A Bloody Rose - Nowhere To Be Found

I remember when I was in school, pretty sure it was high school, when we were on the subject of Vincent van Gogh, we saw a painting titled, "A Bloody Rose", and it was by Vincent van Gogh. Well, I've scoured the internet, and I even bought a book about van Gogh, called, "van Gogh, A Retrospective", with lots of information, and quite a few scans of his paintings. Nowhere on the internet, or in this book is there even a hint of any painting, by any artist, titled "A Bloody Rose". So, what the hell? I did see a few people on forums who said things on the order of "There was an article in 1977 regarding this painting, with a broken rose on the snow, with a person leaning over it, and another person in the background, walking away...", and a couple others saying something similar.

No "A Bloody Rose", very strange.

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



More Of The Same

 

This video is of Muriel Anderson, she is an exceptional guitar player, she plays classical, Spanish, folk, and other styles mixed in. Her dexterity is amazing, and this is not somebody who sat around wishing she could play, she has spent countless hours learning and perfecting her craft. Well, I was at a message board - "The Banjo Hangout" to be exact, and one of the posters put up this video. A few said they loved it, but there was at least one - always at least one in the crowd, who just had to say something crappy, in this case it was, "I guess I was the only one who wasn't impressed, it's just plain old fingerpicking...". In fact, I believe there was one other one who said something similar. I guess it takes all kinds - in this case, the guys who are just sad, and pee'd off at the world, wishing they could actually do something, but never willing to work at it, or maybe they don't have the talent for it, and they hate the world for that - either way, it's pathetic to say the least. I'm not of the, "If you don't have something nice to say, then don't say anything", because not everything in the world is peachy and wonderful, but there's a huge difference between matter of fact, and just plain hatred and resentment for real talent, and for the fact that one does not have the self motivation to actually work at something, or, does not have the talent and hates everybody for it. I am, though, a firm believer of being ok with what you are, and who you are. There is nothing wrong with not having talent for a certain thing, what's not ok, is not being ok with that fact, and wreaking revenge on those who do, and who have worked at it. I've witnessed such people in this crazy music business, and for most of my life, I thought it was mostly exclusive here, but in talking with some other folks, that self serving, egotistical behavior is just a fact of humanity. I guess that gene passed me by, because while I am somewhat proud of the very few things I'm able to do somewhat well, I also know my limitations, and as far as I know, I'm ok with all of it. Also, I have never resented anybody for being good at something, in fact, I'm always happy to see a person who has talent and has worked to perfect his or her craft. Whatever other emotional shortcomings I may have, jealousy and envy are not present in my little world of self. So, I can go around pointing fingers at the jealous and the envious, mock them, ridicule them, and otherwise know how silly, petty, and pathetic they are :) . And, this is my blog :D . You might want to watch the video, I'm sure you'll enjoy it as I did.

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

Video Games - The New Life Destroyer

I can proudly say that I've never played a video game in my life - well, other than a couple times with my son when he was little. I hated them from the very start. Well, here lately, I've been in close proximity to a couple whose lives are all but destroyed by their addiction to video games. Yes, an addiction is a choice, and any person who partakes in such mindless nonsense is wholly and completely responsible for whatever consequences may follow; but, video games, by design are destructive, same as with cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol. The parasites who put this stuff out there have found that hooking people in when they're young is a very effective tool in selling their mind numbing but multi billion dollar profiting crap. As for the couple, they have spent countless hours, and countless dollars, sitting in front of their respective computers, eyes bugged out, cussing, damning, and stressing, but continuing the addiction. This couple has been together about a year, and appeared to be very happy up until a couple of months ago. They had some money saved up, the man of the house had the idea that he wanted to pursue a writing career, as well as offering web building services. Well, all the money is gone, and the relationship is about overwith. To add insult to injury, the man has a career right in front of him, with no obstacles other than his addiction, all he has to do is do it, but well, 8 - 10 hours a day playing this ridiculous video game has prevented him from doing much of anything. More insult and more injury - there is a newborn baby involved, which has added to the couple's stress, but nevertheless, their addiction has all but completely destroyed their relationship, and their lives, and who knows what the baby's life will be like. The man of the house may end up homeless, and the girl looks to be moving back home with mom.

Part of a certain collection of precepts contains the following statement (paraphrasing): "Control their money, give them cheap entertainment, and you will own them for the duration of their lives". Any addict, whether it be to cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, gambling, or whatever else, is lawful prey to such ruthless parasites. Yes, capitalism is a great thing, and seems to be working just fine - says me (that's "I" for the grammarians and smartasses), as I watch my country and the world crumble right before my very eyes.

