In January 1986 I broke up with Jeannette.  I was tired of her and the sex wasn't good.  I caught hell from so many of my friends, because they thought I made a big mistake.  Friends would basically look over my shoulder and say what a mistake I made when I broke up with her.

Of course, I felt guilty for many years, because I didn't exactly have a raging string of successes with women after I broke up with Jeannette.  Actually, that's an understatement.  I had a string of disastrous attempts to connect with women until my breakdown six years after I broke up with her.  I haven't exactly had rip-roaring success since then, either, but I think I've made progress.

Naturally, I second guessed my decision to break up with Jeannette for many years.  We went out on a couple of dates a few years after I broke up with her.  That ended when I basically told her I didn't love her.  After that we were finally on the same page about it, but that didn't stop others from chiming in on their opinion that I'd made a big mistake when I broke up with her.

For years after my recovery, my diagnosis and treatment with medication and then when I quit drugs and alcohol, I still second guessed my decision about her.  Should I have loved her more?  I seemed to pick the wrong women to love.

Then, in 2012, I realized that all my second guessing became really pronounced as more time passed.  That's because the actual nightmare of dating her for a month receded, and all that remained was some imagined world of what could have been.  In September of 2012 I realized how crazy she made me and how I couldn't stand it any more back in 1986.

Then I realized why she made me so crazy.  When I went out with Jeannette for those couple of times in an attempt to reconcile, she told me something that, looking back, brought it all into perspective.  She told me- this was at Christmastime- that her dad had put divorce papers under the tree for her mother to find on Christmas morning.

I asked her about it a week or two later, and she said, "Oh he's manic-depressive, he's always pulling stunts like that.  It's blown over."  I had not known that her dad was mentally and emotionally unstable when I first dated her in 1986.  In 1989, when we had that exchange, I didn't realize that my own instability was due to a mental illness.

So in 2012 I put it together that I must have hit some neurotic nerve in Jeannette that gave her a particular weakness for me.  She herself didn't seem to have any acute bipolar issues, but her dad and others in her family did.   To her credit, she didn't just wind up with some string of versions of me after I broke up with her.  She dated stable guys,  I think that was because she really valued men who were nice to her and treated her well, whether or not they did the exact same thing for her that I might have. She had a sister who allowed herself to be mistreated by a boyfriend, and he was probably on a years-long manic jag that manifested itself in legendary, copious womanizing.  

Jeannette professed a profound dislike for most women, because at that age she saw so many of them who allowed themselves to be treated shabbily by men.  I think that valuing how men treated her so much saved her a lot of grief.  Two men I met whom she dated after me seemed fine, and she was a very intelligent, nice woman who was very beautiful as well. so she had a lot to bring to the table for the right person.  Maybe she took a wrong turn later on the mental and emotional stability issue in her partners, after I lost touch with her I mean, I don't know.  I kind of doubt it, actually.

My point is, I was right to break up with her, but many of my peers didn't see me as capable of making that decision.  I have found myself in a similar position at times over the years when I make the decision to reject this or that woman.  People look over my shoulder and attempt to second guess me in a very manipulative way, and I don't like it much.

Why am I not allowed to reject anyone I choose to reject, for whatever reason?  Whether or not I am right or wrong?  What is it that doesn't afford me the same dignity and sovereignty in making such a decision that others are granted?  What is it about me that so many others think that they are able to make such a decision about my own life better than I am?

Let's see, I've rejected someone because they lied to our community of peers as well as me about the nature of a consensual sexual encounter with someone we all knew.   I'm not talking about "he said, she said," either.  She fessed up soon enough to mutual friends, and later to me, that she lied, but for some reason, even given my history with "he said, she said, " I guess that I was just supposed to be a good guy about being bald-faced lied to right to my face by her.  This was in  early 1995, when I was having so much trouble with my medication.  The voices in my head exclaimed, "She lied!  She lied!" one afternoon in while I was in my apartment, and that's was when I made my decision to  not call her anymore.  She called me like a month later and asked me why I wasn't calling her, and I was still sick, but I think my reason to blow her off was strong, no matter my state of mind. 

