1985: I Survived

Yes, this is what I wore

I had a chance to revisit my illustrious/colorful past and found these inexplicable photo. Puberty does awful things to a man's mind and I was no exception as the mixture of Chess King fashion, Miami Vice popularity, a pretty staff girl at the racquetball court named Darcy Devins, and a jock mentality saw me romping with beach bunnies in Florida solely on the magnetic strength of my white suspenders and dinner jacket and striped shorts. Personality, conversation, job skills...all of these were ignored in favor of 'the exact right cologne' and 'big hair'.

There was a sad stretch of time when I was very interested in fashion of the day. Now I have come to terms with my personality and the fashion that it favors but back then in 1985...30 years ago...I was a slave to Guess ads and John Hughes movies, Swatch watches...Wham! etc. Although these clothes certainly had character, I feel they have the wrong character for me now and then. In High School we wear the clothes and lust after the girls that we are supposed to lust after. As we grow older we find our own tastes. It's very possible that I was wearing white elastic suspenders under neath that dinner jacket to hold up my shorts! Why?

I owned matching white canvas shoes and wore them with no socks because I was wicked cool.

No drugs were involved in this photo, but some trees were harmed. Maybe 1986, when men's spiked hair was normal.

'85 or '86. My pre-porn career in white short shorts and white Red Sox pullover polo shirt. I still wear this ensemble from time to time.

home made sweater with a young Oggy

Hairy Ape Flies in Tube at 35,000 ft.

When is traveling at 450 mph high above an ocean a good idea?

Oggy is a land mammal but sometimes he fools himself that he can fly. I recently returned to Costa Rica from a tour of the land of ice and snow. I'm glad I'm back and am going to the beach in Nicaragua to drink mojitos and swim in dangerous rip tides for a month to recover the feeling in my fingers. It's no good living that far north. For me, the ideal latitude is between 0 degrees and 20 degrees. 23.000 is the tropic of Cancer. God help you if you live north of 25 degrees. But 40 degrees and further north is simply insane. I've been to 66 degrees north, which is the Arctic Circle, and I didn't like it one bit. No, sir. I saw the northern lights in February and at -35 F my breath crackled into ice as it left my mouth. A deep breath brought tears to my eyes, which instantly froze my lashes shut. So, watching the northern lights is costly.

who is that elderly hippie?

I hope this starts a new chapter of creativity and invention in the tropics. I should be able to control those forces by now but I'm helpless, fearful, scorned and distraught. 

moe still packs a punch

I've been missing my steroid injections since I was gone but I managed to smuggle some back along with the ignition points and some black market spark plugs so I should be able to get my priorities in order. I also brought back some bikini brief swimwear that I had to order from a blatantly gay website. Like, only homosexual men are allowed to wear spandex bikini swimsuits?

finally, a denomination I can support.

Seems discriminatory, and wrong, and I decided wearing the same board shorts as a 19 year old crack dealer, when I am almost 50 years old, was also wrong. So, I bought spandex swimsuits that rides tight up my ass and stretches around my junk. Bungie smugglers, they are called in Australia. I don't know if I will take pictures of this obscene sight, but I also have a guitar you'll be interested in hearing.

This was custom made for the acoustics of the van

All in good time.

Boot Bling

Boot Straps

These serve no purpose, but I think they could be adapted to be used with spurs, which my spine will not allow me to do. Boot straps are the most frivolous of leather crafts but they are also the craft that is a good one to practice on because it really doesn't matter what they look like. Quality hand tooled leather boot straps are around $125, but the material is around $2. There are some super luxury boot straps out there, leather lined, fancy, but these are basic variety with Star Conchos and some generic stamps. It's all to go with my newly tailored Spanish American suede pants.

It's been a productive period of time in Costa Rica, nothing miraculous happened, urban living in Central America is thoroughly marred by car alarms set to go off when any vibration passes near the vehicle such as a motorcycle with no muffler, or an earth quake, or other car alarms going off. ALl day and night car alarms are going off because of nearby vibration and no one cares. I feel like making fliers in Spanish explaining that on the car alarm there is a small dial that changes the sensitivity level of the vibration. Setting it at the lowest sensitivity means it will go off only in the event someone actually runs into your vehicle with another car. The highest sensitivity will cause it to go off if a dog takes a shit nearby, and this is the level Costa Ricans like to set it at. That way they know their vehicle is nearby because the alarm is going off every ten minutes. GOOD PLAN! I won't miss this neighborhood.

I also finished the leather dashboard but I need Chicago screws to install it and those are impossible to find here. There's no big hurry on any of this. New adventures await, and I will meet them in suede pants that fit me.

I Don't Want to Set The World on Fire

I guess if you play guitar long enough you will encounter tunes by the Ink Spots, a WWII era quartet with Huey Long on the guitar and some vocals to make you smoke a cigar.