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

Speaking Of Society...

Society – the masses of people, always led by a very small group of people. The “leaders”, the ultra powerful – these are always ones who aspire to such positions all of their lives – so to use said positions to acquire more money, and more power, using said power to cause other people grief, loss, sorrow, and whatever else. As with all societies in the history of the world, the current one is poisoning every man, woman, and child on the planet – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In today’s “civilized” world, with all its technology, knowledge, and “progress”, things continue to get worse, not better. For those fortunate enough to even have a job, they must work 12, 14, 15 hour days, doing the job of 3 or 4 people, and almost always being abused by their bosses in one way or another. The result of mass unemployment is that many have lost their homes, their belongings, their families, and even their lives. Depression is rampant, suicides are through the roof, and I don’t need to remind you of all the mass shootings that are happening with more and more frequency as time goes on. Pre 1970, many “poor folks” would scrimp and save for ten years or so, invest in their own little business, which would pay for their existence, create a few jobs, and help our economy. Our country and our economy were booming during those years – with no cell phones, no computers, with knowledge being much harder to come by, and mass shootings weren’t even a gleam in the eye of any person – regardless of any daily stresses, and regardless of how difficult their childhood may or may not have been. Back then, the Ultra Powerful were still in the early learning stages, they felt things out, tried their little tricks, threw things against the wall to see what would stick. Well, most of their tricks worked. Today, they lie to us – through every form of media known to man, including TV, movies, magazines, books, radio; not to mention the self proclaimed gurus and “experts” who appear at every turn, blatantly dictating to us about everything from how we should behave, to what music we should listen to, what movies to watch, which gurus to believe, to what foods we should and shouldn’t eat, what drugs we should take to treat all of our ills that the very people pretending to care and treat us have fabricated. We are fed such grossly inhumane cliches such as, “Business is business”, “You gotta do what you gotta do”, “You’re not out there to make friends, you’re out there to sell our product”. Ruthless, greedy people hide behind such B.S. so to make a profit at everybody else’s expense. There was a time when “false advertising” was against the law – I believe it still is, but it’s not enforced; so, business executives can lie, cheat, and steal – in the name of “selling”, and/or “doing business”. As we speak, there is a huge campaign to sell millions of flu vaccines – every TV channel, every magazine, every news report is doing its part to sell, sell, sell that vaccine. There are TV commercials that tell us it’s normal to have chronic headaches, chronic heartburn, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, for 35 year olds to have E.D. The most blatantly ridiculous one being “restless leg syndrome”, and ya know what, millions bought it, along with the poison that was claimed to cure it. We’re told that if we ate too many oranges in our life, that the enamel on our teeth is probably deteriorated, if we ate too many tomatoes, that our esophagus is probably rotting, if we eat meat, or drink milk, that our colons have got to be malfunctioning by the time we’re 25 years old. The sad thing is that the power of suggestion is and has been used to its fullest, and has caused many to actually allow these lies to manifest themselves as real conditions and diseases. The list of lies goes on endlessly – all in the name of selling. As if that’s not enough, the Ultra Powerful make laws that protect them, at everyone else’s expense.

With all the trickery, many bad results have reared their ugly heads. One is that we are told what “jobs” we must have. Pre 1970, a person could start a business doing just about anything, and chances are, he or she would enjoy some amount of success. Well, in today’s world, we must work for the franchises that are in place, that rule the economic and social world, we do menial chores that mostly involve selling a product that we are told we cannot do without.
One of the businesses that has been ruined is the music business. At the restaurant/bar level, there were many places for an aspiring musician/performer to work – and get paid. There was “The next level”, the “Big Time”, where the cream of the crop would go to a certain city known for its “talent scouts”, today known as “A & R people”, working to get “discovered”. Well, that is also gone, replaced by a machine that manufactures and cranks out talentless, contrived white noise making numbskulls, most of whom can’t even tune their own guitar, much less play it. They lie, telling us that this one and that one is selling millions of “units”, meanwhile, the same companies put out documentaries where they whine and complain about how “units” are not selling – blaming piracy for their own ineptitude and egotistical B.S. I mention the music business because it’s where I made a living for 25 years – and up until about 3 or 4 years ago, I did ok with it. Many people are not cut out for jobs that society has dictated we all do, and as I said, starting our own business is impossible in today’s world. I’ll even take it a step further and say that there are children and young adults, even full grown adults, who cannot function in rigid systems such as schools, military, and society dictated jobs. I, myself, am in that list – I’ve never been able to function well in any of those systems – no matter how hard I tried – and there are those who have it even worse than I do in that area – many of whom have ended up homeless, in institutions, and even dead before their time.

