In the last post I talked about the negative role model of my behavior towards Veronica Ortega in 1985.  I came up with a mistake I'd made from the get go when I decided on our first date that I loved her.   I cited a huge mistake I made in idealizing her and not taking into account other possibilities of what she was after.

What she was really after ties into another huge mistake I made with her, and it's one I've made repeatedly over the years, and it continues to serve as a big mistake I could totally make in the foreseeable future.  When I told myself that I loved Veronica on our first date, I assumed that she'd accepted me on a much more profound level than she ever actually did.  I based this assumption on the fact that she did agree to go out with me on this one date.

I could totally make the same mistake today with any number of women in my world; a barista or waitress, someone I know on a more social level, the Invisible Woman (boy, if she ever really showed up in a not-too-fucked-up way that could totally happen); in short, anyone who had the combination of beauty and friendliness and/or seeming availability that spelled "opportunity" for me in the past where there never really was one.

I guess a real pro wouldn't assume a comfortable level of acceptance until...and even then, I've known of and been the type that assumes, to some extent, ownership of someone because of one or two rolls in the hay.

It used to be that I would try to save these brilliant thoughts for a once a week entry, but lately I've been more along the lines of, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."  This one, the assumption of acceptance, has been really helpful, because lately I've interacted with some women in a way that has put me on the fence.  Okay, I gave away some comics and talked to some women, but I don't really want anyone seeing me as a freak because I make erroneous assumptions about anyone's level of interest and availability.

There's this episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the crew encounters this funky energy wave.  They try to put up their shields to protect themselves, but the energy wave would only strengthen in a reflection of the strength of the shields.  The solution was to let down their shields and let the diminished wave passed harmlessly over them.

When I went on my first date with a girl named Veronica in the Spring of 1985, I decided that I was in love with her on that date.  It seemed like the thing to do.  I wrote two Richy Vegas comics about her, titled "The Villainess Veronica Ortega."  I concluded that she just wanted to collect admirers that she didn't have to take seriously as a way of coping with a breakup with a longterm boyfriend.  There was this other obsessive guy that she complained to me about, but in spite of her protests about him to me, he seemed to feel encouraged enough to make it all about her all the way into the next Fall.

I think about how I decided that I was in love with Veronica so soon into my acquaintance with her and how best to relate to the women in my world.  It is a very strong negative role model to work against.  I've mentioned that I tried to get with workers at these businesses a few years back and came up totally empty.  The only thing I can think about is, don't do whatever I did that made me decide that I was in love with Veronica so soon.

I guess the main thing that make me decide this so soon was to idealize Veronica.  I carried this idealized image of her around with me and didn't take into account what she may have really been about.  I think about the women in my world, and think about how I can be a little more critical, in a realistic way, about them.

I remember that the really pretty college age women back then ALWAYS seemed to have boyfriends, or were not single for long between boyfriends.  I think about a fair number of the viable women who would allow themselves to be treated shabbily by their boyfriends just for the security.  Security often meant that they wouldn't have to field date inquires from young men that they considered unworthy.  Their righteous boyfriends, who often times were guys they considered to be assholes, were worthy, so that's a pretty valid criticism.  I'm not saying that any of the attractive young women in my world have this kind of thing going on, but it's food for thought as far as I'm concerned.

The tide has gone out today on the Invisible Woman.  By that I mean I'm not so inclined today to think any of that stuff has any basis in reality.  The tide may come back in on her, or it may not.  I think that just by toning it down with the women in my world, it may reduce the intensity of what ever remains of my fixation on her.  Much in the same way as how the crew of the Enterprise dropped the shields to reduce the intensity of the energy wave.

I remember hanging out with this guy some years back this one time, and he was going on to those within earshot that he thought that he'd met someone.  I remember hearing stories about how needy this guy came across to the women friends we both knew, and I couldn't help but think, "Dude, you probably didn't actually meet someone."

So I'm not making a claim like that at this time.  I just have the opportunity to talk to someone who is not an employee of a business I patronize, like a coffee shop, whose JOB it is to kind of talk to the regular costumers, at least a little.  Nope, she's not in that category, but that's still a long way from saying I've met someone.

