Some people get greeting cards in their mailbox; Oggy gets frozen meatballs. And his mail box is a paint tray. If I live long enough I will deliver food bank frozen meatballs to the kid trying to fix my 40 year old furnace. I'll consider it payment for his labor. I will be blind and have no memory of my days in the oil field and will long have ceased to log in to my blog because I forgot the password or the point. My friends will be dead from heart attacks and economic hardships. Their children will never think of me.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Electricity 101
blog friendly schematic |
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Plea
I'm broken. This is basic HVAC wiring. HVAC 101 and I have flunked. It irks me that neglect and ignorance lands me in a frozen house. It also irks me that after 24 years as a devoted art and speech teacher in public schools, the owner of this decaying house doesn't have any money. He is flat broke...living one month to the next, literally eating at a senior nutrition center and getting week old bread. The only income he has is my rent and his Social Security hahahah. 24 years in public schools and he gets excited for cupcakes that had all the frosting scraped off them when someone dropped them at the grocery store. He's had a leaking heart repaired, two bypass surgeries...gout...blindness and senility and today I walked in to the kitchen to write down this sketch and all the burners on the stove were glowing red hot as he tried to stay warm. Of course he wasn't in the kitchen since it was still freezing cold. The heating system is only fixable by someone like me because a licensed pro couldn't be liable for working on it. and he'd know it would cost less to replace it. but the house isn't going to last so a new heating system makes no sense. but the persistence of our blood and mind as it painfully stumbles along in any condition can't be ignored. My labor is free so that's the big difference.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Nuclear Family
American Mythology |
Since I've injured my back I've had some time to watch television and I'm repulsed almost the entire time I'm watching. Either we represent ourselves as gross and superstitious or we're too dumb to realize that's how we represent ourselves. This manual for the long extinct Sears Roebuck central air conditioner represents some kind of clue to our collective self image but I need help because my spirits are low and my condition is getting worse. I lack motivation and am not invested in our society, yet 6 year-old kids getting slaughtered makes me cry.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Elemental Failure
Can you see the problem? |
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Even The Onion is Mortal
I have to remove the link to the Onion in my web feed because over the last year they definitely replaced all their writers and the new writers are very annoying to me. I realize in a satire institution they have to have new blood because no one can write at the top of their game about the same news cycle events. You need a new voice that understands the market and identifies with the target audience or at least says the same shit in a different way. I get it. I imagine I would last two years on the staff of The Onion before the dismal irony and non-stop parody of our own desperation got to be too much. Eventually even comedy writers get scared that they are not only doing nothing in the wake of one disaster after another but they are mocking the reaction of people who are legitimately trying to do something. And this contradiction has occurred even to humble Oggy in his times of reflection.
I'll Be Home For Chrsitmas
I had a request for some songs and it took some time to get it together and upload it but here's "I'll be Home For Christmas" as performed at the old age home. It's the only sheet music I had in my collection. The sad news is that when I tried to tackle an uptempo version of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, the 87 year old Minnie couldn't help but feel that Christmas spirit and started to dance. She is generally wheelchair bound so I had to slow the Reindeer pack down but it was too late and Minnie had already injured her knee and run out of breath. I really want to die a merciful death early and painlessly rather than have a front row seat to my own decay.
It's one of the great miracles that the virgin birth of a man 2012 years ago on the opposite side of the world somehow is celebrated with songs about flying ungulates in North America.
This makes no sense. I got a pair of socks and some strong painkillers in my stocking.
It's one of the great miracles that the virgin birth of a man 2012 years ago on the opposite side of the world somehow is celebrated with songs about flying ungulates in North America.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Nouveau Bohemian
Piano tuning apprentice. Bing Crosby's Sail Along, Silv'ry Moon keeps Oggy company |
Take a good look because this kind of lifestyle will not exist in the new world order.
As soon as my back gets better I'm going to Guatemala.