They play this song in the key of F Major, which might work for those Texas tenor voices but old Oggy must lower it to A Major. A capo on the 4th fret would make this easier since I learned all the chords in F, but I guess it doesn't matter. The lesson here is quality song crafting, each phrase is a question that is answered by the next phrase:

"I don't want to set the world on fire....I just want to start a flame in your heart.
In my heart there is but one desire, and that one is you, no other will do.
I've lost all ambition for worldy acclaim, I just want to be the one you love.
And with your admission that you feel the same, I'll have reached the goal I'm dreaming of, believe me.
I don't want to set the world on fire...I just want to start a flame in your heart."

I'll bet there were other lyrics and someone finally said, why bother. These lyrics, in fact, that single sentence, says it all. There is simply nothing else to say. I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart."

what point is there in repeating yourself after that line? None. The song could end after one sentence. But the melody of each A phrase is completed by the B phrase and that's why it is a complete composition. It's call and response. Simplicity. From the heart. Honest.
This song is not in my dusty music box, which is a project I may have satisfied, but the Ink Spots recorded When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano...which is in the box...and that song led me to the Ink Spots, which led me to this song. I dig it. The chords are easy enough to find, but the challenge is to play different voicings of the chords as I play because clunking away on the same voicing is boring. The F major to start the song could easily become an F Maj7, F6, F7, Dmi7. and then re-voice those chords for each beat so there is an appearance of movement when not much is actually happening. It's an Eldon Shamblin trick and all Western Swingers use it in Rhythm guitar. The two important skills for a jazz rhythm guitarist is to re-voice chords, and substitute chords, which are kind of the same thing. I'm just happy to re-voice the chords I know rather than substitute new ones, but even if it sounds complicated I think the reasoning is that these guitarists basically got bored of playing the same chords and experimented with different sounds until a few rules of substitution could be formulated. If you are not bored with a chord progression then you probably aren't playing it over and over every night of the week like the kings of Swing Era Rhythm guitar were. They experimented to keep their sanity.


 

Criminalize Cancer

I received a bulk email from U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and was disturbed that it demonstrates thinking from 1970, when Richard "Nuke Cambodia" Nixon decided the best way to suppress anti-war activists was to heavily criminalize drugs sold at CCR concerts. Smoking pot might ruin your life so we are going to throw you in jail for ten years to guarantee your life is ruined. Ok, that's some real fucking brilliant thinking from a guy who axed a sensible health care plan, buried his own contradictory studies on pot, ended all efforts to alleviate poverty started by L.B.J, hired goons to spy on his Democratic competition, secretly bombed Cambodia and sent thousands of Americans to die in Vietnam without any support system when they returned. A true piece of shit with twisted, sick values cloaked in clever pageantry. Any other culture would've hung or beheaded Nixon but he simply walked away with a pension. Rule of law applies only to poor people; the rich have no consequences to their crimes.

I thought we had dispatched with gross lies and were now electing obvious monstrosities, but it doesn't seem to be true. Ayotte's email is pure Nixon-ite 'wage war on poor people' thinking but it's got a tricky vocabulary that makes one believe she knows what she is talking about. No. Her goal is pure One World Order nonsense, attacking Fentanyl users under the pathetic umbrella of pro-active legislation.

Bullshit.

"I wanted to share with you an update on my efforts to combat the heroin and prescription opioid abuse crisis facing New Hampshire and our nation.

This is the most urgent public health and safety challenge our state is facing, and I've been listening to families, treatment providers, first responders, and others in the community as we work to identify effective strategies to combat this epidemic.

As New Hampshire's former Attorney General, I have seen firsthand the negative consequences of illicit drug use and drug-related crimes, and I am working to ensure that law enforcement officials have the necessary tools to do their jobs and respond to this problem."

Drug-related crimes?? Ayotte must be familiar with this evil trope because as Attorney General she was the top thug in the Live Free or Die state's holocaust against pot smokers. She's one of the evil elite who was in a position to do something effective and rational to stop criminalizing drugs but instead she invaded private citizen's lives across the state and destroyed lives on her quest for power, which she achieved thanks to the deluded voters. She simply sacrificed the lives of thousands of drug users for her own selfish gains and did it smiling and waving, manipulating everyone with her narcissistic guile, while her numerous victims rot in jail. Since it was Ayotte who prosecuted these private health care decisions and now she is guaranteeing they continue to be criminalized then shouldn't we call them "Ayotte-related crimes"? I could easily draw a connection between the crimes and the drug related fines that the offender is required to pay. They aren't stealing car stereos to buy drugs, no, they are stealing car stereos to pay the court fines they are required to pay because they got caught with an 1/8th of pot in their pocket. But that kind of reasoning isn't going to help the courts line their pockets so it's dismissed.

What the hell is a drug related crime? Is any crime not related to drugs, or food, or soda, or sex? Ayote's sick propaganda team leans heavily on this disgusting trope that should be retired with micro-beads in soap and asbestos. We are ruled by chemistry and biology. Our bodies produce every drug we need.

