Monday, March 30, 2015

Arctic Wolf Related Media


There's an Arctic wolf at 3:30.

I count about 5 distinct shots of an American Flag, which is noteworthy not only because it is really trite jingoism, but it's also misleading since the Alaskan Arctic isn't being contested and the Arctic that has "potential for development" is not America. But by imposing the flag on digital landscapes they are suggesting Ellesmere Island is America. It's not. It's Canadian. But with multi-national corporations in political power like Exxonmobile and Chevron, flags are interchangeable. For all I know some of these video shots are of Antarctica.

In the 2009 movie Avatar a group called "The Resources Development Administration" is what is on the planet Pandora searching for a rare metal called unobtanium. The year is 2154 and I forget how it's explained that in a mere 150 years we either locate a nearby planet named Pandora (how did we miss it?), or develop interstellar travel...all in the aim of finding resources since Earth has been depleted. I think if you left on the fastest rocket ship available at this very moment you would not arrive at the nearest solar system for 19,000 years. So that would be the year 21,015. Good luck booking a round trip ticket for something like that. This raises the same kind of question raise by the recent movie Interstellar, namely, if humans can develop civilizations in space then why is Earth needed? Also, if a self-supporting environment can be manufactured then why does it have to float around in space? Why not leave it on Earth? Maybe the cartoon sequel to Avatar will answer these questions. The movie did nothing for me because I'm not 13 year old anymore and cartoons are only cool when I eat LSD at the same time. The $400 million price tag on the movie also made me sick when it was attached to a movie that 'raises environmental awareness'. That's just phony bullshit propaganda. Avatar absolutely is a generic 'moral transformation' story reused a dozen times. Avatar was different because it's mostly animation or animatronics or advanced rotoscoping and also live action. I would recommend Watership Down (1978) or Silent Running (1972) if you want to raise your awareness about anything.

Avatar was also released as I was starving to death in Laconia. I had to sneak in through an open emergency exit door in order to watch it in an empty theater during a blizzard. I wanted to see what counted for an "environmental awareness movie" in 2009 and of course it horrified me. The fact I was at that very moment hung up on my own environmental quest to see the Arctic Wolf, a quest that I believed was a stronger and more original concept with compelling sub-plots...but had a promotion budget of $0, really irked me. Cameron gets $400 million to fill the pockets of computer geeks sitting behind animation computers in the Superfund site known as San Jose...and he's calling himself an eco-activist. I'm trying to physically visit the Arctic wolf to save the future of humanity while wearing recycled pants and I'm called a lunatic. Really depressing scenario. I felt like Travis in Taxi Driver (1976) at the porn theater.





If I just had $1000 I could've left Laconia and driven a snowmobile to Labrador.


Well, this Arctic Potential Report is something that 'The Resources Development Administration' would produce. Gleaming faces with comforting sounds and misappropriated wildlife images. American flags. Gross.

And of course the nail in my neck is the image of the Arctic Wolf, the object of my quest in 2009-2012, being used casually like the animal was happy to assist in propaganda designed for the destruction of its homeland.

This is an unavoidable development. The Arctic has been exploited for 100 years and with the complete loss of Summer ice sheet in a few years the onslaught will commence. California got 8% of the average snowpack this past winter. The wolf in this video will be gunned down, seals slaughtered. All for oil to serve 8 Billion meat puppets and their pets.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Wolf Quest Part VIII: Why Wolves?

I left off in Part VI once I managed to get the van started again near Mont Groulx and instead of wisely turning around and driving south, I pushed all my chips into the middle and headed north on the only road in all of northern Quebec, Route 389. Labrador City lay like a gleaming emerald on the horizon and maybe if I could sort out all the problems with the van then I could continue the quest further north to Ellesmere Island where I would see the Arctic wolf with my own eyes. But this is a good chance to explore why wolves became the goal of my quest.

Recall that it was on Puta Lobo in Baja California that I had a vision about a trans-continental journey during the dark economic recession caused by land hungry financial consultants. Puta Lobo probably is dedicated to a coyote, not a wolf, as Puta Coyote doesn't have the same ring to it. But coyotes, not wolves, are what live in the desert. I thought, if I've never visited Labrador, the only political boundary in North America that I've yet to visit, then I should have a good reason. And the wolf quest started to take shape. But it actually started earlier than that.


Saturday, March 28, 2015

He Always Goes Farther Than Father


He Always Goes Farther Than Father
1921
Words and Music by Blanche Franklyn
Key: Eb Major
4/4

Looks like a kid scribbled on the front of this one.
I found this title interesting and in case you want to cry sexism, the song was written by a woman. Even odder is the fact that the 19th amendment was ratified one year before this song was published. So, women got the right to vote and Blanche Franklyn immediately pens a novelty comic song about a father and son who compete at seducing women. I like Blanche's spirit. We would've gotten along well because she followed her instincts and wrote the song that occurred to her and didn't dismiss her muse even if it was sexist. This is the life of an artist.

It's noteworthy that about 50% of women, like men, immediately declined the opportunity to vote. Of course the deep south states all opposed women voting rights, integrated schools, civil rights, etc. Mississippi, for example, ratified the 19th amendment in 1984, 64 years after the country had technically given women the right to vote. This poisonous State makes ISIS look progressive. It's living proof that all the benefits to be won from exploitation of slave labor will eventually be lost ten times over until your culture is actually more stunted than if you'd never left the year 1780. If you want to know what the punishment is for embracing slavery then go visit Mississippi. They've regressed to a kind of suspended larval state where education has become the enemy.