Aftermath
That word has been in the news quite a bit. Aftermath. I'm thinking it is a catchphrase in the knee-jerk double speak manipulation of reality that Fox News and other marketeers of disinformation use to keep people thinking less critically and more inside a box that vomits capitalism. They want us to think that at 7am we start our day. at noon we eat. at 5 pm we go home. when tragedy strikes there is a pattern of preparation, ignorance, death, grief and renewal...and aftermath. This is the subtle manipulation of a culture by the big thinkers behind the curtain. We are not a philosophical nation but we like to pretend we are when the rest of the world is watching. Aftermath is a five cent word being used by balloon chested news anchors with big hairspray manes of Sub continent nun hair extensions and false white teeth caps. Those are who we look to for guidance like blind people checking a cemetery for speed dating. If you aren't repulsed then you are numb like Novocaine.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Is Today the end of the world?
Oggy doesn't have to hold a news conference to announce his views on gun violence. If any politician thinks he can control guns then he should run his next campaign on ending prostitution and underage drinking because he's totally insane or else he's the greatest statesman ever. That will never ever happen. We let the cat out of the bag and the FBI can't keep track of assault rifles sold to drug cartels and the CIA sells rocket launchers to Bin Laden to fight the Soviets in exchange for warriors to kill Honduran hippies. Ok, but the Kittery Trading Post gun rack is the problem?? It's too late for a conservative approach to gun ownership. Radical measures for radical people. We won our freedom with stolen muskets in 1776 and then slaughtered each other in 1862 and then gunned down Germans and Japs in 1945 and Bin Laden was introduced to the business side of an assault rifle a few years back. Nobody wants our schools to become killing fields but that also applies to our fear that China will launch an invasion while Family Guy reruns play to stoned obese sloths...so guns are as plentiful as dental floss and we are technically safer because of it... until unpredictable human nature steps in.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Every Cloud Has Some Rain
"Aside from poor management and possibly fraudulent activity, Chesapeake is struggling with financial issues. Chesapeake currently does not have
the cash flow necessary to cover
its planned capital expansion. It is estimated that the company has a
funding gap of nearly $9 billion. This is clearly bad news, as it means
the company wants to expand more than it can afford." --from an July '12 article that I didn't read until today.
Oggy no longer has an obligation to hide company secrets, or how he ignored the hard hat rule. |
The Entertainer
Never mind. The air handler situation has not been resolved but I've determined it is probably a problem with something called a sequencer. It's a relay that has a time delay built into the heat activated contacts. Anyway, that's why it is 45 degrees in my room and I must wear coats 100% of the time. The old owner is oblivious to the problem as he is numb and dying and senile and has 3 dogs to pile on him to stay warm. We had a conversation about his "leaky heart" that really made me feel everything is futile and fleeting and manufactured emotions. I'm passionate about nothing except my imaginary life as a concert pianist.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Pure Imagination
"Imagine There's no Fracking"
that's the message Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon bought a page of the NY Times to spread this year. Ok. Let's do that. I'll call Yoko's bluff of her trite misuse of her dead husband's words. Let's all imagine the world without hydro fracturing. And while we are at it let's imagine the world without any oil production of any kind because honestly you are an ignorant person if you think conventional drilling is much different than hydro fracturing since the end result of carbon in the air is equivalent though it's true less material is pumped into the ground, but that only matters if you drink water. So let's imagine a world without oil use...since that's a good exercise for those who will live to see 2040 when that won't be a fantasy and all the carbon we've deposited in the atmosphere will have to be scrubbed with gigantic solar powered vacuums...probably reclaimed football stadiums or Rush Limbaugh's bloated jowls...hahahaha.
that's the message Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon bought a page of the NY Times to spread this year. Ok. Let's do that. I'll call Yoko's bluff of her trite misuse of her dead husband's words. Let's all imagine the world without hydro fracturing. And while we are at it let's imagine the world without any oil production of any kind because honestly you are an ignorant person if you think conventional drilling is much different than hydro fracturing since the end result of carbon in the air is equivalent though it's true less material is pumped into the ground, but that only matters if you drink water. So let's imagine a world without oil use...since that's a good exercise for those who will live to see 2040 when that won't be a fantasy and all the carbon we've deposited in the atmosphere will have to be scrubbed with gigantic solar powered vacuums...probably reclaimed football stadiums or Rush Limbaugh's bloated jowls...hahahaha.
