I was Thinking, or Not

After 2.5 months of waiting for Verizon to finally get their shit together, we now have internet.  I will post all the post I have written since losing the internet when we moved.  This is just a warning.

Inequality and Pay: 'Rents' vs. Merit | Jared Bernstein : 'via Blog this' Now I do not usually take on blog post from the Huffington Post bloggers, but I am going to try and re-read this and figure out what the hell he is getting at with this. I have some pretty strong comments about the inequality, and the idea of merit.  I just thought I would ferret out his post, and see if we have anything in common.

I didn't know where to place this, so I am putting it up here, but I will link to this blog from the Doud Dairy Farm blog, as it seems it also applies to that work as well. Warning : This is a long post, and it will have more to come, so just be prepared to stick with it, or leave before it is done. The making of a table for Arleta to work on has taken on a life of its own, to some degree.  I started with the idea that a trestle table would be about the best, as it would have space under the table so she could sit in either a chair or her wheelchair and work on it.  I wanted to make it adjustable so she could work on it either sitting or standing, but it looks like it would be better to just build two different tables. Still have to figure out a chair pattern for her that will match the height of her wheelchair, and have a foot rest as she will be working at the table some amount of time, and her feet will not reach the ground if it is the same height as the wheelch...

Okay, this should have been under a different blog, so sue me. This is about poetry, more specifically the reading of poetry.  I haven't been to a reading in a while, but recently (as recently as today) I have checked out some clips of local and national readings of poetry, and I think to myself, what the fuck happened man. When I was reading poetry there was some of this active performance art going on, in fact I was part of it.  You think I wore weird clothes and outlandish jewelry in everyday life, well maybe back then I did, but not now.  I look back on my days as a poet, or should I say performance artist, and think wow I must have been drunk, if I at all sounded like the poets I hear now. On looking at the crap I used to try to pass off as poetry to the people who all seemed to think it was awesome, I wonder were they all drunk as well. I have re-read most of the classics now, or am reading some of them now, and think how can anyone compare to this.  T...

Remember I said I was going to get back to this, well I am getting back to it. It has been almost 6 months now that I have used the Parker IM fountain pen, and Noodler's Black ink, and I thought I would just update my readers on my quest to find a good pen. First let me say when I got the pen I was pretty dam impressed with it.  It wrote well, when I first took it out of the package and put the ink cartage in it.  What I did not expect was how heavy it would be on the end when I posted the cap. The pen has a good heft to it, I like that, it feels good and feels real.  Unfortunately I was not prepared for that weight in my hand, and it sent the pen diving to the floor.  Of course it hit the floor nib first, and I have spent the rest of my time using the pen trying to get that original feel back again, to no avail.  I have come close a couple of times, but it is still not quite the same.  I am going to try to pull the nib and see if I can adjust it out...

At the end of the day, homelessness means nothing to me.  Of what use do I need a home, I have no family, I have no friends, and only my words keep me company.  I can always climb back into the bottle and practice the great art of slow deliberate suicide by bottle. It is the love of my life, my beautiful and caring wife Arleta who I strive for.  If not for her I would not most likely be here today to write this, and there are plenty of people who would most likely prefer it was that way. I read the comments, go to social services, or other such services, you don’t think we didn’t consider that.  Even though it pains me to do so, we have, but they have no help for us, especially for us to move away from the services.  The pure ignorance that I run into all the time just makes me ill.  You all say you can’t help others, but you will gladly go to your local church and put $10.00 every week into their coffers.  For what a chance at salvation, reall...

From: Letters to No One in Particular These friends that you speak of, yes I know them quite well… they are an illusion to me now. I still think of “friends” that were friends once upon a time, far far away.  I see their lives play out on the screen from the safety of my monitor, alive, but barely living.  Why haven’t we kept in touch, what has changed all that much, I can not say, but it was a long, long ways away. Ah, but I have reached out, here and there, the occasional call, a casual hello, maybe even a conversation sometimes, that will lead to an agreement to meet sometime, but it will never be arranged.  We are all too busy with our lives.  We have all changed, and grew away from that time, we remember, if we choose to, but most of us choose not to, it wasn't all that pretty even back then. The last time we met, I was too strung out to forget, or I was too sober to compete with anyone’s bet.  There were a couple of times I do not regret,...

I wonder sometimes if anyone actually reads this stuff, or if all the hits to the site I get are just spiders on the web checking for prey. Well anyways, here is what I would like people to do, just comment on your social site of choice, be it Google+ , Twitter , or Facebook , and let me know if you think I should get rid of the advertisements on my blog. I really do not like them, they slow down the page load by a lot, and often I really do not like the ads I see, as they are often not really related to the post I am making.  They may often be related to me, the person I am, based on my web history, but they are not related to the blog, or the person I am, the author of this blog.  I think if I am going to have advertising on my blog, rather than it being an automated script, maybe I should just host static ads from things that matter to me, the author.  In this way I am endorsing that which matter to me. I figure if it matters to me, as the author, the readers wi...