Not much info available about Blanche. She was a vaudeville singer/writer worked through the war years. Her song requires a steady tempo and also a top hat and a spinet piano on a stage on a Bowery vaudeville theater. I don't have these things at my disposal so I did the best I could do.

Hat Considering another Patch

A cotton hat with a hook and loop adjustment back may be getting a new look. Despite the objections of his parents and the likelihood of having authority figures looking down their nose at him, the hat wants another embroidered patch.
A growing trend? 65% of hats get embroidery decorations

Referring to the embroidered patch in the center of his head, "I figure once I have one [patch] and I know it doesn't hurt too bad, then I'll get another. I really want a unicorn."
Hat: "I think it looks good. I want another stitch."
"Every hat gets 'stitched'," said the hat, using the slang word for embroidery. "I wouldn't want my sister to get stitched, but that's her decision to make."
The hat's sister is a handbag.

"Do I care what others think? No. It's my choice. I think it looks good."

Friday, March 27, 2015

Wolf Quest: Part VII - Short Fuse

Beards are popular in the future

So, the last chapter ended with my learning the van had a dead battery near the Manicougan Reservoir in North Eastern Quebec. And upon further investigation, the battery wasn't simply dead, as in discharged, I opened the caps and realized I'd neglected to refill them in my preparations in New England. The electrolyte level was low. Furthermore, because the level was low I could visibly see inside the battery and could tell a battery cell wall had broken. It looked like a row of dominoes tumbling in one direction but not all of them had fallen over. So the battery was finished. If this had happened on the Alaskan Highway I could expect someone to come along to help me, but on 389 N in Quebec there's hardly any traffic. The road itself is not very dangerous, not remotely as dangerous as the roads in Guatemala, but the distance was so far, like traveling from Boston to Miami on a dirt road, and gas cost around $7 a gallon so I didn't see much traffic.


Thursday, March 26, 2015

Street Scenes

extrajudicial electrical use
 There's talk of nationalizing Guatemala's electrical infrastructure, which would definitely lead to a seizure of foreign assets such as clothing factories* and fruit plantations. I admit I support these developments but I would advise caution with the electrical services because it takes some training to keep that running. Something like 1/3 of utilities users pay for the other 2/3 who simply patch into the electrical grid, bypassing meters. Well, that would be an improvement, actually, in the eyes of the utilities folks because what's really happening is 1/3 are getting billed for the other 2/3 and of the 1/3 about 1/8 of those billed actually pay their full bill. So the math gets a little complicated because the common denominator is something like 24. Only around 1/24th of electricity usage is covered by customer payments. This leads to a totally intentional blackouts caused by the utility as a kind of ransom to get their payment, which is a 'blood from stone' situation. And that leads to street demonstrations. One departamento (state) declared an emergency because they had no power for a year.

As with all revolutions there can't be success without a thorough infiltration of the military, and with some training to actually run the utilities without an Atlas Shrugged scenario arising where electrical engineers have to be kidnapped and enslaved to keep the hydro-electric and coal plants working. That would be utterly distasteful to Oggy. The concept of seizure of the infrastructure isn't at all distasteful although the hell that would be unleashed by 'Noble Peace Prize winner' ObombanotherCountry would surely be horrific. These companies made investments in the wrong country. Caveat Emptor. I'd apply that to Cuba also, the fruit company asset seizure is absolutely no different than Bank of America seizing all the twisted loans offered by Lehman bros. People lost their houses...and BofA took them. Well in 1959 Che Guevara and Fidel Castro did basically the same thing and seized property that was tenuously built on the impoverished lifestyles of Cubans. Who is to blame? I guess it gets political at that point.

Oggy's taco fix
The south side of the central park becomes a late night market. I get goat tacos and french fries.

*I recently bought a factory second t-shirt at a big used clothing store down here. Oddly, the shirt was manufactured in Guatemala and is a Lucky Brand shirt I know costs $40 in Los Angeles and it's worth exactly $1.30 here in the origin. It's like flying to United Arab Emirates to buy a hair scrunchie destined for Hot Topic at the local mall in St. Louis. Of course the shirt was too big and I had to take it to a tailor, who took in the sides for another $1. I hunted for a palm frond hat in Quiche but those workshops must be hidden well. I know they export fine palm hats to the United States but I learned two things: 1) No one wears palm hats in Quiche. 2) No one sells palm hats in Quiche. In fact, the Panama palm hats they offer in the bigger cities are often listed as being made in Ecuador. This is insane to me since Guatemala has the finest palm hats anywhere...but Guatemalans buy Ecuadorian palm hats and ship their own palm hats so Americans can wear Guatemalan palm hats. I gave up.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

My Microsoft Help Paperclip Is Being Creepy

I turn him off but he keeps coming back!

Doesn't he know I'm trying to write a great novel. Fucking paper clip mocking me right in front of my face? What the fuck. I'm trying to write and I'm making progress and this fucking paper clip keeps popping up and it makes fun of me and jeers me. That gives me a good idea for a writing app....as you are typing you can set the paper clip to mock and jeer you or encourage you with comments that are customized for that genre. Like if you are writing a crime mystery then the paper clip could appear and it could say, "ISN'T TIME FOR A GUN TO APPEAR?". and down in the corner a thought bubble could appear over a sleeping paper clip "This is pretty boring. Write like you're in a dream, man. No one wants to hear about a song on a radio."

