Invisibility

A few posts back, I wrote something about how I’m starting to feel invisible, un-noticed and ignored as I got older.  I also made mention of, like a nasty little boy, adolescent fantasies of invisibility wherein one could do all sorts of forbidden stuff, like go into the girls locker room at school; a fantasy common to most horny little boys along with the wish ya had x-ray vision like Superman.  [I wonder how often he scoped-out Lois Lane?]

Well, I’m not most men are not into that stuff anymore.  Thankfully, voyeurism (and the horns) have worn off by the time ya start getting Social Security.  But wouldn’t it be cool  to be invisible for real, like the guy in the Invisible Man movie.  You could do all kinds of stuff, like walk into any theater, sit down and watch what ever you wanted without having to buy a ticket.  You would have to make sure it wasn’t a crowded performance so some fat-lady wouldn’t come down your row and blop her big fat butt on top of ya.

You could also stay in some pretty nice hotels, just go behind the front desk, grab a set of keys, and voila, you’re livin’ large.  Hitting up the breakfast buffet might be challenging.  Nothing like a floating tray piled high with goodies being a dead give-a-way that someone invisible is pigging-out.

Driving a car could be difficult.  I’d sure freak-out for sure if I saw an apparently driver-less car next to me in the fast lane.  Motorcycles and bicycles are out too.  With all the drones flyin’ round these days, someone might think that they were being chased by remote control, with some geek in Virginia, sitting at his joy-stick, ready to take your ass out.

I don’t think I’d like to be invisible all the time.  If you needed to be seen, you’d have to put on clothes, hat and gloves, and cover your face with bandages, and hope that the cheap shit ya bought at the 99 Cents Store didn’t start to unravel on ya.  That’s what the Invisible Man had to do, which of course meant: he was naked  all the time!

I’d like to turn my invisibility off and on.  The Wife don’t want no invisible hairy ass sitting on her sofa-love seat.  An off switch would be nice, that way you don’t have to stand up all the time.  Even if I put a towel down on my recliner, eating a bowl of soup could be mighty uncomfortable, especially if I dribbled.  I would do all my blogging while invisible; sorta lends itself to the medium.  Doing Skype would be interesting, especially if the person you were Skyping had their invisibility turned on too.  It would be like a plane old phone call, except you could see the phone booth they were calling from.  I think I’d float an ashtray in front of the screen or bend some spoons just to let ya know I was there…and naked.

Below is a picture of me being invisible; must have just gotten in from wondering around in the garden.  The one above is by my six year old grandson Logan; he could care less about invisibility, but just wait.

Dog TV

There’s this channel on Direct TV called Dog TV.  I stared watching it lately.  Not because I’m a dog (it’s intended audience), or even because I like dogs, (which I don’t), but because it’s so different from anything on TV.  Now I’d watch Dawg TV if there was such a channel, but this channel is literally something for dogs to watch, probably when they are left home alone.  The programs consist of relaxing scenery, long still shots with few interruptions of dogs relaxing, looking around, or other animals just standing there.  Lots of water shots accompanied by soft music and no voice tracks.  They call this “Relaxation”.  During “Stimulation” (be it morning or afternoon), more active shots are shown of dogs playing with other dogs or just walking around in nature,or in a park.

It’s funny how they never show dogs sniffing each others butts, peeing on something or taking a dump on my front lawn.  Maybe that’s censored.  Or…part of an elaborate behavior modification to train dogs without the use of a rolled-up newspaper.  Teaching them lessons like: don’t tear up the furniture; never shit in the house; don’t smell other dogs butts; and Never hump a human’s leg.

I usually watch Dog TV with the sound off, with one of my records blasting away on the stereo.  They sure show dogs some interesting stuff: cascading colors, varying light patterns; it’s kinda like having a light-show going on while you’re listening to the Stones.  Sometimes I wonder what are dogs thinking when they watch this stuff?  “Boring!” or “I’m getting the munchies – where’s that bag of kibbles?”.  All I know is, dogs are either total idiots, or secretly use psychedelic drugs.  How else could they watch this stuff for endless hours without chewing up a few pair of slippers.