Anyway, this Schrodinger's Cat dilemma came up where, okay, the Invisible Woman; if I get with this person in my world, the Invisible Woman would show herself and be really pissed off, but if I don't get with this person in my world, the Invisible Woman would just remain a figment of my imagination and not show at all.  

This is what passes for woman drama in my world, but no one out there really has to read this if they don't want to, so I'll continue.  Yeah, this hung me up for a few hours, this Schrodinger's Cat dilemma, but I came up with this:  I was listening to this Temptations Greatest Hits CD on my computer last night, right, so they are going on about love, love, love, this, that, and the other, right.  And, I started thinking, "Man, Dr Burns is right, they sure do make love out to be this big, important thing in these pop songs.  Don't they?"

I mean, if love weren't this big important thing to me, too important still, in my opinion, there'd be no dilemma.  Am I right?  The reality of whatever situation I really am in will shake out in some form or other, but I could just calm down about the whole thing and not take the lyrics in this one Temptations cover of "The Impossible Dream" to heart:  "To love, pure and chaste from afar." I mean, fuck that.  Right? 

And don't anyone think that such a crazy-dumb dilemma can hang me up makes me some kind of dumbass either.  I used to have this therapist who, when I'd just mention someone in my world whom I had an attraction to, he would immediately evaluate her suitability to be in a relationship with me.  Mind you, not to just ask for a date, not to just go on one date, not to bump uglies with her just one time, not to date for a month or so and call it off, but whether this person that he'd never met would be a suitable partner for a longterm committed relationship.  Ay yi yi!  These people get paid a fortune to come up with this shit.

And if I just do the math on how many girls and women I've been on one or more dates with vs. how many I've actually closed the deal with in my adolescent and adult life, the ratio has got to be at least 7 or 8 to 1.  Mind you, I've not been with that many women in my life, and I've not been on just an incredible number of dates, so to just automatically think about that moment where we're both naked with anyone in my world is a bit premature at this point. No?

I dedicate this song to the Invisible Woman.  I have my reasons...

The commas indicate an emphatic strike on the bass string
I'll try to give instructions on how to sing the bridge.  This blog page doesn't accept the text box formatting of the Word program.


Me I’m Git Git Gone
Verse: D,G,A Bm
Chorus: A,D,E7
Bridge:C7,Em,G,D
B↓↑B↓↑
D
You can have your cake
                 A
And eat it too cake
D
Morning after morning
                A 
You can, wake and bake
G
You can take a manicure
               D
You can take a pedicure
Bm
Anytime you can take a man
        D
Oh, that’s for sure.

Chorus:
A
Me I’m git git gone
                  D
While you sit there on your throne
               E7
Like Zatoichi leaving town
        D
I’m, all alone

             E7
Like Zatoichi leaving town
       D
I'm, all alone.
Verse:
D
You can call in sick
                   A
And just be too too quick
D
Your beauty and your fame
                      A
Can buy you Harry Tom or Dick
G
No one can leave ya’
                   D
You’re the, Queen of Sheba
Bm
I don’t know you you don’t know me
                D
Call me, over-a-cheeb-a

Chorus:
A
Me I’m git git gone
                   D
While you sit there on your throne
               E7
Like Zatoichi leaving town
       D
I’m, all alone
                E7
Like Zatoichi leaving town
       D
I'm, all alone.

Bridge:
C7                        
You’re the classiest filly        
           Em 
In the, royal night sky      (up)           
G
I don’t know why I’m lassoed  (sustain)
         C7
I don’t bother askin’ why         (down)   
C7
No matter oh why poor poor me  (sustain)
    Em
Soon enough I will be free             (up)
                                                
​        G                                        
You stay in your world            
            Em 
While I sizzle at a      (down)
Em                       D
Hundr-e-ed degreeees.   (up to D)

Verse:
The pain in my neck 
Hurts like all the heck
There’s a piece of my brain
At your, call and beck
You can take a yoga class
Meet some real estate ass
I hope that when they hit you up
You, give ‘em a pass.

