulbs, it appears that the whole headlight assembly has to come out.  Mine does anyway.  

Nowhere does anyone really explain how to do this on the internet.  Not on youtube or other.  And it is different for some years.  So you will hear discussion of an '05, but even then, very vague discussion of actually removing things.

Apparently the bumper skin comes off, then you can unbolt the thing.  I do not like bumper skins and the stupid clips they use to hold it together.  

I am really surprised at the lack of good information there is.  I guess I will have to decide if I can find a way to do this without the nonsense.

Subaru claims that love is what makes them what they are.  I say that what they are is a big conspiracy against owners who do not want to spend much money so they do some things themselves.  They know it's true.   That's why they distracted people's attention by letting dogs drive in a commercial.  

Nothing is sacred any more.  

Still, I would like it if they made certain parts user friendly.  In this case it would not even alter the appearance.  

After a couple hundred thousand miles there is no way around having to put some money for this or that.  Especially on a dirt road.

Really. All that to trade out the headlight lens?  

Oh, wait.  There are presidential hijinks aplenty lately.  I haven't really heard enough to comment. I hear a sound bite here and a sound bite there.  Just enough to know that these are very strange times. 

I wonder if anyone can imagine the horror as I read what I write.  To think that this is how it is in my world is highly depressing.  Something as simple as a stupid headlight assembly is actually a start toward where I need to go.  

Adolfest

In an effort to settle this question once and for all, I suggest a nationwide, week long holiday we will call Adolphest.   We will devise a series of contests in which contestants are tracked to see who is the ultimate Hitler.  So many people get compared to him, but can they all really be worthy of the title, neo-Hitler?  No, only the very most truly Adolf-like.

I have an advantage because I have German blood and don't eat meat.  But I am not in power, or seeking it at this time.  However, if drafted by public mandate, I will reconsider.

So, we should have this fest and determine who gets to be compared to Hitler for a year.  This would, hopefully, reduce the abundance of very weak comparisons, and maybe get rid of some confusion.  Then I'll know just who to oppose for being most like Hitler.

As it is, I cannot be sure.  Is Bush the real Hitler?  Obama?  Trump?  I have seen pictures where they have the mustache.   I haven't seen it on Hillary, I don't think.  That would be a pretty good one, so I suggest the professional Hitler revisionists and comparers get busy to include Hillary--the first American woman to be publicly and regularly compared to Adolf.  History in the making.  The mustache would totally work in her case.

At the end of the fest we will see who is crowned our new Faux Fuhrer for the year.  Then it will be just bad form to start comparing others to Adolf as well.  If you say Trump is the new Hitler, you cannot also label Bush or Obama or Hillary.  See?  Easy rules, and it is time we got this thing under control.

And what a fun holiday!!

We'll have parties all week, do medical experiments upon our enemies while comparing them to the SS, the whole shebang.  Fun Fun Fun.

So write your elected representatives and tell 'em we want Adolfest!

He'll Tell "Em

So, outside the VFW, where I played a last minute show with Valor and Lace, I hear some possibly tipsy people talking politics.  Loudly.   "Hell yea, I'm for Trump!  I like people who will tell it like it is.  He ain't afraid to look across the aisle and say, 'You're a dumbass!'."

It gave me pause.  Then I thought to myself, democrats have been looking across the aisle and telling third parties worldwide that the across the aisle person is a dumbass or worse for as long as I can remember.

The things said when Bush was president were mostly more hostile than the insults thrown at Obama.  No one wants to admit it because, if republicans and others used the same rhetoric and vitriol that was used on Bush, the racism accusations would be even louder, more pervasive and shrill than they are now.  So, in the spirit of the Big Pretense, people tiptoe around, even when being hostile, due to all the racial, tribal political dynamics that have been cultivated the last eight years.