But in my case the paper clips mock me and encourage me but they're being facetious and untrustworthy. They are being inauthentic. I don't trust them. These fucking paper clips think they are so important? They pop up and mock me with their insolent sneering eyes. It really galls me. Irks and annoys me.

I'm having a contest for someone to illustrate a funny picture to put on my button. the winner gets to share in the riches that are generated from the sale of this button...
I Love You Button
I Love You Button by Wearable_Oggy
Look at other Humor Buttons at zazzle.com
.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Screenshot Trivia #5

Someone recommended this movie to me a while back because my van reminded them of an important part of the story. I admit there's some similarities. I liked this movie because at the very moment when something was going to happen it was usually what I least expected. All the developments were kind of original but they came at the traditional moment in the story. And the dialogue was interestingly odd.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

When The Organ Played at Twilight

When The Organ Played at Twilight
1929

Lyrics by:
Raymond Wallace

Music By:
Jimmy Campbell
Reg Connolly

Key: G Major
3/4



I was attracted to this piece of sheet music because it would force me to do a little research on Guy Lombardo and his orchestra. But the melody and uniformity of this piece please me. The melody is not only in my G major wheelhouse of destruction but the leaps of an octave are where I can navigate them like a billy goat heading home.


Santa Rosa Rose

Santa Rosa Rose
1918
Words by Jeff Branan
Music Lyons & Yosco
Key: Bb Major
4/4



I may or may not simply record all the songs in order. As long as there is a moderate chance of me playing it at a good tempo then It's possible to record the entire dusty music box.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Wolf Quest: Part VI

I left something out of the explanation for my time traveler-themed wolf quest. Because the future is so apocalyptic and immersed in chaos (although they are paradoxically still able to build a time machine) that all the research that this future janitor did on the year 2011, the year he was being sent back to, was so mixed up with the truth...this janitor thought that fashions of 2011 were identical to fashion of 1970...so this would explain why Oggy is wearing plaid bell bottom pants and a peasant shirt and a paisley cravat.


Paisley Cravat and pinstripe pants, your average fashion for 2011 Ellesmere Island
But, I just want to mention that now in case I forget later on...the entire time I was on this quest my plan was to stay in 1970s costume and if anyone asked me why I'm wearing plaid bell bottom pants I would say that I'd been sent back in time to search for the wolf, and I thought this is what people were wearing because research material in the future is totally garbled due to the climate apocalypse. That's also why I'm driving a 1969 van, because I was trying to fit in.

Friday, March 20, 2015

At The Mississippi Cabaret

Dedicated to the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System

At The Mississippi Cabaret
1914
Words by A. Seymour Brown
Music by: Albert Gumble
Key: C Major
2/4

This is one song from way back. 101 years old. And this is on newsprint paper so it's fragile and the pages separated. The sheet music itself is 100 years old. It's a small miracle that it survived the 3 years in my van, once it got rained on when a window leaked, I almost used it to start a fire in the wood stove. But I'm glad I didn't because this particular cabaret/ragtime tune is something that I am tested to play. The Once in A While, Daybreak, Stardust, Some Enchanted Evening, Deep Purple style is very easy to slow down to my skill level and then take liberties with the tempo. But this kind of basic cabaret tune is what separates the players from Oggy because if I slow it down to a speed I can sort of play it at then it loses all the uptempo spirit, and the tempo must be consistent because the song depends on swinging your hips and tapping your toes and if you are tapping and I'm not playing the whole mood is broken. It's even worse if I play it as slow as a Death March. But this is a work in progress and I'm not going to wait 10 years so I can really devote myself to sight reading and then record this. I shudder to think that I'm at my peak on the piano...and it only gets worse from here. That would suck. As you can see, I'm getting old and thought the lyrics were, "You'll see them dancing with banjos rising. You'll see them prancing and hear them dancing."
Well, Rising and Dancing don't really rhyme and I thought A. Seymour Brown dropped the ball on that one. Then I looked closer and realized the word is Ringing, which makes way more sense. My eyesight is still pretty good considering how much porn I've watched on the internet.

I think this style is familiar from the movie Cabaret and the ragtime, two-step feel, but I honestly don't think this was a popular style in 1914. No, I think this is a nostalgic tune. The Mississippi River is the western border of Tennessee, in case you are wondering. Memphis, Tenn is in the tri-state corner of Tennessee, Mississippi and, since these states love double consonants, Arrkannsass. But I could be wrong because one article suggests American Cabaret can be traced to 1911. That was a long time from now but only 3 years from when this song was published. So, this sounds like a novelty tune today but it was taken seriously in 1914. All my babbling about this being nostalgic for 1880 is totally wrong. Gilbert & Sullivan were producing musical comedies in 1880. This song is simply in the style of Ragtime, which was popular in 1914, with Cabaret as a subject, which was also popular in 1914.


Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Wolf Quest Part V: Surviving

I recently watched the economic meltdown documentary Inside Job (2010)...and my initial reaction is of course horror and loathing hate for "Financial Engineers", but I can not come to the same conclusions as the filmmakers. The financial institution should not be regulated, in my opinion. Caveat Emptor is Latin for "BUYER BEWARE" and that should be on every dollar. The greatest irony that the filmmakers did not point out is that the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement system who lost their entire investment by betting on the bubble of Collaterized Debt Obligation...well, Mississippi is a Republican dominated state who voted for the king of deregulation Reagan and the bumbling Bush Twins. So, the diseased chickens came home to roost when the Republican led financial institution started to feed on their own. See, how can I have sympathy for someone who didn't recognize Reagan as an utter phony, voted for him, watched as he deregulated Wall Street, RE-ELECTED THE FASCIST SON OF A BITCH, then invested in all the super shady manufactured fantasies that Reagan and Bush constructed to enrich their friends? I can not have sympathy for someone who tried to increase their wealth through the most crooked means, on the advice of wealthy people they elected and re-elected, who then stabbed them in the back. CAVEAT EMPTOR, motherfuckers. Until people are starving in the street, clubbed to death by police batons while national guard eats apple pie in bleachers set up to allow easy viewing of the slaughter of civilians then there will be no change. Mississippi Public Employees want to get clever and invest in solar radiation growing magic mushrooms on Mars? Fuck them. They got what they deserve. The bottom line is: There are no 'healthy options' on a fast food menu.


Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Plan B

Lester Brown is the Earth Policy Institute president and he's written many books that appeal to rationality and science, which have been ignored by Democrats and contradicted by Republicans. But the Plan B series of books make good reading and it's part of my research for the Santa Cruz book to include as many details about the declining condition of the Environment and people's ignorant self-destruction. Oggy's character is totally obsessed with the science of reform but he's unable to plot out a path to resolution. All the scenarios end up in war and apocalypse so he spends his day compulsively running through virtual models of civilization with different variables...

Well, the main problem with Brown's 'Plan' is that in 270 pages he does not specifically mention world peace as a requirement for success, but the omission of any kind of conflict from his Plan sort of implies that in order for this Plan to proceed then Russia CAN NOT drop nuclear bombs on the Ukraine. I mean that if we are still at the nuclear war stage, then reforestation projects and 'eating lower on the food chain' are so fucking far gone and not remotely within the reach of humanity that it's fantasy to mention them. So, World Peace, literally a Utopian human species that loves and respects one another and never fights on a national level, IS REQUIRED before any kind of progress can be made on the level of Carbon Dioxide, Methane, renewable energy sources, switchgrass ethanol powering generators for electric bike motors, etc, etc. all of this is predicated on the assumption that Mankind initially ceases all warfare or military commitments. How is that going to happen?
This is my "I'm pretty sure we're fucked" expression.

And I'm not really exaggerating because this is 270 pages that tries to cover ever minor angle to the environmental crisis on the horizon. The book was published in 2009 (It took 4 years for me to read it) but he's writing about the year 2020 as a goal to reduce CO2 omission by 80%. Brown and his staff present the evidence that this isn't a "lofty moral goal" but rather a "scientific requirement to avoid extinction". That's an important distinction. These might be goals Brown would champion even if mankind were NOT in danger of self-extinction, but it happens that the evidence suggest extinction is exactly what is at stake if these goals are not met. It's not like we'll get fined a couple hundred dollars. No. More like millions will die in the streets from starvation, Tennessee will be oceanfront property, the rich will attempt to enslave millions but every human will die by the year 2060 if we do not radically transform our relationship to The Earth. That's why it's called "Earth Policy Institute". Brown says, "First we need to decide what needs to be done. Then we do it. And then we ask if it's possible." These are inspiring words. I must be an asshole if I think Nuclear Annihilation is much more realistic than World Peace.

A prerequisite of this plan is World Peace. See, a world united in pursuit of a stable climate can not also be a world at war. These are incompatible. They are mutually exclusive. The reckless approach to The Earth of the last 2 centuries is because of the frequent wars. More warfare will mean more exploitation, not less. If we have world war, then not only do we probably have massive resource exploitation in pursuit of victory, but we have the opposite of global cooperation to stabilize the climate. We have division and willful violence and eating lower on the food chain* will again return to the lowest end of human priorities. You can probably see where I'm going with this if you read the news. There is absolutely no evidence even on a local level that people are going to cooperate. Humanity is far from prioritizing their dinner's place on the food chain and are actually at the level of insulting people they are obese or blind or have a wasting disease. So, in one or two million years mankind has evolved to the place where we can insult one another with reasonable ease, and in the next 40 years we have to evolve into Spock or Gandhi...AND the entire global economy must be transformed according to a feasible plan Brown has written out...including sending 1/4 of the current global military budget to failing states. That's all. Do that and we'll be fine. Otherwise we all die.

It's feasible, but implausible because humanity is not going to unite in world peace within the next 40 years, nor are they going to agree on 'mobilizing to save civilization' when basic respect of neighbors does not even exist. So, the science suggests that mankind will die off in the process of making miniscule efforts toward sustainability but the majority of humanity was consumed by loathing and wanton destruction. There will definitely be a few months where "everyone takes this seriously" but those will be quickly followed by years when "we all know we're fucked" and anarchy reigns.

Plan A is suicidal, but Plan B requires a transformation that will only happen if Jesus Christ returns from the dead, settles all religious debates on globally broadcast television, in which he fluently speaks about 130 languages...and then decrees that Mankind follow every word Lester Brown wrote...all while levitating in mid air...and healing the sick with a gesture. If that happens then maybe Brown's Plan will be followed. We literally need the one true Messiah/Prophet to return or we're all fucked. It's Semana Santa this month so maybe this is the year. Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray for His return.

*This is a reference to the 7 Kg of grain required to make 1 Kg of beef protein, but 3 Kg for pork and 2 Kg of grain required for chicken and less for fish...and an almost equal ratio if we simply eat the fucking soybeans that we feed the cows, who we then slaughter and eat like barbarians.


 Woody Guthrie talks while Sonny Terry demonstrates the classic Whopin' the Blues harmonica style and I think Brownie McGhee is strumming guitar. This was back when musicians were genuine. I have to learn how to do this before the world ends.