So, as with every social system in the history of the world, the masses serve the royalty, until the system crumbles, at which time another society will appear, going the same route as all the rest. And please, any of you pretentious asses who may be reading this, this is not me being negative, this is me making observations, and calling things what they are. I don’t enjoy making these observations, but reality is what it is, and trying to deny, pretend, distort, and whatever else, would make me dishonest, and with all my other shortcomings, if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s dishonest. So ok, you deniers and ignorers, go back to your Monday Night Football and Budweiser – until this stuff sneaks up and beats the daylights out of you.

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

The Dysfunctional And The Dysfunctional

What I'd give to live in this house.

 

Having been in RV parks for the past 6 months, I’ve made a few observations. I won’t state them all right now, I just have one, because I realized it just today. At the park in Reno, there were a few of those big RVs that look like buses – they cost $300,000+. What I've noticed, and after looking back on the past few months is, that every one of the guys who arrives in one of those is a little short shit – strutting like a little miniature peacock. I was in the park laundry room a few months ago, when a couple came in. The guy wasn’t in there 30 seconds before he proceeded to tell me all of his accomplishments, what he owns, where he’s been, what he's done. He was another of the guys who has one of those huge bus-like rigs. I guess I’m beginning to see how many people belong to one stereotypical group or another. This brings to mind the full sized pickup truck drivers – every single one has the goatee, the shades, and the redneck baseball cap; and same, they strut like little banty roosters. That’s not to mention the way they drive – tailgating anybody who is in front of them, gunning through parking lots (endangering people’s lives), racing past other cars, and revving their engines whenever they are within earshot of a person.

One of the things that has always had my interest is the psychology of humans (animals too, but that’s a whole ‘nother). What I gather from the behavior I just described is that such people hate themselves – it’s the “self loathing” disorder that many people display. Along with what I described above is the envy/jealousy/control thing. From what I’ve witnessed, any person who pretends to be something he’s not, who feels the need to bully other people (whether it be passive/aggressive, having their lawyer on speed dial, being a big brute, or having a gun or some other weapon at their disposal), feels envy or jealousy, and/or feels the need to control other people – all the same – they hate themselves. My belief is that you can be angry, sad, hurt, disgusted, or whatever else, but what you do not have the right to do is, to use any of that as an excuse to cause other people grief, or loss. If your dad bullied you, or you got stuffed in too many lockers when you were in the 7th grade, well, sorry, but that does not give you the ok to screw with other people. Even more sad is the fact that society is getting worse, our cities are getting worse, people are getting angrier by the day. I would be ok with all of it if there were some way to prevent people from making me pay for their self loathing, their raging B.S., or their inability to deal with reality. I know, funny, that statement, as it will never happen, never has, never will. I think I’ve said this before – what I’ve evolved to is to avoid people as much as possible, I go out when I need to. I avoid malls, department stores, roads, freeways, and pretty much all public places as much as I possibly can. There was a time when a Sunday drive was pleasurable, I guess it’s been a long time since that’s been the case. I started driving back in 1973, and it was still, for the most part, fun to drive, I guess I can kiss those days goodbye.

So, my observations may sound “negative” to some, or most, but, two things, first, I don’t give a rat’s behind about what other people think about my ideas and beliefs, and second, I will never deny reality – things are what they are, whether I like them, whether I deny them (FTR, I never deny anything), whether I wish they weren’t so; doesn’t matter, reality will always be what it is, and I choose to live in it, ever how disgusting and maddening it might be. The widdle peepee truck guys, the strutting banty rooster guys in their monster RV rigs – as annoying as they are, they’re out there. I will always poke fun at them, and I may even occasionally slap one across the side of his head (if I can do it without having a gun pointed in my face, or having his lawyer threaten me with prison time). Humans are what they are, I guess. I don’t know what happened to me, not that I claim to be perfect, but sometimes I do wonder why I was never notified that it’s part of my nature to screw with other people as much as possible, that I must be greedy, ruthless, and self serving, and that I must not care about the world I live in – including my house, any public place I may set foot in, and the planet I live on. I'm glad I missed all of that, but it certainly doesn't make for much tolerance on my part. Ha, tolerance is not something I claim, or even something I would ever want to practice when it comes to the obnoxious, the rude, the ruthless, and the self serving.

