So, What Do We Do With The Rinds And Seeds?

There is nothing more negative than pretending that a problem doesn’t exist. To remedy a problem, you must first acknowledge it. With so many people hiding behind clever cliches, and grossly overused words such as“positive”, the problems of the world become exponentially worse.

We hear, “When we’re served lemons, make lemonade”. Ok, but what do we do with the rinds and seeds? What we’ve been doing is, we pretend they don’t exist, and the result is the ever expanding mountain of rinds and seeds, that is fermenting, and rotting everything around it. So, drink the lemonade and enjoy it, but we gotta quit ignoring the rest. We need to quit the cowardly practice of needing to be socially acceptable, we need to bring problems to light, and figure out what to do about them.

So, the next time you start pointing fingers at a person for mentioning a problem, or for showing his or her disgust, and before you start throwing around words and terms such as “Negative”, or, “Bad attitude”, think about what you’re saying, and think about what to do about a problem, instead of pretending it doesn’t exist; and instead of trying to squash the messenger.

One more thing, all the denying, excusing, defending, manipulating of facts, smartass retorts, and bullying in the world will not change the fact that problems exist, and that they need to be stated, acknowledged, and dealt with.

Lizards, Dragonflies, Mountain Lions, And Bears

 



Pat and Bill are my neighbors.  Bill is in his mid 70s, Pat in her late 60s, Pat works in the office, Bill is retired.  Every night at five o’clock, they go to the casino, they get their dinner, Pat spends an hour or so playing slot machines, while Bill sits in the sports bar section and watches whatever is on one of the 25+ tvs that are up on the wall.  Now, I’m not here to tell other people what and what is not good for them, it may sound like I’m going in that direction with this, but I’m actually here to make a different point.  For me, doing what Pat and Bill do would be a huge waste of time, it would not satisfy me, it would be a very short time before I would be very unhappy, bored out of my skull, and I would feel like I’m just doing, “Me, me, me”.  As for me, me, me, if there should ever come a time when I get to retire, where I have enough money to do what I want, I would still want to do something, or maybe more than one something, that would contribute matter or sound waves that is worthwhile to the universe – not necessarily to the human race, just to the universe.  While on that subject, anybody who has read more than one or two of my blog posts knows that I generally detest most people – with good reason – I have been cheated, lied to, exploited, taken advantage of, stolen from, and bullied in one way or another ever since I can remember.  I’m not speaking of the being pantsed and stuffed in a locker kind of bullied – I’m speaking of mostly workplace bullying  - where the typical pathetic little boss type feels the need to throw his or her “authority” around, and, I’m speaking of street bullying – being tailgated, huffed and puffed at in the grocery store line, and on occasion, having to confront some smartass, and subsequently being threatened by cops and/or lawyers.  There was even one occasion where I thought I killed a guy by belting him – and I only belted him once.  That was the scare of my life – I thought my life was over – that by biggest and longest running fear was finally coming to fruition – that I was going to spend the rest of my life in prison because some yellow bellied, bullying piece of human crap pushed me.  This kind of thing (bullying from parents, little league baseball coaches, high school basketball coaches, bosses, etc.) has been going on since I was eight years old – at least that’s as far back as I can remember.  So, hopefully you get my point – I generally detest most people.  There’s also the fact that I’ve seen the universe work against me in just about every way possible – stifling everything I’ve ever tried to do – seeing to it that everybody benefits from my hard work and abilities – except me.  That being said, I don’t know why I care even a tiny bit about doing something “good” for the universe.  Again, couldn’t care less about people, but on some level, I feel compelled to do something good for the universe.  At the top of my mind is this – that should I ever be able to do what I want, when I want, I would probably spend a good amount of time in some wooded area in Colorado, under a tree, playing my guitar or banjo for the lizards, the dragonflies, the mountain lions, the bears, and the trees.  This would of course, be somewhere where no human would know I was there, much less hear anything I was doing.  I would do this at my leisure – probably not every day, just when I felt like it.  I would be ok to do this until I no longer wanted to be in this life.  Even more ironic is the fact that I’ve thought about trying to get the message out to the world that we were being duped and royally screwed by the rich and the ruthless, that we’d better wake up, or our kids and grandkids will be fighting – literally – for their lives.  Again, I don’t know why I care.  I probably won’t do the latter, even if I do ever find myself on a platform that would enable me, I guess I don’t have the energy anymore.  I would, though, spend a lot of my time under the old trees, sending music out there for anything non human.  One of the many benefits of playing for animals and cactus plants – they wouldn’t be calling cops or management companies to shut me up.  I’ve actually had non humans come around on the rare occasion that I was able to play under the trees – mostly lizards and dragonflies, but I’ll take it.  Mountain lions, bears, deer, I’d play for any and all of ‘em, and the more the merrier.  And no, I’m not afraid of mountain lions or bears – I respect them, but I’m not afraid of them – and I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be afraid of me.