Chorus:
Till then I’m git git gone
While you sit there on your throne
Like Zatoichi leavin’ town 
I’m, all alone
Let Zatoichi leave that town
I’m, here at home
I say I’m here aaaat home.  (one downstroke on home)

Richy Vegas
3/4/2017



 

Will this torture never end?  I can't find my copy of Seven Samurai.  What the fuck is this shit?  A couple of weeks ago I couldn't find my DVD remote for the life of me.  A few days later, there it sat in a usual place.  I figured that my housecleaner had found it and put it there.

But my Seven Samurai DVD?  That's fucking hardball.  That is fucking low.  Only a lowlife like the Invisible Woman can be the reason behind my missing Seven Samurai DVD.

What if I actually saw this person in real life?  Like during SXSW, or in a city where these people hang, like New York of LA.  If I saw her in a restaurant I was eating at or at a museum or something, I'd probably be shit scared to death.  She's really pretty, which is bad enough, but also she's a big fucking deal to boot.  My pecker would probably shrivel with like it was in an ice water bath to a quarter it's nachul size, and my balls would go up into the my stomach, and it would be as if my bloated, 262 pound, 52 years old ass stood naked before a goddess of the realm.  She could judge me to be some unworthy piece of shit, act as if she has no clue as to who I am-whether or not she actually did know who I was- and I'm supposed to take that kind of chance if I ever saw her in public.  Fuck me, like hell I would!

Oh god, and shit of mine keeps coming up missing.  The Badfinger CD never turned up.  I just wanted to see an actor's name on the  Seven Samurai box.  It was the guy who played Kambei Shimada, the leader of the Samurai.  He's in a Zatoichi movie I'm watching now as well.  But no, I now live in a world where I can't count on my Seven Samurai DVD being where I last remembered it, or any other logical place, either.  Her parents must be proud.  Their big deal Pop star daughter is spending her days fucking with a middle-aged mentally ill guy's head.

I hope she likes the movie.  I really do.  I noticed that my Once Upon a Time In the West DVD is in the same stack of DVDs as where my Seven Samurai DVD was supposed to be, so maybe she's already seen that one.  It's a good one, right Baby?

I'm filling out note cards for Richy Vegas Comics:"The Legend of Richy Vegas."  So far I've filled out two sets that outline eighty pages each of material.  I plan on filling out two more sets, and then laying out the text of the four issues in sketchbooks.  I was going to try to do a more formal outline, but I decided against reinventing the wheel- this is how I usually lay out the pages.

I'm taking issue # 13 to the printer today, so I'll get the ball rolling on that soon enough.  That will complete the ideas for comics that I had way back in 2008.  As I said to someone the other day, it's one thing to write ideas out on notecards, it's quite another thing to actually complete the projects.   The first two ideas were single issue comics.  The next idea took two issues.  "The Consequences of Bringing Light." took six issues.  By far I spent the most time on the first of the ten books, "Anita, You're the Reason I'm Not In Prison."  That took about two and a half years.  Issue  # !2 took the shortest amount of time; a little over five months.  Six moths or less was typical for the last five issues.

I'm giving myself two to three months to get "The Legend of Richy Vegas" off the ground.  I have two manuscripts to draw from.  The first manuscript I started during my second hospitalization in December 1992.  It goes into detail about the hallucinations, "recovered memories," that I experienced after my romantic love deal really unraveled.   The second manuscript details the events, almost blow by blow, of what led up to that breakdown.  

"The Consequences of Bringing Light" didn't get the thorough documentation over the years that I can draw from with "The Legend..."  It has only been through the process of doing "The Consequences..." that I feel okay about bringing up what all happened,   

Two posts ago I brought up my effort to sit through Love Actually.  I brought up a female relative, who shall remain nameless, and how she got all bent out of shape about how there were several relationships between older, powerful men and younger, subordinate women.  Look at the post, Love Actually vs. A Distant Mirror, for my take on that.  