Gruesome Decomposing
The cat corpse exhumation project was too awful to share pictures with you. It was like a Creepshow episode. Trust me when I suggest you think wisely about grave sites before burying a cat in a pillowcase. But it had to be done and my conscience can rest now.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Pet Semetery
Question: What's worse than burying a cat?
Answer: Burying a cat and then deciding that it was creepy because you buried it in a pillowcase with ducks and trains printed on it and the corpse is a few feet from your bedroom window and you never even looked at the cat and it wasn't respectful to dig a shallow grave and dump it in there...so you must exhume the body like it is Vladimir Lenin and then move the corpse to another hole farther in a field and rebury it and make a cross and say a prayer.
Answer: Burying a cat and then deciding that it was creepy because you buried it in a pillowcase with ducks and trains printed on it and the corpse is a few feet from your bedroom window and you never even looked at the cat and it wasn't respectful to dig a shallow grave and dump it in there...so you must exhume the body like it is Vladimir Lenin and then move the corpse to another hole farther in a field and rebury it and make a cross and say a prayer.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
News Flash
Did anyone else read that this part of Texas is the fastest growing oil field in the world right now? $28 Billion dollars is pouring into a part of the continent previously famous for a bat cave and a store that is called "Guns and Liquor" because it sells both guns and liquor.
This is a quiet and deserted area and the influx of workers has trailer parks springing up everywhere. Really, the only occupation that isn't in demand right now is environmental engineering. My company had plans for a wind turbine farm that was delayed because a damn sparrow or rare bat uses that area for migration. But everything else is in demand. The big money is in logistics and city planning because $28 billion dollars is more money than has been spent here since Texas was a Republic and that's how much is going to be spent in the next few years.
This is a quiet and deserted area and the influx of workers has trailer parks springing up everywhere. Really, the only occupation that isn't in demand right now is environmental engineering. My company had plans for a wind turbine farm that was delayed because a damn sparrow or rare bat uses that area for migration. But everything else is in demand. The big money is in logistics and city planning because $28 billion dollars is more money than has been spent here since Texas was a Republic and that's how much is going to be spent in the next few years.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Knabe Restoration Project
Easiest Piano Move in History. Pushed through one door way. |
It's been too long since I owned one of these. The Summer of 2010 I bought a digital short scale Clavinova and hauled it up the stairs in Snobmouth and it was gone before Fall. Before that I sold a Korg Digital Grand in Los Angeles in 2008 that had a fuzzy circuit. The piano practice rooms at Humboldt State were all I had from 1998-2003. And I owned a really crappy piano that I got from the Redwood City Salvation Army in exchange for moving a refrigerator to San Jose in 2006. Eventually I cut that one up with a reciprocating saw and broke my kneecap when the strings exploded and the cast iron string plate sprang up and flung me across the decaying single-wide trailer. It's one of the sacrifices of living in a van that I can not regularly practice piano. But the economy doesn't really care how many Lionel Richie songs I ruin with my off key singing so my skills withered for 2 years as I silently tolerated the police interrogations and abandonment because I am a recluse and stubborn and irresponsible and unrealistic. Then I found a real job and became a hypocrite and a devourer of planets and greedy and a sell out. But all along it would be obvious except to only the blindest dullard that my priorities are to play piano constantly and this one goal has been thwarted time and time again...until now.
Thematic Explorations
"It was very likely that the person responsible
for stealing all of Oggy’s clothes was building a cocoon for a stuffed animal
and simply needed more material. He’d seen weirder things and only the
precipitous situation, his rumbling stomach and the arrival of chilling darkness
with no more than his ragged cotton serape to protect him, prevented Oggy
Bleacher from pondering the long list of weirdness that had been his assigned
lot in life to witness since his arrival in the blighted land of Santa Cruz.
Oggy’s focus hovered between the two metaphysical lips of a wide chasm of
philosophy. What was more important at this very moment? The study of
the human condition or the survival of the human? And what consequences wrought
by the crime and punishments of time would follow Oggy’s answer? Not even the
advancing arthritis in Oggy’s shoulder and back distracted him from silently
debating this secondary-topic. To focus on survival at the cost of
philosophical reflection was brain death. The unexamined life is not worth
living, is it not?