There is the possibility that I would want to continue recording, and, while I cringe for saying this – selling my music, but I would do it when I damn well felt like it, and I would probably hire somebody to do all the bullshit – press kits, bios, marketing, and other such society and money related crap.  I hate the idea of selling my art in order to make a living, I hate it, but I do it because it’s the only way I know of to bring in any kind of income.  The Powers That Be have destroyed the music business as we knew it, and it’s been a rough road the past three years, so now I search for other music related avenues to muddle through.  On that subject, they’ve pretty much destroyed most businesses, along with many lives, families, and countries, but that’s a whole ‘nother.  For me, should there ever arrive a time when I can no longer play music, or hike out to a place where I can be free of intrusion by other humans, or I simply lose interest in making music altogether, I would definitely not want to be in this life anymore, and would happily lay down for eternity beside my proverbial little bucket.  If I cannot do something constructive, pleasant, or whatever else, then I don’t see any sense in being here.  I will never resort to spending all of my time doing mindless stuff -  you won’t find me in any casino, or playing some god awful, mind numbing video game, or sitting in front of a television set for more than an hour or two or three a week.  I may go out hiking if I’m able, but nobody will find me hovering over cheap, crappy entertainment.

So, if Pat and Bill are happy peeing money away in a casino – that’s up to them, and I’m not here to state how horrible that is, I’m only trying to make the point that that would never work for me.  And please, I’m also not here to profess to be some noble being, I’m just making an observation – that observation being that while I generally detest people, and while I don’t see the universe as having been all that kind or friendly to people like me, I still seem to, on some level, feel the need to do something “good” for the universe while I’m still here.  I can’t seem to state this without sounding “holier than thou”, so I’ll just write that off as my inability to express in a neutral, concise way what’s in my little brain.

So, should my CD bring me any kind of monetary compensation – enough so that I can have my own life, boy howdy will I ever have my own life – and I can guarantee there will be some really mad people should that ever happen – and that makes me happy.

 

You can find me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ImTheFid

Bye Maelee

That’s all, just wanted to say goodbye to a loving little cat.

G'night Maelee, Part II

This is Maelee back in 2009, before she learned what it was like to be outside.  She was a house cat until I came along :D .  She now loves being out in the fresh air and sunshine.

Maelee probably won’t make it through the night.  She doesn’t appear to be in any pain, or even any discomfort, she just looks to be very, very tired.  I took her some water a little while ago, I figured she was too tired to get it herself.  She drank, then went back to rest.  All she ever wanted was to be loved, get enough to eat, and go outside to enjoy the fresh air, sunshine, the sights and sounds.  She never cared about living forever, or taking what didn’t belong to her, or causing other animals or people grief or loss, never cared to hoard stuff, or to tell other animals what they could or could not do.  She lived in the moment, never giving a thought to what might or might not happen tomorrow, or what happened yesterday.  She is spending her last hours here with more grace, class, and dignity than most humans could ever have in their entire life.

Watching her has brought to mind how much I always detest all the unfairness, injustice, and other such disgusting human behavior, and how much I’ve always hated being here.  I never fit in, never cared about living forever, never cared to take what didn’t belong to me, never cared to cause other people grief.  Maelee is better than I am where she doesn’t give any of this stuff any thought.  She liked being here, she loved life, she loved people, she even liked to play with dogs – if they didn’t try to hurt her.  She wasn’t aware of any injustice, and never saw people as the greedy, self serving, psychotic asses that I see them as.

So, Maelee, I see you as better, smarter, and with leaps and bounds more class and grace than I could ever have – even though I seem to have spent my life without most of the disgusting human traits that turn my stomach every day of my life – that’s right, you’re better than I am, and I admire you.  Most of all, I love you, and I’ll miss you more than you know.

G’night Maelee, sleep tight.

