The Intergalactic Cowboy

Well I guess that I’ve let the cat out of the bag now, ladies and gentlemen. Someone has posted video of myself and Michael Vick performing music together during a more carefree time of our lives. As some of you know, Michael, in addition to his many other talents, is interested in avant garde, free jazz. He is possibly the most proficient musician that I have ever had the privilege of working with. Performing with us at times, are The Amazing Lizardo, Dan Rigby, Geoff Cormier and a trumpeter, whose name I cannot remember at this moment.We performed at several locations in the southeastern United States under the monikers of The Michael Vick Trip, The Michael Vick Sextet and the Amazing Lizardos. I also was able to sneak in a few of my solo songs during some of these performances. A couple of these are presented on Youtube as well. These videos were made before I grew my beard. Michael performs on bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and mandolin. Since there is no point in hiding any longer, just go to Youtube dot com and type in intergalactic cowboy into the search engine. A few other people with similar names will show up after the search as well.
Enjoy,
I.C.

Those of you who keep up with news events may have heard that the NASA astronaut, who attempted to harm her romantic rival, asked a judge to allow her to remove her global positioning bracelet, which alerts the police when she goes out of bounds. Based on what I know about this woman, I do not recommend that the judge should allow her to be allowed to roam free. Obsessors like her do not get well quickly without treatment. They have followed people for years and eventually done harm to them, even killing them. There is a crime called stalking that sends people to prison here in Georgia because people who obsess and follow other people usually do harm to the other person. A skilled therapist can often reach an obsessor and let them realize that their picture of reality is delusional, rather than being the gospel truth.
My understanding of the obsessive’s profile is of someone who had a difficult childhood, often including abuse, either physical or emotional. They might have had a parent who was emotionally unavailable or perhaps available in an on again / off again manner. They tend to be attracted to people who have the same emotional availability as the unavailable parent and get obsessed with the idea of making the new substitute parent love them consistently. When this new substitute parent rejects them, it causes a fight or flight response, which can bring out the latent murderer within them. In the case of the NASA astronaut, the murderous rage was directed at the woman who presented the threat of taking away the substitute parent. This person represented a threat to her imagined security and happiness and deserved to die. Fortunately, the attacker was only successful at spraying the ‘ threatening rival ‘ with pepper spray. The attacker was equipped with a steel mallet, a knife with a four inch blade, a pellet gun, rubber tubing and several large plastic garbage bags.
What these obsessors need is for a skilled therapist to point out to them why their past experiences attract them to the wrong people and that they should realize that these feelings of being threatened are not based in reality, but in delusion. An obsessor can sometimes realize that the way that they feel is not based on what’s really happening, but on a recreation of a deep seated childhood scenario that was never resolved in childhood. An obsessor can sometimes realize that they should not react to the changes in brain chemistry that are triggered by being rejected by someone. Save those changes in brain chemistry for the burglar that tries to harm you in the middle of the night. Obsession is not magnificent at all !
I.C.

‘Twas a night of youthful energy in Atlanta tonight. The Adrian Belew Power Trio performed at Smith’s Olde Bar to about 200 raging fans. I had suspected that the reason that this group was called a power trio was perhaps because Belew would be playing lots of power chords. The real reason for this group name is the powerful rhythm section of Eric and Julie Slick, ages 20 and 21 respectively. These two young players skillfully played unlimited scores of speedy 32nd notes with unlimited energy ! Belew looked rather youthful himself, with brown hair almost down to his shoulders. He also seems to have been visiting a weight machine.
Belew ripped out lead after lead of unusual scales with unusual guitar sounds. At one point he was using a violin sound; then he looped the violin sound and played another violin solo on top of that. Then he used a Fender Rhoades sound and played some jazzy sounding chords and melodies at a lower volume and tempo, creating a subtle dynamic for a few minutes. Then he played a solo using a reverse-gate violin sound. A couple of the instrumental pieces sounded like they could be future King Crimson songs. One sounded a lot like ‘ Indiscipline,’ with diminished chords and whole tone scales and a churning rhythm. Another was reminiscent of ‘ We’ll Let You Know,’ kind of quirky, trebly and jazzy. I should add that he played the K.C. tunes ‘ Dinosaur,’ ‘Neurotica,’ ‘Frame by Frame’ and ‘Thela Hun Gingeet’ during his set which lasted almost two hours. The rhythm section did a superb job of duplicating the drum and bass parts to these difficult progressive rock powerhouses. Eric played Bruford’s complex drum parts with the precision and energy that equaled Alan White when he replaced Bruford in the group Yes.
And speaking of entities named Crimson, Mr. Crimson himself was there with the lovely Laurie. He introduced me to Rob Murphree, the webmaster of the Adrian Belew website. Adrian’s wife Martha sold me a tee shirt which I will deliver to Troy Johnson in Thomaston. In eleven hours I need to be at a Nissan dealership so it’s time to go to bed.
Nighty night,
I.C.