The politics of ethnicity and condition of birth have been played for a long time.  But the progress toward peaceful coexistence reversed under Obama.  Blame him or guilty crackers, awful republicans, black panthers, or Trump.  No matter.  Racial issues have been made worse and, in many cases, fabricated to further the aims of that political faction.  Or so it seems.  I'm not sure who all calls the shots.  I don't think it is Barack, or even Michele.

Those who said things that even I hesitate to repeat regarding Bush and his family are outraged at the lack of respect for the office, etc. by opponents of Obama.  It happens.  My president is a victim.  Yours is the anti-Christ.  And, of course, your guy is Just Like Hitler!

I consider the Obama administration to be one the most racially divisive and inflammatory ever.  Some of that is natural because he is part black.  But mostly it is a ploy to cement all alleged minority groups, even if they aren't a minority, like women.  Any wedge that can be driven to pit groups against one another, especially against white men,  is used to keep the turmoil alive.  Black against white.  Hispanic (a made up race) against white (also kind of made up?), women against men (especially if the men are white); these are all tools of the trade.

Look across the aisle and say, "You are a dumbass!!".  First let us have the black females do this.  Then hispanics.  The women of all sorts.  Then white men.  My bet is that the latter will immediately be showered with accusations of racism, sexism, xenophobia, islamophobia (which I suffer from, and will continue until that cult ceases to creep me out), homophobia (which I mostly only suffer from because it is not a political philosophy and I am sick of it), etc.  The point is that we have double and triple standards, at least.

Whether a Trump in power calling the other side dumbass will actually sooth my disgust with the oligarchy is another question.  I doubt it.  Half truths on any side of a question are still less that full truth.  And that is what we have ruling the day.  Partial truth and half baked solutions and descriptions of what needs solving.  That is how people get played and special interests, (those who pull the puppet strings), get their way.  And people really do not see it.  Even when they think they do.

Just listen to them.  They tell you they see all this corruption, "follow the money", blablabla, but then they jump on some half baked, only partially true bandwagon.  Because it is easier than not jumping on a satisfactory bandwagon which would win approval of dimwitted friends who can't hold a complete thought.  Acceptance is the reward, and that is all that matters.

I'm heading off to a Bernie rally to see if I can pick up chicks by agreeing with everything and expressing my white guilt as eloquently as possible.

If You Want It To Be, Create It!!

That almost describes what I was thinking.  For example, people can posture all they want about "alternative fuels" and this and that, somehow confusing the ability to subsidize, punish, and regulate with the ability to invent or create.

It is a waste to argue the point with people.   They either like the coercive aspects of government's involvement in research and development, and energy creation and use, or they don't.  I am one who does not.  Through all the official boasting of how their regulations have resulted in improvement, true progress in fields like energy is retarded by our government and those who direct it.  They will milk every dime out of the status quo, as they quietly lay siege to emerging markets and technologies.

Then, like we have seen many times in the last twenty years, they will pretend to be cutting edge crusaders.  They will also enjoy government subsidies and other market manipulation in their favor.

Whatever.  To the point.  Trying to identify and accept reality is not easy these days.  And I think I know why.

It is that "it"factor.  But it could work to advantage.  I have another plan.

I realize since I cannot even describe the sort of thing that happens, allegedly due to an inner malady, there is no point even discussing it when I can help it.  It does pose some challenges.  Not nearly as troublesome as what most people seem to endure.  No wonder humanity is so pissed off---they are mostly beset by pain and limitation.  

I think there is a tendency to personalize happenstance as some conspiracy against us, or a punishment.   Kind of a ritual in which people pretend that they don't know what we do, and visa versa.   I almost said, "we".  That presumes a lot when people say "we".  I resent it when people speak for everyone.  Then again, maybe they only mean the ones legitimately on board with their agenda.

The best one can do, in some cases, is to avoid looking in the mirror, in order to dodge relentless self-condemnation.  Or if one is really fortunate, finding some other way to react which is more enjoyable.

