Oggy's Unhealthy Infatuation With The Past Still Haunts Him

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Given Popcorn wrappers on unsettled nights
taken paved roads when dirt roads called
looked back on the dirt roads and wondered if
the choice was a predilection or an instinct
safer choice or possible the salvation of man?

Though the safer choice led to heartbreak and
misled destruction, humiliation and lonely roads
through political turmoil, a depressed land
people living on the garbage of divorce lawyers
the belly of the gluttonous and unsophisticated masses
expands with pompous flatulence.

Oggy is a child raising himself to be the man
who could raise a child.
But this is backwards and the accessory of a child
would not make him a man or even a belabored child.
It would merely make him en vogue with the trends
of modern superfluity. But his mistakes could be shared.
with his blighted offspring.

With no future in the growing bones of an innocent child,
Oggy clings to the past, mistakes and philosophical slights
childish upheavals, hurtful remarks take personally
sunglasses betrayed in spiteful misery.

Oggy repents.
Oggy rants.
Oggy sings.
Oggy prays.
Oggy sleeps.
Oggy ponders.
Oggy eats.
Oggy loves.
Oggy hates.
Oggy gives a Damn.

Oggy's Wounded Inner Torque Converter

Texas Drivers No Survivors

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A customer said a cold front was coming to Corpus. I looked forward to it until 20 gallons of water poured into my window onto my guitar in thirty seconds. A cold front is what they call a monsoon. It actually wasn't cold at all and the humidity is currently unbearable. I'm certain my COPD is caused by chronic humid conditions that have crippled my lung capacity and led to a rasping wheeze. So, the drought is over in seconds and the waves wash over the front of my fender. I'm indifferent to the speeding cars and swerving trucks. Go ahead and hit me. Who fucking cares? Now the futile pick up trucks with nothing but sand in the bed make sense because the water can rise to two or three feet in a few minutes and these trucks plow through it to the next stop light or to get to the strip club. When I hit a puddle the water splashes under the engine compartment and irrigates the popcorn seeds I have growing under my seat. It's a sparse landscape of the bleak morality we call patriotism.



In an effort to cure my coughing I went to the air conditioned dollar cinema and watched the Total Recall reboot with Colin Ferrell. It cost 75 cents and someone left behind a huge tub of popcorn that I helped myself to. Yeah, I'm really worried about catching some bug from someone who is probably addicted to hand sanitizing gel while I live in a breeding ground for West Nile virus and stray dogs.
The original Total Recall (1990) is superior for several reasons.
1)The Governator
2) Lower Budget
3) Kuato
4) More intriguing P.K. Dick metaphysics.

The remake was watchable even though Jessica Biel's ass wasn't featured nearly as much as I'd hoped. An unintended consequence of this film was how the dominance of media speak/talking heads/ group hysteria/fake news/information being packaged to instil fear/etc. are becoming a mockery of itself. Raise your hand if you read or hear about the conflict in Syria and could explain to me the issues at stake. Raise your hand if bits of useless information like Hillary Clinton's pronouncements and Obama's campaigning and Celebrity gossip and weight loss tips are tossed around like bait in a shark tank and you can actually do absolutely nothing with the information because your life is so specialized that to deviate from the electric rail to your own demise is impossible. When someone like me takes great pains to refuse to be his own jailer and refuse to tread a worn path becomes abhorrent to society then I really wonder what is happening. My goal is basically to embrace reality and be free to respond to reality as I see fit and what I have found in 4 years is that this is:
A) illegal
B) despicable
C) completely misunderstood
D) Damn fucking hard.
E) Terribly depressing

Reality can not be studied using traditional media outlets because they have been purchased by land barons with ulterior political agendas. Our police state now incarcerates more Americans than EXISTED in the days of Thoreau (1845). The catholic edict to reproduce, was strictly a political policy to ensure the dominance of the Vatican, (which would obviously be overrun and turned into a sweatshop manufacturing digital hooded pajamas if Steve Jobs had his way) The Total Recall movie concentrates on the nature of memory and reality but within that realm there is the question of self-destiny, of authentic lifestyles, of self determination and efficacy. All of these have withered away to the point that it's admirable to be a caliper brake specialist and do nothing but work on brake pistons and wheel cylinders and hydraulic lines in the recesses of a Ford Taurus. That doesn't make sense to me and I reject that paradigm. I recall a class I took at Humboldt State University called "Altruism" At the time I wanted to see how such a class would be taught and I can say it was taught very well with group projects, consensus, matrix charts, presentations, good leadership, no manipulation. But now I reflect and can see that the fact such a class exists, a class to teach someone how to think independently and react to reality as they see fit, that such an approach has become outdated and something that you need to be trained to do, is deeply distressing. The number of chronic and epidemic problems I see are mounting to the point that even when The Onion makes fun of them I don't laugh. As long as Americans could make up their own minds then we were in good shape but over the last 20 or 30 years that skill has vanished, or I should say it has been deliberately suppressed and besieged by corporate media and political flim flam. The propaganda is overwhelming and it's safe to say I didn't have a choice on certain things when I was growing up. I was on the electric rail to a determined destiny. It all sounds dangerously like a conspiracy theory, which is yet another media construct to dismiss genuine distress and keep people buying Big Red soda and eating fried chicken by the bucket.
Sometimes I accidentally read the wrong piece of news and am physically repulsed by how obviously the philosophic war is being waged on the innocent mind of children. And immediately following my depression I will identify the good cop/bad cop routine in the media source. All media has become a variation of good cop/bad cop. WAR IN SYRIA....Pretty Girl gets Married.....THOUSANDS SLAUGHTERED....new Cancer Drug effective in mice....OBESITY EPIDEMIC....new menu at fast food restaurant...on and on. I can't believe these news employees are human because they manage to speak AS THOUGH NONE OF IT WERE TRUE. But they are not reporting news, that's not their directive. No, they are concentrating their efforts on producing reactions, to attacking original thought. It's the shock doctrine or fear and awe and the techniques of the torturer who slaps you around and then sends in a kindly man to wash your wounds. But it's global and it's crippling independent thought and if the future world is built on the foundations of concrete dust formed from the sovereignty of children THEN WHAT KIND OF FUTURE IS THAT?


I'm dangerously indifferent to my situation and have determined my van is road worthy for a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula with or without drive shaft u joints. They have u joints in Guatemala, right? As long as I am not forced to inhale second hand cigarette smoke then I think I'll take any kind of destiny. I have my guitar and my knitting needles and an outline to a novel that will make Boris Pasternak rise up from the grave and give me a bear hug. I can tell the van doesn't belong on the coast of Texas and I'm going broke fast here so the best plan is to buy a bass guitar and take the show on the road before the owner of the Firebird drives it away and it explodes.