The whizzers will not actually be home until Sunday, but I may not have time to write this diary entry on Sunday. The whizzers are those guitarists who have spent the past nine days at a circulation seminar in Massachusetts. There is a new form of circulation called ‘whizzing’ that evoked a dramatic change in the state of the guitarists in Spain at a recent seminar.
In an earlier entry, I initiated an exploration into the idea of converting a negative state into a positive one. Today I was given an opportunity to work on this. I woke up feeling lousy. I remembered to use this energy of ill health to power a state of relaxation and attention. So, I can now say with certainty that negativity can be channeled into a positive, healthy, relaxed and attentive state of positivity ! I still don’t know if this constitutes ‘countering negativity,’ but I do hope so.
I also hope that the whizzers were able to do this during the course. My advice to this group is to be extra careful while driving an automobile over the next few days. After being on a nine day course with a team of people who are all cooperating with each other, one can forget that the everyday world contains people who do not always do the right thing. Being on a retreat like this can lower a person’s defenses to the dangers in the everyday world.
Be very careful after the completion !
I.C.

Last night I saw the re-make of Hairspray here in Thomaston. It is quite different from the original, even though it shares the same storyline. The new version is a musical with all of the actors singing and dancing throughout the entire movie. John Waters has not been totally left out of this one however. Waters does a cameo appearance within the first five minutes of the movie. At the beginning, the female teenage lead actress is walking down the streets of Baltimore dancing and singing about how wonderful life is. Then you see Waters, leaving his townhouse, wearing an overcoat. He walks down the stairs; down the sidewalk; and then opens his overcoat, exposing himself to a pair of women walking down the street; all in time with the beat of the music! John Travolta plays the mother of the teen, but is not quite as convincing as Divine was in that role. The novice, teenage actress who plays the female lead character is awesome ! Didn’t I read somewhere that this was the first movie that she had ever acted in ? She can sing as well as act.
Good wishes to the team in Massachusetts,
I.C.

I am able today to tear myself away from my philosophical dilemma to ponder the possibilities of gaining income. Those of you who are interested in the stock market may have been upset at the market volatility over the past couple of weeks. The market has been going up and down at an extreme rate during the first thirty minutes of trading as well as the last thirty minutes of trading. It has reversed itself almost every day by over 100 points. To the weak of heart, this can be a nerve wracking experience. I am here now to describe it to you as I see it.
Yesterday morning, the market sold off by about 180 points if I remember correctly. Then the Federal Reserve Bank agreed to purchase 19 billion dollars worth of mortgage bonds from mortgage companies, who have been forclosing on mortgages at an unprecedented rate lately. The market went up on this news and then down. The Fed then bought 3 billion more dollars worth. The market went up and down again. Then the Fed bought 19 billion dollars worth more bonds. When I say bought, I mean, they agreed to buy the mortgage bonds for a three day period which ends on Monday. This is intended to give the mortgage companies a three day supply of money to issue mortgages with for a three day period. The stock market ended the day yesterday with a 31 point loss, which although an improvement, was not a spectacular closing.
What we don’t know is what will happen when the mortgage companies repay the 38 billion dollars on Monday. Will the Fed give them another three day loan ? Will the Fed cut interest rates and make mortgages more affordable ? If the Fed does this, it will help the stock market in some capacity, but the 38 billion that it helped with yesterday only limited the Dow Jones sell off to 31 points. Although money is not worth as much as it used to be, 38 billion dollars is still worth something in this inflationary world ( unless you exchange it into English pounds or euros.) I have reason to believe that one more massive selloff will have to occur before the stock market resumes an upward course again.
There are a few hedge funds that are heavily invested in mortgage backed securities; billions of dollars worth of these securities. The individual investors in these hedge funds can begin requesting their money back on August 15th. These requests for reimbursement can continue until the last day of September, the end of the quarter. In order to repay these customers, the hedge funds may have to sell stocks in order to generate the cash that the customers are asking for. If a large number of customers demand their money back, the hedge funds will have to sell a large number of stocks, including good, profitable stocks to generate the cash. This could cause a massive selloff in all stocks, including the good, profitable stocks. The market could sell off to a level below 13,000, devestating the retirement funds and life savings of millions of people.
Please invest with caution over the next couple of weeks !
I.C.