Ego Trip? Let Me Show You How It Is Done

Sunday.  10:00 A.M. in a friggin SoCal coffee house in La Mesa or somewhere.  One of those little offshoots of El Cajon or San Diego.  I cannot tell the difference.  Alpine is not like that.  You know where it is, and where you are not in Alpine, you can pretty well sense it.

Anyway, I cannot believe I agree to play music at 10:00 AM on Sunday.   Being the ego tripping pro, I made it a point to do a lot of gentle, lower register stuff, relatively speaking.  People could be hung over or who knows what6.  It is an artsy neighborhood.

The big surprise is that I think I was on it.  When couples come in and stop and people point at you as you are playing, making comments to their friends and it seems positive; that's ego trip time.  And right then is when I hit that wrong note.

I'm pretty sure there is plenty on that particular folly in the Bible.  And maybe elsewhere.

When you do things like that, you have to laugh; get all full of yourself like it matters, and then get your come uppance.   The you and your in that context is actually I and mine.  Although me and mine sounds better.

There are some limiting factors lately but I doubt anyone has caught on about that.  Compensate by improving whatever can be improved.   Glad I don't smoke.   Is it over 2 years already?  Whoa!  It is. That means it has been too long not seeing my cousins and some other people.  Get over to Texas and Mississippi and FLA one of these days.  Could happen.

I have figured out that my greatest fans are people who appear to have wandered off from some sort of care facility.  The degree of security is questionable.   And though many may come off as innocently goofy and mentally impaired, something tells me that same empty lunatic smile might be on their faces while stabbing their siblings as they sleep.  Just a hint of a creepy feel.

But they are my fans and love to ask odd questions about harmonicas and why I carry a bunch of them.  I wish I could remember the odd questions.  The kind of thing that leaves you wondering what the real motive for the interaction might have been.

I liked it better when my fans were overwhelmingly middle aged women and four year olds.  Mostly girls in that group too.   Who doesn't like women and four year olds?  Maybe I was an idiot to leave Memphis.  Well, we already established that I am somewhat idiotic at times.

Moving here was not such a bad move though.  I am spoiled by the landscape and by being able to get gasoline without two or three gimme dollah guys trying to shake me down.  And usually with a racial undertone in the mix.  I do not miss that BS at all.

Did I Coin This Election Word?

The way my life works I am often driving during presidential debate hours, so I catch it on the radio.  I  managed to catch parts of a few of the many republican debates and some of the democratic debates, too.  Even when that space holder no one knows was pretending to run.

There have been the usual claims of what politicians are going to do for people and the universe, in general. n They pretend they are scientists, thugs, theologians, whatever you want.  They will fix any number of crises, and everything is a crisis.

They use words like "crisis" and "broken".  Immigration system is broken.  Prison system is broken.  Bernie said so tonight.  I beg to differ.

Our prison system is not broken at all.  That's the trouble.  It is alive and whole and hyperactive.  It is nuts.   People just take for granted that the proper way to handle a thief or someone who ingests stuff without a doctor's permission is to lock them in a cage.  I find that a questionable assumption.  It is what we have done forever but maybe it is time to change the approach.

On that, I agree with the Bern.  Although I am sure he can't leave it at that without using it somehow to hijack the resources of others for causes he deems worthy.  Even so, he is the first that suggested overhauling that system from the ground up.  Prisons are primitive and have shown to foster violence and crime.  It is small minded to think that it is cool that someone you hate is getting man raped in prison.  People even laugh about it or express their wish for it to happen to whomever.   That will never fix anything.  Most people do not rate prison.  That is for another time though.

Who knows.  We use prisons far too much and for far too flimsy reasons.  Immigration system is not broken.  It is insanely corrupt and its rules have been selectively enforced, if enforced at all.  Things get perverted.  Prisons-- how they are used now-- seem as much tools to terrorize and contain the populace as to actually do anything to specifically deter criminals.