Another time, in early 2009, soon after I quit drinking and drugs, a girl represented herself to me as available and interested when she was neither.  A friend of mine, who had her as a side piece, had lied to me about the nature of he and this girl's relationship, and he basically put her up to lying to me about having my friend as a boyfriend, plus another boyfriend as well.  He expected me to "take her off his hands."  He also didn't believe me when I concluded that this other boyfriend was her other boyfriend. My friend would go on and on about how hurt she was that I had stopped calling her, and he called me a "piece of shit" for blowing her off.  All the time this was going on, he was still seeing her, of course. 

When I go around in my world and interact with these flirtatious twenty-two year old women at these businesses, no one questions their right to reject me if I were to ask them out.  As a matter of fact, even nice, good-looking guys their own age that these types reject for whatever reason are considered acceptable for these young women to reject by others around them for no other reason than that these women see these men as somehow unworthy.   That can mean things like; they don't kiss good enough, they don't have a car, they like the wrong kind of music, they are not ambitious enough, they smoke too much pot; whatever reason, it's okay for them to reject any guy they want to reject.  I would at least like these kinds of women to give me a chance from time to time, but I don't at all presume to question their judgement.

I think every time I've made a major decision to reject someone, I wasn't one hundred percent sure that I was doing the right thing.  It would only shake out later that I absolutely did the right thing.  That's why it's so important that people afford me the same right to be wrong about someone as anyone else has.  

Why are people so quick to question my judgement on the occasions I do reject women who, granted, might not be a total mess, but why can't I have my own reasons, and everyone just leave it at that?  Now, why don't you all, you know, go effing eff yourselves?

My teacher, Chuck Pinnell, thought that "See What Fuckface Is Up to Today" should be in waltz time.  I gave it a chance, but I found that I couldn't crowbar a waltz time into a song that wasn't originally written in one.  So for Chuck, I wrote this sequel in waltz time:

Fuckface on Monday and Fuckface on Friday

D, G, A
B∇∇ B∇∇ (waltz time)

Chorus:
A
Fuckface on Monday
A 
And Fuckface on Friday
A
Every day other is
A 
No Fuckface my day.

A
Fuckface on Monday
A 
And Fuckface on Friday
A
Every day other is
              G           D         A 
No Fuckface my day.

Verse:
D
What is it about her
D 
That makes her so neat?
             G
Her million-watt smile
              G
Or her stinky feet?

D
What is it about her
D
That makes her a drag?
    G
Does her petty heart
        G
Belong in a bag?

A
Transplant a homeless
A
Person’s in her
         G
And maybe less meanness 
               G
Will naturally occur.

    A
A spiteful birdy
A
With her talons out
       G
Maybe a declawing
        G
Is what it’s about.

Chorus:
Fuckface on Monday 
And Fuckface on Friday
Every day other is 
No Fuckface my day.

Fuckface on Monday 
And Fuckface on Friday
Every day other is 
No Fuckface my day.

Verse:
What do we do 
With that attitude? 
Such a nice package
Wraps someone so rude!

An outside so pretty
An inside so hate
Send her home in a cab
When we’re on a date.

What do we do
With that attitude?
When the inside so ugly
It looks when nude.

Here’s an idea
That might help a ton
I hear Richy Vegas 
Has a magic johnson. 

Chorus:
Fuckface on Monday 
And Fuckface on Friday
Every day other is 
No Fuckface my day.

Fuckface on Monday 
And Fuckface on Friday
Every day other is 
No Fuckface my day.

Verse:
I think Richy Vegas
Can straighten her out
One slip of the meat
What it’s all about.

One minute inside her
Is all it’ll take
Even with rubbers 
Such magic I’ll make.

Psych meds make orgasm
Drag and it drags
But she must have learned something 
From all those douchebags.

‘til then I’ll keep busy 
in all sorts of ways
and take out my phone  
on only two days.

Chorus:
A
Fuckface on Monday
A 
And Fuckface on Friday
A
Every day other is
A 
No Fuckface my day.

A
Fuckface on Monday
A 
And Fuckface on Friday
A
Every day other is
                            B∇∇   𝜁 
       G                   D         
No Fuckface my day.


