Once I figured out I wasn’t going to be drafted by the San Francisco Giants, I sort of gave up my hopes of playing shortstop at Candlestick Park.  It didn’t help that my dad told me I was wasting my time going out for baseball and sitting on the bench.  I think he gently explained to me that I lacked certain tools.  No wait, I think he just said: “You suck”.  But he did buy me a guitar.

As you know my mom died when I was 11.  She was my main source of attention as most mothers should be.  I was the child prodigy in our town and my mom was like a soccer mom only for music.   Actually she was my first agent.  When she died it left a huge hole.  Perhaps vacuum is a better word.

Four decades after her death, my biggest accomplishments are 4 CDs and one 45rpm vinyl record.  Somewhere there’s a live tape of a recording I did in Japan.  I know many people that think my music is wonderful. A few videos on YouTube have tens of thousands of views. Many have 5 to 10 thousand views while on the other hand I have videos on YouTube that do not have 500 views.  Being an old guy that doesn’t give a shit about Justin Bieber or Katy Perry has its’ drawbacks.

I guess like most musicians, you eventually want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.  I did make the cover of that Sunday morning magazine that came in the Sunday paper.  I had a wonderful review written in the wave magazine. (You geek and tech heads in Silicon Valley probably know me)

“Fast, Loud and Unapologetically confrontational Rock”.

I’ve lived in the world of professional music, but I never had an entourage or a Limo to drive me to the gig.  I can name drop all day long but that would be tacky and show no class.  I guess I made my mark in music.  I only wish I could have gone out as David Bowie’s guitarist on his farewell tour.

 ENDURING BULLSHIT

Now my life consists of basically Enduring Bullshit.  The America I once knew has turned into a ghetto.  All of the beautiful places like my home in Carmel California have skyrocketed in personal income tax while cutting the essential services like the police, the mail, healthcare and the Fire department.  When I left California, an article had come out that claimed that 10,000 millionaires a month were leaving California.  Many of these were job providers.

I spend my life trying to keep from losing my temper over almost anything.  People are really mad.  Especially old people.  I was in a store with my shopping cart yesterday and a woman in her late 80s took her metal cane and smacked the fuck out of my shopping cart.  I looked over at this gray haired lady and her 50 something daughter and said: “What was that all about”.  In an embarrassed voice the daughter said: “That was my mother’s cane”.  At that point, a breaker switch that I had installed after 4 years of therapy in California went off and I said nothing.

When I first moved to my new location, the people were wonderful.  When my friends would say: “What do you like about Nevada”? I would say: “The people are wonderful”, and for the majority, it’s true.  Which I can honestly say was not the case in California.  Of course that’s where I had the mental breaker switch installed.  I’d say less than 95% of the people I meet in this state are kind and sincere.  The other 5% are really mean and sincere.

It’s getting bad because as I grow older, I just want to stay in my house and read.  I enjoy watching old TV series on DVD and if I need something, I go shopping at EBAY or Amazon.  California is only a 20 minute drive away but every time I go back to California, I run into the crazy people.  They remind me of why I moved.  California doesn’t even seem like California anymore.  It seems like a 3^rd world country.

I think California’s fate will be determined by the people of a small city called Murrieta, California.  California was able to reduce the influx of illegals from Mexico by 95% when federal funds were given to the state to build a fence AND THEY USED IT AS SUCH.  So illegals had to come in through Arizona and Texas.   This why you never hear boarder disputes from California.  But now that Obama wants to give these children new homes with room service, the people in NIMBY communities are rising up. (Nimby= Not In My Back Yard)

There’s an old saying: “As California goes, so goes the nation”.  We found a Bug out location over the hill to ride out the turmoil.  Hopefully my home will still be inhabitable when it comes time to rebuild California.  Hopefully it won’t end up like Detroit.