The "oh thank for your service" automatons who drool over anyone in uniform, especially if they have guns, are so sure that their groveling and conviction that they have nothing to hide make official abuse OK.  Those people never see the wrong in humans owning or controlling other humans by force until it bites them.

There is some truth to their defense along the lines of, "If you don't trust cops, next time you are up against a mugger, call a hippie.".  Of course, when you are up against a mugger, calling either one is not likely to do much good.  Being  a bad ass, or armed in some way is best.  It would be even better if you could shoot the intruder without a bunch of nonsense prosecution or lies by people saying the victim could be some famous person's son due to skin color and other total bunk.

Anyway, a word just popped into my mind tonight which describes the campaigns and the debates:
PANDERMONIUM

Seriously.   They compete to see who can promise everyone more something for nothing, or distract them by promising to ruin the lives of "the wealthy".  

It is pander city over there on the panderosa with a cast of characters scary enough to make Hop Sing pack it up and take his chances back on the railroad.

If they aren't describing give aways funded by tax money, promising to charge only the evil people for whatever it is, they are pandering to other insecurities, prejudices and ignorance.  The idea that white people are riding on a resurgence of racism, for example.  If you wanted to be scientific, I think you would find that, per capita, white people are the least racist and xenophobic of all the subgroups.

That is why we invented "white privilege".  Facts are messy.  Let us just go for the ugly abstract theory that by their very existence white people inflict untold hurt on everyone else, and women.  Not only insane, It's the law!  Check government contract bids where they say preference given to "minorities and women".  Men have to be divvied up by race but women can just be women.

The whole lot are pandering to various groups of small minded, foolish people.  Those who want to punish everyone else.  Those who hate anyone with a brain, or money, or no money.  Something for everyone on the Panderosa.

It will only get more intense until November.  And soon, the new president will find ways to kill more people and spawn the stupidest internet treatises both in support of, and opposed to the administration.

Still, what is wrong with people who think these proposed tax hikes won't screw them.  These various intrusions on people's property usually screws middle class who had a shot at some inheritance and who suffer from many of the sticky fingered regulations these politicians put in place.  They always build themselves a way out.

People go for it.  Envy and sloth are the easiest qualities to play on in this game.  People are too lazy to really look into things far enough to get the truth, and they are too insecure to resist having some group to blame for their hardships just because that group seems to have some wealth or brains or other perceived advantage.

In the Panderosa republic people are perfectly happy to embrace an all-powerful state just as long as they think only others will be oppressed and that they may benefit.  It took me many, many years to finally accept the fact that A: People are less intelligent than one would hope.  And B:  Even most intelligent people are too emotionally screwed up to be comfortable not being able to force their personal life choices onto others.  They find excuses to rationalize it.

Whole lot of pandering going on

.

Now This Is How To Do Recording Studio

No holding a microphone.  No bring an amp.  Just microphones sitting there minding their business, letting me mind mine.  The sound in my headphones was so awesome, I couldn't help but immitate the Wizard of Oz between tracks.  "I am the great and powerful Oz, and you will never have sufficient self esteem, so don't even bother!"

Oh yea, spent the day at the studio, I guess I laid down harp tracks for 12 songs. ?? Is that possible?  Must be.

You'd be surprised how cool the Oz thing can sound.  And, "A brain?  You don't need a brain!  All you need is this piece of paper.  Why, there have been people with less brain than you go on to be president of the United States!".

I think I should do an entire Oz album.

A little outfit called, Trackstar Entertainment, in either Lemon Grove, or La Mesa; I can't tell the difference.  Probably La Mesa.   I get a good feeling from the place.  The sound engineer is great to work with.  We're on a budget--Sande's on a budget, I should say.  It is her project.   If anything comes of it, I'll probably get maybe 70% because of who I am.

