The Hamsterwheel Post,,,

Here’s hoping y’all read the links from this mornin’.   While it shouldn’t matter if you hadn’t, some of what I say may not make sense unless you have read them,,,   

and then again, I sometimes get the message across ok without the support (and conversely, sometimes bungle it so badly, I have to clarify in comments,,,)

But we have been talking about the general miasma that seems to be making the rounds of people’s souls.   Not the bugs, those are plentiful enough without help from on high, or from BOB, or whatever extraterrestial influences we going on in this day and age.

In my case, I feel, (subjective feelz here, prone to sudden reversal: I have never claimed to be completely sane,,,) that ‘The Hamsterwheel’ is most of my problem.    As in: I feel like.I am in a rut and can’t break out of it.   While that is not ALL of the problem, it does explain some of my internal dialogues, and knowing its part of the issue, makes defining the rest of the issues a touch easier.   See, I have always been one to ‘move on’ when things get droll.   Every ‘J.O.B.’ I have ever had was sort of a stepping stone to the next, or a place holder while I built the skills needed for the Target position I ‘really really wanted’. Or as kept being mentioned in Larry’s and Sarah’s articles; “I was throwing my darts”.  Like turning wrench while I was building my Creds as a Sound dude.   Many many ‘cheap’ gigs to cut my teeth, usually for little more than a cheap meal and a six-pack.   Turn wrench during the days to pay the bills while I ‘paid my dues’ in sound at night.   Once I had a reputation, I was able to start negotiating better.   Thats how I picked up the gig at the nightclub, and how I quite literally ‘wrote my own check’ there.   I took over all production/advertising, incliding the rental of the PA, for ‘the door’.   At first it would barely cover my expenses, and I stayed on wrenching for a bit longer.   But there was a turning point where I was bringing in 3 times what my week job was paying, and doing it in just two evenings.   Granted, I was putting in a couple days of work in addition to those nights, but radio spots don’t write or record themselves, nor do they just happen to get broadcast over the waves.

How that led to my moving to L&C and becoming a touring soundguy was pure serendipity.   I was working the nightclub exclusively at that point, and running a month long “Battle of the Bands”, collecting my door fees, paying for the Radio spots, paying my door girl and a stage hand, as well as running a tab for my Judges (that was their pay,,,),,,   Even with all of my expenses on things, I brought in almost 10G a weekend.     Now it sounds like a lot, but in all actuality, I was using that cash to pay for the prizes as well.   Top spot was three tracks, professionally recorded and mastered, for the bands ‘demo tapes’.    That fee ate most of one weeks take.  

The owner was counting heads and wanted me to split the pot,,, I asked him to cover the cost of the advertising and he refused, he just wanted more money than he was bringing in across the bar,,,   I reminded him our agreement of “I get the door, you get the bar,,,  Explained what I was paying out, (usually I was the one paying the bands, not the bar, and that came out of my ‘door’ take.)   Nope, no reason applied, HE wanted half that door take.   I showed him my receipts for what I had spent and that there was one more week of the run, then we would re-negotiate.   He agreed to that, grudgingly, but I could see the tallybeads clicking in his head,,,,

That evening I was approached by a man named Daryl.   He’d been listening to the radio spots (I was advertising on three different stations.) and had come to check out what was going on.   He offered me a spot at L&C then, without any promises (you’ll have to audition for the boss, but I think you’ll do just fine from what I have heard here,,,). I told Daryl the same thing I had told the club owner,,,  I have one more week of commitment, I’ll call you when thats done.  Still no promise of pay/position, not even a clue as to what the full nature of the company was (I did have some clue of that, but there was a lot more I didn’t know,,,)

Long story short, I had to have cops intervene the very last night of the ‘BotB’.   The owner was trying to pull a fast one and I had call in the police and file a complaint.   and I lost half of that nights take to him.   That night, I called the PA company I was renting from, pulled the entire PA at close, and the next morning I called Daryl.   

Yeah, it was a ‘pay cut’, but the clientele I would get to work with over the next seven years,,,   The tours I would get to go on,,,,   WORTH IT!!!!  Totally worth it.   And I advanced quickly because I was already doing full production stuff: I knew a little sumpin’ sumpin’ about advancing shows, riders, etc etc.  Working with L&C just polished those skills…

Until I blew out the ears,,,    That kinda killed my motivation to keep advancing.   I was crippled in an industry that demands perfection, and I my drive was shattered by that.

So, I threw a couple more darts into the popcorn fluff, and things keep moving in life.    This whole writing thing,,,  Reviving a dream from my Higherschool days, one that was shot to hell by a “guidance counselor”,,,    And I just happened to trip back into that without a thought in the world about that time period.   Wings started life as a series of blog posts, with zero intent other than playing around,,,   Three years later, she became a published book (that seriously needs revised and PRO-edits, and better advertising,,,    You might think I had learned something from my production days,,,,  LOL. )

And that brings me around to BCE’s post of that young man of the 69th DINDU Brigade,,,,    That our military has been downgraded so far in thirty years since my leaving the Corps,,,   I mean, I knew we had some real full on Maximum Density types while I was in, but that had to be coached so heavily to get a passing score in the ASVAB????  In things like Basic Math, READING, paragraph structure?????    Seriously?????    Hell, my recruiters were desperate then, willing to waiver me for a surgery that I had gone through 6 years prior,,,  BUT, I would think they would have given a hard pass to the above example (Hell, I know they would have,  Gunny Klein would have blown a major vessel if his recruiters had even broached the idea of coaching some ‘retarded nog’ into ‘HIS Beloved CORPS!!!”.   It would never have passed his muster to make it to the LT’s and Capt’s for review.

Potemkin village Government.  A hollowed out shell, and the numbers aren’t adding up for the ‘investors’.    As BCE states,,,

We’ve out-spent the majority of the known Universe on weapons procurement and stockpiling, and yet we ran out of our latest (non-functional by reports) Anti-Armor Missiles (Jav) and our Heavy Gun (155mm) ammunitions in less that six fucking months

Just What in the everlasting FUCK was this money spent on!?!

That last question,,,,  I think he “KNEW” the answer before he even hit the question mark,,,,    I think we ALL KNOW  just where the ‘money’ has gone,,,   You only need to do the math of “Base pay” versus “how much have they increased their wealth since elected” of the sorts like AOC, or Fauxcahontas,,,   And the running ‘joke’ of “10% to the big-guy”,,,,     Yeah, we KNOW where the money has gone,,,,

Just like a night club owner that saw how much he “Wasn’t making”, without a single regard to what was being done to bring in that amount.    That mindset is rampant in our “leadershit”.

And why wouldn’t they think they are our rulers,,,  THEY Stole those elections outright and we didn’t string them up over it then,  THEY DESERVE TO RULE OVER US,,, at least in their way of thinking,,,  

That hamster wheel is starting to have some galled bearings from all of the things in the world today.   My personal hamster wheel is wobbling a bit,,  even though I haven’t a plan for ‘whats next’: and for good reason,,, Hard to make any plans when you have no idea if this country is even going to have a base currency in the next year,,,,   Well, it will have a base, but if its worth more than a hot popcorn fart is whats really in question,,,  

Well, If things go teats up, I have a backup plan that is actually my tossing a dart at the board of life.   Nopes, not talkin’ about it here,,,  Its a bit too romantic in nature for rational thought, and one of those ‘Welp, they went and did it, I may as well too.”.   And its just ‘back up’,,, not my desired direction.

And in the meantime, I keep running that hamster wheel of ‘earn the bread, spend the bread,,,’  and get some kayak-y love in when I can as I can…