All for now.

A Good Lesson From A Dimwit

Most of the time I learn from people who are smarter than me (that’s “I” for the grammarians and smartasses), or, better than me in some way. But, there have been a few times where I’ve learned from the stupid, the inept, even the cowardly. Today I learned something from a person who I have absolutely no respect for – that would be Rush Limbaugh. He has made a ton of money belittling anybody he doesn’t agree with, or approve of. Lately he has been mocking and ridiculing Barack Obama – making mud out of the fact that he (Obama) went to an Ivy League school. Well, our current president graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Among many other things, he worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University Of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. As we all know, he is now the President Of The United States. Well, Rush, coming from a family of lawyers, dropped out of Southeast Missouri State College after two semesters, and according to his mother, “Flunked out of everything”. To his credit, he only wanted to do radio, and went after that, not selling out to society’s pressures. Where he loses me is that he had it all – money, family, support, and now, as I said, mocks and belittles anybody who does not think as he does, mocking and ridiculing their achievements.

The lesson I just learned from Mr. Limbaugh is, to go after what I want – not what society wants – not even taking into consideration their need to talk down their nose at me, call me names, etc., and don’t waste time wringing hands over any obstacles that may or may not be in front of me. The lesson did, though, come inversely, seeing the way he ridicules others for their achievements. That being said, I have heard him on occasion, go after slackers and shit stirrers, but for the most part, he has made a damn good living going after people who have legitimately achieved what they set out to. One big difference between Rush and me is that I’ve had to fight for every morsel of life, and every speck of material (self) support I ever had, with no support outside of what I did for me. At this late time in my life, though, I am getting support from a person who does appear to want to see me achieve what I want to achieve, so thanks for that, Darlene. I’ve decided to take one last shot at the next level of the music business. Rush’s envy and ridiculing is what has validated and solidified my decision to take my shot. Being the person I am, not caring what society thinks or says, once I decided to do music, it’s what I’ve done since 1980. I think that doing something you hate is a waste of life, as is doing something because society expects it, or demands it, or ridicules you if you don’t do what is “acceptable”. There have been times when I wanted to hang it all up, get out of music, but other than a couple of brief periods, I did music, and nothing but music. Besides loving the actual music part, I seem to have always had some deep seeded need to expose B.S. for what it is – especially in the music business. So, we head off to Nashville as soon as becomes possible – mostly weather related. To top it all off, if I’m not able to break through the country music dynasty that has been carefully built and protected, I’ll be ok with it, because I’ll know that I did everything I was capable of. FTR, it’s never me that I doubt, it’s always the ruthless tactics of those in positions of power – and the fact is, they are much more powerful than I ever hope to be. I’ll fight tooth and nail, just saying it might not be enough.

So, Rush, thank you, even though I know it’s never your intention to help, your shameless envy for those who have achieved something in their life has motivated me to take one last shot at what I believe I’m here to do.

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

Why Wait?

Me with my beautiful koa Telecaster

 

My authentic toere - made by a real live Tahitian guy

 



 

Well, it looks like we'll be heading to Nashville much sooner than planned.  It's likely we'll be heading out by the end of this month.  I have no illusions, no stars in my eyes, only the will to go there and dive in, play as much as possible.  Being that there is no financial pressure, we can afford to stay there as long as we feel like being there.  We're not rich, but we won't be living on the street anytime soon - and yes, I know that causes some people to foam at the mouth.

Circumstances have been pointing me in the direction of going after bigger things for years, but I wasn't in the right frame of mind before now, and I didn't have any support. I can't do everything all by myself, now I have help, so...

I like Reno, I like the clear skies, I love the small town feel, and I love that there are a lot fewer angries here, but as I said, if I'm going to exchange blows with people in the business, and other musicians, I might as well be somewhere where the rewards are worth it

Things slow down in Nashville during the winter months - as it does in most places, so it's likely the places will be more intimate - might be easier to talk to people, meet people.  The plan is to not only go to songwriters' nights, but to also play behind other artists and songwriters.  Playing lead guitar or other instruments behind artists is fun and even exciting for me - always has been.  Jam sessions are a thing of the past, but where I'm going, there are open stages all over that town.  Yes, I fully expect to be unwelcome, kicked, gouged, lied to, screwed with, and whatever else, but I'm sure I'll land a few good right hooks of my own :D .

So, hey, my stalkers, haters, detractors, vindictive asses - y'all go suck an egg.