I've hit a snag in uploading Richy Vegas videos to YouTube.  I think that an infection on my computer prohibits me from importing the video from the tape to iMovie cleanly.  I bought an application that scans for that stuff (malware, adware, viruses), and this one  particular file keeps reappearing in the scans.  I've written technical support, and they said that I can expect a response in two days, but I don't know if these times make for a response that will take longer than two days.  I don't know if they can even help me.  I might have to wait to take my computer somewhere when the dust settles.  Or, just buy a new one, again, when the dust settles.  I can shoot all the videos I want, fortunately, and the new ones have the production values I desire.  I will just have to carefully catalogue the tapes so I know what I have, and when I have an opportunity to upload them, I won't have any trouble finding what I want.

My morale stays pretty good.  My dad died at the age of 91 early last Saturday morning.  He had an intestinal blockage.  His corona virus test came back negative.  So, my dad did not go before his time (boy I'll say), and his passing wasn't too bad on him or us.  HIs passing might sink in the coming days and weeks and hit me harder than it has.  A lot of things to sort out these days.  Am I right?  

I want to refrain from going apeshit with Amazon and other retail mail outlets.  I bought a Bear Family box set that collected the complete recordings from the Bristol Tennessee sessions in a five CD set.  The set came with a hardcover book that told of these sessions many call, "The Big Bang of Country Music."  Jimmy Rodgers and the Carter Family both show up in these sessions, along with many others.  Bear Family does their box sets up right, and they fetch a pretty dear price.  I will try to limit my purchases of such things to once a month for the foreseeable future.  I recently bought a Merle Haggard box set, and a really expensive out-of-print Lefty Frizzell box set that Bear Family put out in the early '90's.

For entertainment I have a Larry Sanders Show box set that I bought years ago.  I've seen most of the episodes only once, and that goes back to the '90's.  I try not to pay attention to the news after a certain time of day, and instead just entertain myself with my own music, my music library, DVD's, comic books, or books.  I try to average two completed pages a day, every day, on my own book, and so far so good on that.   I've been keeping up with housework, fortunately, and I have no trouble getting food that I want to eat at the grocery store.  Those trips will just get more anxiety-producing in the coming days and weeks, I fear, but there's only so much one can do.

 

"I'd rather be my own hero." Brett DePalma, Artist.  In the Fall of 2001, The events of 9/11 rocked everyone.  In October of that year, I saw an article in the New York Times that brought up the vulnerability that single New Yorkers felt in the aftermath of the attacks.  The article said that these New Yorkers fretted over the fact that they had not found a companion to help them through these times, and that they might "die alone," to quote a common phrase.  Around October 20th or 22nd, I probably thought about whether I wanted to buy some beers and have a night of it in my efficiency apartment.  That kind of thing represented a normal activity for me in those days.

I decided against buying my usual six pack, plus a quart of Carta Blanca, and decided to tough at least one night out with no booze.  At loose ends, I thought about that Times article, and a revelation came to me that I used alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes to help me cope with loneliness.  I started cleaning up my apartment, and soon enough, I knew that I had stumbled onto something.

I decided to abstain from drugs (weed) and alcohol on those nights when I found myself by myself in my apartment.  I found that I could totally do this.  The insight I had about why I used under such a circumstance really helped me abstain under that same circumstance.  I did this abstinence-on-nights-alone thing all into November, and I soon possessed enough confidence to make another stab at quitting my two-pack-a-day cigarette habit.  I rejoined a support group I'd previously checked out after the American Lung Association told me where they met.  I picked December 1st, 2001 as my quit date, bought some patches, got some gum, and started a year-long effort to stay off of cigarettes.  I relapsed many, many times in 2002, kept going to meetings, got on Zyban, and I've not smoked as of December 1st, 2002.

My big push to abstain from drugs and alcohol began in late 2008.  Whatever progress I'd gained in 2001 from my efforts to not drink and smoke dope alone lay years on the past by that time, and I realized that moderation could not do it for me.  My therapist, a guy trained in counseling people with substance abuse issues, proved a major catalyst in helping me come to my decision to commit to abstinence in the first place.  In the years that followed, I found a support group for people with both a mental illness diagnosis and substance abuse issues whenever I found myself needing that kind of help (I haven't had a therapist in years and years).