Now, let's get to my neck of the woods, the burdensome mentally ill brother in Love Actually who fucks up his sister's deal with a guy.  It was a bit of a gut punch, I will admit, with that first scene of him in his permanent acute care residency in that facility.  At least he's getting good UK health care.  At the end of the movie almost everyone has a happily ever after at the airport, except this poor woman with this pain-in-the-ass crazy brother, we don't see her at the airport at all.

Wellll, it's true family members make sacrifices for their disabled siblings or kids or parents all the time.  I auditioned for a job that featured a mother who basically gave up her own life to care for her son who was afflicted with cerebral palsy.  The dad took a powder when he saw what he was in for, and it was just her and whatever caregivers, which were quite few, and whatever means to pay for them that paid for them.  That shit happens.  That's life.

I can compare the portrayal of this potentially violent brother to the hilarious portrayal of Van Gogh in a home improvement store ad that appeared like a year ago for some time.  First we see Leonardo Da Vince bring the funny somehow, I forget how.  Then I think it's Rembrandt's turn, with maybe a self portrait.  Then they show Van Gogh with wide eyes and a goofy smile on his face crazily talking to a bird in the window.  That was another gut punch of an irreverent portrayal of an artist and all he went through.  An artist that I have no small personal affinity for.

But, you know what.  Fuck all that identity politics and being sensitive to people like me all the time.  I've said it before in this space, and I'll say it again: the problem I have with stigma is not insensitive portrayals of the mentally ill in any form of art.  The biggest problem with stigma for me personally comes from family members, friends, psychiatrists, social workers, therapists- anyone I actually depend on for support letting me down somehow.  Those kinds of people can potentially do far worse damage than any insensitive portrayal of people like me in movies, TV shows, comic books, etc.

I stand on the side of free artistic expression over people artistically tiptoeing around whatever they are supposed to tiptoe around on my behalf.  Sure, someone can take things too far, but I'll be the personal judge of when that happens, I don't want people saying that they represent me making those decisions on my behalf with the threat of boycotts or online outrage or what have you.

A far as a total piece-of-shit portrayal of the mentally ill in a movie, I have never seen a film that topped King of Hearts.  It was made in Belgium in the '60s, and it takes the fucking cake, hands down.  When I was a kid I would see it show at the arthouse revival cinema in town with glowing blurbs about how the crazy people are not as mad as the war around them, that they ultimately reject etc etc.  It got three and a half stars in the Maltin movie guide, so maybe it's just me....

Apparently the mentally ill people in this movie in this war-torn French Belgian town all learned how to pantomime circus performers or musicians or ballerinas, and the sympathetic portrayal of these gentle souls consisted of them gleefully miming their act in front of whatever audience gathered before them.  Fuuuck me!  I saw this movie at the absolute lowest point in my life, and I tell you, it's a good thing there were no guns in the house of the friend whose house I saw it at, because I might not be writing this today if there were any.

As far as romantic comedies with some drama thrown in, Love Actually is not too bad, though I'm no expert on the genre.  I think they have at least tossed out the tired "they hate each other until they realize that they're madly in love with each other" bullshit in these kinds of movies that can really fuck with someone like me, if I was so inclined to take that kind of shit to heart.

If I had some girly-girl girlfriend who went in for that kind of stuff, this one would be okay for me to watch again.  If someone is willing to sit with me through Once Upon a Time In the West or Seven Samurai as I watch them for the umpteenth millionth time, I could watch something like Love Actually and get into it.  Hell, I could binge watch Big Bang Theory or Two Broke Girls if someone were cute enough.  Though I sure as hell wouldn't make her pause these shows when I went to the crapper or made myself a sandwich.

My last post was about A-list celebrity as American Royalty, and how that affected me, Richard Alexander, with a celeb fixation I've nicknamed the Invisible Woman.  This deal has been on since the first of this year, so anyone who wants to get up to speed, just start reading posts from there until now.

My last post talked about the attractive young or youngish women in my world being like a lesser nobility, and the Invisible Woman being more like this one King of England in the Middle Ages, who sent his guard to cut down a mob of peasants who were deluded into thinking that their king loved them as much as they loved him, and that they would find redress for their grievances against their local nobles through his good graces.