Goodnight, Maelee, I'll Miss You More Than You Know

Maelee is dying.  The vet says she has some kind of kidney disease, and, is on the verge of diabetes.  She has a month or so before she is gone.  Now, how the hell does a five year old cat come down with kidney disease, and/or diabetes?  I believe it’s because of that crappy cereal we feed our animals, it contains stuff that cats are not supposed to eat – such as vegetables – cats are carnivores, that means they eat meat and fish, not rabbit food.  There’s also the fact that the crap that we buy in the stores is full of toxic drugs, which will deteriorate an animal's body in a relatively short time.  I've learned that Maelee is not alone, millions of domesticated animals are becoming victim to this barrage of B.S.  Before I go on, I’ll say that with very few exceptions, I’m much sadder when an animal goes through this than when a person does.  This cat just wanted to be loved, she lived to please people, she even liked to play with dogs – as long as the dog didn’t  try to hurt her.  She tried to understand what was said to her.  She never took off running when the door was opened, she would sit right there until her leash was put on, then she’d walk calmly outside, to be in the fresh air and sunshine, and to listen to all the sounds.  For the first three years of her life, she was in indoor cat (this was before I met her), but I taught her how to be outside.  At first, she was deathly afraid of the outdoors, but after a few times of being outside, she didn’t like to come back inside.  She would lay in the dirt, or the grass, and just watch and listen to everything, then get up, go explore a tree or a bush, or just some other part of the yard or lot.  She liked sleeping on the bed with people, she was just a peaceful spirited, loving cat.  And please, I’m not just saying these things because she’s dying, or because I love this cat, all of this is exactly as she is.

I also believe that the food industry is doing the same thing to humans – they are poisoning us, lying to use, sending their lobbyists to Congress to make laws to protect their ruthless bullshit.  When I was a kid, nobody was sick, nobody had diabetes, kidney disease, high cholesterol, liver dysfunction, heart problems, restless goddam leg syndrome, shingles, and nobody was obese.  You also had to know where the doctor’s office was, because you were not going to run across it just by driving around, as opposed to now, where there are hospitals, medical centers, and clinics everywhere – not to mention the huge medical complexes that have appeared out of nowhere – taking up numerous city blocks in every city in this once great country – and ya know what – they’re always full of people.

We go about our merry way, ignoring the bad, while Polly Want A Crackering crap such as, “Be positive, don’t focus on the bad”, “Look on the bright side”, “Only YOU control your destiny, your life”, “Everything that happens to you is of your own doing…”, and other such disturbing bullshit that is designed to keep us away from acknowledging the real problems, the real perpetrators.  As the Ultra Rich and the huge corporations continue to lie, cheat, and steal from every man, woman, and child on the planet, we continue to take the easy way out – by denying what is really going on, hiding behind all these clever cliches.  So, all you self serving asses, and you lazies who would rather defend the perpetrators (by proxy, and at the same time, defending your own greed and gross selfishness), the real criminals, while you watch Monday Night Football and drink Budweiser, I hope you sleep well – and that’s sarcasm, because I know that most people don’t sleep worth a damn – and ya know why – because a person’s degree of sleeplessness is directly proportional to his or her degree of pretentiousness and dishonesty.

 

So, g'night, all you self serving asses and useful idiots.  Maelee, I love you, and I'll miss you more than you know.

The Destruction Of America

 

