Friday, February 28, 2014

The Money Mongering, Murderous Corporations Do It Again

Molly And Callie
 
Today had to take Callie to the vet.  About  2 or 3 days ago, she stopped eating, today she didn’t look good at all, so, off to the vet.  About 3 weeks ago, there was a crew here that was spraying the hell out of the bushes – no doubt it was some kind of pesticide – and they were drenching the bushes, as well as the surrounding areas of gravel, rocks, and walkways.  We let both Molly and Callie go outside to play for a while during the day, they usually stay pretty close to home, and are usually back within 15 or 20 minutes, sometimes Molly stays out longer, but Callie is always back in a few minutes.  Anyway, besides Callie having stopped eating altogether a couple days ago, Molly has been eating noticeably less than usual – also for the past 2 or 3 days.  After the spraying, we kept the cats inside for about a week, until it rained pretty good, at which time I thought it was safe for them to go back outside.  So, the cat that is in very good health (Molly) has slowed down her eating, and the new cat, who was not up to a hundred percent in her health just yet, after having been severely abused, and starved within inches of her life – for her whole life of about a year – until she got with us about five weeks ago – has completely stopped eating.  BTW, she is surprisingly spunky and alert in spite of having not eaten for those few days.  The vet did some tests, and found her pretty close to normal, which indicates that it’s very likely she doesn’t have any organ dysfunction or serious disease.  While at the vet, I got to thinking about the spraying – which I had forgotten about until that moment.  We called the company that did the spraying, asked what the name of the chemical used to spray, and much to my UNsurprise, the answer was, “Oh, that stuff is not harmful, AND, it absorbs completely into the plant within four hours”.  WHAT A BUNCH OF FLAMING BULLSHIT.  They make movies and TV shows about this stuff – about how companies and corporations that poison the air, water, ground, food, and who rape the land, will NEVER admit to the money mongering, murderous bullshit that they do.  They will lie, deny, make excuses, make accusations, threaten, and even murder when they see fit.  “Oh, you mean there are kids being born with their stomachs outside their bodies in the places where we (Monsanto) have used our chemicals???, OH no, it couldn’t POSSIBLY be anything WE did, it’s just the natural order of things, or, it’s gotta be something YOU did”.  For crying out fucking loud.  When we told the vet what the rep from the pesticide company said, she got a puzzled look on her face and said, “Hmmmmm, that’s interesting”, which I took as code for, “Well, that sounds like bullshit to me".  I asked her as I was leaving, “Completely and absolutely off the record, you didn’t believe that guy’s line of crap either, did ya?”, her answer was, “Well, it’s (the stuff being absorbed within four hours) not something I’m familiar with”, which I took as code for, "Nope not a goddam word".

So, the cats will have to stay indoors for a while, and as always, there’s not a damn thing that I can do about any of this.  The sad thing is that this is not the half of it, there are corporations that are doing horrible things to the planet, including the air, water, soil, food, and everything else, while they continue to deny, excuse, make accusations, point fingers, threaten, and murder, in order to protect their goddam multi billion dollar a year profits.  This has become common knowledge.  Of course, there are still those who scoff at it, mock, ridicule, blame, and whatever else, but screw them, their bullshit doesn’t change facts.  Among those facts is that everybody is sick nowadays, everybody is taking more pills than they can count, our food is full of chemical bullshit that doesn’t need to be there, and mental depression is in epidemic proportions.  Most of that chemical bullshit wasn’t there 15 years ago, so I don’t see any legitimate reason why it needs to be in there now.  BTW, this includes the cat food that we buy – there is not a single brand that makes a food that isn’t full of this crap.  The result is that our pets are now coming down with diabetes, organ dysfunction and failure, and a whole boatload of diseases and conditions.  When I was a kid, a cat could get distemper or rabies, and that was about it.  So, what the hell is with all these health problems now – same bullshit – chemicals – the same shit that’s in the food that we humans must eat – because we don’t have a realistic choice.