I won't miss this neon town a bit. Like a good Texan I like to arrive uninvited, murder the local Indians, annex the land by force, shamelessly exploit the natural resources, and leave behind a god awful mess that no one will ever clean up. We call it "progress" because the lexicon of destruction is pliable and at the mercy of political shamanism.

Goodnight

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Webs of crooked lies deceive our inner hero
the wounds of past trespasses lock doors to freedom
freedom belabors the inclimate military
reality is a broken catchphrase for meat manufacturers
cattle withdraw cash from temples of fraud
we are all double agents who have had our
memories erased.
Television tries to implant new memories of heroic deeds
but finds the spot occupied by dusty trauma

I can write the saddest lines tonight
because the rain washes into rivers of mute erosion
the glad rags of our lonely love affair
are burned in acrid despair
but the embers burn red and the ashes fertilize new seeds
sewn by new lovers inventing the language again and again
holding hands holding hearts

Never Been To Spain...or Greece...or Tibet

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How many more years do I need to sing this song before I get to Spain? I'm not talking about the Ibiza-body-shots-of-Vodka Spain but the rural Spain where live Fascist bombs still act as landmarks on the market road and kids still hold doors open for old women.


I'm taking donations to pay for a new camera battery because the two I own are now depleted and give me 1 minute and 43 seconds of use before shutting off automatically before the third verse is finished.

The Gulf Coast fall winds buffet the van with irregular gusts. I have an "urge for going" down the carefree highway with the migratory birds where troubles can be reflected on and not confronted with my impoverished bravery...Hoyt Axton as soundtrack to the deranged lone wolf poetry of my petroglyph wanderings.

Remodeling Vans For Free

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I should have a show: This Old Van
and I work with homeless people who are trying to keep their vans running. It would be way cooler than that show about remodeling houses occupied by snobs who want to better see their private part of the beach. For example, all the work would be done in a Walmart parking lot. That would make some interesting interactions with police and security. Especially since the work would be done at night. How funny would that be? Kids crying...drugs...everyone drunk...nothing works right...police...warrants...laughs...broken van and the guy wants more space for a pot grow room. Call Oggy!

Tired of rusty wheels. Any votes for paint color?

So I decided I had spent the last night kicking the window with my feet or trying to sleep diagonally or hitting my head on the wall. The van is 6' wide. I'm 6' long. So if I don't move an inch then it's fine. But when it's 120 degrees then you tend to hunt for the cool side of the pillow...and slam your head against a wall in the middle of the night. I haven't slept good for 3 years.

Getting that huge piece of plywood out without breaking a window was a test

 But I also have been living in the van or at a place with no garage for 5 years so exactly when was this project going to take place? I had one opportunity before the failed trip to Labrador in 2010 but that time was spent locking myself out of the garage and talking to the guy who was dying next door who offered to build me a new interior but I was pressed for time since I was also installing a wood stove. Then I left and got thrown out of Canada.

I could've made it coffin shaped

 So this project was something that needed a perfect opportunity of space, no police harassment, no rain, maybe electricity, and also a vision. I finally had the vision of what I wanted and how I would do it. Then the trailer park gave me the pink slip and the tow truck driver gave me some work on broken pick up trucks in exchange for a private lot and a power cord...so...one night...around 11pm I put some Jimi Hendrix on and got busy. I thought, "Well, no more picking up hot chicks at the bar and fucking them on my bed," then I remembered that has never happened. Time to embrace solitude and see if I can remember how to jack off.

I kept the American Pop album cover up

 This was an all night affair as I knew it would be. The mosquitoes attacked me but it was cooler at night and I had parked near the stock car they were working on so I knew I had to be fast.

After I supported and cut the joists. Note that I notched the support leg.

 I left one of the joists up for now because if I put in a support at the very back then that will hinder my tool chest, which I can now access from both sides.

Too much shit.

The only unforseen outcome that I've encountered is that I've suddenly made enough room to fit a 1975 CB 550 super sport Honda motorcycle inside the van. That wasn't the case before and now my mouth is watering. Of course I have less covered storage space but after my clothes bin was totally swarmed by fire ants, I lightened my load. The problem, over-all, is having hobbies on top of living in a van. Hobbies require materials and tools. I have paint supplies for my stained glass. I have leather craft tools. I have needlepoint tools and latch hooking rug material and crochet and knitting material. I have belt buckle supplies and guitars and amplifiers and a box full of 1940s sheet music that I want to investigate and write a book about. The place would be empty if I just smoked pot and ate at the soup kitchen. But I have to cultivate these hobbies because it is all part of my folk spirit goal.

God, it would be so funny to have a show where I only helped homeless men/families living in vans to remodel or even get it to run good. It would be totally awesome but I think it's an idea without hope. In case I'm wrong...send me an email with your problem and I will come to you. oggybleacher@gmail.com
I'll film the entire thing and we will sort out your problem and get it all on video. I can picture it now and it's a winning concept. Basically, a mix of Pimp My Ride....Extreme Makeover...The Wild Waltons of West Virginia...and some kind of Salvation Army promotional video. With Oggy as a host. That's good television in my opinion but keep watching your storage wars.

Oggy's Unhealthy Infatuation With The Past Still Haunts Him

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Given Popcorn wrappers on unsettled nights
taken paved roads when dirt roads called
looked back on the dirt roads and wondered if
the choice was a predilection or an instinct
safer choice or possible the salvation of man?

Though the safer choice led to heartbreak and
misled destruction, humiliation and lonely roads
through political turmoil, a depressed land
people living on the garbage of divorce lawyers
the belly of the gluttonous and unsophisticated masses
expands with pompous flatulence.

Oggy is a child raising himself to be the man
who could raise a child.
But this is backwards and the accessory of a child
would not make him a man or even a belabored child.
It would merely make him en vogue with the trends
of modern superfluity. But his mistakes could be shared.
with his blighted offspring.

With no future in the growing bones of an innocent child,
Oggy clings to the past, mistakes and philosophical slights
childish upheavals, hurtful remarks take personally
sunglasses betrayed in spiteful misery.

Oggy repents.
Oggy rants.
Oggy sings.
Oggy prays.
Oggy sleeps.
Oggy ponders.
Oggy eats.
Oggy loves.
Oggy hates.
Oggy gives a Damn.