Van Love

The old back support and the new Seat.

I had this particular project in mind actually since I bought the van in 2008. But one thing was always getting in my way and I was slowly becoming helpless to resist the "Ethic of The Van" and the whole mindset of a hobo on wheels, loathed, gnashing his teeth at pedestrians, getting handcuffed with his shirt off, beer belly flapping in the wind, dirty underpants waistband slightly askew and folded wrong, folded so the elastic turns like when you see an old woman's panties showing and can see the tag, heartbreaking, old faded tattoos on his neck, his bead necklace (Something his girlfriend made for him in Mexico) getting broken by police scuffles. So fucking funny, but the seats were leading me in that direction, washing butt crack in Subway water fountains, shitting in newspaper.

The whole "Van Life" was digesting simple Oggy and turning him into something like a monster. Remember in Pirates of The Caribbean II, and III? How Davey Jones's ship had a crew of sailors who had pledged 100 years before the sail, on Davey Jones's ship The Flying Dutchman...instead of death...but over time, like Bootblack Bill, they became part of the Ship. "Part of the crew, part of the ship," was the mantra they were chanting at the very end of III when they made Will the captain...remember? Or Am I just babbling? My fucking point is that I was becoming part of the Van. See, it was dictating my habits and my appearance rather than the other way around. It's like I'd become the reincarnation of the original owners and they were possessing me. I guess that's what the movie Christine was like, except my concept is more like when I drive the van I experience life as the previous owners...that would be an interesting time machine movie...the van is so old that every time I drive it I relieve the exact memories of some previous owner and little by little a story is told...and that means someone in the future will relive my memories...god help them. It's like this van is the hotel in The Shining and eventually I will go crazy and be absorbed into the fabric of the van and someone will later own it and be remodeling and think they see a human face embedded in the dashboard, but then it will fade and they will think it was just the way the light was hitting the windshield and reflecting someone's face outside, though there is no one outside. That face will be mine, fading into the dashboard.



This back support was the original pleather from 1969 so I had to keep it. But the new bottom looks good.


So I'm taking control back and making changes to the appearance of the van rather than the other way around. I'm not possessed by the demon spirit controlling my van. No!


Took the awful dashboard off. New doghouse cover.
 I don't think I'll put the old dashboard on. I know I could get it recovered and figure out how to put the 5 nuts back on holding it in place and it would look good. But it looks good now. The dashboard added nothing.
Simple metal lines with no foam dashboard
IT feels good to get a different look. The van's ignition problems have been mitigated too, so I think the best thing to do is go further south, to keep searching for some utopia where they don't imprison people wrongly and politicians are honest and lawyers tell the truth and never speculate on anything...I'll keep driving with my piano and guitars and new upholstery. El Conquistador rides again!

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Wolf Quest Part IV

 I haven't been writing my Wolf Quest story and it's fading into my senile mental folder so I'm going to try again.

When I left you last I was leaving the West Coast...and I posted an ad trying to trade everything I owned in the van, thus abandoning the van, for a functioning motorcycle. I even tried to steal the motorcycle my buddy Jon had in The Bay Area but it had many troubles and it wouldn't even make it over the Sierras let alone go all the way to Baffin Island.
Composing The Wolf Polka

Fortunately, no one offered me anything for my van. All my tools. All my shit was included in the deal and no one wanted to take the plunge. So that forced me to do some hard thinking because economically I could not get from San Francisco to Labrador paying all the gas when it costs something like $2 to drive a mile and there were approximately 6000 miles between me and Labrador so that would be $12,000 in fuel alone not including food and wolf related propaganda. All van maintenance had to be postponed. This was really desperate because gas cost around $4.00 at this time and the van was getting about 6MPG. So you do the math. I tried to get rid of the van, I really did, but it was impossible. Like renting a washed up Haitian Hooker. So all I could do is drive East and hope for the best.


Saturday, March 14, 2015

Glasses

ROY BAN

It's a slow news day for Oggy as he's again fine-tuning his van and waiting for the new upholstery to be put on after 45 years of abusing the seats and engine cover and trying to figure out a solution for the exhaust which keeps shifting. He's going back to the gym because his spine is damaged. And he had a pair of sunglasses from a dead friend in Missouri, died perhaps of cardiac failure during a heroin binge, and Oggy ended up with this friend's sunglasses...and the sunglasses get stolen at the Guatemalan Gym, which is another tired story. So Oggy replaces the glasses with some totally phony Roy Ban glasses...although the quality is really not too bad on these fake glasses and the whole time Oggy thought the lenses were plastic, because how could you sell real glass lenses for $4. But he's doing some back exercises on this sort of platform and he's learned not to leave anything anywhere in the gym so he's got the glasses tucked into his wife beater tank top, and of course the things fly off in a slightly enthusiastic thrust of the back and land perfectly so the lens shatters on the tile...maybe it's glass or some kind of pyrex but it wasn't horrible material and it shattered...
Chinga mera verga del la gran puta!

'Giorentt' replacements for the Roy Ban replacements. plastic crap


Really having horrible luck with sunglasses at this gym.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

My Troubles Are Over

Finally, I get a break! I knew that my Uncle Dr. Shiva was rich, but I didn't know I was his next of kin. I'm so relieved. I don't know how they got my skype account but I got this message today:


[2:15:11 PM] *** victorowusuboakye would like to add you on Skype

Enter a message to introduce yourself.

