The Rich, The Poor, And The Attitudes

 





Back in the late 90s, during one of the times I was trying to get out of this nasty music business, I drove a truck for Big Brothers and Big Sisters for a couple of years.  Our job was to pick up donations from people who were contacted by our “solicitors”.  They would leave their donations in a conspicuous place in front of their residence or business, and mark it, “BBBS”.  One of the glaring things I noticed, and this was consistent, something that happened no less than 99% of the time, was that in the more affluent neighborhoods, there would be a lot less addresses to stop at, and the ones that did agree to leave a donation, many would not leave anything, and the ones who did, it would be a pair of used socks, ONE used t shirt, or, in many cases, plain and simple junk that should have been thrown in the trash.  I remember one house I stopped at – it was in the rich part of town, looked to have 8 bedrooms or so, two story, huge two car garage, big yard both front and back.  Well, they had a folding table set up in the front yard, near the sidewalk, with a few pieces of junk sitting on it.  It was used, rusted out pieces of metal, wadded up balls of rusted out wire, and other miscellaneous stuff that was totally useless.  When I pulled up, there were maybe 7 or 8 of these things on the folding table.  A young-ish woman came out as I approached the house, and said, “Ok, here’s your stuff”.  I started to load in into the truck, and when I returned for the next armful, she has brought out a few more items and put them on the table – more junk.  I took my next load to the truck, came back to find that she had brought even more junk.  This went on for about 45 minutes, my truck was about a third full of this woman’s useless trash.  By the time I was done loading up all this crap, I was fuming, called into the main office and vented a little, only for the lead driver to tell me to “calm down”.  Needless to say, all of her stuff went straight into the dumpster at Savers (, similar to a Salvation Army store, where we delivered all the donations to).  The rich neighborhoods usually did stuff like this, but not usually quite that bad, and quite that sneaky.  This woman was obviously ready for me, and ready to trick me into hauling that junk away – instead of calling the city refuse people to come and get it.  I figured she probably tried this once before, but just had the whole load of junk sitting out front, at which time the driver told her he was not obligated to haul away her trash.  So, in order to get even, she pulled this, and I had the misfortune of being the one to be her stooge.  Funny, in the poorer neighborhoods, there were many, many stops, and most of them would leave bags and boxes of donations – most of which were in good enough condition to be sold at Savers.  We’d have the occasional sourpuss, but most were pretty good about all of it.

Back even further, around 92, I made a trip to Nashville, I really had no business being there, with all my personal B.S. that was happening at the time, but, while I was there, I got shanghai’d into working for the Kirby Vacuum Cleaner Company.  I was only there a short time, but I was there long enough to see a pattern.  In the more affluent neighborhoods, the people were rude, condescending, and sanctimonious.  There were a couple of times when the people who lived at the house would tell me which room they wanted to have cleaned, and then get in their car and leave me there by myself.  This is the way Kirby advertised – they would offer to clean and shampoo one room, and that would be the demonstration for the machine.  Of course, these rich people knew that, and looking back, they were doing nothing more than shaming me, ridiculing me, and probably snickering the whole time.  As with Big Brothers/Big Sisters, in the poorer neighborhoods, the people were always attentive, sometimes apprehensive, and sometimes even a little angry, but they would sit through the demonstration.  I only sold a few machines, and you get three guesses which people bought them – hint – they  were certainly not in the rich parts of town.

There’s more.  When I was in Austin in the mid to late 2000s, I had a little hula company, we did live Hawaiian music and hula.  The thing that comes to mind first is this one black woman who called to book us for her party, she dickered and dickered an dickered over the price.  She got us down from $300 down to $250 – that’s fifty bucks, for the arithmetically challenged.  We get to her house, and it’s a mansion – four stories, each level being its own house with 6 or 7 bedrooms, 4 or 5 bathrooms, huge living area, huge dining area, and at least two of the levels, there was a huge, full kitchen.  This house was right on Lake Austin, complete with swimming pool, Jacuzzi, concrete statues around the pool area, and a nice sized boat tied to the launching dock right outside the gate that went to the lake.  The husband sat there for the first 20 minutes of my being there after I got done setting up the sound system, telling me all about his multi million dollar business, his huge house, his cars, etc.  And these people just HAD to save the fifty dollars at our expense.  It was the same, poorer people treated us very well, made us feel welcome, made sure we had something to eat, and were happy when they handed us the check at the end of the show.  I don’t need to tell you how much hassle it was when we played for the Rich and the Ruthless.  I remember one in particular – huge ballroom in an upscale hotel, huge first class buffet, bunch of uppity people at the party.  Before we went on stage to do the show, somebody came to us and said, “Follow me, we have dinner for you guys”.  They took us into a room that looked like it had been hit by a hurricane, and pointed to a table that had a bunch of brown bag lunches – sandwiches and potato chips, and we went to the drinking fountain to wash down our food.  Back in the mid 90s, I did a bunch of luaus in Hawaii – mostly for lower income people on the west side of the island – the families would get together, pitch in, set up, cook, and there would be anywhere from 100 – 300 people.  Not only did they NEVER try to question our price, but they always made sure we, the entertainers, ate as much as we wanted – they would wait on us hand and foot, making sure we were comfortable, always felt so welcome by those folks.