 Richy Vegas  9/21/2017

I saw a Facebook post in the last several days that featured a forty-five year old man with Cerebral Palsy who wanted a girlfriend.  He didn't have any substantive experience with women.  He seemed on good health, not bad looking, but he considered his disability to be the main obstacle to women giving him a chance.  He stated more than once that finding a girlfriend took top spot in his list of priorities.  I haven't been able to find the post tonight, so I thought I'd take up the topic here.   While I am no expert in dating, he did, with that statement- that finding a girlfriend is his number one priority- he did touch upon something I will go into as follows.

When I was around thirty-seven years old, I took stock in my set of priorities, and consciously or unconsciously, a viable romantic love partner took a spot near the top for me if not the very top.  I took stock in this notion in the midst of a major campaign to quit smoking cigarettes.

The problem for me with making a love relationship partner a top priority for almost all of my adult life up to that point is that, at thirty-seven years old, I still did not have what I wanted.  I concluded that making such a goal a top priority was not getting me anywhere.

I must give this caveat to the following list: I still have not found a viable romantic love partner, but, and this is important, I have accomplished pretty much everything that comes before what once took the top spot.  So here goes.

List of Priorities 

1)  Overall health and well-being- I quit smoking two packs of cigarettes a day fifteen years ago. I committed to abstinence from drugs and alcohol eight years ago.  I still struggle with diet and exercise and weight, but I've bought myself some time by quitting the cigarettes and drugs and alcohol.  My psych med helps with mood, but I give myself a lot of credit for self diagnosing Love Addiction as the cause of my depressive episodes and addressing that issue in a meaningful way.  Medications can provide one with the longterm stability to find the causes of my depression, but I had one really bad experience in my relationship with women that demonstrated that even with medication, therapy, an understanding of my illness, and the support of friends and family, it was still possible to totally crash and burn in the romantic love department, and so I did.

2) Relations with friends a family- In lieu of a  life partner, these are the people who have been there for me.  Not always all of them in all cases, but overall pretty reliable.  Getting along with these people is more important than going out and finding a girlfriend. 

3) Employment and other means of support- I've struggled with employment a good deal of my adult life.  I get paid support from my family for services to family members and I get government disability.  Without a viable source of income, not much else is possible.

4)  My art and music.  Notice that this is not priority one either.  Without the above three things, these activities would not be possible.  I don't do these activities because I just love doing them so much; I LOVE smoking both cigarettes and dope and drinking heavily and watching rented movies at home, but I had to give that up.  I do art and music, and stay at it this long without substantive recognition from the market, because my massive ego tells me that these are worthwhile uses for my time and energy.

5) Managing money and finances in general-  I've gotten pretty good at this since I quit drugs and alcohol.  So good that the credit card company has not raised my credit limit on my card since I've committed to abstinence, because I have just not flown close enough to the Sun to warrant raising my limit.

6)  How I relate to women I am attracted to in my world- Oh dear God.  This is so much more important to me that finding a girlfriend.   What I mean by this is that there are all kinds of realities about both myself and the attractive women in my world that more or less prevent an easy take of a girlfriend from this source.  Those realities include: my disability, their relationship status, what my disability represents to them, the fact that so many of them have no interest in dating me, our age differences ( a BIG one), and that I seem to have to deal with so many dead end flirtations.. Those are ones I can think of right now.  Nevertheless, my ability to get along with these women within all these sets of limitations colors my day to day existence to a profound degree.  Absolutely.

7) Compiling a history with women where I don't get hurt (much)- Again, way more important than finding a girlfriend.  This is something, like everything I've listed so far, that I have managed to accomplish.  Between my initial onset of my mental illness and, eight/ nine years later my diagnosis and treatment, it was all hurt in my relationship with woman.  All hurt, all the time.  Since making this kind of thing a priority, that is, compiling a history with women where I don't get hurt, I gained a modicum of experiences, not the least of which is how to effectively deal with the hurtin' kind of woman.

8) Finding a viable, long-term, romantic love partner.  Here it is, I'm fifty-three, and yes, that is a long time since the age of thirty-seven since I've rearranged priorities.  But I will say this, I've rejected several women who made their interest in me evident because of things like unresolved substance abuse problems, bad personalities, bad attitudes, etc, and not necessarily because they weren't attractive enough.  And since finding love is not priority one, I don't get all racked with guilt over missed opportunities with such women.