As with everything else, I sit here in disbelief, with not a damn thing to be able to be done about it, and while my body deteriorates as I write this.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The Insomnia Epidemic - The Simple Cure


On the insomnia epidemic: Your sleeplessness is directly proprortionate to your degree of BS. Quit the denial, quit the pretentiousness, and quit believing the huge lie that if you go out into the world with a smile and a "good attitude", your life will be wonderful. Quit pretending everything is peachy when it's not. If you're angry, wear it, deal with it, but don't deny it - in fact, best not to deny anything about yourself - "socially acceptable" or otherwise. Quit denying your emotional content, just goddamit be who and what you are. Quit trying to be somthing you're not. Be responsible for your own crap, but never for anybody else's, or for things you have no control over. Cut the shit and you'll be amazed at how well you sleep. Oh, and fringe benefit - you might even start to like yourself and your own company - how 'bout THAT?  Oh, and fringe benefit - you might even start to like yourself and your own company - how 'bout THAT?

Thursday, February 6, 2014

You Won’t Get The Picture If You Don’t Read To The End


At 8 years old, step mom pulls up my corn plants that are looking like they’re going to start giving corn any day.  Of course, I was a little kid, so it might have been a while, but that’s not the point, the point is that she pulled up my corn plants that I worked hard and diligently on for months – and she did it for no apparent reason.
At 11 years old, my second year of Little League baseball, where the year before, I was one of two of the best pitchers in the league.  I sit on the bench for 3 whole games that second year, while the coaches’ kids – who couldn’t throw a ball to save their lives – played every game, all game; not to mention, the kid they put on 3rd base who couldn’t even reach first base on the rare occasion that he actually fielded a ball.
At 17, I’m on the varsity basketball team.  The referee association has a problem with my dad, so they decide to take it out on me – my dad’s 17 year old kid.  In spite of that, and in spite of Rodney Loo making damn sure that I don’t get the ball on offense, and in spite of having a coach who was so dim that he let all this go on.  In spite of all this, I still manage to maintain a 17.5 scoring average (after scoring 29, 33, and 35 points per game in the first pre-season tournament), 2nd leading rebounder, and easily one of the top 5 players in the whole state.  But, Jim Hackleman – the sports editor of the main newspaper (the Honolulu Star Bulletin) flies into a rage at something my dad does, and yanks me off the All Star team – as revenge against my dad.  How many kids do you think something like this would have happened to?
In the 80s, I had a very successful country band in Hawaii, we played all the military clubs, and the two main civilian dance halls there – this was after spending the first year taking a beating from Jim Mitchell – the only booking agent there who handled the country circuit.  We all thought that if we didn’t book through him, that we wouldn’t work at all.  I did well after getting away from him, but boy did I ever take a beating at first.  Anyway, after spending 5 years playing the circuit, I finally get out of Hawaii to go after bigger and better things – with my wife at the time fighting me on that tooth and nail.  Funny, it’s common knowledge that the A & R people (formerly known as “talent scouts”) hear things – well, if they heard of me, they certainly made damn sure that nobody acknowledged me.  My abilities and appeal – being subjective, I can’t realistically say that they purposely locked me out, but if I had to guess… 
You can see me here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/Ikaika1955 , and decide for yourself.
For the next 4 years it was nothing but problems.  Too many to go into detail.
Sometime in the mid 90s, ex half brother goes into a rage and makes sure I can never have anything played on the “Local” radio stations there by contacting every person he knew (and he knew everybody in that town), and said god knows what.  I sent a CD to the radio stations, and to a couple of local music/record companies, which nobody ever even took the time to listen to.  As if that's not enough, the program director at the radio station that played Hawaiian music dodged me for more than three months - while I called just about every day, and even went to the station to wait for him, only for him to have succeeded in dodging me the whole time.
In 1999, I move to England, where I lived for 3-1/2 years.  I cannot begin to count how many times I would lose a long email – by some bizarre occurrence where my computer would make a clicking noise, followed by my email disappearing – BTW, this is normally not possible.  Never once did any email vanish after the first few minutes, it would ALWAYS be after I spent an hour or two, just as I was about to sign off and send it.  I also had more computer problems, and saw more error messages, than I can begin to count.  About the computer itself, we ordered one from the States, and it was defective – the CD reader did not work.  So, we send it back, wait a month, 2 months, 3 months, calling to no avail, finally order another one.  The very next day the first one arrives.  I order a keyboard from an online music outlet, but before I do that, I call to make sure I’m getting one that does what I want it to – the guy on the phone assures me that every detail I asked about was what that keyboard could do.  It arrives, and it does nothing that I want it to – it only makes a bunch of wild noises – no recognizable sounds.  I send it back, I wait a month, 2 months, 3 months, then I go to a local store there and buy another one.  Believe it or not, the very next day, the first one arrives – and I am SO not kidding – the VERY NEXT DAY twice in a row.  Anybody know what the odds against that happening are?  Astronomical.