Oggy's Wounded Inner Torque Converter

Vocal Harmony Galore

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There may not be a sabbath but there is gospel music which gladdens my heart. I almost wish I had once been awash in sin (gay sex in seedy motels, heroin use, spousal abuse) so I could be born again with conviction. As it stands I would merely be giving up the occasional naughty cheerleader video and taking the Lord's name in vain. Yawn!

I towed a Cuban man to a garage using towels tied together in sheepshank knots. At the end of it he bought me repulsive hot dog at Stripes and said, "You're close to being born again, right?"I nodded as the wings of Jesus brushed my beard. When He was on the cross I was on His mind. If you can sum it up in a 4 part harmony gospel song then it must be true.

COPD

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"Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most common lung diseases. It makes it difficult to breathe. There are two main forms of COPD: Chronic bronchitis, which involves a long-term cough with mucus ..."
I have been crippled with asthmatic conditions since my swim in the polluted Gulf of Mexico (fuck you BP all those pop up ads on The Onion will not redeem you motherfuckers. May all your children drown in refined oil) and my wrists are broken from fighting off the West Nile infected mosquitoes. I sleep in my mosquito net but it's 200 degrees now and the sweat fills my ear like syrup on pancakes giving me infections and deliberate Blepheritus and Halitosis of the mind.
I can not tolerate the cigarette smoking of these Texan chimneys. It's like a slap in the face when one hangs on my shoulder with a cigarette dangling from his lips and he breathes fumes and coughs a hacking wheeze into my mouth. "Do ya'll even know what the fuck ya doin?"
I AM DYING. I CAN NOT BREATHE. STEP AWAY FROM ME. I WANT TO LIVE IN THE DESERT WITH LIZARDS. SHAMAN DREAMS MOCK MY DELIVERANCE.
So I cough and grope my weary path through a field of shattered dreams. A young man is looking for someone to drive him from Austin to Ecuador. I might be that person as soon as I get an oil pan gasket for my 43 year old van and a replacement hip for my sagging ass. We will walk through the cactus patch of my sadness into the swamps of Panama, trailing the rags of neck fat and over-indulged fried chicken buffets into the leech's lair and the blood sucking frog's domain.
I won't trade frogs for snakes because they are both best left out of the financial transactions of men trading in church. Wells Fargo owns 1 trillion in flawed mortgages. BOA, the owners of the beach houses who hunted me in the night with pitchforks and anger against homeless invaders, the fraud bank that offered me a mortgage for $800,000 on an income of $30K did not disclose several hundred million in losses that the corrupt federal reserve swindled from pension funds of veterans and chicken clerks. The flakes of the national dandruff make waves in the glory of the gaps in our teeth. West Nile is the African guilt finding its way into our blood with COPD hacking in our rasping lungs. Beware of the slippery faces of cereal box Politicians and spin doctors who graduate with a master's degree in political gibberish and financial flim flam. We trade currency and abandon ethics and geometry while the Arctic Wolf howls in fear. Shell oil trucks Eskimo hearts into their fire to burn caribou hides on frigid nights.
Again, if Plan A is a collision course with global meltdown, if the forests and streams are monopoly properties to be traded and ripped up in childhood fury, THEN WHAT THE FUCK IS IMPORTANT? WHAT CAN BE SALVAGED? There can be no standard in a land of apes eating panda cubs. This whole wheat Jesus country designed around slaves and trafficked lies pronounces nuclear Zionism over Iran while rivers in Georgia are polluted by Big Red soft drink urine from the Honey Boo Boo bladder so the fish inflame the prostate of the nation. I'm coughing in hysteria and sadness, my spine is broken and my knees feel like an elephant has been riding bareback on my graying neck flaps. Tears of sorrow and denial rain down through the wood stove pipe that has rusted like the joints of my soul.
How can we retain a slice of this insanity? How can the CIA agents who monitor my blog sleep at night knowing they enable and abet the slaughter of wolf pups in Wyoming? When did group think replace the land of the free and the home of brave? My rhetorical questions find relief in the 8 ball politics of "Ask Again In 4 Years" or "It might be so" the Clinton monarchy and the Bush monopoly drives wolf ethics deeper underground. Our soap on a rope morality has washed down the drain of the inner city.

Billion Dollar Review

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I drove my shitty Datsun 200sx into Beverly Hills to meet with John Updike's literary agent in a building that smelled like F. Scott Fitzgerald's spilled whiskey. I forget the agent's name now but he wanted to hire a cute, charming, 25 year old girl with great phone skills who would entertain his big name clients and cover scripts on the side and provide some eye candy for the slow days. Well, I've talked to cute, charming 25 year old girls, so I figured I was a good fit for the job.

Moments before I left my Venice Beach shit hole room I got a call from my employment agency telling me to drive to Paramount Studios for a Red Carpet catering event put together by Martin Lawrence. I told them I'd be there asap. So I was dressed in my finest urban trendy outfit that was straight from Express for Men, I had shaved and brushed my teeth and was going to serve drinks to skinny porn escorts from The Valley. The Agent wanted eye candy so I would give him eye candy. I hated myself a little bit for compromising but this was early on in my Los Angeles career and I was not nearly as jaded as I would be three years hence. I was committed to success in the screenwriting field and in one hour I was going to chat with John Updike's agent and then walk on the lot that made The Breakfast Club and Titanic. That's not a bad day for a baseball playing music major from New England.

I skipped up the same worn stairs that Humphrey Bogart and Abby Mann had walked up and charmed the socks off of that agent. He gave me a script to cover and I said I'd have it done by the end of the day. In fact, I'd already pre-judged it by the title alone, "Swamp Shaman"
"Any questions?" he asked rhetorically.
"What's your secret to success," I queried as I glanced at the signed first edition copies of Rabbit Run and other Updike novels on his bookshelf.
He was taken aback and seemed annoyed, which was basically the end of my running for the job, charm or no charm.
"Secret? Do my job."
He looked at the door and a cute, charming 25 year old girl opened it and gave me her best "get the fuck out of here" smile. I knew was over my head. Later that evening I was the best dressed bus boy Paramount Studios has ever seen.

This scenario plays out every day in a thousand ways in Hollywood and a book I found at a thrift store picks up where my story ends.