Someone recently said that ” A primary aim of relaxation is to counter negativity.”
I don’t know if this is at odds with my new field of inquiry or not. My notion might be stated as ” can negativity be used to energize relaxation and attention ?” But perhaps using the energy of negativity to power relaxation and attention IS countering negativity… Hmmm…
I just don’t know. I have only been pondering this for about ten minutes. And while we’re on the subject of questions…
Isn’t today the day that S.P. is scheduled to have her medical procedure done ? Good wishes to her regardless ! And in the area of good news :
Adrian Belew will be playing at Smith’s Olde Bar on August 22nd ! I hope that I can get an advance ticket and make that show. That is such a small club for him to be performing at ! It only comfortably accomodates about a hundred people. They claim to have a capacity of three hundred but there is just no way ! The club does have a killer p.a. however ! I will have to have a ticket in hand before I make the trek up there to Atlanta.
Back to pondering my dilemma,
I.C.

In a recent post I mentioned having good luck at channeling my annoyance into relaxation and attention. Both of these states (relaxation and attention) are energy conserving states. In the past couple of days I have experienced thoughts and deeds that have produced feelings of depression inside of me. It occured to me that it might be possible to channel depression into a relaxed, attentive state. I did not succeed at doing this but wouldn’t it be nice to figure out how to do this ? Today I am experiencing sleep deprivation due to a hay fever attack in the middle of the night. I wonder if sleep deprivation can be used to achieve a relaxed, attentive state ? I did not succeed at this today either, but working on this is a new project that I am going to experiment with as the opportunities present themselves. Annoyance and anger are easier to work with because they invoke an adrenalin response inside the human body, but depression and sleep deprivation seem to inhibit one’s bodily energy. Wouldn’t it be nice to learn how to use physical / mental sensation as a means to energize oneself ? I would think that this would be a good skill, needed by the circulators heading to Massachusetts this weekend.
Godspeed to all circulators,
I.C.

I decided to help out at D’s birthday party at the nursing home yesterday. The party was scheduled to begin at 2pm. Fortunately, twenty people arrived and congregated in the hallways of the building. The dining hall was supposed to be available at 2pm for us to begin slicing the ice cream cakes from Dairy Queen. The residents of the home were slow in finishing their meals. Then the employees had to clean the tables and mop the floor. At 2:45 we entered the room and the employees told us that the floor was wet and that it wasn’t safe for us to walk on. I explained that we had been told that the dining room would be available at two o’clock and that our ice cream cakes were melting. They had been out of the freezer since 1:30 pm. The employee turned her back and we invaded the room. I sliced the cakes, with the help of one of D’s friends. After the guests had been served, I brought cake to the nursing home employees and thanked them for all that they did for so many people. Although it was a rather sedate party, D was moved to tears at the end of the meal. Either she was deeply touched or was going into the early stages of diabetic coma; I don’t know. Her blood sugar has recently been going through the roof from the carbohydrates in her vegetables. Who knows what her slice of ice cream cake did to her. I still think that my Mom made a bad decision in choosing this particular dessert. Sugar-free ice cream and cake would have been a much better choice.
On the personal front, I have been successful at channeling the energy of my annoyance into relaxation and attention this weekend. At the end of the party, I cleaned up; took the trash to the dumpster; slid the chairs back under the tables; and left the dining room the way that we found it.
With completion,
I.C.

There is some allergen in the air here today that has aggravated my allergy. It actually started yesterday as soon as I stepped outside. The nasal faucet started flowing and it took a large dose of Allegra to control the problem. Although this drug has minimal side effects, I did notice some unusual muscle tension during my guitar practice this morning. My workout at the gym has helped this situation. I will practice guitar again this afternoon and observe the level of stiffness that manifests itself.
Other than that, today is a normal Friday. Tomorrow, my Mom is having a birthday party for D at the nursing home. I may boycot the party in protest of my Mom’s insistence on an ice cream cake being given to D, who is a diabetic and is on doctor’s orders not to eat a lot of sweets. What a hairbrained idea !
With slight grouchiness,
I.C.