I took a Judo class for the first time in a long time this evening.  I will definitely feel this tomorrow.  The teacher is twenty years older than me, and the class is geared towards older folks.  I took a class in Judo in 2003, but it was geared more towards the Brazilian Ju-jitsu style.  Brazilian Ju-jitsu is actually Judo that just emphasizes grappling and mat-work.  That didn't take, a big reason being that my rock-and-roll lifestyle still held sway over me, and I just didn't have the energy to do it.  I also preferred to take the more traditional, Olympic style of Judo, but I didn't have a car, and I had to ride the bus to that class I took a few times.  That's why I told the instructor this evening that I hadn't taken Judo since 1990.

The new book, issue number 20, just zips along.  I want to take time to do other things such as practice music and read and whatnot, so I'm kind of trying to take it easy on the book workload now.  I have Lone Star Zine Fest next Sunday.  I will bring about forty books, and I hope to sell like twenty or so.  I'm going to look to see if any out of town events take applications now.

So, does this or that person really like me or not?  You know, that kind of a question is grounds for people getting divorced after ten, twenty, even thirty years of marriage.  One spouse just asks themselves of the other, "Does this person even like me?"  Imagine how I feel. 

I've talked often about a woman I went on one date with some years ago.  She said something to me, twice, that helped kill our deal. The first time she said it, she said it to me over the phone before our scheduled time together.  She said, "I don't compete for men."  I could hear the smirk in her voice when she said it.  The second time she said it, again, she said, "I don't compete for men," on our actual one and only date, and sure enough, she had a big, fat smirk on her face when she said it.  That kind of attitude became a good reason why we had only that one date.  She also had a drug problem, no job, and an attitude that her ability to ingratiate herself to someone such as me could provide her with a ticket to the free and easy life.  Again, we had only one date, and no, I did not have sex with her when a big-as-life opportunity came from her on that one date.

And, I might add, that one time I mention above does not constitute the only time I've made a decision like that about someone I've caught that kind of attitude from.  I can think of several instances where attractive women out and out squandered ample opportunities to get to know me better, with ample time to take advantage of those opportunities, only to try at some later date to give me the idea that it was all about me jumping through their hoops.  Why, if Ms. Ariana Grande herself were to find herself on my personal love docket, and she gave me that kind of attitude, she'd be out on her ass before you could say Jack Robinson.

When that woman from several years ago said to me, flat out, that she doesn't compete for men, and I recoiled at that and her whole messed up life-act, I could point to this one, very apt...point:  That she was competing with the life that I had built up as a single person living for long periods of time with no discernible interest from any women, anywhere.  I've quit smoking cigarettes, quit drinking, and quit drugs.  All of those changes I've made to help improve my life to the point where some asshole can't just come along and act like they own the whole deal between us.  That woman with that attitude did not offer viable competition to the life I have built up as a person by myself, and I fucking rejected her.

And, I might add, my successful efforts to quit cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol allowed me to address the very issues of love addiction that caused so many problems between myself and the women around me in years past.  I've worked very, very hard at that issue.  One main issue of my love addiction consists of the false belief that I could not find happiness if I was not at least actively searching and courting someone I assigned the role of love interest to from amongst the women in my world.  Which brings me back to my point: Anybody, anybody, in my world who wants to vie for love interest status with me will find themselves competing with the life I have now as a single person who is happy being single.  That goes for those women who might have something of a genuine interest in getting to know me better, as well as those more predatory women who vie for my attentions under false pretenses.  Don't believe me?  Try me.

I've got something of an audience, I believe.  I believe that I can express myself in ways to people that other people can't, because they may feel that not as many people pay attention to what they say or do online or in life.  So I'm lucky in that regard, I guess.  But, I'm not a mind reader.  If someone I was very fond of in a romantic way were a member of my audience, and I didn't have the access to their various forms of self-expression that they have in regards to me, I hope that such a person would forgive me if I didn't pick up on stuff they feel I should pick up on.  Again, I emphasize, I'm not a mind reader.  Right now I feel as if I'm trying to see a person on the other side of a two-way mirror when I can only see my own reflection, while they can see me and know that my heart and my mind turn to them often.  That's a hard position to occupy.   That's a hard position to feel comfortable occupying.  

I'll have to play this song out and about to see if it works or not.  The arrangement might be a little too fancy pants....