Jeffrey Stepakoff is not a cute, charming 25 year old girl but he didn't charm his way into any job either. He writes in detail how he became one of the 300 people who create entertainment for 300 million. I should hate him for finding the success I wanted. The fables I imagined were completely true: 30 year old art grads who couldn't make me laugh if they channeled George Burns DO sit around and smoke pot and play foosball and make $80K a month thinking of ways to combine cartoon lions and Shakespeare plots. A single joke might take a week to write. They have fun. They fuck in the copy room. They marry models. They drink on expense accounts that make WWII reparations look paltry. They drop their drinks at Paramount Studios red carpet affairs and are annoyed when the bus boy who cleans it up is wearing the same pants they are wearing. For these reasons and more, I should despise Jeffrey Stepakoff...but the fact I could not hate him is exactly the reason he succeeded in Hollywood. This entire story is told honestly and plainly. He is not bragging. He is likable and affable and impossible to hate. At times Mr. Stepakoff seems humble and apologetic. It isn't his fault that studios went berzerk for hip ideas and paid out the ass for them. He was in the right place at the right time and he never annoyed anyone. His personality fit the artistic landscape while mine was the kind of personality that successful people tell anecdotes about; I'm used as an example of what not to do. Be charming but don't be clever. Don't act smarter than the agents but don't act dumber either. Act professional, unless you are a cute 25 year old girl.

Of course, I can not respect Stepakoff for working on Dawson's Creek and apparently thinking it's some kind of accomplishment to write soft core porn for two hollow characters. No, he's not an artist by my definition but Dawson's Creek was a 6 year long Abercrombie & Fitch commercial so that's not news. A professional does his job in the context of the landscape. Stepakoff never intended to produce art. He wanted a job writing jokes that were a moment's distraction. He had no illusions of genre busting story lines and he didn't even aspire to write and shop around a film script like almost everyone else in Los Angeles.

His secret? He wrote plays in college, contacted alumni who were in Los Angeles, wrote spec scripts, met with agents, kept his promises, didn't cross picket lines, didn't try to fuck people over, bought low and sold high. Took direction well. Was never a maverick. And he left Los Angeles when it didn't work for him anymore.

His book, Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing. even earns points for investigating the sources of the artistic shakeup that has happened in television writing over the decades. If I were deluded I could blame my lack of success on the writer's union that chiseled the studios for pennies and in the process killed the golden goose and led to Cameraman/editor dominated reality show packages that shot to popularity a year before I arrived in Hollywood with hair gel in my eyebrows and a dumb grin on my mug. I was fucked before I even tried to get a job and I didn't know it. I had no contacts, no job, no home, no money and my talent was admittedly as a maverick writer who would bust genres and chart new ground. My first spec movie script was a biography of 19th century social philosopher Henry David Thoreau, which might work in an alternate reality Los Angeles landscape but was dead in the water in the existing Los Angeles. That combination is exactly how you fail. And talent. It hurts me to admit I have not grasped the 3 to 4 act structure. This is critical. And jokes....I'm not that funny in real life.

But I had a trick card up my sleeve and when I looked at cosmetic tits of the plastic phone jockey in the agent's office I knew I was buying my own kind of equity that would pay residual benefits for all time. I knew my limits and I knew what I was really looking for and in that respect I left Los Angeles as rich as Mr. Stepakoff. There were no billion dollar kisses for me but if that meant I never had to delve into the false realm of Dawson's Creek then it was worth it.

P.S. The Thoreau script is still for sale.

Watch Out

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I was determined to see if I could get internet access in the repair bay...and I succeeded. Officially, the Coastal Bend of Texas has the worst weather I've ever lived in. The most inhospitable place ever. 110 degrees every day. 70% humidity. Then a rain storm comes through that swamps the entire area. Then the heat comes back and it's 90% humidity. If there were no oil and natural gas reserves here the place would be deserted. It's awful. There hasn't been a nice day of weather since last October. So we're going to destroy the atmosphere so 1% of the population of earth can digitally connect with fake friends and live phony lives while trading fake currency? Is that the plan? And people really wonder why I'm trying to find something authentic. If you are not outraged then you are too plugged in.

Let it Be

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IN this chapter Oggy determines mankind must run its course. An apocalyptic holy war is on the horizon and the only trace of civilization will be Capri Sun pouches and gold teeth from rap musicians. Our folly will be the God's entertainment and our greasy knuckles will not appease the lords of virtue. Take an ounce of deprivation and add a cup of ego and you get the mad designs of men. Joseph Knetch investigated his society's ultimate activity and found it to be basically flawless except that with in the context of the world, it had little impact, so he assigned himself the role of ambassador to the outside world. Oggy has investigated his society and found it haphazard and mostly a base manipulation of ideals, more crooked than a bar room pool cue. The flock is tugged in one direction then another.
This black sheep is a mechanic now.

Pay Day

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The boss handed me $50. I asked what it was for.
"Twenty five an hour. For the work on that ignition cylinder on the Chevy Cheyenne and the alternator on the narc car. And the work on my tow truck."
Three days ago I was fired by a job that paid $10 an hour.
"If I'd known I was getting paid I would've done a better job."
The boss laughed. He once ran a corporate factory service department and I am wearing a pirate headband and my name tag is a punchpin embroidery patch that says "Econoline".

I used to hitchhike around the country with a backpack and a harmonica. Occasionally I would take the wrong ride and end up miles and miles off the highway on some deserted back road, totally rural and knew I would never get a ride. I'd wave and smile at the farmer who picked me up. Sure, thanks buddy. Then I would start to limp down the road because there was nowhere to stand next to the ranch access road. I might walk for hours before arriving at an old abandoned garage on the corner of two deserted roads intersecting in the wheat fields. The garage was once a destination, I could tell by the worn parking lot. Old remnants of a cafe and service bays. The remains of a chair, worn by a tired and dreamy mechanic in the last days of the small farm boom, before all the land was seized in Brazil and our soybeans grown there for less money. And I would think that if I had a chance to do it all over again then I would be a placid old man with a well organized tool chest who awaits your stuttering car and I'd say with a twinkle in my eye, "Looks like you got gremlins in your engine. I have a spell to cure that."
And somehow I would be content with this clockwork mechanic lifestyle, disassembling the work of Korean assembly line manufacturers and Ford plant workers to find out what is wrong with a car or truck. The fantasy seemed impossible to ever come true because I was hitchhiking with no tools and not really any repair skills. But I knew that there was some truth to the dream, that my nature was actually aligned with cars and motorcycles, and with a little bit of training and many boxes of tools I would effortlessly repair any car or small truck. Because mechanic work is about tools and preparation and procedure. If you are straining yourself in mechanics you are probably doing it wrong. I spent at least two hours researching how to take the ignition lock cylinder out of a 1992 Chevy Cheyenne. Even the mechanic next door said, "Oh, you only need a paper clip, blah blah..." advice like cows mooing in the dusk after a storm. because it was all wrong and this Chevy is a plastic piece of shit and once you break the key off in the ignition and then lock the cylinder then you must take the steering wheel off and then get a lock plate compressor tool that pushes the plate in so you can remove a Circlip that lets you remove the turn signal cam mechanism that lets you remove a bolt that holds the cylinder in. No other way on this 1992 Chevy 1500. Now I know and I know that the part costs $13 so it's basically a $15 fix if you break a key off. No big deal since most part places loan the plate compressor and the steering wheel puller if you buy the new lock cylinder.
And now I'm a blue collar mechanic on a stretch of road running toward the airport, where coal trains run day and night feeding the natural gas plant down the coast.
I like competence and since social and political settings are not my element and park guide jobs are beyond my reach, mechanics is the next best thing. I have my limits and it turns out my boss also has his limits. His tow truck broke down and he replaced the crank case position sensor and then I spent 3 hours assembling the wires and filters (without the benefit of watching him disassemble it all) and it still doesn't work. That's a lot of time wasted on a hunch. He now wants to replace the computer control module. So, even a master doesn't know everything but I've started on pulling steering wheels and now I can cross that off the list because once I know then I know.
The profits go toward the Ibanez bass guitar I've had my eye on. $600 and counting. No more living on the street. I park in the repair yard next to the Dodge that needs upper ball joints. And with internet access on site I don't need to visit the local Mcdonalds. I shower under the scorpius constellation, my old friend from the Merchant Marine night shift.

