By Bullshit Meter And My Creepo Meter Are Starting...

...to go over into the red.

I'm beginning to see that I may be part of some kind of social experiment.

P.S.  I'm beginning to see that I may be part of some kind of social experiment.

Dear Powers That Be,
Go fuck yourselves.

I’m Sure My Instruments Miss Me

I haven’t played a guitar, banjo, or any of my instruments for that matter, in about a month.  One of the things I looked forward to in getting into an apartment, after being in the RV for a year, was to have my own room where I could play, uninterrupted, with no hostility from anybody, with no dirty looks or snide remarks.  Well, it seemed to be ok for a couple of months, and while I noticed some amount of thinly disguised resentment, I played through it for the short amount of time. So, the resentment for me playing my music continues to incite resentment from many.  When I was 13, first learning, the angry, begrudging step mom would make snide comments about me playing – even though I always waited until there was nobody in the house before I would play.  The neighbor girl did the same – every chance she got – same as the step mom.  Through the years, I’ve had more cops and management people called on me than I can count, and just about every significant other (girlfriend or wife) showed resentment to some degree.  Funny, up until just 3 or 4 years ago, I didn’t spend much time playing for my own amusement, I only played when I needed to learn a song or a guitar part – but still – cops called, management called, and even had a loudmouth neighbor come pounding on my door.  I had the obnoxious, green with envy guy come in the house every day for five months – to interrupt me, stop me from playing the best he could, while I would be forced to listen to his endless, self righteous babbling for hours.  Being that this was not my house, with all the circumstances there, I had no choice but to listen to his crap – until I finally laid into him after he bullied me for the thousandth time (not music related this time).  It was very shortly after that where I ended up homeless.  Well, I’m in this situation, where I am very much not in control of my own life – not by any fault of my own, and where my instruments and I are forced to be stifled.  They sit in their cases, probably missing me as much as I miss them.  I find it very sad that so many people have so much anger and resentment.  I’ve seen that so many people resent anybody who plays a musical instrument – this is not exclusive to me.  The resentment here - I think it’s a control thing, a disease of possessiveness, the music is not the only thing that is suffering.  There’s nothing I can do at the moment, so I do what is necessary.  My instruments and I will not be separated forever, unless I must exit this plane of existence, which I would happily do should the need arise.

All for now.

One Of My Most Glaring Regrets

It’s 2003, I’m playing music at the Tin Fish – a seafood restaurant that sits at the end of the Imperial Beach Pier in San Diego.  Severe depression has set in, along with horrible anxiety.  While playing at the pier, I experience some hostility from some of the customers.  While it was fairly rare, it seemed to me at the time, to be constant.  Besides the hostility at the pier, I ended up getting two chicken shit traffic tickets on two separate occasions, while on the way to playing.  Anyway, one day I’m playing, and at some point an older woman and a young girl – she appears to be about 11 years old – appear there, they are sitting on a bench – not a lunch table, but a bench that was up against the railing of the wooden pier.  On my break, I walk over in their direction, and the older woman stops me, says hi, that they are enjoying my music, and then introduces me to her niece, Victoria.  Victoria is a very well mannered girl, dressed conservatively – as opposed to so many at her age who dress with as little clothing as possible, with disrespect and anger written all over them.  I sit and talk with them for a few minutes, then I go into the restaurant to get a cup of hot chocolate.  I go up to play another set, and on my next break, they’re still there – sittin on the bench.  The woman comes to me and asks if she could buy me a hot chocolate, and I kind of zombie-like accept.  A couple of people who I knew showed up about then, and when the woman came back with my hot chocolate, I also zombie-like sat down at the table where the people I knew were.  I wasn’t talking to any of them, and they weren’t talking to me.  I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but Victoria and her aunt were sitting just a few feet away from me – off to the side, still on the bench.  I’m sitting there with nothing on my mind, blindly staring off at the sky and the ocean.  After a few minutes of this, Victoria’s aunt comes over to me and says, “We’ll see you later”, and they walk away.  This has haunted me ever since, I feel like I was rude and unfeeling towards Victoria and her aunt.  They didn’t deserve for me to ignore them – even though I didn’t do it knowingly, in fact, I was off in some other world, and to this day, I don’t know what they hell got into me right then.  Victoria and her aunt were very pleasant people from the couple of minutes that I did spend with them on the earlier break, so I cannot figure out why I was so unthinking and unaware of them being there.  I know I made them feel bad, and I wish I could find them so I can apologize.  Probably too little too late, and they probably wouldn’t even remember me or what happened, but still.  I’m sure I’ll never see them again, so this will continue to haunt me every time it enters my mind.

