I'm trying to transcribe these songs I've written in these past couple of years.  This ones from 2014.  I wanted to post one titled, "My Girlfriend Is a Hatesong," but I'm not sure I want to post stuff about someone that I've had dealings with as recently as last week.  Harlan Howard was asked once what country music was, and he replied, "Three chords and the truth."  Of just about all my songs, "Picture On My Wall" fits this definition the best, in my humble opinion:

Picture On My Wall
By
Richy Vegas

D,G,A,Bm
Bridge:Em,G,F#m,C
Strumming pattern: B∇B∆∇

Verse:
D
I used to count the days
G                                     D
Of quittin’ cigarettes and beer
D
You’d stand above those days
G                           D
Like a sentinel so dear.

D
Now I use the calendar
G                                   D 
Just to mark important dates
D
Like when my dogs get their meds
G                                         D
Yeah, some real important dates.

Chorus:
A                                      Bm
Well your stand-ins in my world
G                                 D
Don’t serve you well at all
A                          Bm
And I bet I’m better off
G                                             D
When you’re a picture on my wall.

Verse:
Cindy did some runway
And she had an attitude
She used to serve me coffee
And to me she was quite rude.

I’d had enough of her
And with her I didn’t start
She had a thousand dollar body
Wrapped around a ten-cent heart.

Chorus:
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.

Bridge:
F#m                                   Em
Oh my world would be a heartache
G                        F#m
If I let them make the call
F#m                                  Em
I look at you, could you be better
Em                                 C
Oh you up there on my wall…

Verse;
Hannah was a piece of work
As mean as mean could be
I made it on her shit-list
And she had her sights on me.

She wanted us to go there
I said we’re not going there
Check yourself don’t wreck yourself
And I walked without a care


Chorus:
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.


Richy Vegas 7/20/2014

Chuck Pinnell helped with the arrangement 





















​

I write frequently about how much Dr. David Burns' book "Feeling Good" has helped me.  I'm serious about that.  I would trade all the time in all of the therapy I had if it came down to a choice between therapy and the insights I've gained from that book.  The most helpful insight came from what he had to say about Love Addiction, but that is not all by a long shot.

That said; all Dr Burns really has to say about Love Addiction in his chapter about it is that romantic love is not a need like oxygen, food, or water.  He just kind of says that over and over in the ten or so pages of the chapter.  In another part of the book he has the reader take a self-evaluation quiz that includes questions designed to glean the importance of love to the reader.  He says in the results section that someone with the problem of Love Addiction will find themselves taking on put-down roles.  Anyone who has been in such a predicament knows what he is talking about when he talks about taking on put-down roles.

He doesn't spell out that the intense, romantic obsessions that I found so crippling throughout my adult life are a symptom of Love Addiction.  He just kind of said a few general things about how love is not a need, and in previous chapters he outlined how one could do written exercises that get at the specific unspoken thoughts in writing, and how to challenge their validity.  One really has to be on one's game in the first place to be able to connect these kind of dots from "Feeling Good," which is unfortunate, because it really is a book meant for people dealing with the debilitating consequences of depression. 

From personal experience, one can find oneself drowning in emotional pain, and that was a point where for me, nothing short of an hospitalization and extended period of recuperation without the usual adult pressures to be employed and whatnot would suffice. Truthfully, thirty hours a week was about the most I was good for in the way of menial employment after that throughout the 90's.  I worked even less once I got on SSDI, and throughout all of it I've had financial assistance from my family.

There is a Cognitive Therapy based group that meets in Austin out Northwest at some church once  a week.  It used to be called Recovery Inc.  It was apparently founded in the 1930's by a psychiatrist.  I guess it hasn't had the hold and traction of Alcoholic's Anonymous, but I guess it's there if I or anyone else needs it.

If one is reading this blog for the first time and wants to know how I first approached the dilemma of Love Addiction in my twenties; look at the bog post, "I'm not bad," from January 2016.  Later posts such as,"I'm breaking my silence on this issue," from July of 2016 tell what resulted from this experiment.  Other posts between those two and after show how I am able, in my humble opinion, to size up the women in my world and make intelligent decisions about them.

So, the original topic of this post: going the other way.  What I mean by that is this: the women that I have traditionally found most attractive-an attraction based so very much on physical appearance and youth- didn't readily make themselves available to me for dating and friendships when I would pursue them.  Boy, that's an understatement, but there it is.  I found out much more about where these women were really coming from and what they were about when I went the other way on them- whatever direction I found that moved me away from them.  Believe me, it's not been some big sex party for me since I've taught myself how to do this.  But, since priority one from day one was how to best stay out of trouble so that I could buy myself some more time to get it right, I'd say mission accomplished.