If I had written down a description of what I wanted it would be a mechanic position where I was supplied every tool under the sun, from radiator pressure testers to brake line flaring tools, and a repair bay with lifts and a place to park my van that was private with water access and electricity and an internet connection and a piano**. If you want to pay me then that would be even better. And my boss should be an easy going man with more experience than god who doesn't mind giving me instruction.
I called the Ball joints a "kingpin".
He said, "You mean Ball Joints?"
I said, "Ok."
My van doesn't have ball joints because it is from 1969.
I also couldn't find the fuse box on the Chevy but I was too embarrassed to ask where it was so I kept honking the horn as I worked on the steering column and was too lazy to disconnect the battery.
If you break down in Corpus then I'll come tow your car and get you running again. That was my dream. That's my job.

* If you buy a car from a car auction then you must keep your bid low because you will be buying total garbage. If you buy your car from a used car lot then keep your prices even lower because the car lot bought their car from the car auction and these cars are total junk. In fact, only buy a car from an auction if you are going to immediately sell it (which means you must have a dealer's license) and never buy from a used car lot. This Chevy 1500 is built like a plastic toy Tonka truck.

** I'm working on the piano.

Oggy's Unhealthy Infatuation With The Past Still Haunts Him

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Given Popcorn wrappers on unsettled nights
taken paved roads when dirt roads called
looked back on the dirt roads and wondered if
the choice was a predilection or an instinct
safer choice or possible the salvation of man?

Though the safer choice led to heartbreak and
misled destruction, humiliation and lonely roads
through political turmoil, a depressed land
people living on the garbage of divorce lawyers
the belly of the gluttonous and unsophisticated masses
expands with pompous flatulence.

Oggy is a child raising himself to be the man
who could raise a child.
But this is backwards and the accessory of a child
would not make him a man or even a belabored child.
It would merely make him en vogue with the trends
of modern superfluity. But his mistakes could be shared.
with his blighted offspring.

With no future in the growing bones of an innocent child,
Oggy clings to the past, mistakes and philosophical slights
childish upheavals, hurtful remarks take personally
sunglasses betrayed in spiteful misery.

Oggy repents.
Oggy rants.
Oggy sings.
Oggy prays.
Oggy sleeps.
Oggy ponders.
Oggy eats.
Oggy loves.
Oggy hates.
Oggy gives a Damn.

Oggy's Wounded Inner Torque Converter

Minor Victories

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The Firebird is growing on me as it is an introduction to modern vehicles (1999) It has 280,000 miles on it which makes me wonder why the owner wants to keep it alive. It ran badly and part of the problem was an EGR metal hose that I had never seen before so I didn't know that I had probably broken it when I forced it out of the fitting. It's a $50 part that I was luckily able to buy for $5 at the scrap yard down the street. The scrap vehicle had been in a head on collision with certain fatalities with the engine pushed over the EGR hose so I spent an hour getting it out. I reimbursed myself by stealing some special harness connectors that I broke, an oil pressure switch, and some fuses for the van. I also asked about a job. That sorted some of the vacuum problems out but the misfire continues so we ordered a coil pack and will see if that solves the main problem. It's now running alright. Everyone basically was saying it was bad gas and the parts needed to "mesh together" which is total lazy mechanic gibberish.
Again, we enter the realm why Oggy can not be a mechanic because he doesn't speak Mechanic, he actually sees the malfunction in a philosophical and ethical framework aside from a clockwork mechanic realm. It must be fixed and the idea it was bad gas made no sense. But the only way to make money is to give the customer his keys back and tell him that the problem will go away after a few hundred miles since it is a total engine swap...etc. etc.. And if you spend 8 extra hours on the job actually fixing something then you can not charge any more for those hours, which would be $600 extra dollars for the shop. And this car is owned by a lawyer and the correlation started to make less and less sense. True, when a lawyer is involved then lots of money or time in jail is involved and when a car is involved then only a form of transportation is at stake. But why is a Lawyer allowed to charge $200 an hour for ANY WORK HE DOES RELATED TO THE CASE? It does not matter what surprise comes up, he will need to be paid extra. If a mechanic strips a bolt that will add 5 hours to the job then usually he must ignore the stripped bolt because he can't spend that time to fix it...because the customer will bitch that it was somehow the mechanic's fault...and sometimes it will be the mechanic's fault...but no mechanic will strip a bolt on purpose so it's basically the cost of having a car and having that car break down and relying on a mechanic to do the repair. The paradigm is crooked. This Firebird has 280,000 miles, a cracked windshield, cracked sideview mirror, has two inches of clearance, is rusty, dirty oil everywhere, so exactly how am I going to guarantee any job like swapping engines around will go smoothly and according to some price guideline of $1500? I can't. This isn't changing a tire or oil on a brand new car.