I might have mistakenly given the impression that I bore ill will towards any of the attractive young or youngish women in my world by making this analogy.  That's not true.  I've found that since I've stopped trying to make these kinds of women into my girlfriend, I don't have much to complain about.  I get kind of upset when one of these types tries a little too hard, or way way too hard, to go adversarial on me and paint me as some kind of bad guy in their world, just because they know things about my mental illness combined with my obsessive nature.

I'm talking primarily about women who work at businesses such as food service or other retail businesses and who have to interact with broad cross-sections of the general public, including myself.  I'm  getting out more and I am not so much in a position where these types are the ONLY attractive women I'm around.  I've just extended the deal with myself that I don't have to pressure myself to ask anyone out or even try much to talk to any attractive women who work at these types of places.  Now I go out, and I don't pressure myself to meet women in those places that I go to play open mikes or see bands either.  I've noticed that I get out a lot more than I used to, and It may be precisely because I don't pressure myself to do any of that.

I may come off as rude or standoffish to at least some of these workers in these business, but when one tries to go in the opposite direction from where there was no fruit to be had, it has to manifest itself in some way.  Right?

So the lesser nobility vs. the King of England.  Well, I actually see and interact with the lesser nobility, while the King of England might as well be a holographic projection for all the reality that she represents in my world.  Soooo, might it be a more viable priority to just try to get along with the lesser nobility and blow off the King?

I think that a lot of celebrity stalkers have this kind of thing going on inside of them, where they may have faced a lot of rejection and heartbreak with the people in their world for a long time, and look to our American royalty to take them away to bigger and better things.  I remember reading a story where John Cusack had a woman stalk him.  She told reporters that she had been raped, but that the local authorities had done nothing about it, so John Cusack was supposed to be the kind of guy who could make things better for her if only she could get in touch with him  I've just been backing up and backing up and backing up these past several years in an effort to see some kind of big picture, and I inadvertently bumped into this phenomenon in my inner world.

Yeah, I think me and this celeb that I've nicknamed the Invisible Woman are done.  And sweetheart, if by some snowball's chance in Hell you're actually out there reading this, I've only experienced you as a kind of phantom presence, while these "lesser nobility" women are real 3d people who have as much of a right to exist in my world, both inside and outside, as I do in theirs.  

I've tried to watch the popular romantic comedy Love Actually, but I find myself only able to watch it in little bitty bits.  A female relative, who shall remain nameless, didn't like it because it wasn't politically correct enough for her.  People like this always have some idea about how every work of art could have been done to appease the PC stick up their asses, so I wanted to see the movie myself to see if I could agree with her.

The problem she had with it involved the dynamics of economically advantaged, older men falling in love with younger maids and secretaries and interns and whatnot.  She painted the movie with the generalization that ALL the couplings were of this nature, at least that's the impression she gave me, and that, in and of itself, is not true.  For example, I switched it off when two coworkers of equal social status and age were about to get in on, only to have the American female's burdensome mentally ill brother keep calling because he can't stand to be by himself for any extended length of time, and I guess that he's such a basket case that she can't just explain that the potential love of her life awaits the consummation of their mutual desire for each other, but that's my own PC ax to grind, so I won't go on about that,

No, let's get to her PC ax to grind: the class thing.  Each story revolves around barriers to true love presented to the myriad protagonists, class only being one of them.  Nothing gives a Brit a chubby like crossing class lines for true love, so of course that one is going to get some mileage in an ensemble piece such as this one,

But Rich, you ask, what does this have to do with you and your alleged love interest, the Invisible Woman (the uninitiated are going to have to go back to my posts starting from January 1st until now to get up to speed)?  I will tell you.  Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book titled A Distant Mirror about Europe in the tumultuous 14th Century.  In one passage, she tells the story of a serf rebellion in England.  The serfs rebelled against their oppressive feudal overlords, formed a mob numbering in the thousands, and set out to take their grievances to the King of England.  They'd been brainwashed all of their lives about how much the King really, really loved them, so they thought that the problem lie with their immediate oppressors, their lords, their lords overseers and henchmen, etc.