If anyone wants to try doing what I've done, one will realize that a wall of doubt will come up, and the first thing to do is crash through it. If one does a good job of it, one will find crashing through the wall of doubt that one really, really is turning one's back on true, everlasting love with a move away from the type of person who might or might not be the hurtin' kind; one will find that crashing through that kind of wall becomes a standard arrow in one's personal quiver, and for me that's been a great thing.

Remember, love is not a need. If it's really true that a person can be happy without love, then turning one's back on what may or may not be the love of one's life shouldn't be the problem one was so afraid it was for so long.  In fact, if one is trying this kind of move for the first time in their adult life, such a mistake could be pretty understandable, and one can really forgive oneself for at least trying to look out for number one, for once.

Last week I asked a young woman who works at a food service place I patronize if I could hang out with her in a bar that she mentioned she frequents.  She said that she was going there to watch the final presidential debate, and that, yeah, that was fine.  I went there and watched a playoff game on one of the TVs.  The debate was about an hour in on the back TV and still, she hadn't shown, so I left.  As the time for the debate first kicked off, I just patted myself on the back for asking to hang out with her, because she seemed so much more approachable than the standard bill of fare for me, so it didn't matter whether she showed or not.  She had talked before about how I should hang out at this bar she patronizes, I told her that I didn't drink, and she acted shot down.  So that night she didn't show, I just took heart in the fact that I'd done my part and left it at that.

I think that it will be a while before I go to this food service place that she works at, if I go there in the foreseeable future at all.  I just don't know what to say except to say that I want to try what ever is the road less traveled for me in these kinds of deals.  The first thoughts I had as I sat there in that bar waiting for her to show, and it seemed as if she might not, was to go in where she works and play it off like it was no big deal and all that.  It's not a big deal.  It's just that I've talked about how I've grown to dislike going into these places and having to come off like some great guy because one of these things fell through.  So, I'm thinking, why not just blow all of that off this time?

I went to another food service place recently for the first time in over a month.  I talked in the blog post, "Executing plays from my playbook," from October 4th of this year, about how I thought a female employee might have been starting in on me, and how I decided to not go there just on the suspicion that, perhaps, that was the case.  I went in there recently and she was not being rude like she was before.

Last month I speculated to myself that the reason she was being kind of shitty with me was that she was in the process of switching out boyfriends, and that she wanted to rope me in on that somehow.  I figured that I would be the guy who lost out, and this role had been assigned to me, by her, sometime before hand.  Who knows?   Now she just wants to be polite and do her job.  Given the nature of the interaction, if it can even be called that, it's not unrealistic of her to just want for bygones to be bygones.

I'm pretty sure that I don't want much to go in that place any more, either.  I just don't.  I'll come up with more specific reasons why at some later date.  I always do.  She does not come off as approachable at all.  Plus, she seems like the type that always, always, ALWAYS, has a boyfriend.  E-uh!

I got the job back prom the printer, but I didn't like it, so I'm having them do it over.  I signed off on the proofs, so it's my fault that the job didn't turn out the way I like it.  There's been another delay, and I have to go over the original drawings and do another layup.  The book will probably not be out until November.  Still, One Touch Point/Ginny's gives me a real good deal, and Larry's willing to give me another break on this do over job.  They've been good to me.

Part of the reason for the further delay is that I am already well into production of the next issue, and that takes priority over timely production of issue twelve.  I'm almost all the way through the second pass at all eighty pages with pencils.  I'm also going to revise a couple of earlier issues of Richy Vegas Comics by adding some more pages- just three.

I've been writing some notes for some lyrics for a song or two:  "I wasn't playin' to no pretty picture/ when I cut the loose on you," "One thing you gotta understand, son/ with wimmin like them the fix is always in."

I've already written enough material for two complete albums.  The first album is titled, "Self Portrait of Me."  The second album is called, "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band."  The new album, which has three songs already, has the working title, "My Girlfriend is a Hate Song."  I wrote the title track a couple of weekends ago.

I'm not going to try to memorize all the songs at once.  My strategy is to come up with a set for live shows, about twelve songs, and just play out with that and get them down.  I can switch out other songs and work them in and out of the set as I go along.  A friend said years ago to not worry about getting albums out, but to play live and get the songs down instead, so there's no timetable on getting these records done.  I can record demos in my home studio to document the songs as I get them down.