So there you have it.  Seven things more important to me than finding love.  Finding love rates higher than travel to far flung lands for example, and maybe quite a few other things, but it is not priority number one anymore. 

 

When I go about my day to day routines in various businesses that will employ attractive young women for me to look at, the temptation exists to make it about individual women in these businesses.  It occurred to me some days ago that the decision to make it about this or that twenty-two year old barista or waitress in my environment is no better that the poor decisions I made about women such as those I depict in my comic books from my youth.  Finding love was a big important thing to me in those days, and I beat myself up to this day for the decisions I made back then.  But really, trying to make it about this or that twenty-two year old nowadays doesn't seem to reflect that I may have learned something between then and now.  Does it?

Several years ago I came the realization that, even today, there's really nothing to stop some woman from totally taking me for a ride.  I mean, if I'm attracted enough to them, and I like them enough, and I trust them enough, then there's really nothing to stop the kind of nightmare crash and burn dramas from happening again.

I heartily recommend a book titled, The Confidence Game, by Maria Konnikova.  It's available through the Austin Public Library, among other places.  The book breaks down the psychology of the Con, the Con Artist, and what makes the Mark so vulnerable to the Con.  One of the main points the author makes towards the end of that book is that someone who gets conned once is actually more likely to get conned again rather than less likely, because the fact that the Mark got conned once means that they are someone who is susceptible to being screwed over again.  Con Artists will swoop down on someone who has already been famously conned in much the same way vultures will pick a carcass clean after a wolf or something has killed its prey and had its fill.

The Confidence Game doesn't talk about cons in the sphere of romantic love, whether the every day flirtations of twenty-two year old waitresses or baristas with lonely middle-aged men or romantic love cons that actually involve criminal behavior, but the discerning reader can recognize all kinds of analogies and parallels between the cons and the tactics used in the stories told in the book and the kinds of things that have happened to ones such as myself and others.

"Well you're lost in the rain in Juarez/ when it's Easter time too/ and your gravity fails/ and negativity don't pull you through/ don't put on any airs when you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue/ they got some hungry women there/ and they'll really make a mess outta you." - from "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" on Highway 61 Revisted.

In my last post I talked about how I had a five week pay cycle this period.  I'm going to have to watch my spending for the next little while until I get paid again, but the next budget cycle is a four week one, and that should be better.  

I went over my expenses for the next cycle.  Initially I put a lot of money in for entertainment expenses, but I chopped that one down quite a bit on second thought.  How many bands can I possibly go see?  I plan on one or two movies and a couple of nights out, and that should be it.

I should be able to pay down on my credit card too.  If I manage to not eat in restaurants very much or go to the coffee shop much less than I usually go, I might even be able to pay for my CD production from the money I get for the next month. 

I'm taking the roughs for Self Portrait of Me to Cris Burns tomorrow for mixing and mastering.  I don't know how much mixing he'll be able to do.  "Blo-hole Acres" is the only song that needs it, really.  All the others are just the guitar and vocal each going into a channel and out a speaker.   All I want him to do is turn down the guitar on some songs, turn up the guitar on some songs, etc.

I have some money saved to pay Cris tomorrow.  That will just about tap out my cash for a couple of weeks.  I wanted to have money saved for the CD production, but it looks like I will have to put that on the credit card and pay it off with the rest of it for the next few months.  This pay cycle has a five week gap between the last one and the next one, instead of a four week gap.  Like I said, it'll be some time 'fore I get paid.

I've got to come up with some rules for this:

See What Fuckface Is Up To Today

D, G, A, B7
Bridge: A7, D7, E7

B∇∆ B∇∆
(on commas strike bass string)

D
Well I woke up this mornin’ 
                        G
Tossed one, over the toilet bowl
          A
You didn’t have to do it
                       G               D
You stole my remote control.

D
Bacon for breakfast
                   G
Looked at, the escort ads
                  A
They’ve got some new Asians
                G                         D
This one here looks pretty rad.

D
Well these gross provactions
        B7
Make me, enter the fray
          A
Time to get my phone and see what,
  G                                D
Fuckface is up to today.