My motto is if I’m going to be rude to somebody, it better be with damn good reason – and there was no good reason for me to be rude to Victoria and her aunt.  I’m so sorry, and if you should, by some fluke, find this page, please know that that day is one I could take back and do again.

Lee

Is It Reno, Me, Or The Whole Goddam World?

I’ve been living in Reno for about a year and a half, and I’ve grown to really hate it here.  First, aside from the 3-1/2 years I spent in Peru, I have never seen a bunch of angry drivers all in one place in my goddam life.  I will say that no less than 95% of the bug eyed drivers who go around tailgating everybody in their path, gunning past other drivers, and even speeding around in the snow and ice – are driving full size pickup trucks.  And, 95% of the full size pickup drivers have the dreaded goatee, shaved head or baseball cap, and shades on the head – I wonder what THAT means (that’s a rhetorical).  While I avoid sports bars like a bad disease, I do end up in one occasionally – they all try to talk like MMA guys – every goddam one of ‘em.

I won’t spend a lot of space on the huffing and puffing in the checkout lines at grocery stores – I’ll just say that it’s mostly middle aged and older people who are just jumping up and down because they are in line.

Next is, other than in Peru, I have never seen a bigger bunch of inept, incompetent businesses in one town in my life – and they are all full of it – they will gouge, lie, excuse, and blame the customer.  Just today I had the maintenance guy over here to fix the dishwasher and water heater.  Dishwasher won’t drain, and the 50 gallon water heater runs out in less than 5 minutes of a shower.  I sat here and listened to the dumbass try to tell me I was using the wrong dishwasher detergent, and that it’s normal for the water to sit at the bottom of the goddam thing.  Then he tried to tell me that if I let the water warm up before my shower, that that would run out the supply of hot water in the FIFTY GALLON WATER HEATER.  As if that weren’t enough, he then said that if I had the heat in the apartment on, that since it’s so cold right now, it would affect the hot water.  After I asked him why I’ve been using the same dishwasher detergent for the whole time in this apt. (4 months), why all of a sudden, AND, what’s the excuse for the hot water running out when it was 105 degrees outside, he whimpers, “Well, I’m not gonna argue with you, sir, I’ll just have Debbie come over tomorrow and you can talk to her about it”.  He also had to change the locking mechanism for the sliding glass door to the patio, so now, the handle wiggles all over the place.  “Debbie” will hear about all this tomorrow, and if she feeds me the same bullshit as this sniveling little dwid did today, she’s gonna wish she didn’t.

I’ve had similar experiences with three different computer repair stores, and I’ve been on the receiving end of lazy ass “Customer service” people whose answer, when asked to help was, “I dunno”.  Friend of mine laid into one at WalMart for that a few weeks ago. I’m in the middle of my report to the BBB regarding one of the computer stores – it’s a back and forth debate between me and the f’n parasite store owner that could go on for months.

Then there’s the entertainment directors at the casinos – who, after a year and a half of my attempts to contact them, have yet to answer their phone, return a phone call, and/or acknowledge an email – and I’m talking about more phone calls and emails than I can begin to count.

For the first 50+ years of my life, I had a handful of headaches – and always because something was wrong – never a headache for no apparent reason.  Well, over the past 3 years, I’ve had headache after headache after headache – and sometimes blinding ones.  I know exactly why – it’s from all the daily bullshit that I’ve been putting up with all my life – it’s really starting to take its toll.  If I don’t soon get into a situation where I can have some amount of peace and quiet, peace of mind, and where I don’t get screwed with from the time I wake up till the time I go to bed, I will end up very soon with some major health problems – and that’s after being a pillar of health my whole life up until now.  My only wish is that if or when I do get a heart attack or stroke, that I drop dead, and don’t end up hanging around as a vegetable.  I made a promise to me a long time ago – wheelchair, paraplegic, brain damage, or any major health problem, that I will cut an artery open and be done with this fucked up beyond repair piece of shit of a place.

So, so far, I have yet to find anything I like about this craphole of a town – with the angry people, businesses who have no business being in business, slack-asses for workers, and the Good Ol’ Boy network firmly in place in the entertainment circle.  The one thing I’m not a hundred percent sure of is whether it’s just this town, or if the whole f’n world.  Either way, I’ll venture to say that I’ll be out of this black hole known as Reno as soon as I’m able.