Michael Shermer: What Is Skepticism, Anyway? : 'via Blog this' While I would like to agree with this article, and its author, his level of arrogance and ignorance (which by the way appear to be often closely related) make it nearly impossible to lend it any credence.  Add to that the hundreds of comments, all which tend to display but additional ignorance, it only allows me to come to the tentative conclusion that this is one subject that few know much if any about. A belief does not require evidence, and evidence does not require belief.  More so evidence is momentary, it is all that is known of a particular state at the time that it is given.  Like security, it is only as secure as its last update.  Sometimes people confuse truth and fact.  The fact is there is no truth.  All that he espouses in his post is subjective, for as humans we are psychologically incapable of objectivity, even with all our "tools" and tricks and peer reviews.  We are h...

I never did learn to play guitar.  It is not the discipline, or the time it would take, but that it just did not seem to serve my purposes.  I like to experiment with the shape and color of the sounds that I can create with the instrument.  It is for I that I play with the guitar, not that I am opposed to the audience, or even aware of them, but that I just have no other interest in that aspect of the music. Over the years I have learned a few cords, and if I take my time, I can play a tune or two, maybe you might even recognize one, but it does not happen often, as it really does not mean that much to me.  I do not care if it means anything at all to you. I have written a few songs for others to play, based on the rhythms and melodies that they gave me to work with.  It is an enjoyable enough experience to provide them with something they can use in their pursuit of music.  I am almost always happy to try to help out an artist in the creation of th...

Please donate to Doud Dairy Farm , help us to achieve our goal of a safe and secure farm for our animals and ourselves, and the coffee is on the house. A regular medium cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts cost $2.00 at least.  I really can’t say, because I rarely buy coffee from coffee vendors.  However if you ever want a cup of good coffee do not hesitate to come over and we will put on a fresh pot of coffee, and we won’t even charge you for the conversation. That is all it really takes, one cup of coffee.  If you donate one cup of coffee we will easily reach our goal.  Have all your friends donate one cup of coffee and not only will we reach our goal quickly we will extend our offer to your friends as well. Donate one cup of coffee and any time you come over to visit, we will offer you not one, but several cups of coffee, some interesting conversation, and maybe even some doughnuts.  If you call first maybe we’ll even make lunch or diner or coffee ...

We, my wife Arleta and myself James, are running a campaign to raise the money for the down payment on our new home. While we appreciate the efforts of the many that are doing all that they can, I James, felt it necessary I explain why we chose to attempt to run the campaign ourselves with our own website instead of using any of the established service providers such as GoFundMe or the like. The primary reason was that after a “lot” and I mean a lot of research into the website service providers that exist out there, I could not rationalize the wealth the owners of such sites have, all through the process of “helping other people”.  Yes there is expense in the process, but looking into it, and also having run businesses of my own, especially mostly online businesses, I knew that their cost were far lower than the cost they were charging for their services. I am not trying to say that I do not believe they should not make a profit, but as with all such things I look at t...

Would you watch a spectacle fall to pieces, the hanging of an innocent man, or creative process while it is still in its raw format?  Well this is your chance to look inside the insanity that is creation, while I slowly grind the seed into flour, and with that hopefully make my daily bread.  Or beer, failing the making of bread. Check out my web log lowly scribe or Road Scholar to watch an unarmed man deface himself in front of a live audience, for their edification, if you will. Did you see how I did that, a little hint, that is cross promotion, because I am hoping that someone that reads this web log will find enough interest in what I am doing to actually take the time to read another of my web logs, and maybe that way I can reach more people.  What is the point of that, you ask, well I hope someday I can capitalize on this, you know, sell a few books, or get a few articles published, so I can actually earn enough from my craft to support my habits.  Awe wel...

So you have to ask yourself, what is going on here?  There are so many stories being told, and yet when I look around me, it seems they are too far fetched to be believed.  It makes one wonder, what am I to do? Do you ever feel like there is just some game being played, on the world stage, like it is some kind of game that you just can not quite get your head around?  Like the people are crazy, stabbing each other, shooting each other, and even to the heights of government, the rulers seem to be playing a strange game that just does not make sense.  Why when we are supposedly the most advanced people to ever walk the face of the Earth, are we still fighting over dirt?  What drives this sandbox mentality.  Where are all the great thinkers, the great writers, the poets, the artist, the composers, have you listened to the radio lately, or watched the TV, where is our Shakespeare? Has it become that evident to others, or has everyone become so oblivious...

Friday, April 4, 2014 Well today I am going to have to call the guy about the land, and update him on our progress.  Which is to say I will have to stall him while I try to figure out how to raise the money for the down payment.  I had thought it was going to be relatively cut and dry, or at least it seemed so, that we were going to the SSA and they would give us the money that they owe Arleta so we could use it to pay the down payment, our first months payment, and still have enough left over to move our stuff.  No, not so, instead they want to argue about it, like it was their money, like we were stealing it from them.  I mean it is SSI not SSD so I guess it is tax payer money, but really, to the point of being almost belligerent to Arleta, trying to bully her, I mean really, how absurd. I have worked up until October of 2012 when Arleta got really sick, and I had to come off the road to take care of her.  With the exception of a few dry months between I ...