Hello my friend,

My name is Mr.Victor Owusu Boakye,I work in the audit and accounting department of
Agricultural Development Bank Ghana  (A.D.B) as a group head treasury department,Ghana.


It is my wish to solicit your assistance in a business opportunity that will be of great
benefit for you and i, I want to present you as the next of kin to our late.foreign customer
Dr.Shiva, a citizen of your country who was among the death victims in the  January 12 2010
Earthquake disaster in Haiti,that killed over 200,000 people.

I wish to know if we can work together to stand you as the Next of Kin to a Fixed Deposit of
$10.5 Million US dollars, which Dr.Shiva made to our Bank before his death. I assure you
we can achieve it successfully if you can follow my instruction and direction. In your reply,
please send the.

following information as underlined below:

1. Your full names:
2. Your phone number;
3. Your nationality;
4. Your Age/Sex;
5. Your occupation;
6.scan passport,

Notwithstanding, this business must be confidential between you and me,no third party must
know anything about this transaction until the fund is transfer to any of your nominated bank
account in your country and as soon as these is done, i will proceed to meet with you in your
country for my own 50% share of the fund Please get back to me If you are interested.

Kindly send your informations to my private email; mrvictorowusuboakye4@outlook.com

I Remain respectfully yours,

Mr.Victor Owusu Boakye,
(Audit and accounting Manager)
Agricultural Development Bank (ADB)
E-Mail: (mrvictorowusuboakye4@outlook.com). ***

(If anyone wants to bombard Boakye's email account with gay porn emails that would be fine with me.)

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Once In A While

Once In A While
1937
Words by Bud Green
Music by Michael Edwards
Key Eb major
4/4 time
Exceptional song. I learned an interesting but unrelated detail when I watched the odd Reefer Madness-style movie: The Gene Krupa Story (1959). Tommy Dorsey, pictured on the cover of this song because he recorded it initially, was a trombonist band leader...and he actually had Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich in his band at one point or another...and Krupa and Rich are basically the two greatest Jazz Era drummers who would both lead their own bands. The Gene Krupa Story features a classic song performance "Memories of You" performed by Anita O'Day which is priceless. That movie is noteworthy because the recent Whiplash (2014) uses a drummer aspiring to be Krupa as a hero, but Krupa's own story does not contain a drill sergeant conductor. In fact, it's the opposite. Krupa was the drill sergeant. The Krupa movie is really dated but the performances perfectly depict Jazz band era life in real settings, including appearances by 'Tommy Dorsey' and a reefer addict peddling a quick way to 'get high' like marijuana in 1937 was any good.




So, pot was villainized but Liquor, which was far worse, was fully legal in 1937 and although Hitler was chancellor in Germany he had not yet invaded Poland and Czechoslovakia although his ethnic cleansing project was gaining momentum as a wave of hysteria collided with an age of paranoia and suspicion. I'm sure leaders of nations were sick with foreboding over what would happen in a year or two but at this point there was a slim chance of avoiding World War II. Speaking of world leaders, FDR was sworn in for his second of three terms as President. Trotsky tried to assassinate Stalin a while earlier and, while this is one scenario where two wrongs DO make a right, it's possible, though unlikely, Trotsky would've been even worse. Trotsky's assassination plot failed and he ended up living in Mexico in 1937.  This is the year shortly after Edward VIII abdicated the throne and George VI, the guy with the stutter, was crowned King. That set the stage for FDR, Churchill, Stalin and Hitler to control world events for the next 8 years. 
 


Mango Madness

Everything comes in plastic bags in Guatemala's effort to pollute the remaining 11% of rivers in the country.
Beside the affordable blonde transvestite hookers, the thing I love most about the tropics is bags of mango and papaya all pre-prepared by the refugees of Reagan's slaughter of Mayan farmers. It Worked, Ronnie! They are now completely traumatized, homeless, families torn apart, the economy is fucked by decades of corruption you funded. WAY TO GO! Now they all sell fruit on the sidewalk, shine shoes, wash cars and juggle at intersections. Perfectly exploitable. Oh, but the fruit is super cheap and the farmers were tortured by CIA death doctors for trying to organize a union. But the important thing is that bananas are affordable in the middle of fucking winter in Chicago and Toronto! VIVA CHE!

Funky

Funk is awesome. I might like it more than Motown. Love Marvin Gaye.

Only the lurid details of some modern phonies trying to resurrect the Marvin Gaye funk style brought this song to my attention. I don't like much modern music and Robin Thicke comes across as exceptionally phony...he oozes inauthenticity and the song "Blurred Lines" and the video were particularly loathsome. Too loathsome to provide a link. Yes, I dislike the song even though it's a clumsy attempt to steal almost everything from Gaye's vibe, yet I can not agree with the judgement that found Thicke had violated copyrights of Gayes. I hear the similarities, but the funk groove is not Gaye's to steal. See? Every funk song from 1973-1979 had this exact groove. The session musicians were slightly different but in the end they all have the same groove, like Blues has the same groove. Stevie Ray Vaughn didn't invent the blues, but he happened to use the same groove Chuck Berry used 30 years earlier. Well, this Blurred Lines tune liberally uses the groove Gaye and others created in 1974...but so what? The song itself is demonstrably different and the performers are so completely unimpressive and amateurish and loathsomely untalented that it's an insult to Gaye to think these modern assholes created something similar to him. Yes, it's close, but it's close to many songs and Gaye wasn't the creator of Funk so I couldn't award the Gaye family anything although it would please me to see Robin Thicke bankrupt and singing on the sidewalk for a few dollars in spare change, which is all he is worth, but that's my conclusion. However, the law is different than my opinion and a substantial similarity equals a substantial copyright infringement. So that's it. The repulsive Thicke must pay back $4 million worth of his hair products.