My policy, which would lead to my instantly going out of business, would be to treat mechanics like dentistry (clean, tight ship in the garage...order...military precision...) and also to charge for every minute that I spend on the project. 100% of the time you will find a cheaper price than what I charge but once I am confident in a job then I'll do a better a job 100% of the time. So, it's really a question of you get what you pay for. Why does on lawyer charge less? Less experience or less interest in their client or fewer clients? A mechanic is no different except for the big difference that their efforts can't be cancelled out by an opposing lawyer and you go to jail for 10 years. A mechanic might fuck up and give you back a car that's worse than when you dropped it off, but they will only do that because they will lose money if they tried to fix it. They will be doing work that is unpaid and while that would be fine in a Communist scenario it irks me that a Lawyer can bill by the hour while a Mechanic basically does piece work. True, some lawyers will charge a flat rate for certain issues that are streamlined like DWI and divorce and bankruptcy, but generally you pay by the hour. Of course I didn't complain when I got paid for an hour of work changing an alternator that took about 9 minutes. But it doesn't balance out and thus adds to the inequity I see with the flawed modern economy that will ultimately lead to the demise of capitalism because it's inherently unbalanced toward lawyers. The exchange of time and skill is inordinately unequal and designed to
The conclusion is that skilled labor ought not to be piece work. I can give a rough estimate on some jobs but I have no experience with certain jobs so I can't price anything at this point.

Upbeat Blues

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I'm like a codependent junkie who thrives on abuse so I give and give and it briefly entertains a handful of people and I crawl on bleeding knees trying to get affirmation. I actually fleshed this song out a bit in a blues fashion with a kind of bridge. It's a song and as soon as I get my piano then I'm going to be all set to record a few tracks. *The metal fabricator guy who is also a mechanic to the bone claims to be a musician. I'm going to get a piano and find out. There is no way I'm going to change oil in crappy '92 chevy pick up trucks without a piano waiting for me nearby. And I may make it a shop rule that I will not work on any truck that has a sticker of Calvin pissing on a Ford logo.

"You must be looking for the shop that works on trucks owned by assholes. It's down the street."
And that goes double for any truck with those fake brass balls hanging off the receiver hitch. How fucked up is that? You get a brass scrotum hanging off your truck? Are you stupid? Take it to the shop down the road where they don't clean their fingernails. You think I'll be a mechanic without sophistication? Never. I'm going to be doubly sophisticated, a snob, I may speak with a German accent and act totally annoyed whenever someone drives up. Oh, Texans will love that.
"Vat is that Toyota truck? No. I vill not vork on Toyota or Chevy. Come back in de Ford, I vill vork. Toyota, Chevy, no."
"Vell, philosophically, the vater pump is ok. But I vant to replace it because I vill replace the thermostat anyvay and it looks like the drug dealer who owned this car before you didn't maintain it at all so ve can suspect the vater pump on basic ethical standards."

* After listening to this version I recognized the Lyle Lovett influence. Lovett's song craft is so effortlessly painless that I want to punch him in the face and I think I stopped listening to him because it wasn't fair how he could harmonize and rhyme all night long. At least Jackson Browne suffers for his songs. Lovett's songs seem to walk in the front door all dressed up for the ball. They both make me sound like the tone deaf love child of Sheryl Crow and Jimmy Buffett.

I Basically moved into the world of King of The Hill and Hank Hill has become my boss. Just imagine that.

Lava Lamp

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I didn't have a lava lamp in my Greg Brady adolescence. I am from New England where you were considered a hippy if you liked The Beatles. They didn't make Red Sox Lava Lamps. But I'm digging the lava lamp now that I have a power source. From the outside my van looks like an oasis in the desert with painted gates to reveal a comforting home where gypsies play music and steal your wallet but leave you with a smile and a fortune of widsom and apuppy.
 Speaking of puppies I have a pet Ferret or wild weasel now. He's living in the scrap from the RV I demolished. It's an island of misfits here playing country music and dreaming of star ships.

* If you think the sound effects of the car coincided with the movements of the wax in the lava lamp then you are probably smoking some Purple Haze bubonic chronic in Venice.

Firebird

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I don't know why someone would own a Pontiac Firebird with 3'' of clearance under the exhaust. This bitch has been kicked around like a stripper at a Duke University keg party. It was blowing water out the tail pipe like a faucet. First one mechanic decided the heads were bad. They replaced the heads and it still blew water. So they replaced the whole block. And it still blew water out. So that mechanic has since been fired or quit and burned bridges and now we use his tools while he collects unemployment checks since there's nothing but disorder in the mechanic world.
Then the boss set loose a mechanic who rents one of the bays. This mechanic has a sticker that says "Texi-Can 4x4 Club" (Bull wearing a sombrero) on his gigantic Ford 250 jacked up beach cruiser with two swampland exhaust sticking up like the truck can go underwater. I hear it driving up the road and I know it gets 5 mpg. He's in 4th gear at 30 mph. Absolutely impractical as he hauls nothing but his cowboy hat and a case of beer. Texicans are Mexicans who are proudly reclaiming the land of their forefathers. A mere 150 years ago this land was seized from Mexico and it basically could've solved all their financial woes but instead the people of Jalisco and Nueve Leon pick peppers for Walmart salsa and pray to the Santa Muerte that they will not be gunned down randomly as crystal meth labs in Sinaloa manufacture fake ephedrine to feed the Midwest junkie prostitutes. The historians who look back on the early 21st century are going to be convinced we were intentionally destroying ourselves and I'm here to say that no, we were just fucking idiots. Brilliant fucking idiots.


So, this Texi-Can mechanic fumbles around with it for a few weeks, really he never should've gotten invovled, like I shouldn't get involved, because the Firebird is cursed, because the guy swaps out the heads or something and manages to mash the oil pan and then BANG a piece of the connecting rod flies out of the oil pan, sticking out like a shark is eating his way through the metal. Well, then the Firebird sits for weeks and weeks, months of dust settling as no one wants to get involved, but the owner thinks special parts are being ordered, you know, the total run around of deceit and lies while his car flouders in Texican hands and Bud Light cans collect in the back seat. I guess he was a Texi-Can't.

The windshield is the biggest windshield I've ever seen. It's like an F-15 cockpit except the glass is cracked. I bottomed out pushing it out of the garage with like 2'' lip on the floor. Pitiful as the exhaust was disconnected and I drove it with no oil or coolant into another repair bay. IT has a glass T-top also and a glass hatchback so if you get in an accident you will be plucking glass from your balls for ten years.

Now it is Oggy's turn. We have the original engine without the heads and we'll take this engine out, swap accessories and heads and intake manifold and put it all back in with guaranteed problems. I'll tell you right now I'm over my head with this project because A) I don't know what to do.* B) all the tools are scattered everywhere. C) We don't have many of the right size wrenches. D) The Firebird is cursed.

*Those are standard wrenches in the picture and there isn't one standard bolt head on this vehicle

Oggy's Unhealthy Infatuation With The Past Still Haunts Him

To contact us Click HERE
Given Popcorn wrappers on unsettled nights
taken paved roads when dirt roads called
looked back on the dirt roads and wondered if
the choice was a predilection or an instinct
safer choice or possible the salvation of man?