I spent four days driving from Fort Worth, Texas to Reno, Nevada, just arrived here in Reno last night. I’ve made this trip three times now – over the past six months. One of the things that really saddens and disgusts me is the number of businesses that have had to shut down as a result of the Great Depression of 2010. A sad sight it is to see these small businesses boarded up, sometimes not even that, often just left for dead. The folks who owned those businesses had absolutely nothing to do with the current economic fiasco that has crippled the world since mid 2009. The fact is, none of us way down here near the bottom of the food chain had nothing to do with the current economic state of the world. These are folks who worked long and hard to earn the right to run their businesses, they created jobs for others in their community, they helped the economy, they helped youngsters put themselves through college, or saw them through working to save enough money to start their own businesses, encouraging them the whole way. The American way used to be, “Provide a product or service and charge a fair price”. Today it’s, “Do whatever it takes”, “Make that sale”, “You’re not out there to make friends, you’re out there to sell, sell, sell”, and the most obnoxious one of all, “Business is business”. What ever happened to community, or, “People are people”, what happened to helping each other, supporting each other, and doing whatever it takes to see any person who was willing to put in the time and effort succeed? Today it’s “Every man for himself”. It saddens me, but sickens me at the same time, to see such ruthlessness and inhuman behavior be so rampant. Even sadder is the fact that it’s not going to get better. As long as huge corporations are allowed to send their lobbyists to Congress to make more laws to make their devious tactics legal, as long as they are allowed to pay little or no taxes, as long as they are allowed to exploit their workers and cheat their customers, and as long as prices continue to far outrun wages, things will continue to get worse, not better. Things aren’t going to magically get better – no matter how much the Pop Psychology gurus tell us that we have control over our puny lives, as long as we are told to look at the good an ignore the bad, and as long as we are made to believe that we are to blame for all our misfortune, things will never get better. The only result of such disturbing nonsense is that we will continue to cultivate more and more angry, frustrated people, and for Criminy's sake, we don't have enough angry, frustrated people just yet. You want proof, just look around you. Any person who leaves his house to go to the store, to the gas station, or wherever else, will see the anger and frustration that has gripped so many people – all we have to do is look over in the next car, or the car behind us, in front of us. This is not the natural order of things, this whole worldwide scenario has been carefully planned and carried out by the Ultra Powerful – those who pretend not to exist, while they infinitely screw every man, woman, and child on the planet. If you think any of what I say is the least bit untrue, just look around your town, and you will see all the small business that have shut down over the past four or five years, having been replaced, or put out of business by some huge franchised chain store, restaurant, coffee shop, or manufacturing company; and, you'll see the results of the small businessman having to answer to grossly biased and paid for government regulation agencies.

All you hard working folks who owned businesses that have been shut down as a result of the horrible injustice that plagues the world as I write this, I salute you, and I wish for you to recover and rise up once again.

You can find me at Twitter: https://twitter.com/

A Letter Regarding Depression and "Responsibility"

I wrote this letter to a friend a while back, it says, clearly, the way I see depression, and how it's dealt with, and the harm that is being caused to depressed people by false information.