I Never Was Her Guy

First part of verse: A, D, E, A   Second part of verse, and chorus:D,C,G,E
Strumming pattern:Bv^Bv                               Strumming pattern: Bv^Bv^ 
Bridge:G7, C7, D7, G7                                     last chorus: E, D, A, F#
Strumming pattern:Bv^Bv^ 

Verse: 
            A
Oh I go on and on about her
              E
day and night, day and night
             D
on the internet about her
                A
day and night, day and night

    A
It ain’t so much to get her
        E
no it ain’t so much to have her
         D
I just wanna do what’s right
              A
what is right, what is right

Verse:
           D
Oh I show up where she is
                   C
she’s right there, then she ain’t
                    G
it’s clear to me
                                        E 
she’s got better things to do

            D
Oh I’ll never dent her conscience
           C
no I’ll never get a break
                      G
she’s always gone
                                      E
and I’d better get there too

Chorus:
             D
Oh my love is like a freight train 
           C
going ninety miles an hour
                   G
away from me
                                                  E
down some lonesome railroad track

           D
Oh I’ll never learn to catch her
                C 
‘cause I never was her guy
                   G
a hundred miles
                                                   E 
down some lonesome railroad track

                     D
She ain’t no 727
           C
at an airport or a car
           G
I can hire
                                           E
to drive me all the way to town

               D
She’s a chuggin‘ diesel engine
           C
goin‘ ninety miles and hour
                  G
away from me
                                                  E
down some lonesome railroad track


Verse: 
            A
Oh I go on and on about her
              E
day and night, day and night
             D
on the internet about her
                A
day and night, day and night

    A
It ain’t so much to get her
        E
no it ain’t so much to have her
         D
I just wanna do what’s right
              A
what is right, what is right


Verse:
           D
Well I never was her guy
                   C
and I isn’t her guy now
                    G
it’s clear to me
                                        E 
she’s got better things to do

            D
Oh I never was her guy
           C
and I isn’t her guy now
                      G
she’s always gone
                                      E
and I’d better get there too


Bridge: 
 G7
Frustrations got a number
                C7
and that lovely gal’s got mine
               D7
guess I’ll mosey my way
                          G7
out of this here mess

 G7
I know exactly what she’s playin’
         C7
I’m a bad man, yeah I’m sayin’
               D7
I’ll think more of her then less
                      G7
that’s for the best

             E
Oh that gal is like a freight train
           D 
going ninety miles an hour
                  A
away from me
                                                 F#
down some lonesome railroad track

           E
Oh I’ll never learn to catch her
              D 
‘cause I never was her guy
                  A
a hundred miles
                                                  F# 
down some lonesome railroad track


                     E
She ain’t no 727
           D
at an airport or a car
         A
I can hire
                                          F#
to drive me all the way to town

               E
She’s a chuggin‘ diesel engine
          D
goin‘ ninety miles and hour
                A
away from me
              v      D     v                   v E
down some lonesome railroad track

Richy Vegas 2/17/2020



                    

I wonder if the powers that be at LA Zine Fest got uptight about that review of my books that mentioned misogyny.  I included the review in my application, because the tone of the review came off as favorable to my work overall.  I wrote the guy who did it after I read the review and said something about the nature of story arcs, and how a typical story has the protagonist change somehow as  the central conflict plays out.  The Legend of Richy Vegas comes off to me as the story of man vs. himself, more than man vs. man, or man vs. nature.  But, I guess the powers that be at LA had that review and its contents to go by, along with my website and another review, more than they had the actual books I've produced.  The guy who wrote the review ordered two later editions in the series, but I have not seen another review of my work by him since he ordered those books.

I applied to Ft. Worth Zine Fest today.   The application was much shorter, much simpler, and more informal that the LA one.  I won't have as much expense to deal with in travel if they let me table in Ft. Worth this Summer.  I might look into doing some music gigs again later this year.  Maybe the new one dollar price tag on the books might get some hippies to part with their drug money and buy a book or two at a gig.  My inventory is just getting bigger and bigger otherwise.  I'd like to open for one of my degenerate friends rock-and-roll bands as the solo acoustic act that kicks off the evening, so I guess I'd better get some knee pads and prepare to suck some weeny for one of those gigs.  I don't want to do wine bars and shit like that with just me as the evening's entertainment, because I don't think "I Used Your Panties For a Cumrag" would go well with the house chardonnay and artisan cheese plate.