So I'm listening to my vintage Fun Boy Three & Bananarama album and I while we're on the topic of copyright infringement go ahead and listen to these two songs back to back...

It Ain't What you Do (1982)

Macarena (1994)

Which are both rip offs of a jazz tune 'Tain't What You Do from back in 1937. The Bananarama tune was admittedly a cover version...

So, do the original 1937 writers deserve royalties from a huge hit Macarena...which was a theft of a song from 12 years earlier? I would submit that, NO, the songs are individual and are both in the swing genre and no one person invented Swing, so a usage of a particular repetitive melody does not mean that Los Del Rio have infringed on either Bananarama nor on Melvin Oliver & James Young. Sorry, there are similarities to many songs of a particular genre, Swing or Blues or Funk or Rock...and that's life. As long as an artist brings his own originality to the song then it's original. I love Marvin Gaye's music but I could find songs he used as inspiration and never credited if I hunted hard enough and if someone wants to do the same thing to him then that's entertainment.

I recently watched the horrible movie Unbroken. Really trite and generic WWII 'Americans are Indomitable' flick. Well, the director Angelina Jolie seems to be liberally borrowing tired directing techniques from Clint Eastwood as well as a running scene that was absolutely identical to one in Forrest Gump, directed by Robert Zemeckis. I mean, it was identical where the hero is running directly at the camera and triumphantly finds his inner strength in slow motion as the music swells. Identical shots, identical framing, identical theme, identical arc. Even the running looked identical. Is that copyright infringement? Rocky II, directed by Stallone has identical sequences from Rocky I. Stallone wrote the original too, but he blatantly stole camera techniques and whole sequences frame for frame from director John Avildsen.
Listen to Chubby Checkers' Lazy Elsie Molly (1964) and you will hear identical notes to If You Want to Be Happy (1963/1934).

This same topic came up with a song Sam Smith 'infringing' on Tom Petty with the song "Stay With Me"...which had some similarities to "Won't Back Down"...which was produced by Jeff Lynne from Electric Light Orchestra...AND EVERY TOM PETTY and George Harrison SONG SOUNDS LIKE AN ELO SONG! So is Sam Smith stealing from Jeff Lynne, who is stealing from himself, who was stealing from Badfinger, which was produced by The Beatles...who stole from Motown...who stole from Joe Burke and Hoagy Carmichael...who stole from Stephen Foster...who stole from Mozart???

It goes on and on and I feel an artist has an obligation to be original, and failing that to at least find inspiration and material from good artists...and failing that he should not be an artist...but if the attempt at originality is there then we should not split hairs and study songs to the point that we can find similarities to share royalties.

And phony Pharrell offers this lame defense, "The verdict handicaps any creator out there who is making something that might be inspired by something else,"
He's young, but I don't like it when people pretend I'm stupid. Pharrell seems to need some refresher course in "shared copyright". All he has to do is put down "Marvin Gaye" as cowriter...and share royalties. Call Gaye's lawyers before releasing the song and work out a deal. It's no big hassle. A whole Generation of Northern Soul artists managed to avoid lawsuits by simply being original. If your inspiration is heavily borrowed from a specific song then you do have a duty to admit it and share profits. Or if that bothers you, then don't release it. Or release it for free. But don't be an idiot and expect me to believe artists are going to stop being influenced completely. They merely need to be adults and share copyright. This is amusing because that Thicke dude is listed as a cowriter, but he says he had nothing to do with writing it. And Marvin Gaye, who had a lot to do with writing it, isn't listed as a cowriter. Why the fuck is Thicke a cowriter? Because he gets writing royalties, that's why. So what's the big deal about adding Marvin Gaye as cowriter, beside it being a total insult that an irritating song was created out of the murdered soul of his excellent original? 

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Tramites Visa Extension In Guatemala

EXTENDING YOUR PASSPORT VISA


Here's a more professional description of this process if you prefer no vulgar words and less dramatizing of the steps.

Tramites is the general word for official paperwork so this will be a fictionalized account of my paperwork trials in Guatemala. Basically, Guatemala provides 3 months/90 days from when you enter at the border.  I pleaded with the official lady at El Carmen that I needed at least 4 years to complete my business but she was unmoved and said I could renew it if I returned to the border in 3 months. Well, time flies when you're practicing piano and learning Spanish and it came time to renew my visa and I'm trying not to procrastinate like I usually do and allow circumstances to determine my life rather than me actually determining my life. For instance, when I first tried to drive to Guatemala in 1991 I was rejected at the Mexican border because I lacked the Mexican vehicle permit and insurance...and everything, but all paperwork I could obtain for maybe $300. I was young and didn't really care so I turned around and went to California. Think about being so frivolous and aimless that you are trying to drive to Guatemala and then instead drive to San Francisco, CA based on the whim of a Mexican border official. And you don't really care either way. That's me in 1991. Well, fast forward to 2015 and just because my paperwork is about to expire does not necessarily mean I have to leave. In 1991 I'd just say, fuck it, and leave. or maybe overstay and suffer the consequences of smuggling myself out of the country. Crazy things like once I had to trek for miles around the Canadian/Alaskan border checkpoint in order to avoid the detection of a knife I was carrying that was as long as my arm...and an axe, and I generally distrusted officials and felt they could go fuck themselves since this land was made for you and me, etc... and I would carry everything I own for two days in some ridiculous and hazardous and illegal trek through 5ft of snow in late winter into the Yukon territory, on snowshoes, with a detached Achilles tendon, nearly drowning and dying and eating snow and pine needle soup to avoid detection. Insane. Well, today I loathe officialdom but they have broken my spirit somewhat and I now see the paperwork nightmare as a challenge, that I can both outsmart them and play by their rules and in the end I get what I want so fuck them.