D
Well I know she has a boyfriend
    G
And god don’t we all
    A
She blew her nose in Brighton
          G                            D
Dropped a turd in Provencal.

D
Well I think I’ll do the same
      G 
In the Yellow Rose toilet bowl
                A
Mindy’s on the main stage
              G                        D
And it’s, come one come all.


D
Babe I just want to sit here
        B7
I don’t need no company
           A
Time to check my phone and see what, 
G                               D
Fuckface is up to today.

Bridge:
A7
Though I wanted a wife
                         D7
She dropped a deuce in my life
                              E7
Oh this pilfering of my stuff’s 
           A7
Got to stop.

​A7
Stacy holds hands with Chip
                                      D7
Head salesman at the dealership
              E7
For a Kia today
                  A7
Best talk to Dan.

A7
Well she could trade in Asshole G
                       D7
For good old Asshole Me
                          E7
But I guess that other shoe’s
                 A7 
Already dropped.

Verse:
She sits atop the world
And atop the A-list
And I think I’ll tell my doctor 
Drain this femme fatale cyst.

Well that’s all it amounts to 
I’m missin’ some stuff
My apartment's awful cluttered
Does she need all of this guff?

Well a pot pie for dinner
That tastes just like clay
Better check my phone and see what, 
Fuckface is up to today.

Richy Vegas 9/3/2017

I just finished the solo for "Blo-hole Acres."  I decided that I was finished with the album with that task completed.  Hopefully, Cris will be able to master it pretty soon, and I can get a CD pressed.

When I think maybe someone's trying to make things impossible for me, the following is as good a response as any:

Love Song For the Invisible Woman

Verse: C, F, G (first couplet)
Am, F, G (second couplet)
Bridge: Gm, Em, C7, D7

B∇∆ B∇∆
(at commas strike bass string)

C                                            F
In January trussed up like a duck
F                                   G
Ready to roast and in, quite a bind
Am                                      F
In February picking at my brain
F                                            G
Bonbons of hate for what’s, left of my mind.

C                                                 F
March/April I put flowers in your gun
F                                               G
A man like me can do that for, ones like you
Am                                                       F
In May I found out god you’re such a punk
F                                                                G
You came with both guns blazing but my, aim was true

C                                              F
In June I thought I got shed of you
F                                                       G
Others came with science and they went out as well
Am                                          F
In July all was quiet and the, heat got hot
F                                                  G
You off with your boyfriend from, all I can tell.


Bridge:
Gm
Well by August you were done for 
                   Em
Another, tale I told
      C7
Then came that coastal flood
          D7
And the news on you old

Gm
I had no reason to think
             Em
Your feces turned to gold
    C7
You still had your boyfriend
        D7 
And ten million records sold.

Verse:
My distortion pedal down in some, dark dark hole
With my samurai disc and my DVD remote
It seems you can’t leave well enough alone
Another souvenir of you another, song I wrote.

I know exactly how to deal with, ones like you
Sit up front-right with you im, possibly near
This story could be long I’ll cut it short
As I drink from this fountain know I, love you my dear.

Am (high)                                         G                   C    C      ζC7
As I drink from this fountain know I, love you my dear.

Richy Vegas 9/2/2017

I seem to find myself in a place where I repeat myself on some basic things.  The two blog posts from last year that I cite above are what someone such as the Invisible Woman can expect from me in how I will behave towards them and how I will relate to them.  All I really have to say about what such a person can count on my being like towards them can be found in those two posts.  

Okay, I'm specifically talking about how I related to Sara in those two posts.  As far as I'm concerned, it's Spring 1988, Latin American Art History Class, and I've just found a seat up front on the right hand side where I will sit for the rest of the semester.  Okay, Invisible Woman, you're like Sara to me. Okay?  Got it?  Do you need to know anything else?

If you want something more than that, well, I'm not a mind reader, so I can't say what that would be.  If you want something more, Invisible Woman, and it's something you can't just ask for in a reasonable, timely manner from this day to that, I might not have anything for you.

And, I might add, the outcome I had with Sara at the end of the Summer of 1988 doesn't have to be the outcome I have with you.  It doesn't work that way.  A lot of it is up to you as to what the eventual outcome will be.