This is no coincidence, this is a definite pattern of behavior.  I’m sure there are exceptions, and I’m sure they’re very rare.  In my lifetime I’ve noticed this, the “Haves” are very selfish, self serving, greedy, and they treat folks less fortunate than them like they are lower forms of life.  My own step dad is one of ‘em, I had the misfortune of going to restaurants for dinner with him and my mom on a few occasions over the years, and let me tell you, I was beyond embarrassed by the way he treated the wait staff, and this jerk was not even rich (fairly well off, but no rich), he was more of a put on than anything else – and one of those sleazy sales type guys who would go to parties and make the rounds, selling everybody on his latest pyramid scheme product – form Super Bluegreen Algae to the water ionizer to the Chi Machine to the Hothouse, on and on and on.    I have tons more of glaring examples of this, but hopefully you get the idea.  And, let’s not forget that most rich people see poor people as the reason for all the ills of the world, and that we are nothing more than a bunch of lazy people who have no ambition, and who only have our hands our expecting free stuff.

As with most things, I have no answers, only observations, and lots of disgust.  Sorry, but that’s my reality.



More Hypocrisy And False Statements

We have all heard the exclamation, “I don’t care what anybody else thinks”.  I’d ask how many of the people who have said this are actually being honest about it?  I would say, none.  I’ve endlessly seen people squeal with joy when they are being congratulated, patted on the back, “Atta boy’ed”, fawned over, and otherwise rewarded for one thing or another – whether the thing they did was real or not.  Yes, we’ve all seen the false humility, and we’ve seen gloating, but that aside…       It’s only when they receive less than flattering remarks or observations that they indignantly exclaim, “I don’t care what other people think!!!”.  A person who is honest would be totally indifferent to both complimentary, and unflattering statements from people – but well, in my lifetime, I have yet to meet a person who is indifferent to compliments – or to insults, for that matter.  We can show the person making the compliment that we appreciate the kind word, but that’s a separate issue from feeling some kind of wonderful as a result.  These same people, behind their thinly veiled indignant exclamations, will always be offended, and it will be obvious.  Once again, if a person’s words are different from what he does, I will go by what he does, every time – and without fail.

I’ve seen the human ego cause people to commit many horrendous and despicable atrocities – including but not limited to, controlling another person, child molestation, rape, greed, and even murder.  About ten years ago, a friend of mine said, “If you think anybody is going to fight you straight up, then you’re naïve”.  Playing dirty is something that has never entered my mind, but, I have yet to find, in a confrontational situation, a single person who took me on in a fair and honest way – they have always, without fail, done something sneaky and cowardly in order to “win”.  From what I’ve seen, there are very few people in the world who have any real sense of fair play, who have real character, or who have any degree of integrity.  As I’ve said many times, I don’t claim to be perfect, but there are lines I will not cross – being dishonest, playing dirty, being sneaky, and being cowardly are at the top of that list.  I’m pretty sure I’ve never cookied the deadly phrase I’m speaking of, mostly because I know that I do care to some degree what other people think.  As for my caring or not caring about what other people think – I guess by nature I never did care much about what other people thought, but I do care about it to some small degree – in both directions.  I do get some amount of good feelings when somebody appreciates my efforts, hard work, or abilities, and I am somewhat offended when a person purposely insults me.  On insults, though, it’s never the content of the insult that gets to me, it’s only the fact that this person is taunting me, provoking me, trying to push me into displaying some kind of less than pleasant reaction.  I know all the reasons why small people insult other people, I know they are not happy, I know they are sending the message that they know they are worthless, but even with that, it’s one area where I haven’t gotten to the point where I am where I’d like to be.  When I can feel total indifference to both compliments and insults – no matter what part of the insult, then I will be able to say with total honesty, “I don’t care what other people think”.

TV – The Biggest Detriment…

...to creativity that there is.  It’s also the greatest and most effective brain washing tool invented to date.