In preparing, I kept doing a little different approach every time, and worried about being the weak link.   The studio, with the wizard sound, changed things some.   It was the ego boost I needed.  Really.   Sande said I made her cry.  Berto said his head exploded and that the sound engineer said he'd never heard anyone play that way.  I realize that leaves room for interpretation.  I chose to take it as encouragement.

So much got packed into today that there was no time for him to give us rough copies of the tracks so far.  What I have is before the final vocals, and before my part.  I haven't heard anything I've done, played back.  Not more than a few seconds of it. like three, literally.

I'm thinking, I wonder if the real thing lives up to their reaction.  One can only hope.

Not everyone likes her stuff as much as we do.  Everyone playing in this group loves the material.  Some of the best lyrics.  And a little off the wall at times.  Never empty.

Still, I fight the temptation to berate myself for doing this instead of being the world changing physicist I was supposed to be.  [It may be that I was never supposed to be any of those grandiose things I imagine and cite in complaints galore.]

I sure hope they have time to let me play alternative tracks.  The sensitivity and range of sound this setup allows me to explore is beyond anything I normally enjoy.  I think I could produce what might be called "angelic" sounds.  It further encouraged this stylistic shift I have been undergoing for the last year or so.  That heavy chordal underlayment.  I think it is finally coming into focus.  It has been ever so slightly off up till now, I think.

Be that as it may.  I wish Austin was a place that stayed cool and had low humidity.  As it is, moving there could be hazardous to health.  I intend to fix that eventually.  One day I am fairly certain I will move.  Right now, heat and humidity bring on the heebie jeebies. A condition which has not always visited me, so it can again cease to exist in my world.  I see no reason why not.

Oh yea. I broke out the low Eb Suzuki Manji.  It was on a song that is very heavy harmonica and fast.  This was first time trying the low Eb.  Holy smoke!!  If only I could hear it back.  It sounded like a musical fog horn.  Sort of.  Now that I read it, it does not sound enticing.  But it is.  Trust me.

The Company and I

When you run in spy circles,  a certain organization is often referred to as "The Company".  We know who that is.

So, I may have mentioned that the White House something or other agency gave me a certificate of appreciation.  That is like a license to do whatever I want.  But I don't abuse it.

Ever since the change in local management at the resort house, we've had a particular guy do various projects which few people can do.  He's The Cleaner.  Rico, I call him.  He's buddies with the ex SEAL body guard I've never seen or met, but who takes care of certain guests when they are in the area.  We never knew of these people under the previous manager.  But they have been in the mix for some time, apparently.

I know what you are thinking.  I agree; Black Ops.  I suspect that Rico handles a lot of the restoration, bio containment, etc., in the event maybe some terrorists got taken down by unorthodox means.   He has a military background and is rumored to give martial arts demonstrations at Camp Pendleton.  This whole restoration and remodel contractor thing must be a front.

Rico does incredibly good work.  He can get things on short notice;  like specialized tile, even if they have to make it!  It's how those initials outfits and black ops source things.  And it gets paid by misdirected tax money.  No record.  Just some of the massive amount that just goes away, without explanation or justification or even any idea where it went.

No question that the guy and his crew do first class work.  If you are cleaner and fixer for Black Ops or/and The Company, then of course you are good.  You have to be.

So I think this place is really a hotbed for spooks to do their secret ops stuff.  And there I am.  Quietly in the middle of it.  Maybe the only one who sees what is really going on here.  Although, Martha and Pez (co-workers' code names) have come to believe, too, that Rico is maybe a cleaner.  Perhaps we work at a safe house.

But the rapidity with which he can marshall other specialists and sub contractors, as well as materials, is near miraculous.   Only those with a chunk of military or government resources, with all red tape cut, can assemble necessary equipment and material so rapidly.

This latest outfit he brought in to help with the flood damage---bizarre pipe under sink mysteriously breaks, spewing water for no one knows how long; maybe a day---has the demeanor of a military assault team.  Totally professional, methodical, that military posture and bearing, and very respectful, yet matter-of-fact.