The number of 'bills' and 'acts' related to the war on drugs that Ayotte signed is absolutely ridiculous:
Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (S. 524)
Heroin and Prescription Opioid Abuse Prevention, Education, and Enforcement Act (S. 1134)
Protecting Our Infants Act of 2015 (S. 799)
Stop Trafficking in Fentanyl Act (S. 2027)
amendment in the fiscal year (FY) 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 113-291) that devotes additional resources to the detection, monitoring, and interdiction of illicit trafficking across our Southern Border.
Second Chance Act Reauthorization Act (S. 1513)
Opioid Overdose Reduction Act of 2015 (S. 707)


These are only the ones she dealt with most recently and I will again reiterate that the topic of drugs is simply a political chew toy. It has absolutely no business in Washington. If a State Senator even mentions drug use they should be immediately denounced and impeached. It's an extreme reaction but all the evidence has shown this topic to be one manipulated by politicians for the benefit of politicians. It has no substance as a debate topic and has no Federal concerns. It's purely a personal health care issue that has been hijacked by meddlesome pundits and career politicians. The fastest way to reveal a crooked politician is to find out their views on private drug use and Ayotte fails on almost every corner as do all the Senators who signed those acts. Their motives are purely about posing as 'active' and 'concerned'. Complete bullshit. Their continued criminalization of drugs, like the Prohibition of booze in 1919, is politically motivated and ignores blatant evidence that their actions only complicate and exacerbate the problem. They know they are doing more harm than good, yet their acts and bills and bullshit genuinely require lots of charades and business lunches and lobbying, and eratic gestures and 'work' to demonstrate that they are 'doing something.' Well, their work is counterproductive, poisonous, disproven by science, contradicted by history and is selfish, hurtful, expensive, useless, wasteful. If Ayotte was an idiot then I could understand, but she's pure Villanova Law School pedigree, which means she's got a diabolical genius that makes Nixon look like the village crack whore. I really fear people like Ayotte more than the many Fentanyl addicts I've met on the street. The crack whores and heroin junkies are nothing compared to a Catholic school lawyer. Were the junkies self-medicating themselves to death? You betcha. Is that anyone's business? No, unless God authorized Ayotte to make it her business. A Fentanyl junkie's only problem is living in a culture where Ayotte uses Fentanyl junkies as political chew toys.

There is no magic piece of legislation that will solve addiction problems that are as old as humanity. But, as I've said before, the CIA and the DEA and now the Senate are equally addicted to drugs. They are addicted in a slightly different way, but I promise you that Ayotte demonstrates identical crazy thinking and self-justifying babbling and manic picking at the social scabs in her own delusional fantasies that I have witnessed on skid-row.  The DEA thug and the skid row junkie both have this babbling rant about their own needs. It's all the same thing, but Ayotte is a junkie with eye-liner that matches her suit pants and a Villanova degree so she lords her wisdom over the Fentanyl junkie masses, and her paycheck is a result of the power she hoards while destroying lives. Such a gross state of affairs. The puppet masters with their clever strings, dangling drool and pompous disdain like she has to wipe my ass for me. So disgusting. How did people elect that filth?

So, I was going to recommend the criminalization of cancer, because that makes as much sense. Make it illegal to contract Leukemia. That will teach those kids a lesson! Breast cancer should come with a 5 year prison sentence. Sure. Why not? The masses of fucked up suburb sheep will surely get behind that bill because it's all trying to end the scourge of drugs. So, I went to find some legislation that criminalized cancer, and in fact, found the exact opposite! In Wisconsin, a state that gleefully criminalizes drugs and would happily imprison a person for smoking pot, is overwhelmingly in favor of making chemotherapy drugs more available to cancer patients! What kind of insane hypocrisy potion are they drinking in Madison? Why are they enabling these sick, deluded individuals with Bile Duct Cancer? How many burglaries are committed by people with anal cancer? Those criminals have to stop taking drugs and go to jail! Right? So, let's make Liver cancer a crime! Because it's associated with drug use. That will, according to the twisted logic of Ayotte, prevent liver cancer! But then I learn Wisconsin is legalizing and enabling drug use to treat cancer, gee, sounds reasonable, but not heroin use. Why? It sounds like cancer is being rewarded! Cancer victims are treated like people. They are not villainized. They are respected. What a good approach. But because heroin users are regarded as marginal scum bags they are instantly locked up. Pot. Acid. Fentayl. PCP. Meth. These are the drugs of lunatics and monsters. But oral chemotherapy, which causes

• Stomach upset (nausea)
• Throwing up (vomiting)
• Loose or watery bowel movements (diarrhea)
• Hair loss
• Mouth sores
• Skin changes
• Low blood count

 For some reason, this oral radiation therapy is encouraged, but Fentanyl, which makes you feel like you have the spine of a Russian teen gymnast, is discouraged by Ayotte and using it without some official approval is a criminal act. Bullshit!

I don't meddle in politics because I'm radical and a Fentanyl junkie with bad breath and suspicious of the corrupt politicians but I can't ignore it when a Senator sends me a bulk email which clearly demonstrates the evil that has been elected to power. People need to take a deep breath and start making changes because there are some evil snakes calling the shots right now and it's going to lead to major problems down the road. Ayotte is a sick person and she needs to be impeached immediately before she can destroy more lives in her twisted quest for power.