Today I want to talk about the TV hero syndrome – which has very nicely and effectively been created and perpetuated by good ol’ Hollywood and its puppetmasters.  We Americans, since we are born, are told that we must “Kick ass”, and other such macho horseshit.  We watch Dirty Harry, Chuck Norris, Superman, and other such “heroes” display bravery that is beyond anything human.  I’ve been in this life for a few decades, and I’ve been all over the world.  I would like to know who, if any of you, has met any such hero in their personal life – I know I haven’t.  Have you personally met any person who deals with situations the way Chuck did in his movies, or in Walker Texas Ranger?  How many Dirty Harrys have you seen with your own eyes?  Of course, Superman is just a comic book character, but he is in the minds and hearts of millions of little American boys – many of whom have never grown up.  Ya know what else is real funny – all the “miracles” in religion – they all happened thousands of years ago, and in faraway lands – pretty much in the same places as all the heroes that we read about, that we hear about, and who we watch on TV.  I wonder how many times Chuck Norris, or Clint Eastwood, or Charles Bronson, or any of ‘em – ever belted anybody in real life – my guess is none.  Yes, Chuck competed in Karate competitions – in carefully controlled situations, where there is no danger of being shot at, clubbed, tazered; or thrown in prison after some lowlife speed dials his lawyer.  We hear about war heroes – who stood in the face of loaded guns and flying bullets – never flinching, never blinking – same – we read and hear about them, and we watch their scripted lives on TV and the big screen, but have you ever seen any such person in action – with your own eyes?  My guess is no, you haven’t.  Dirty Harry was a cop, right?  Do you know, by seeing with your own eyes, a single cop who is not a bully, and a flaming coward, and who does anything other than harass innocent, UNARMED citizens – much less handle a situation with such flawless poise and grace as Dirty Harry, or Walker, Texas Ranger?  I can’t name you a single one.  I was a resident manager of an apartment building back in the late 70s.  There were a few times when I had to call the cops to come and deal with a “Domestic Disturbance” – usually after 10 pm is when these would happen.  There wasn’t a single time when they took less than TWO HOURS to arrive, by which time I had to go up and handle it myself.  Lucky for me I was too naïve to know what the hell I was getting into, because if I did, I probably wouldn’t have done it.  There were also a couple of times when they (Honolulu’s Finest) didn’t show up at all.

I go out in public at least three times a week, I must get in my car and drive on public roads, and go into public places of business.  Very seldom am I able to accomplish this without seeing, or being on the receiving end of some piece of dirt, almost always in a full size pickup, who tailgates everything in his path, speeds around, and generally acts like a flaming dumbass every inch of the way.  This crap seems to have fairly recently spilled over into the grocery store – where more often than not, I watch people huff and puff while they’re in the checkout line – angry as hell because people are in front of them.  I never hear them actually say anything, it’s just a lot of rolling eyes and huffing and puffing.

Now, the worst part.  As the years go by, the laws become more and more apparent – that they are on the side of the bully – they protect the bug eyed full size pickup drivers who tailgate and speed around, they protect any smartass who might taunt somebody into “violence”.  They protect the punks who rape and murder their girlfriends, wives, or perfect strangers.  These days there are video “surveillance” cameras every five feet, so, if you decide to pull some smartass out of his vehicle, if you’re lucky enough to find one of ‘em who doesn’t come out of his ½ ton pickup with a gun pointed in your face, and you smack him around, you better be damn careful that you’re not caught on Candid Camera.  I’ve seen, with my own eyes, first rate murderers get caught, arrested, convicted, and sent to prison for 4 or 5 years.  Meanwhile, there have been many times when a person who had the audacity to defend his own honor, defend his physical safety, not to mention the abused wives, who have spent no less than 5 years, and up to 25 years in prison – all for defending themselves against endless beatings and threats.  I was told that Oregon’s “Measure 11” does not apply to a simple fight in the street – but bullshit, it has been used as revenge from “Law Enforcement” for “Taking the law into your own hands”.  Let me tell you from first hand experience that cops, lawyers, and judges HATE it when a person defends him or herself, and they will punish you to the fullest extent for doing so.  My guess is that it’s an ego thing, and a good ol’ boy thing.  I don’t  know how it’s possible that a guy who rapes, tortures, and kills an innocent girl (with the help of his two other punk friends) can get a four and a half year prison sentence, while an obviously abused wife, who on numerous occasions, was beaten, and on a couple of occasions, beaten within inches of her life, then kills the cowardly piece of shit in self defense – can end up in prison for TWENTY FIVE YEARS!  These are but only two of the many atrocities I’ve witnessed in our disgustingly crooked courtrooms.

So, to my original points, first, there are two main reasons why we innocent citizens cannot handle our daily situations the way our TV heroes do onscreen.  One, it’s a pretty sure thing that these lowlifes who go around bullying people on the roads are not doing it unarmed.  Second, none of us want to spend time in prison because some yellow bellied, goatee wearing, shades on the head, baseball cap covered punk, doesn’t know how to behave in public.  Third, Watching Chuck, Clint, and whoever else, flawlessly kick the badguys’ asses, sets us up for some horrible self image distortions, and again, I have yet to meet a person who even distantly resembles any of these TV heroes.  Of all the stories I see on TV, including news, and so called “Documentaries”, I believe very little, if any of it.  To me, the heroes are the ones who personally help hungry people, who personally and realistically do something for poor people.  If somebody does occasionally beat the dogshit out of a badguy, or does actually risk his life for another person or cause, then great, and it does happen once in a while, but all the hero bullshit you see on TV, don’t believe it, or you’ll be in for a lifetime of self loathing and frustration.

I believe that this is the reason why there are so many mass shootings these days.  This country is so full of frustrated people, that it’s only a matter of time before the next one snaps and goes on a shooting rampage.  Not to worry, it ain’t gonna be me, I will never hurt an innocent person, but somebody will.

It goes a lot deeper than this, but this is a blog, not a book, so I’ll stop here for now.

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.