What I haven’t watched yet is their late, late night show “Bad Dog”.  This one features dogs unsupervised and in heat.  One can only imaging what goes on there.  I’d stay up and watch it, but usually I’ve long since fallen asleep.  That’s about all the “stimulation” this old dawg can stand.

Listening To Music #2

This is what I drew while listening to Jimi Hendrix’s  “Cry of Love” and Chris Isaak’s “Blue Hotel” albums (on vinyl of course).  Sure was a lot of blues crying for love in those two hotels.  Chris Isaak can be be a bit depressing at times, what with his hauntingly mournful moans of lost love and relationships turning to shit (“Funeral in the rain” a case in point).  But, he has a great guitar player backing him up with a ton of reverb-laden licks.  Hendrix is always uplifting (‘excuse me while I kiss  the sky’).

This part, what you’re reading, is the afterglow, the drawing over with – a little pillow talk.  Sometimes after a particularly zesty session of drawing I’m exhausted.  Don’t wanna lay around and talk.  Just wanna get up, put on my clothes and get the hell outta here.

Divel-Fipps

A lot of times I’ll do these small, tiny, itsie-bitsie little drawings I call Divel-fipps.  I suppose I could call ’em small tiny little drawings done in ink and embellished with colored pencil, but for some reason I prefer Divel-fipps.  What’s in a name anyway?  A name lets ya know what something is, yet only in a limited superficial way.  One name can apply to many different individual things.

Donovan sang, “First there was a mountain, then there was no mountain, then there was.”  Pretty trippy mind-blowing stuff.  Best understood in a zen-like way.  When I first see a mountain, I think, “Oh, a mountain.”  When I take a closer look, I see rocks and boulders, trees and shrubs, gravel and a multitude of things including animals (and if the animals are in heat, you could even call it a ‘fucking mountain’).  The mountain is really an aggregate of things piled up on one another (including the animals if it’s that time of year) and unique unto itself, to which we affix a label and call  it a mountain.

The same thing goes for Divel-fipps.  First there was a Divel-fipp, then there was no Divel-fipp, then there was.

Listening To Music

I listen to music every night.  Kick back, put on the head-phones (or blast it on the stereo if The Wife isn’t home), and focus on an album or CD, really listening to it.  Paying attention, not just daydreaming, although that happens a lot.  If I wasn’t subject to a rich fantasy life, there would be no Hansi’s Hallucinations blog.

I got the rock and roll bug back in 1958 when I was elven or twelve years old.   Started listening to AM radio and buying records.  If it rocked, I loved it.  Chuck Berry was the King of Rock and Roll; early Elvis was good too.  My father called it “jungle music”.  I’ve had the bug ever since.  Can’t get enough of it.  It either grabs ya or it don’t.

Listening to music is like stepping into another world.  I call it the world of music.  I do all my drawing while listening to music.  It’s kinda like a sound track.  Here’s a photo of my stereo getting a full-blast workout.

Getting Things Done

I’m the kinda guy that likes getting things done.  That doesn’t mean I putter around all day – just half the day.  There’s always things to do: the garden, pruning fruit trees, taking out the trash and juicing carrots.  Last week I juiced a row of carrots that got too big for cooking purposes (yes, size does matter, but when it comes to carrots, bigger is not necessarily better.  It’s how you use them that counts). Wow, that batch was so potent (with a beet, parsley and kale thrown in) that you could almost hear yourself getting healthier drinking it.

A lot of times I kinda sneak-up on a job.  Especially the ones I really don’t wanna do: Getting the car smog-checked, changing oil, mowing the lawn.  All the crap ya really don’t want to deal with, but gotta do.  That’s why I work my way up to those tasks.  Figure out how I’m gonna do it, and then get my lazy ass in gear and do it.

It’s funny how in retirement, if you really don’t wanna do something, you don’t have to.  And that’s Okay.  Maybe that’s a little shellfish selfish, but it isn’t.  Now that I’ve gone to college, had a career, raised kids and put them through college, I’m done with responsibility.  I’m finding that people are giving me a pass in my old age (67).   They call me Sir, hold doors open for me, and are more than willing to help me when I can’t figure out how to use on of them Red Box machines.