Labels:
crystal circus
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wonderful World
I've been following the trail of bread crumbs that my former self left in order for me to find the main theme that I was writing about in the Santa Cruz homeless epic romance novel I've been writing for 13 years. Somewhere carved on a tree in California I had a perfectly mapped out synopsis that was irrefutable and original and authentic and was guaranteed to win me accolade and financial freedom and I think I wrote some of it down by we have been feeling the lash of the whip on our heat stroked backs and have returned to the 60+ hour work week. That's Texan-speak for "An Easy Week" When you reach 80+ hours then you can say you worked overtime. I figured out that I'm off the clock for only 9 hours a day. Keep filling up those 25 gallon tanks so you don't have to bicycle to buy your spicy fried original recipe chicken you repulsively fat fucks! I'm going to fill the wallets of every street hooker in town with your frivolous oil waste.
I spent Thanksgiving watching "Gone With The Wind" in Spanish. There is no Spanish equivalent to a southern accent so it was kind of lame. |
That turtle I rescued. The video of its release was taken by the police as evidence. |
I haven't eaten today and they are going to kick me out of the library soon so I have to wrap this up. Listen, I'm decaying faster than a banana peel tossed on a Nascar track and I estimate more people die in car crashes in the Eagleford shale area than die in Afghanistan so I'm trying to make every daydream count. The world is merciless and unforgiving to little animals. We make a buck and then spend it to repair the scar tissue that was maimed by making the buck. But there is a chance that this madness will lead to an energy neutral society. Yes, foraging and gathering was also energy neutral and left much less time for crystal meth and human trafficking but it also guaranteed an early death. Now you can grow old and grey in a comfortable chair with tea and a man playing Louis Armstrong songs in a "Freely/Rubato" tempo.
REDACTED PICTURE Jose tries to teach me electrical theories but I'm a stubborn pinche gringo who knows it all.
Actually, Jose turned me on to the king of classic Mexican Ranchera music. Jose Alfredo Jimenez. I want to play this at the old age home but they would kick me out. So I intend to go to Mexico to play on the street and sing of my broken heart to people who invented broken hearts. It's a wonderful world. Happy Pearl Harbor Day!
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Top 10 Highlights of the Week
1. Determined I grossed $11,000 in one month*
2. Rescued a pond turtle from imminent death on the highway and set it free in the local park where it immediately attacked a bathing swan.
3. Laptop hotstick stopped working preventing any blogging.
4. Bought at least $200 worth of frivolous items at Walmart and Tractor Supply.
5. My refrigerator looks like a ten fat Americans live with me.
6. Three teenage girls saw my van at the park and asked for a tour. I said, "There are men who give tours of their van to teenage girls and then there are men who know better." I drove away...fast.
7. Prayed I'd win $550 million in Powerball lottery....but lost.
8. Estimated another month of work before shoulder surgery is required to allow me to brush my teeth.
9. Replaced a belt on a 2004 Mitsubishi Eclipse by bypassing the broken air compressor pulley. The belt was about 1148 mm long.
10. Remembered how to play the A section of Joplin's "The Entertainer" on piano.
* This means I grossed $11,000 for the year.
2. Rescued a pond turtle from imminent death on the highway and set it free in the local park where it immediately attacked a bathing swan.
3. Laptop hotstick stopped working preventing any blogging.
4. Bought at least $200 worth of frivolous items at Walmart and Tractor Supply.
5. My refrigerator looks like a ten fat Americans live with me.
6. Three teenage girls saw my van at the park and asked for a tour. I said, "There are men who give tours of their van to teenage girls and then there are men who know better." I drove away...fast.
7. Prayed I'd win $550 million in Powerball lottery....but lost.
8. Estimated another month of work before shoulder surgery is required to allow me to brush my teeth.
9. Replaced a belt on a 2004 Mitsubishi Eclipse by bypassing the broken air compressor pulley. The belt was about 1148 mm long.
10. Remembered how to play the A section of Joplin's "The Entertainer" on piano.
* This means I grossed $11,000 for the year.
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