Though the safer choice led to heartbreak and
misled destruction, humiliation and lonely roads
through political turmoil, a depressed land
people living on the garbage of divorce lawyers
the belly of the gluttonous and unsophisticated masses
expands with pompous flatulence.

Oggy is a child raising himself to be the man
who could raise a child.
But this is backwards and the accessory of a child
would not make him a man or even a belabored child.
It would merely make him en vogue with the trends
of modern superfluity. But his mistakes could be shared.
with his blighted offspring.

With no future in the growing bones of an innocent child,
Oggy clings to the past, mistakes and philosophical slights
childish upheavals, hurtful remarks take personally
sunglasses betrayed in spiteful misery.

Oggy repents.
Oggy rants.
Oggy sings.
Oggy prays.
Oggy sleeps.
Oggy ponders.
Oggy eats.
Oggy loves.
Oggy hates.
Oggy gives a Damn.

Oggy's Wounded Inner Torque Converter

Wing and A Prayer

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We all dream of flying to the moon

 I'm eating 5 bean casserole that has been in my cooler since 2009. It tastes ok.

Oggy in the process of getting West Nile Virus. Texas Mosquitoes make no noise when they fly and are too light to feel. They land and suck my blood like oil field energy companies.

 I was in a rage and at the flea market and found a collectible chicken and rooster. Lonely thoughts and angry resentments made me haggle with the old man selling it. I brought it home to the van and lived with it for a few weeks conversing with it nightly as to a theraputic pet rock. This little chick stayed behind when I set the rooster free.

Time to spread my wings

When I was remodeling I hatefully threw him in the trash but today I hunted him down again and set him free too. Maybe he will be reunited with his family one day.

The ultimate ghetto fix on Oggy's moped...soldering the bulb leads inside the bulb.

 Irksome problems with the moped and van abound. If I weren't neck deep in other problems on other cars then I'd really get physical with my van's driveshaft u joints. I wanted to go to El Mexicano tonight for a plato de tacos but it was dark and my headlight had been giving me problems. I thought there was a ground problem but it turned out to be the contacts coming out of the filament were detached from the solder point which is also the plug prongs. Well, after a failed attempt to fix it blindly through a small hole I drilled I basically cracked the black plastic open since it isn't a conventional bulb and I positioned the filament wires next to some copper wire that I soldered on and then I soldered it all together so it finally works.* But the idea of riding in the night even with light just to get a taco sounded less appealing after I thought about it. So I opened the 5 bean casserole and lit the stove.

Blue is Peace
White is Purification
Red is Prosperity
Green is Compassion
Yellow is Knowledge

Like my "Simplify" sticker, these are not current conditions, they are aspirations.

* Headlights for 1974 Vespa Ciao mopeds are $25 each.

Robe and Crown

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We Shall Wear a Robe and Crown...The Nelons pretty much slam dunk this song. The recording I have does a better job mixing the background singers but it's evident this is the music that will usher you into heaven. It's got like five flawless key changes. I'm saving up for lessons in this style of music because it's southern gospel but basically Western without the Swing. Fast tempo to best lift up your spirits in the presence of the Lord and make you give witness and praise to the Almighty.





Maybe it's just my own Marty Martyr complex to suffer on the path to glory but the dirt beneath my nails is petroleum from the depths of the earth and was former landscapes for lizards the size of barges on the Mississippi and flying lizards who ate donkeys alive. Mankind has been here for 2 million years in 4.5 Billion span. That's like the last two minutes of a 24 hour day. And my atoms will eventually become the grit under some future mechanic's fingernails. I hope The Nelons' music survives past the rapture so other sinners can enjoy it.

Oggy's Unhealthy Infatuation With The Past Still Haunts Him

To contact us Click HERE
Given Popcorn wrappers on unsettled nights
taken paved roads when dirt roads called
looked back on the dirt roads and wondered if
the choice was a predilection or an instinct
safer choice or possible the salvation of man?

Though the safer choice led to heartbreak and
misled destruction, humiliation and lonely roads
through political turmoil, a depressed land
people living on the garbage of divorce lawyers
the belly of the gluttonous and unsophisticated masses
expands with pompous flatulence.

Oggy is a child raising himself to be the man
who could raise a child.
But this is backwards and the accessory of a child
would not make him a man or even a belabored child.
It would merely make him en vogue with the trends
of modern superfluity. But his mistakes could be shared.
with his blighted offspring.

With no future in the growing bones of an innocent child,
Oggy clings to the past, mistakes and philosophical slights
childish upheavals, hurtful remarks take personally
sunglasses betrayed in spiteful misery.

Oggy repents.
Oggy rants.
Oggy sings.
Oggy prays.
Oggy sleeps.
Oggy ponders.
Oggy eats.
Oggy loves.
Oggy hates.
Oggy gives a Damn.

Oggy's Wounded Inner Torque Converter

Oddest Text Message

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"Tell Mrs. Forrer she isn't getting her penguin pencil holder"
This message came to me anonymously from someone in Denver who seems to have the wrong number. Either that or I'm living an alternate life while I sleep...but mistakenly am using the same phone for both lives. I wonder if my alternative life is more interesting since I'm a message taker for unsophisticated things like penguin pencil holders. Maybe I'm more content in my other life. Maybe I share videos of cats playing with dogs. I should text back and say, "You better give Mrs. Forrer her penguin pencil holder back or I'm going to kick your ass."

But I'm afraid it will reflect badly on my alternate persona.

6 More Cylinders to Feed

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I feel a small sense of accomplishment at the successful removal and overhaul and installation of this Firebird motor but the end result is another 6 cylinders the dead lizards of the Pleistocene Period must feed with their compressed bones and habitat. I'm not proud of that because if melting ice caps and vanishing wheat belts are not important then we can safely say nothing is important. And Fox new is very intent with their diabolical propaganda to lull fresh faced ass fuckers into thinking cellulite and new cell phone gadgets and stock prices (ungodly cross marketing and propaganda in the ugly style of newsertainment and junk journalism masquerading as underwear ads and cosmetic surgery to remove laugh lines from your ass face) but keep watching that junk food for the withered brain and blighted worldview. No, let's put more cars running along in futile disregard of safety and sophistication. I test drove the Firebird up the road and would not trade my moped's broken headlight for it.

