Wow!  I sure had fun at the New World Deli open mike tonight (Mondays, 7-9PM).  I did "Blind Assassin part 1" all the way through without any mistakes.  I stood up for my songs too.  My voice quavered and I choked up a little, but it is a very heartfelt, personal song that is hard to unload on a group of strangers because of it's 10 and 1/2 minute length.  Here's the other song I did.  I wrote it in the Spring of 2015, I think.

Won’t You Dump a Righteous Load
(When My Savior Calls On Thee)
Key of D
B↓B↓
*electric guitar

D
Callin’ callin’ callin’
                  A    
In your panties you will pee
                   G
Won’t you dump a righteous load
                 A                     D
When my savior calls on thee.

                    D
When he | speaks to you in tongues
                A
And pronounces nouns and vowels
             G
You’re gonna fill your pants
                    A                     D
With the contents of your bowels.

You won’t | mind your P’s and Q’s
You’ll forget you’re A B C’s
Won’t you dump a righteous load
When my savior calls on thee.

All you’ll | know is a brown stain
Not at all eternal life
If you’re out there havin’ sex
With something other than a wife.

Did you | realize he was watching 
Every time you beat your meat
Won’t you dump a righteous load
When my savior calls on thee.

Better | bring clean underwear
Better bring a change of clothes
Or there’s gonna be some hell
When you dump a righteous load.

When you | can’t hold it no more
Don’t you dare try blamin’ me
Won’t you dump a righteous load
When my savior calls on thee.

Callin’ callin’ callin’
In your panties you will pee
Won’t you dump a righteous load
When my savior calls on thee.

Richy Vegas, Spring 2015

That Neil Young song about how he's looking for a heart of gold must at least be familiar to people of quite a few generations by now, but I'll try to sum up the gist of it:  Neil whines about how he keeps searchin' for a heart of gold and how he's gettin' old in the process.

I remember when I committed to abstinence from drugs and alcohol I pretty much wound up doing what old Neil sang about in that song.  I remember one memorable night in September of 2009 when I sat on my couch for what may have been hours trying to figure out which of four young attractive female employees at a food service business that I patronized would make for the best love interest.

I've decided, after putting myself through that process enough times, the search for the girl with the heart of gold amongst the women in my environment is not a fruitful way to go about finding whatever one is looking for when one does that sort of thing.  Do it enough times, come up empty handed every time, and one thinks about different ways of doing things.

Throughout my adolescent and adult life I never really wanted to dress, get tattoos, or style my hair in any way that would make me stand out.  I remember as late as twenty that I would get nervous and intimidated when other young men or older men would give me shit about a t-shirt I was wearing.  One t-shirt had a picture of James Dean, and one time in the UT student union a punk rock kid my age said, "James Dean, wasn't he a homo?," and then he an his friend laughed.  I don't think I ever wore that shirt again.   The same thing happened a year later at a bar called the Beach, when I wore an Elvis Presley shirt and I went to the bathroom and a big, older biker type said derisively in a gravely voice, "Look at the neat shirt he's got on."  Again, I maybe wore that shirt one more time after that.  So I was not like those punk rock types who could handle gangs of frat boys wanting to beat them up because of the way they dressed and styled their hair.

I thought about that recently, and I thought about other romantically obsessive type guys I've run across through the years, and the same seemed to be true of them as well.  They all seemed to dress and style themselves in a safe-as-milk manner that guaranteed that no-one would pay much attention to them.

I think this also totally ties into my own tendency to get caught out staring at attractive women.  I've gotten a lot better at this lately, I think. My long needed improvement stems from the realization than, no, I am not invisible, and so yes, they can see me staring at them.   I think romantically obsessive guys seek to disappear into another person, which is why it was so critical for me in my younger days to learn how to separate myself mentally from the women I desired- and hey, no criminal record as a result.

In that book, "Feeling Good," Dr. Burns states that people typically get what they want in life through negotiation and compromise.  I keep this in mind when I go about my day and try to figure out which attractive young or youngish women might or might not be "nice."

I think male attention is like a drug to a lot of these women, and therefore going on some sort of expedition to uncover a heart of gold in any of them is not the way to go about it.  If they can do not much at all and get a boatload of attention in return, they'll do it every time, nice or not.

I'm not judging them when I say male attention is like a drug, either.   I've had art openings and stage performances that have given me a kind of attention that can be hard to take in stride.  I recently read in a book about the Rolling Stones about how musicians and performers who toured around and played everything ranging from the Chitlin Circuit to Carnegie Hall to football stadiums get addicted to the applause and recognition and will get out on the road at every given opportunity and face all of those hardships just for that.  I bought a Steve James CD that featured a cut of a black guy leaving a message on Steve's answering machine pleading with Steve to get him back out on the road (CD title:Boom Chang).

​Well, that's about it for this week.

I finished the first two pages of issue number thirteen if Richy Vegas Comics. The inking on the lettering took longer than expected, but I began work on the final inks before three months time had elapsed, which is a good sign.  Even Trump getting elected didn't throw me too much off my stride.  The worst is when some woman in my environment succeeds in tying me up in knots, then I have to really roll back my ETA.  

I'm doing thumbnails for a possible new web comic.  At this stage with the comic book, I try to limit production to finishing two pages a day.  This is the finished product as far as artwork is concerned, and I want what goes out to be good, so I don't rush or set real ambitious daily production goals.  That gives me a little free time to, maybe, do a web comic. 