Sometimes I feel invisible.  Not the kind you wished ya had back in high school so you could go into the girls locker-room unseen.  But more of a people don’t pay attention to me sort of invisibility.  I don’t stand out, go unnoticed and that’s fine with me.  Gives me a sense of freedom.  I can wonder around in the grocery store, totally spaced-out, tripping-out on whatever blows my mind, and nobody cares.  Just another old guy with early Alzheimers.  Meanwhile, in my mind, Jimi Hendrix sings, “Excuse me while I kiss the sky”.

 

Even More Thoughts

1.  There’s nothing better than feeling good.  Yep, there’s nothing better than feeling good…except feeling better.  What more can I say about that?  When it comes to feeling good or feeling better, I always choose feeling better.  Feeling good is good, but better is better.

2.    What’s in your mind affects your body.   What’s in your body also affects what’s in your mind  (this blog is living proof of that).   You gotta have a healthy mind in order to have a healthy body and visa-verse.  I prefer to live without fear (even though there’s a shit-load of scary-ass stuff out there to worry about), eat healthy home-grown foods and being content with what I have.

3.  Work your ass off, so you never have to work again.  That’s what Yahoo Finance is basically telling everybody who wants to retire some day.  Work longer, save, delay benefits, simplify your lifestyle, so you no longer have to do that anymore.  They rarely  tell ya what to do once ya get there, except to prepare for convalescent care in case life ends up so good that all ya do is lay around  shitting in your pants waiting to die.  Not two too bright a prospect.

4.  Always keep a positive attitude.   A negative mind-state will drain you.  A positive mind-state will constantly re-charge you.  That’s why I never watch Fox News.  Why dwell upon fear, paranoia and distrust?  Recently Bill Huckabee, former governor and conservative christian show host, said he thought a lot of the women hosts (hostesses?) on Fox looked “sleazy”.  Well no shit Huckaboo.  What do you expect from the network that brought us ‘Married With children’?  Probably one of the most sleaziest of sitcoms ever shown on television.  I used to watch our local Fox News weather tramp; hot as hell in a trashy sorta way; who cared about the weather.  One has to wonder why Fox as kept The Simpsons on for all these years?  I guess, despite all it’s social satire and swipes at conservative values, it’s because the show is a huge hit and making them tons of money; therefore conservative standards can be relaxed.

Hurling Invectives

I’m really not sure what an invective is.  But sometimes when I hear something that I know is bullshit, and it’s being passed off as non-bullshit, I get so upset that I just wanna yell out, “Fuck You!”.  That usually happens when I watch a lot of TV.  I don’t know if that’s hurling an invective or dropping an F-bomb.  I think some one once said, “He who is without bullshit may hurl the first invective”.  I kinda see it as a sport, similar to the winter sport of Curling, but instead of sliding stones on ice, you hurl verbal bombs into the air, hoping to get as close to your chosen target as possible.

Dropping F-bombs can be crude and vulgar, depending on who’s doing the dropping, but ultimately satisfying, like letting a silent fart.  Similar to passing flatulence, one can always tell when an F-bomb is called for, cause something just doesn’t smell right.  I love it when a TV personality accidentally drops an F-bomb.  Everybody acts so embarrassed and surprised while we learn what a potty mouth that person really is.  Politicians are pretty good at not dropping F-bombs.  They’re always so diplomatic even though everybody knows they’re calling their opponents fuckers.

Thoughts

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my thoughts that they become overwhelming and scare the shit outta me.  Then I suddenly realize that I’ve been locked into one, and say to myself, “Wow… That was a good one.”   Good thing it was only delusion and nothing real.   Sometimes I try and draw some of my thoughts – when my fingers are not petrified with fear.  Then I look at them and say, “What was I thinkin’?”  That’s usually a question people ask themselves after they’ve made a particularly bad decision.  Luckily for me, those are few and far between.

Half the problem of dealing with a bunch of crazy bullshit is forgetting that it’s all a bunch of crazy bullshit.  If you remember that, then you can go along for the ride and enjoy the scenery.  It’s when you forget, and get caught up in it, that you become the scenery.