Antigua, Guatemala

Hard to take a bad picture in Antigua
I hate to inundate the internet with more pictures of places but Antigua probably has so many that it doesn't matter anymore. I use the word "Antigua" when I describe my van. I think it means "Ancient" or "Antiquated" something like that. So when my antiquated van is in a Spanish colonial city named "Ancient" it's a weird confluence. The volcano's name is "Agua". This town in Guatemala is not to be confused with the Caribbean Island of the same name.

It's Semana Santa month in Latin America, where the true Catholics live. And Antigua has arguably the largest Semana Santa processions in the world in which the entire town actually reenacts the last days of Jesus Christ. Except for my greying beard I sort of look like Jesus now so I had to get out of town before I ended up on a cross. I have a hard enough time keeping the van running without hundreds of Guatemalans dressed as Roman centurions chasing me with spears.
This dog got locked outside above my camping spot while the maid cleaned the house.

Antigua has a lot to offer but I felt the number of drunk Americans smoking pot and requesting Bob Marley during my song set were too many. You come all the way from Portland to smoke pot and drink beer in Antigua?> And wear hippie clothes? Like you can't do that in Ashland? You know Lassen is a volcano too?



Oggy's van spoils an otherwise good picture


I guess I'm bitter and despondent. I read some book by a NY writer that was real tired and dull, lots of complaining and anecdotes about constipation and failed love affairs and his heart breaking over swear words written on subway walls. I forget the author and I don't care. He wrote like three books plus this compilation of his "columns". what a phony motherfucker. I liked his writing when it was called Catcher In The Rye. I like to think I don't beat that dead horse too much but it doesn't matter. A guy can write about his depressed worldview and I guess it will fill some space on a page and maybe sell a few leather jackets. The only good thing was a random reference to a Thomas Mann work called Tonio Kroger, which I thought was a long lost book I'd been looking for since 1991 that I knew was by a German author and had a title like Young Kroger but now I'm not sure.



I had to take a picture because I was fixing my van the entire time I was in Antigua
I should be real proud as I showed up at a bar that was nearly empty and a man was singing and saw my guitar so he handed the mic to me and I played some tunes, including the Terlingua Waltz in a world premier...some Ernest Tubb tunes...Lefty...Willie...Blue Moon of Kentucky...and Neon Moon by Brooks and Dunn. All the HonkyTonk tunes and the favorites from my inner hillbilly. And it was tolerable, at least smoking is prohibited inside in Antigua. But the next night was filled with I think some kind of volunteer health professionals-in-training all screaming for Bob Marley and I pretty much vomited in my mouth and pined for the old age home in Uvalde where everyone had artificial hips but authentic personalities while the stoner set in Antigua had artificial personalities and perfect bones. I'm no pop star if playing Buddy Holly tunes is construed as a political statement. FUck it. I walked back to the park and played alone on a bench with the stray dogs as an audience. Give me an old age home with people who know Duke Ellington and Bob Wills.

I don't know why Google automatically edited this photo an then emailed it to me. That's sort of creepy but whatever they did it looks good.

Monday, March 9, 2015

Terlingua Waltz


This is the price of the Cowboy life. Writing songs about memories in dusty towns where laughter from bars reminds you of roads diverged in the wood. Terlingua Waltz is dedicated to someone who will probably never hear it. To borrow a line from the Gary White tune: 



Caught in my fears
Blinking back the tears
I can't say you hurt me when you never let me near

I wrote it with Ernest Tubb as my wingman and Lefty Frizzell as my spiritual guide, thus the lighting is as dark as a honky-tonk bathroom stall on Ladies Night. New Hampshire didn't make any Western troubadours but I'm trying my damnedest to change that record by leaving bits of my heart scattered through the desert. Call me the "Singing Econoliner" I can't find the strength to type out the lyrics to this.


Terlingua Waltz
By Oggy Bleacher

Waltz in A

      A                                    E               A
The Mines are all empty in Terlingua Town
          D
They filled in the shafts
                                      A
And they tore the store down
              D                                                             A
You can go if you want, but there ain’t nothing there

A                                      E               A
Except for the girl with Gold in her hair.

A7               D
Gold in her hair
                   A
Gold in her hair
A                                    E                A
Except for the girl with gold in her hair

They came for the silver and left covered in dust
They bought and sold dreams before they went bust
A tired provocation of an often lost dare
To Dance with the girl with Gold in her hair

Gold in her hair
Gold in her hair
To Dance with the girl with gold in her hair

The Chihuahuan desert seems lonely at night
The coyote’s call and the stars shining bright
But nothing compares to the self-assured stare
Of the beautiful girl, with gold in her hair

Gold in her hair
Gold in her hair
The beautiful Girl with Gold in her hair

If you see her, tell her hello from me
‘cause I miss her more than the flowers miss the bee
I miss her so much that I’m near to despair
I miss the girl with Gold in her hair

Gold in her hair
Gold in her hair
I miss the Girl with Gold in her hair.

The Mines are all empty in Terlingua Town
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.