It's called, Richy Vegas, Songwriter.  A lot of the story ideas are based on a comic that I wanted to do for Facebook friend Mike Bocchetti.  I've never met Mike in real life.  I ran one idea by him as a possible TV series idea, but he said that he didn't have the clout to see something like that through.  Oh well, I gave Mike first look, so now I've just adapted some of the story ideas for a Richy Vegas alter ego.

I've decided that this new comic is going to have to grow "organically."  By that I mean that it will have to take a life of it's own, and not have something like a launch date or a set amount of art produced.  I'm just going to play it by ear.  The idea for a new web comic came from Facebook friend Bill Kartalopoulos.  He edits the Best American Comics anthologies for Houghton-Mifflin.  I saw him interview one of his artist, who did a web comic to bring more attention to her site.

​Here it is folks.  From the someday release, Self Portrait of Me, it's "Johnny Cash You Devil."  Remember what I said about Harlan Howard, and his definition of country music, "Three chords and the truth?"  Well, here we go again.  Sorry that I couldn't get the TAB for the musical notation in the intro and outro.  The intro is basically the"Walk the Line" in G.  The outro is a variation that Chuck and I came up with.  Mostly chuck.

Johnny Cash You Devil
By
Richy Vegas
G,C,D,Am
B↓↑ B↓↑



C                        G                                                                                                                                                           
Verse:
G                                G
Johnny Cash you devil
C                                         C
What’s this “walk the line?”
D
My fevered brain
D 
Strayed in that lane
        C                                     G
For one who was never mine.


G                               G
Johnny Cash you devil
C                                   C
What’s this “walk the line?”
D
Oh what a load
D 
I was in that mode
        C                                    G
For one who was never mine.

Chorus:
D                                                D
I’m gonna get me a pirate ship
Am                         C
To heaven I’ll make a trip
D                                           D
I’ll snatch you from the lord
Am                                         C
And make you walk the plank
C                                                    G
Like you made me walk the line.


Verse:
Pauly Mac you devil
Why do you pick on Jude?
Much to my chagrin
I let her under my skin
I think your advice quite rude.

Pauly Mac you devil
Why do you pick on Jude?
When I closed my heart
I made a better start
Your lust for gold’s quite lewd.

Chorus:
Well Pauly you’re still alive
I got no time for your jive
If you really want to make it better
She’ll break you and I’ll let her
Go and remarry Heather Mills.



Verse:
        Johnny Cash you devil
        I’m gonna make you pay
        For waitin’ on a train
        For a love in vain
        I’m gonna send you on your way.

        Johnny Cash you devil
        What’s this “walk the line?”
        Oh how cruel 
        Rejection’s gruel
        A dish on which I dine

        Chorus:
        You no good low down knave
        I’ll snatch you from the grave
        Put you on my pirate ship
        And make you walk the plank
        Like you made me walk the line.





Richy Vegas ca. 2014/15
Chuck Pinnell wrote the intro and the outro and helped with the arrangement.
 


                                                                                                        

After John Lennon was murdered by a crazed Mark David Chapman in, I think, 1980, Harry Nilsson, pop star and friend of John's, embarked on a campaign to change the gun laws.  In the documentary, Who's Harry Nilsson? Nilsson's widow talked about how it all seemed to be just a waste of time, and how Harry should have just concentrated on being an entertainer.

Here I am working on Richy Vegas Comics issue number thirteen.  It is the concluding volume of the opus, "The Consequences of Bringing Light."  It is volume six of said opus.  I'm confident that I will at least be able to finish this work- probably some time in February of 2017.

The problem is, what comes after?  After "The Consequences of Bringing Light," I plan on embarking on an even more ambitious work, "The Legend of Richy Vegas."  I figure that it will take at least ten issues to complete, although I really have no idea.  I originally thought that "The Consequences of Bringing Light" would only take up three volumes.  I simply did not have any sense of it's actual length until I was well into the second or third volume.

The world we live in will be quite different from the one we know now come early 2017.  So I have a proposal for our new president, Donald Trump.  I will make like Scheherazade in Arabian Nights and tell him stories of The Legend of Richy Vegas late into the night.  At the end of the night, Donald can bugger me in the ass and go to sleep without doing anything crazy to me or anyone else in the world.

I don't know if I can't keep it going every single night like that great lady in "Nights," but I figure on my nights off he could just do his usual cyberbully tweeting until the wee hours,  How about it, President-Elect Trump, is it a deal? 

Well, it looks as if Trump has won the election.  Steven King said he was going to move to Canada if this happened.  I have it on good authority that Steven King is a hack writer, so maybe good riddance.  I just can't help comparing this day to at least one other in our recent past.  I would say that this is not quite YET the dark day we saw on 9/11/2001.  And, we don't know how this guy's presidency is going to shake out, so you never know.

I remember in April of 2008 I was getting my drink on when it hit me; I decided that I believe in God.  "Close enough for Rock 'n Roll" I remember telling myself.  You see, Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt said some days or weeks earlier that I was a person of faith, unconventional though that faith may be.  Let's see, I committed to abstinence from drugs and alcohol late in 2008.  I totally remember that it had something to do with Obama being elected.

Earlier this evening I considered going back on my statement of April, 2008, but I don't think it works that way, does it.  That's all the thoughts I have on President-Elect Trump.