The owner of New World Deli says I can play more than once at the open mike if there continues to be a light turnout, which will really help me.  The two songs I plan on debuting Monday are, "Scoot On Over Buster," and "Five Foot Nine of Love In Vain."  "Scoot On Over Buster" was an attempt to do a nice song about someone I had conflicted feelings and thoughts about.  "Five Foot Nine of Love In Vain" was the next song I wrote after that, and the title can tell you how that one shook out.

A comic book guy named Bill Kartalopoulos compiles a list of best comics every year and puts them in a book.  Along with this compilation, he solicits open submissions from anyone who wants to show him something.  In early 2015 I sent him issue number eight of Richy Vegas Comics.  He put my comics in a list of notable comics of 2015.  http://www.on-panel.com/BAC2016/index.html 

I found out about it when he ordered two more issues last week.  Another guy ordered an issue, but that's all.  Still, it's a great honor.  It's as if I sent an indie film to a film festival and won a prize.  Someone bought all four of my comics at Austin Books and Comics last week.  Maybe they saw the list and recognized my book.  I handed out flyers on Red River on Thursday.  I only got one taker, but I was only out there for sixteen minutes.  It seemed like a lot of square john types were out that night.

I played the open mike at New World Deli on Monday.  It seems like I could go up onstage again after everyone's through, especially if they continue to have a light turnout.  That would help me get a set down.  I bought an interface for my computer, so I could get my home studio going again and do demos.  I could do a set's worth of demos and give then to people for booking purposes. 

I often talk about the years 1988 and 1989 on this blog.  Look to "I'm not bad" from January, and "I'm breaking my silence on this issue" from July for examples.  The first pain of a woman that I had to deal with at that time was Sara in the Spring of 1988.  I thought that Tarashula represented bigger and better things than Sara, but she didn't.  In the Winter of 1989 I worked at G/M Steakhouse, and there was this girl named Myrna there who was even worse than the previous two, if that was possible.

My friend Dickbag McNuttsack got me the job at G/M Steakhouse.  He told people the hilarious story about how I was in a rape lineup in 1984.  I guess that he told everyone that the lineup cleared me, that they asked the victim that a guy jumped down my street and tried to rape, if I at all resembled this guy after she failed to point me out in the photo lineup, and she said no, it was not me.  I guess that I came across as weird to the people at G/M, and people can get pretty hysterical about rape, and so, Myrna.

All the time this stuff was going on with these women, I was trying to apply to grad school.  I had to beef up my painting portfolio, because it was pretty thin.  I had to get teachers to recommend me for schools.  I had to find out which schools I wanted to apply to.  I had to get my portfolio in slide form, and other things I can't think of. 

The horrible experience I had with Tarashula, a fellow art student during the Summer of 1988 in my last classes, where she basically shit on me the day before my last class of my undergrad career at UT, made me pretty ambivalent about going back to art school for a graduate degree.  On my letters of intent about what I wanted to accomplish in the grad programs, I wrote down these hand-scribbled rants about how I wanted to be the Pope of my own church.  I wrote about how rich people couldn't just pay pocket change for my art, but that they had to perform acts of penance, such as a Donald Trump would have to wash a lineup of homeless people's feet with his hair- that kind of thing.

In the blog post, "I'm not bad," I talk about how I attempted to turn my back on love with Sara.  In recent years I've decided that the only criticism I have with that approach is that I didn't take it far enough.  The harshness of my romantic environment as evidenced by my dealings with Tarshula and Myrna indicate to me these days that I should have just kept it up after I cut Sara loose.

All that time I was trying to get it together to go to grad school, I had to deal with these fucking ghouls that just wanted to eat my heart.  School of Visual Arts in New York City had just a half page for my statement of intent, and I had been rejected by every other program that I'd applied to up until then, so I just wrote a few sentences about the Pope stuff, and they admitted me.

I'm trying to sell books as well as make them, and I have to concentrate on executing plays from my playbook once more.  That means; hand out flyers on Red River, practice guitar, write songs, and try to play out at open mikes.  I hope to try to get gigs later on as I get a set's worth of songs down.  I did an open mike last night (Monday) and New World Deli on Guadalupe.  I was happy with it.

I've decided to cut back sharply on places I go that employ attractive young or youngish women.  For the past couple of weeks I've fixed almost every breakfast for myself and made all of my own lattes with my stove top espresso maker.  I was running out of money way before I should have, so that was the first reason.  The second reason was that I began to sense that one of these women in one of these places might have been starting in on me, so I decided not to go there anymore.  I also decided to not go other places that weren't a necessary business for me to patronize.  I hope to drastically cut down on the number of these women that I have to deal with by doing so, and so in turn cut down on the number of women who want to start shit with me for no reason.