I'm pretty sure all these guys are involved in clandestine support activities.   For example:  Let's say there were some bad guy terrorists looking to make mischief, or on the lam from doing evil in Syria or Somalia or somewhere.  And our guys, in some secret or even invisible, technically non-existant, group, track them right here to La Jolla or Carlsbad, let's say.   They confront them at a safe house or bad guy lair and have to shoot them.  Big mess.  Dead people.  Holes in walls.  Blood, other organic stains and materials. No good.

So, they call in Rico.  Rico gets it done, either buy doing it himself with his small crew, or by bringing in one of his expert colleagues as the situation warrants.   When he is done, no one can tell the place was the scene of a gruesome massacre.

One has to wonder how I fall into these important workings of the inner sanctum of power, as we know it.   I think my job is to lay low and not get beat up.  Another new motto

I Can Expect or Demand, but that is only my right

So, I should be more, do more, and generally be better than I am.  I have the right to that sort of self-assessment.  I would not think I had the right, or at least not if I wanted to maintain good form, to tell you that I am disappointed because you are not living up to your potential, and that you are just blowing it all around.

You may already feel that way. You may be battling some unknown inner thing that makes you wary of ever holding a pistol in your hand, for fear of your impulses and sadness.  Who knows.  Ain't my business. People have, and need, boundaries.  That is within that personal realm.  An individual's most vulnerable psychological triggers are not the play things of others, in polite society.

I guess you'd never know it, considering how the culture is evolving, or devolving.  Or both; which is what I think.

But through it all, there is a gem which may be of great value.  Maybe the mantra needed right now is, "Demand, and expect, more of yourself".   I will know when I actually have no more, and I've done the very best I can.  It has been so rare that I ever did that, I remember the very brief spans of time when I looked back on the day saying, "I did my best.  Even when I felt like stopping for a break, or doing the wrong thing out of habit.  I did not give in."

So few times I have allowed that.  And I loved those days.  Absolutely loved it.  But things tended to go so fast, and it was almost like magic.  Things advanced so well in those brief periods that it scared me.  And I settled back into being the misfit, letting the cruelty of the world and the stupidity and shallowness of others be my excuses for being invisible.  For basically being on strike most of my life.

Wow.  Is that dumb or what?  So, would it be dumb now to think I can change and maybe revive those rare occasions when I tried, and did my best?  The bar is set low enough, I need no big miracles.  Plus, during those few times, it was a love of life that made it work, not guilt or anger, or resentment, or any of that kind of thing.

Maybe I can demand more from myself.  But certainly no one else has the right, by my code, to slam me for my ridiculous battles with my own demons, and to point out how big a loser I am in that way.
But they have.  And, much as I hate it, they are right.  I do need to demand more of myself and be as resourceful in figuring out what I can do constructively, as I am at figuring out what ails me.

Life should not be so hard.  It makes sense that in developing civilization and cultures, people would have a lot of mental wildness go on.  Our brains and minds have to evolve, too.  So, we are at the phase in evolution where our minds are still confused between the new civility and fight or flight.  It is hard to get it right.  Our consciences work over time or under time, depending.   And it makes people turn on themselves--depression.

Smart people, like my brother, figured this stuff out at a young age.  A heightened sense of reality, and maybe decency as well.  He learned not to destroy himself in protest of that which he despised or did not understand.  Many of us go the self-defeating route.  Oh well.  Let's just ask a little more of my own self.  I have made minuscule progress since adopting this idea, but progress, nonetheless. and I feel less awful and riddled with free floating, macabre dread.
////////////////////////////////////
Played the Tin Roof, downtown last night with Enter the Blue Sky.  Sound guy remembered me from playing with Valor a Lace there a few weeks ago.  That was cool.  The Tin Roof gets 4 stars--all I give at this time.   Good stage.  Good sound, even if sometimes hard to hear one's self--name of the game--great treatment from staff, good sound tech.