Actually, the Firebird isn't running right because although we basically installed it correctly, a diagnostic code of random misfiring in the coil pack is going to keep it parked. was the code there before we got it? Well, one of the cylinders was ruined so it's hard to say.*
Coil packs, for those who care, are what replaced the single coil ignition, which replaced the mechanical breaker and condenser style ignition with single coil of my van. So coils can come in a small variety of sizes and shapes and they all do the same thing which is increase the voltage from the battery/alternator to the spark plug.

regular old coil like on Oggy's van

coil pack like the one on the 1999 Firebird. IT's really three sets of two dual coils.

Individual coil like on the grand marquis

I know this is totally engrossing so I'll stop now.


* I was testing the coil plugs when the radiator hose exploded off the radiator. It was like a scene from King of The Hill because 5 Texans were standing around watching and three of them were Commercial Truck Drivers, one was a mechanic and another was a pipefitter with a welding rig on his truck and none of them blinked when the hose exploded. The only reaction to my being showered with 250 degree water was, "Must be a loose hose or it's overheating."

Meanwhile, I screamed like a little girl who had lost a tooth.

Comic Relief

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The Firebird was up on a lift when a man came into the garage speaking Spanish.
J.R. jumped in to translate since he is bilingual. The guy evidently wanted to buy salvage cars and ship them to Mexico where they are chopped and tagged. After he left J.R. said that if he comes back then I should treat him right because he knew how to make a buck.
I was in the middle of reattaching a ground wire to the engine block with my hand way up behind the head and said dead-pan, "My Spanish book doesn't cover illegal exports to Mexico until Chapter Two."
Steve laughed as he welded a shoddy catalytic converter joint and asked what Chapter Three was.
"Crystal meth manufacturing."
"And people wonder why Arizona is against multi-cultural education," mumbled Steve through a shower of sparks and cigarette smoke.
J.R. lit up a cigarette and ignored us. His eyes were filling with dollar signs. I dropped the bolt and swore.

Caldo de Pollo

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To celebrate the fact me and J.R. ( my mechanic partner) got the engine out of the Firebird I rode the moped to El Mexicano where the menu was a classic gradient style of orange and yellow. The waitress spoke English to me but Spanish to everyone else. Caldo was on the specials menu and since I'm not made of money I ordered it with Fanta. This chicken soup comes with chicken on the bone and I made the party at the next table grimace in disgust and revulsion as I devoured the chicken bones like a starving street dog. The music was Shakira and Los Tigres Del Norte. There was no Jarritos nor a salsa bar with serve yourself grilled jalapenos which is my favorite, but the food was good with bonus tortilla chips that made me reminisce about the fried wantons at the Chinese restaurants where my ill mannered behavior was enough to make the old owner give me the evil eye.

I mashed my middle finger with a crowbar today as we spent 10 hours reinstalling the new (original) engine the hard way. Everyone else took the engine out through the bottom but we didn't have a lift so we did it through the top...and it took an hour to line up the motor mounts since I had to install them also after removing them to get around the steering wheel column. And while we were both working topside and trying to line the motor up with the transmission bell housing somehow I either pulled the transmission forward a few inches or yesterday it pulled forward when we lifted the engine out...because after we had reinstalled many components I inspected the transmission and saw something I shouldn't see, which is the drive shaft dangling in disconnected mockery to my efforts.

This is why I'm not being paid by the hour because what is a 5 hour job now becomes a 25 hour job and obviously no one is going to pay that much in labor for me to learn what I did wrong, like no one is going to pay me to lose a flywheel to torque converter bolt and install another one, then find the original bolt and take it all apart so I can install the correct bolt or else I wouldn't sleep right. I don't expect anyone to pay for that but if I make a habit of doing things like that then I can't be a shop mechanic. Right now I look at it as an unpaid lab course in mechanics where I am given cars to learn on and I can take as long as I want and inspect things that have nothing to do with the service request and lose bolts and take pictures and write essays but in the end I will be paid as if I were an expert mechanic who did the job in two hours. I can't complain except that everyone smokes manufactured cigarettes like the stuff is good for you and the air is filled with smoke and sex jokes. I must draw the line at cigarette smoke so this will be the last collaborative effort and I will make myself an area where I can work in peace and breathe only the clean fumes of gasoline and used motor oil. Never mind that our tools aren't organized and the bolts aren't organized and we're working on our backs on a creeper with missing wheels and it's no different than homeless men fixing shit in the dirt.

I suspect the drive shaft can be reconnected by taking it off the differential housing. This I pray or else we are going to jack the transmission up again and try to line it up...or take the engine out again so that by the end I've worked for $2 an hour.

I thought it would be interesting to write about these repair jobs but I'm having a hard time seeing the drama. It's mundane and dirty and basically like dentistry on a giant mouth.
"I need a ten."
"A ten?"
"Maybe a 5/16th"
"ok.."
 "What the hell is this wire doing here."
"I don't know. You pulled it off."

There are potential essays regarding the overall philosophy of car mechanics but when you get down to it a modern engine is all about cable harnesses and connectors and clean sensors and oil pressure. Why would that be interesting? It's not even interesting to me. But philosophically it is important and my mission is to be practical and work at practical ventures to fit in and be productive and go to cabarets and race stock cars. Guitar playing shall be a hobby. I've spent at least three solid years reaching some competence with it but even if I had a chance to play for money I know I'd need to work as well. So I'm trying to develop practical skills that have value in the real world and also which are immediate and holistic and clockwork mechanic repairs fit the bill. The engine either fits or it doesn't. The transmission is either connected to the drive shaft or it isn't. These dogmatic ultimatums satisfy my obsessive nature. What is missing from this picture? This is computer programming for the mechanically inclined. Programming is like virtual mechanics but I'm trying to embrace the tangible realities because virtual living is a manufactured realm cultivated by disaffected individuals and then propagated as their pathological communication...but it has tangible qualities that correspond to our lizard brains and we are entering a virtual world that divides the practical and digital domains. Slavery still exists but the slaves are hidden and the distractions are more colorful. Since this fosters an ignorant and blighted world view I must reject it on principle. It is not a universal outlook...it is specialization at the worst and it's source is humans who are not engaged with other humans. Because it packages all elements of the world into a digital realm and even if theoretically the domains are varied and prolific they are all fixed in the larger digital realm which actually doesn't exist, like interest, it's manufactured to benefit a few people and the parameters can be adjusted to fit the stupid or the smart. Unlike the real world which does not adjust for Adam or Eve.

So philosophy has led to my swollen finger and blue nail, typing with nine fingers in a messy van wearing underoos. But these are tangible characteristics and it is for a purpose that fits my master plan to accumulate experience and knowledge so I can better express my disdain for humanity.

This essay is like chicken soup on the bone that you have to pick off and eat.