I'm playing the Posse East during SXSW week.  It will be a day gig.  I'm doing it mainly to get my songs memorized for the next album, and to sharpen my chops up enough to shoot some videos for my long-neglected Youtube channel.  I think my living situation will stay in the current form for those video shoots to happen, at least.  I've got this great set, and lights, and oldtimey DV format camera for that purpose, but the problems with my arm last year really messed all of those plans up.  The preparation for the Posse East gig should put me right as far as my playing goes.  I'm to perform a forty-five minute set, mostly from the next album, and that would give me plenty of content for the channel as well.  The set will occur at three PM during the week, so I won't have to worry about being nervous performing before a large audience.  Ha, ha.

I interacted a tiny bit today with that young woman at that business whom I can go on quite a bit about these last eight or so months.  I think that my course of action will continue to involve just letting go of any notion that I will try to get with her socially.  In other words, I will not go out of my way to favor her with attention, or try to put myself out there with some grand, bold gesture that expresses any desire any part of me still has to do something about any of this.  If it turns out that I'm forsaking the love of my life due to my lack of willingness to engage with her in such a way, then let me take this opportunity to apologize to this young woman, apologize to myself, and to apologize to the gods everywhere for giving up on all of that.

I just believe that a huge source a apprehension such a very attractive young woman would invariably have about an obsessive type such as myself involves a fear that I would form a premature, inappropriate emotional attachment to her.  I believe if I was twenty-five years old. I believe if I was seventy-five years old; such a prospect; that I would form a premature, inappropriate emotional attachment to her; such a prospect would make her crazy.  I think that my course of action (or inaction) of these past eight or so months proves that I've had this likely concern of hers at the forefront of my thoughts on how to proceed.  If some black guy wants to call me "the man with the plan" in light of my stated course of action in regards to this young woman; that is, to just continue to leave her alone for the most part, then so be it.

Most people out there probably know about those team building seminars some employers used to make their employees participate in.  I'm referring to the type of seminar where they would make the employees perform stunts such as how one employee would catch another employee that fell over backward from a standing position.  That kind of thing serves to build trust, supposedly.  

I remember I went to one Halloween party at a Co-op house where the person who invited the people from the church I tried to go to baked some coconut macaroons, but in order to eat her lousy macaroons, party guests had to go to some person's room, find a place to sit, and feed the macaroons to each other.  Yuck!  I took a seat on the floor, and when this woman, who'd been rude to me the whole night, said that was the only way to eat that shit (I don't particularly like coconut), I just got up and walked out of the room, out of the house, got in my truck, went home, and never saw the inside of that church or her again.

I told that story to Jason, my old bass player, as we drove to practice one day, and he talked about the above-mentioned trust building exercise as an analogous thing to the imposed intimacy exercise of the macaroon feeding thing, and yeah, it's all bullshit.  Trust comes better from a relationship that develops over time, and withstands the test of time.  Why, this past decade, I terminated a friendship with someone I'd known for over thirty years because I figured that I couldn't trust him.

I've talked about how I'm really trying to refrain from pursuing unavailable women these days.  I think I do a pretty good job of it, too.  But, I've thought about those disasters of so many years ago.  I used to tell myself that those women I crashed and burned on never really let me know they liked me, and that if I just had that kind of thing as my gold standard, those kind of events would not have occurred.  The only thing is, that's not true at all.  There were plenty of occasions where things went bad with someone where the other party did give a pretty strong indication that they liked me on some level,.   My previously held belief that the bad deals went bad because I didn't hold out for that kind of affirmation stems from a desire to put everything into absolute, all or nothing, black or white categories.  

It might be nice if it were that simple.  Maybe it would be better, maybe not, I don't know.  The thing I most recall, in reality, is that whatever little bone some woman or girl threw me, to get the ball rolling initially, became this thing for me to cling to when a better course of action for me would involve letting go of my love interest.  In other words, the woman or girl might show some interest to get my attention, but I would refuse to read the writing on the wall later on down the road.  So, there's another thing that's on me. 

I may never pursue an unavailable woman again.  Now, a chance certainly exists where I might go down that road again.  One can say the same about whether I smoke or drink again as well.  I might do any of those things I've worked so hard to stop, including the pursuit of an unavailable woman.   Why, just today I speculated that someone I've designated as unavailable might actually care for me some.  That kind of belief might take me down all kinds of shitty roads.  But, if I want to have complete honesty about these kinds of addictive things, I stand a chance of never smoking again, never drinking again, never doing drugs again, and never making it about an unavailable woman again.