Moving to San Diego and living there, also for 3-1/2 years, strange little things started to happen.  I’m a bit OCD, I always have a place for my stuff, and I set it in a certain order, and in a certain placement in relation to other things – it’s a sub conscious thing  with me.  On more than one occasion, I would go to pick up my wallet, keys, and watch, to find that all three had been moved just enough for me to notice.  I once found a yellow baseball cap behind a chair in the apartment.  My wife at the time swears that she never touched my stuff, nor did she have any idea about the baseball cap – and I wholeheartedly believe her – she was not the type to do things like that.  I used to listen to (gasp) conservative talk radio during the day.  After a few months, suddenly my radio station was being jammed by some bizarre quacking noise.  I suspected it was my ultra liberal landlord, who I though may have heard my radio – being that the windows were open most of the time.  Thinking back, though, I suspect it was not the landlord.
The Navy girl I was married to at the time, Lisa, she was financially fairly well off – had spent her whole adult life in the Navy, no kids, and had never been married before she met me.  BTW, she came at me, not the other way around, AND, I had no idea what her financial situation was until we’d been married a couple of years.  It wasn’t a good marriage, and, shortly after marrying her, I started noticing that I was fighting with severe mental depression – not that I think one had anything to do with the other, it just happened that way.  We were, as they say, “Friends with benefits”, roommates.  Around 2005, leaving out all the gory details, I’d had a nice amount of money coming to me as a result of a life insurance policy.  Keep in mind, I had never had any good fortune of picking a girl/woman who was good for me, or who I was good for.  Out of nowhere, Gala appears – she is in Peru – born and raised there.  She finds me on the internet at a music message board.  At the perfect time – while I was about to have enough money to pay off the house, and retire on, she spends 5 months pushing me, seeming to know all my vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and desperations, and being able to skillfully play on all of it.  BTW, it was a matter of a few months before I would have gotten that insurance policy.  I also let down a friend.  Somehow, she talked me into leaving all that – the house, the insurance money, and most of my belongings – that I worked my whole life for – all behind to move to Peru to be with her.  She seemed to have everything I wanted in a woman (BTW, I hate that word, but well…).  Also keep in mind, the people in Peru are beyond ignorant, they are horribly uneducated, they are lazy, most use drugs all day, every day – the stuff is cheap and easy to come by in that country.  So, Gala, again, who was born and raised in Peru, just happens to be highly educated and/or informed on Philosophy, History, and world events.  She was also very knowledgeable on Poetry and non-fiction literature.  She was knowledgeable on physics and astronomy.  She also happened to like all the same kinds of music that I did – and hated all the same music that I did.  Funny that all of these things are things that I always loved talking about and learning about, but could never find anybody who knew the first thing about any of it, not to mention, I’d never been with any girl who had the same musical tastes as I did.  Besides all that, she was funny, charming, pretty, and seemingly fearless when it came to confrontational situations – something I kinda liked at the time, but that I hate now.  So, after a whole lifetime of not finding any compatible woman to be with, suddenly she appears – at the precise time in order to get me away from finally being in control of my own life – not to mention having let Lisa down.  Funny also that she just happened to be in a foreign country, because if she’d been here in the States, I could have been there for Lisa, and not had to give everything away.  Gala didn’t seem to care about wanting my money or belongings, she only seemed interested in separating me from the house, the money, and my belongings.  Looking back, I’m not convinced that she wasn’t sent to me to keep me from finally being in control of my life – by being financially stable.  BTW, Lisa died of cancer in 2005 – with all of her family near her.
BTW, during my time in Peru was when I was fairly active on the internet – I was very much anti-conservative by this time.  When I would get into a debate at YouTube, there were countless times where I would be burying somebody (figuratively of course), having posted maybe 2 or 3 posts, when all of a sudden, somebody would be manually blocking my posts.  There would be no reason, and no message telling me my post didn’t go, it would just turn dark and sit there.  If I would post something unrelated to the debate, the post would go through, but if I tried to post something relevant – something that would be effective in the debate, it would manually be blocked – and this happened countless times, over a period of a couple years or more.