So a mob goes on the march to one of the King's castles in hopes of bending his ear and having the King solve all of their problems.  Naturally the King, who loves them so much after all, gets word of this mob descending on his castle, sends out his personal heavily armed guards, and the trusting, filthy rabble get cut to ribbons.

Well, in the good old USA, celebrities are a form of royalty for us.  Sooo, for me, the twenty-two years old waitresses and baristas are the oppressive, lesser nobility with their collective foot on my neck, right, and the Invisible Woman is my version of the King of England.  Am I right?

Now, Austin's own South by Southwest music festival is coming up, and these A-list celebrity types are known to show up for  this.  So, if I see the Invisible Woman down on Red River during this time and exclaim, "My love! At last we can be together!" and start running towards her, I bet that her security detail would tackle me, wrestle me to the ground, and kick the living shit out of me.  Am I right?

That's the thing; there will always be things coming up in this town, or if I venture into this woman's town for any reason, there will be things going on that I will think will be an occasion to maybe meet up with this person, at least for awhile.

Now, to all you young or youngish ladies out there who may or may not actually read this, my oppressive feudal overlords in other words, I couldn't have come up with this insight if I hadn't been willing to disengage from the eternal pursuit these last several years and just do my best to take a fucking chill pill.  Am I right? Damn right I am!

Like the song says about the models on my swimsuit calendar, "Well your stand-ins in my world/ don't serve you well at all/ and I bet I'm better off/ when you're a picture on my wall."  What song you ask? Why "Picture On My Wall," by none other than Richy Vegas.  How nice of you to ask. 

 

I remember when I fixated on Cathy C in the spring of 1984.  Cathy was very beautiful.  She was in one of my art classes.  She had a serious boyfriend.  Whatever fixations I had on girls in high school, this fixation with Cathy was that much more intense, and marked the beginning of a major problem with mental illness.

I just couldn't reconcile my attraction to Cathy with the reality of her situation.  It took quite a few failed deals for me to be able to give up on the idea of getting something going with someone with a serious boyfriend.

My fixation on individual women did indeed evolve into a problem with women who represented themselves as something they were not; typically, they represented themselves as available and interested when they were either not interested or not interested and not available.  

The fixation on women from my psychotic hallucinations was far less caustic and damaging as it could be when one of these later fixations really got a hold of me.  One time they went head to head: Snolly, who may have thought that God was on her side when she tried it vs. Monica, the girl at the top of this page.  No contest.  I gave Snolly about and inch-and-a-half's worth of consideration, and given that my handling of her deal gave her pause and put her in a place that she didn't anticipate, it really was my prerogative.

Nowadays, I may or may not be in the midst of a celebrity fixation.  I really don't know if it will be tougher than what I've had to deal with, oh, these last thirty or so years, but it could be bad, I don't know.  I've talked about the weird dynamic of fixating on a person I've never even met, but whose presence seems to be in my life regardless.  I've talked about the terms in which I think it would end; with some high profile coupling on her part, but maybe not right away.  Maybe she's being more discrete this time, and she got in GOIN' AWN right now.

I've learned to just not attempt to engage with women under the age of say, thirty-five, and that at least gives me ammo to fling accusations that whatever static comes forth comes from their end of it, if nothing else.  So, naturally, genius that I am, I've got to find another type of woman to tie me up in knots.

Maybe after this one passes, I'll move on to Ariana Grande or Jennifer Lawrence, who are not my current celeb fixation, but may as well be if I my reptile brain ever really lets go of this one.

Maybe it's not as bad as all that.  I remember my fixation with Cathy C being so damn debilitating, tortuous really, compared to where I am now, I think.  Maybe a month from now it will pass, maybe not.  If anyone sees me in my world who reads this, and senses that my mind is somewhere else, well, I guess you'll know what it's all about.  If you're an attractive woman thirty-five or under, I really don't want to speak to you unless I'm spoken to first, whether I'm otherwise preoccupied or not.