This last one, I wrote in June about how I had no desire to sign on for an Unavailable Woman Deal.  An Unavailable Woman Deal consists of this: I bend over backwards to accommodate the notion of this person in my world and in my heart, and try to come up with a solution that benefits us both and that those around us find acceptable and even desirable, and in exchange for my efforts, the other party gets to do whatever the hell they want.  Now the deal I signed on for instead had the other party doing whatever the hell they wanted, for sure, but I just made no effort to keep up my end of that Unavailable Woman Deal.

I even approached four other women for social reasons.  "Approached" includes following someone on Instagram, but unfollowing that person when they didn't reply to a comment of mine on one of their posts.  That little, tiny bit of interaction counts for more of an approach for social reasons than I ever approached this person I've written about so much since around June of last year.  I've never even talked to this person, and I may never do so.  She just works at a business I patronize, and I don't feel particularly obliged to interact with her, because I've got her as unavailable, and I don't pursue unavailable women anymore, and I may never pursue such a one again.

I got my new book back from the printer today.  Richy Vegas Comics : issue number 19, "The Legend of Richy Vegas, Part 6," should arrive on the 'zine shelf at the Central Library no later than Monday.  I put up the necessary stuff on my website for purchase on the web.  I will have a table at Lone Star Zine Fest, at Blue Genie on Airport, on Sunday March 1st.  I sell my books for $1 a piece at events such as Lone Star Zine Fest.

I remember really enjoying life more and more as I knew that my commitment to stop smoking really had a chance of taking hold.  That is, the longer I stayed off cigarettes, the more I could enjoy what I'd accomplished.  I really do believe that I've quit pursuing unavailable women.  That doesn't mean that women always say yes when I ask them out these days-far from it- but if someone adds up to an unavailable woman from the start, I tend to not do much of anything about it.

One of the characteristics of a truly, classic unavailable woman shows up in how the same kinds of obnoxious behaviors emerge even though I don't do much of anything about their presence in my world.  In my early twenties, I would fully commit to pursuing these kinds of woman, and the ruinous crash-and-burn breakdowns occurred with the requisite obnoxious behaviors on their end.  I talked about things such as how they would figuratively pull the rug out from under me, or how they would otherwise sabotage the whole situation.  An example of such a thing would involve how they would throw some guy up in my face after my ardent pursuit of them, but really, anything to throw me a curve.  One of the trademarks of these bad deals involves how the bad would soon far outweigh whatever good I could find in the deal. 

So, yeah, I'm not really looking for a love interest from amongst the women in my world right now.  That would mark another aspect of the bad experiences; the need to try to rebound with someone else.  Another aspect of the aftermath of these ruinous experiences would involve a desire on my part to quit pursuing art and try to do just about anything else.  I came up with NFL player, astronaut, marine biologist, pharmacist, and others, I'm sure.  Dealing with the usual suspects in more effective ways suffices these days.  Right now I can enjoy life and take it easy in much the same way I did when I quit smoking, and again many years later when I quit alcohol and drugs. 

So yeah, it's not as if this young woman actually has to go out with my friend to some of the places we both hang at.  She could just mention to this friend that she likes me and wants to hang out with me.  I, on the other hand, don't want to reach out to her through him, because that would put him in a bad position.  He would then have to take an issue to her from me that has nothing to do with her job.  Her reaching out to me through my friend: That's fine.  Me reaching to her through him: Not a good idea, in my opinion.

I figure that this young woman got pretty much what she wanted out of me these last seven to nine months.  She got free attention in the form of these posts, plus whatever attention I would pay to her in the real world.  If she had her way, this sort of thing could have gone on forever, I figure.  I'm prepared to write about her some more, but her time will pass, eventually, when she gets more out of my system, and that day will come.  It always does.

The importance of conducting myself in an exemplary manner until that day comes; I can't emphasize the importance of that enough.  The things I see that I have the opportunity to get better and better at each time have to do with treating this kind of person well, to the best of my ability, while at the same time not allowing this person to treat me shabbily, if I can help it.  All the while making intelligent decisions about the whole deal.  I still find myself somewhat vulnerable to these kinds of games that lead to so much trouble in my younger days.  This particular game with this particular person persists after, like, seven to nine months, by my accounting.  That's still pretty vulnerable.