I guess you and I are not quite on the same page as far as "responsibility" - that's ok, it's how I learn, and hopefully others may learn something from me. I think it's a great idea to try to take control of our future, and theoretically, it's nice to think that something will magically change if we go at it with a smile and a good attitude. The reality, though, is that that's not the way it works. My belief is that we are actually powerless to have any control over most things - and that should be validated, but, we should also be taught that that's life, that there will always be obstacles, and that we should learn from our past, our less than pleasant experiences, expect that there will be more obstacles, but that we must keep at it, find ways to break through them, hop over them, dig under them, or go around them. It would be a great thing if such people could get some kind of real world help - especially in a financial way, but that rarely happens - that's where humanity has broken down, so depression is always going to be a very difficult condition to remedy, if it can be truly remedied at all. Anyway, we need to be told that everything in life is an ongoing process, and whatever obstacle we are confronted with at any given moment is simply part of our path, our life. We can be told to take a step back when confronted with something that seems impossible, calm down, think, and maybe go at it a different way. Usually, though, what is told to us is that we somehow screwed up, and that our "failure" is our own fault. It's been parroted that, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result" - well, nothing could be further from the truth - that could easily be translated to, "If you try something a couple of times and it doesn't bring you the results you want, then give it up and do something else" - not necessarily good advice. Most artists who "succeed" tried the same thing hundreds of times before they got a result that they were after. There are situations where such a statement could apply, but more often than not, it will only be confusing - keeping in mind, we are dealing with a person who is already having trouble dealing with life. When dealing with a person who is depressed, a therapist must realize that most depression is caused by the following things, and I speak from first hand experience. First, he or she sees the world, the universe, and people, as constantly working against him, and that that unseen and unexplainable force is relentless. Also, we see people who do not earn anything have things fall right into their lap - we see this as "luck". Last but not least, we see the world, mostly people - as hostile - and again, endlessly so. The sad truth is, there is such a thing as luck, we are surrounded by the sneaky, the cowardly, and the lazy, who always seem to land on their feet, always seeming to have someone there to catch them, bail them out, care about them, and worst of all, that the unseen forces of the universe seem to always come to their rescue. Also, while we may understand that a certain "successful" person may have worked hard to get where he is, there are thousands of others who worked just as hard if not harder, but did not have the luck factor, and subsequently are not getting the results they are striving for. Once again, we see this as the universe relentlessly working against us, and against decent, hard working people. It doesn't help when we hear Bill O'Reilly, Rush, Hannity, and other right wing extremist idiots and their parrots telling us that if we are poor, that we chose that life, that all we are in this world for is to sit around with our hand out wanting more "stuff" for free. There is an infinity of such clever cliches - all designed to belittle any person who does not achieve certain positions in society, and/or a certain amount of dollar signs attached to his rear end. On the subject of hostility, something I've recently given a lot of thought to is that there are certain things that are built in at the atomic level - things such as the way matter attracts matter, but then after a certain amount of time, starts to repel. We perceive this as age. There are other phenomenon that occur. One is that there is an energy field that with most life forms (including animate and inanimate objects), the energy field moves in a certain direction. With some people, and some inanimate life forms, this energy field moves in a different direction, so, when a person has that condition, he will repel other life forms (animate and inanimate) whose energy field is moving in the more common direction. The result is that people like me feel unwelcome in the world, we see that most things (what we perceive as "the universe"), and most people work against us - with no explainable, visible, or tangible reason. Of course, people who do not experience such a thing will never acknowledge such a thing, and will usually belittle a person who lives in that world - very harmful. In my experience, I've had people, more times than I can begin to count, be hostile at me before they even see my face - while others seem to attract the good side of the same person who was just nasty to me seconds earlier. I'm not sure yet about much beyond what I already said on that subject, but I think such people (whose energy field moves in the opposite direction of most) have other abilities - abilities that can propel us into things that most do not comprehend (not necessarily better or worse, just different, unconventional) - if we have the good fortune to discover that, and what to do with it. Some such people have achieved great things, but most end up depressed, homeless, in prison, and/or dead way before their time - because society does not accept such people unless they do achieve something "great". I personally know a few such people in my own life. What I've arrived at is that what we humans do here is important, and we should take our ego out of the equation. In a few thousand years, nothing we do will matter, much less be known about, and when this solar system explodes, nothing we do will ever be known by any other life form. In our society, with all the B.S. that is fed to us, most cannot handle that idea - still another sad reality. We should be decent, and we should contribute something good to the world - but because we want to, and definitely not because we fear laws, karma, or some cartoon character sitting up there in the sky who would send us to an eternal "hell" should we not live up to certain expectations. Another thing I learned - from Buddhist teachings, is that when we start to head towards true "enlightenment", we learn to abandon excessiveness. Humans, being in the current society that we're in, we are taught the opposite - that more is better, the more digits we have in our online bank statements, and the more stuff we have, the better person we are - and if I may say - what a bunch of flaming bullshit. So, with a depressed person, we need to be validated, but then taught that we can learn from our path - and it is simply a path - not good or bad, just a path full of occurrences. Yes, some things are less pleasant than others, but again, that's one of the things that is built in at the sub atomic level, and it's just the way it is. There are other factors that contribute to depression - such as the fact that most people are not ok with who or what they are - that's a big one. Such a person needs to be told that pretentiousness is not a good thing, and will never bring good results. The mediocre must learn to be ok with being mediocre, the slow need to learn to be ok with being slow, and people who have bigger goals, and subsequently bigger obstacles, must be ok with whatever happens to them as a result of striving for unconventional things. We must be aware of our virtues, as well as our shortcomings, and we must wear it all proudly. I'm amazed at how many people are not ok with who or what they are - they will deny, bully, lie, attack, and whatever else - in order to defend against a person who is observing and stating a less than flattering truth. Denial, suppression of any kind - will more often than not, manifest itself in some physical way at some point in such a person's life. This is only part of the equation, but these are the things that I've observed, and they are things that need to be addressed.

Back on the subject of money for just a short minute - should I ever make a bunch of money, people who have helped me (including you) will benefit tenfold. I'll make sure my son is set up for the rest of his life, and the rest of my money I'll give it away. When some hotshot investment broker comes knocking on my door, wanting me to invest my money in his brother in law's latest scam, I'll laugh in his face, tell him to take a hike, but not before I show him where all my money will go - which is to underpriviledged people, starving and/or injured animals, and wherever else I see fit - making sure that no person or company (including the government) that uses their money and power to screw with people gets their hands on a dime of it. While it would bring me great satisfaction to have these things happen to me, should it not happen, I'll be ok with it. I'm pretty sure though, that at least one of my current projects will bring me some decent money - it would have been great to have had the means to do them sooner, but that not being the case, I'm working now on doing them before too long.

You can find me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ImTheFid