So, my efforts to find more constructive ways to deal with my loneliness hold strong to this day.  I could not have taken care of my dad in his home for all those years following my decisions to quit those activities if I had never been able to shake those habits.  My dad wound up falling in the bathroom, downstairs from me, in August of 2019, at about 8:15 AM.  He'd collapsed on his walker, and his sensor on his emergency call button failed to register an impact that would have alerted the EMS.  I heard him call me from his position over the bathtub as I tried to sleep upstairs. I wondered, "Oh god, what is it this time?" and came downstairs to find him that way.  I had been out to breakfast that morning, and had coffee at a coffee shop, but I'd made it home in time to be there when he tried to go to the bathroom and fell.  He's been in assisted living ever since.  

I was so glad I was not out on some drug and alcohol binge that would have kept me away from the house that morning when he needed me, but, like I said, I couldn't have performed that job all those years prior if I'd been using that whole time anyway.  My efforts to take better care of myself all those years ago prepared me for that moment.

I think about all of that stuff now that we all have this major event going on in the world.  I've been preparing for nineteen years for this time without even realizing that my efforts to take better care of myself amounted to such preparation.  And, this is all ME, Richard Alexander.  Anyone who reads my latest series of books, "The Legend of Richy Vegas," knows that the central conceit of that story lies in the notion that I have undiagnosed Dissociative Identity Disorder and Dissociative Amnesia Disorder.  That other part of myself that I, Richard Alexander, only experience through what a large percentage of people in the medical community would label hallucinations (not "recovered memories," as my conceit in those stories would have it); that supposed other side of myself has nothing to do with these efforts I initiated to take better care of myself starting in the Fall of 2001.

My reason for committing to abstinence from drugs and alcohol in the first place comes from a desire to improve my relationship with women.  That has proven a tough slog without a lot of "success" to show for it.  Then again, define success; I feel as if I've fought mightily against the efforts of emotionally abusive, controlling women to treat me shabbily, and I've enjoyed success after success in showing them the door.  Again, that's all me, Richard Alexander, not Richy Vegas.  The importance of that distinction resides in the notion that I can plug into the successes of Richard Alexander and expand upon them in these times, rather that pray for some miracle where Richy Vegas would appear and catch serial killers or thwart rapists or some such.  

There's a YouTube link on this site where the folks out there can see my videos.  I posted FOUR new videos in the past two days.  For some reason I have a lot of time to do that kind of thing now.  My studio has all I need to shoot videos, I worked all of the bugs out of the computer editing and posting of said videos, and the RichyVegas64 channel on YouTube officially hangs a shingle out on this blog. OPEN, OPEN, OPEN, for business.  Think of it.  Songs of woman hate, and, I promise, I will post what few songs of woman love I've managed to write and perform.  Songs about shrimp.  Songs about Fuckface.  Think of it.  Your one stop for all the entertainment you will need for an appreciable length of time:  www.richyvegas.com    

Regardless of how things shake out in regards to any woman I may approach for social reasons in the coming weeks and months, I don't want to go back to any deals from the past year or so.  A couple of weeks ago I wrote that I still didn't know whether a particular party that managed to preoccupy me this past year or so even liked me.  I insinuated that the very question of whether this person even liked me, after all this time, constituted sufficient reason for me to end the whole deal.  I still feel that way, and I will feel that way whether or not I manage to connect with another woman in any meaningful way in the foreseeable future.  A few weeks ago, I felt as if myself and this person who has so taken up space in my head from time to time this past year had come to a crossroads, and  that the crossroads we found ourselves at presented an opportunity for me to go my way, and to let her go her way.

A friend of mine from Austin Clubhouse ran into me as I sat at my table at Lone Star Zine Fest yesterday.  I hadn't seen her in a long time, and she wound up telling me that she had a performance tonight at a club at 7:00.  I got caught up in the enthusiasm of seeing her, and I said that I wasn't doing anything tonight, and I promised I'd come.  Afterwards, I remembered that my new Judo class meets on Monday evenings.  I went to see my friend play.  I can probably make most Judo classes on Monday and Wednesday nights, but not all of them all of the time.  I'll play it by ear.  My friend played a solo cello performance that utilized a cool Orange amp she'd rented and a reverb pedal.  The cello had a pickup on it for the amp.   She said that tonight represented her first club gig.  A lot of her friends turned out to see her.  She's really nice.