I finally moved back to the States in 2009, after spending, strangely enough, 3-1/2 miserable years in Peru.  Since getting back, I have run into one ridiculous situation after another, being mostly unemployed, staying with people who pretended to want to help me, while really only wanting something for themselves, and needing somebody to beat up on when they felt like it.  There was Austin, San Francisco, San Diego, Tucson (where I ended up homeless for about a month and a half), San Antonio, Austin again, Portland, and now Reno – all situations where I have no control over my own life, and being mostly unemployed - and bullied.  Things seemed to de-escalate to the point where I was prevented from working – by the time I got to Portland and Reno, by sneaky, cowardly people who were determined to destroy me.
I have to mention this – still another bizarre occurence:  My banjo case has an ID tag attached to the handle, where I have one of my business cards in.  By default, the thing faces down – the card side facing the floor when I set the case on the floor on its side.  I was staying with a guy who actually did help me with good intentions, but his psychotic, vindictive wife was determined to cause me as much grief as humanly possible.  In the bedroom I was in, I would set my banjo case down at the foot of the bed – because it was easy to get to from there.  As always, the ID tag, with my business card inside always face down.  One day I look down at it, and the tag/card is facing up – which would never happen by itself – somebody would have had to actually grab it and turn it face up, and hold it there for a few seconds so it wouldn’t turn back over.  This was only one of the many bizarre things that happened while I was staying there.
The strange things continue to this day.  There’s the fact that while I used to be able to play my banjo with little or no effort, I have devolved to the point where I cannot even consider me a banjo player – my fingers doing everything except what I tell them - and this is after hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice over the past 5 years.  There is a video of me playing banjo – that I made about 4 years ago – where I wasn’t as good as I was back in the 80s, but it was passable and decent – I cannot play even close to the way I did in that video – again – after hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice.  I’ve been bashing my arms, knees, hands, and head, on furniture, towel racks, and whatever else – and let me tell you, I was never a clumsy guy.  When I grab for something,  I will grab for it 4, 5, even 10 times before I’ll get it – seemingly having something hanging it up somehow, and even seeming to have something yank it out of my hand after I thought I had a grip on it.  You should see me trying to get a napkin out of a napkin holder.  I don’t have any stiffness, arthritis, bad vision, or anything that would cause this, but it happens very often.
There’s more, that I can’t think of at the moment, and my logical mind cannot comprehend that so many things such as what I described – can happen, especially when you think about the astronomical odds against even ONE of them happening – much less having it be a regular, consistent thing.  I’ve been hearing that this is not an uncommon occurrence, that thousands of Americans are experiencing similar strangeness – there’s even a name for it – “Gang Stalking”.  I’ve read that there are even devices (HAARP and others) that, among other things, can cause a person to have involuntary body movements, and even thoughts.  Another strange thing – if somebody would have told me 15 years ago that I would be fighting with mental depression at any time in my life, I would have laughed and told them they were out of their mind; but, here I am.  If this is really what is happening to me, I can’t think of any reason why.  I never saw me as any threat to anybody – much less anybody who has any real power – nor would I want to be any threat to anybody.  I’ve thought about my dad being a talk radio host back in the early 80s – where he was trying to expose a lot of the wrongdoings and injustices committed by powerful people and organizations – that maybe the Powers That Be think I might follow suit.  Intellectually, I can’t imagine I would do such a thing – for a couple of reasons.  First, I really don’t care about what happens to people who do nothing but beep at me, sneer at me, steal from me, and show horrible aggression towards me in public places – even in my own living quarters, and who have tried to destroy me.  Yes, I hate injustice in general, but I’m pretty sure I don’t care enough to be some kind of activist – should I ever stumble across a bigger platform to speak from.  Then again, maybe these people know me better than I do.  I really don’t know, all I do know is that there have just been way too damn many bizarre things happen to me for this to simply be the natural order of things, to be random, or to be some big accident.  It’s been said that things don’t just happen, they are made to happen, and, that there no coincidences.  I don’t have a final or absolute assessment, and I damn sure don’t have any answers.  So, I continue to live my life wondering what the hell is going on, and wondering if my hard work and abilities will every pay off.  I will also say that if something is going on, where some organization is actually trying to stifle me for whatever reasons, I find it no less than cowardly to do this to a person, and I would sure like to come face to face with whoever it is – not that I could do anything, as I’m sure they would have weapons to hide behind.  I’d still like to know, though, but something tells me that will never happen, and something tells me I will go to my grave not knowing, and never having had my hard work and abilities work for me.
Over and out.
 
 
I'm Right Here, Cowards