Livin' in the Ghetto

It's a lot funnier when Elvis or an overweight cartoon character sings it than to actually do it. By some dire mistake, I've moved to the ghetto. Not that the ghetto bothers me. I like my house. I like how there is a lot of shops and restaraunts within walking distance. I like how my house is old and not perfect, but looks pretty nice on the inside. It has a personality rather than being a Spanish filing cabinet like so many other places in San Diego. I don't mind the ghetto. I don't mind the weirdos talking to themself at the bus stop. I don't mind the overabundance of stinky Chicanos at the laundromat. I don't mind the mild graffiti. I don't mind the rice burners that fly by sounding like a weed eater at full power. I don't even mind the guy who comes every morning and digs through the small dumpster behind our lot looking for cans and other goodies. It's criminals that bother me.
One day a friend came over and asks me, "Do you feel safe here?" I'm not sure if he was being his usual latent-asshole self or asking me an honest question. It's hard to tell. I thought he was sarcastically pointing out that I lived in a not-so-upscale neighborhood. Doing a little research, I realize that I don't feel that safe here. I found a website hosted by the San Diego Police Department that shows crimes broken down by neighborhood. My eyes were opened to the truth. In August, there was 1 murder, 1 rape, 2 armed robberies, and 1 strongarm robbery equalling 21 violent crimes in my neighborhood. There were 15 residential burlaries, 7 commercial burglarlies, 65 thefts, and 37 vehicle thefts, equalling 124 thefts in my neighborhood. I signed up for the neighborhood e-watch provided by SDPD. Every morning I wake up to an email telling me what crimes have been reported in the past 24 hours within a mile of my humble abode. And it has a map, so I can see exactly what is going on where. Auto theft, residential burlary, narcotics, prostitution, parking tickets...it's all there with street addresses. Nothing has happened on my street or in my alley since I signed up for this email about 5 days ago except a drunk in public on Friday night at my street corner. I can handle drunks in public. I can't handle burglars or rapists, or, zoinks a murderer. I don't like the thought of some ignorant, lazy mongrel trying to steal my car or my belongings because they are too stupid to get a job. Well I've got news for any would-be attackers (it's not like they are reading this...they're too dumb to have a computer or to know how to read for that matter). I feel like Charles Bronson in Death Wish...my livingroom has become a faux weapons cache. My guitar, skateboard, and a large wine bottle will become weapons of mass destruction for anyone who dare thinks they are going to get in here. Axe-like, I'll smash a Squier Stratocaster to the center of your face faster than you can say "gee-tar." Just a word of warning. Let's hope it never comes to that. I don't think it will. I'm quiet, I keep to myself, I keep my doors locked, and I keep my blinds closed at night. My car is not ostentatious and it's devoid of anything worth stealing. I'm like a hawk, watching everything that goes on around here. My neighbors are quiet and they seem decent. My little area seems safe. So I think I will be. Time will tell. If I find anyone prowling this area, I'll be outta here as fast as I can find another safe place to live.

Yesterday two elderly women at the laundromat told me that I am very neat about how I fold my clothing. That made me feel good. At least I know what older women look for.

The End of an Era

Tomorrow marks the end of an era of my life that I can only describe as near-nirvana. I've been off work for three months and I have still received a paycheck every two weeks. Our post-deployment schedule had us mustering for about a half an hour two times a week from July 7th until August 14th. Then I went on leave for approximately a month and a half. Tomorrow I go back to work. I haven't exactly been dreading it, but I'm not welcoming it either. It's just something I want to get out of the way. The job is the same except for the lack of a ship, but the people will be different. I think I'm the only adult I know that has managed to get a paycheck and not work for 3 months without having some sort of medical problem.
Looking back on it all, it's been a great time. I got to meet the Reverend Horton Heat and the Silvermen. I learned how to make really good peanut butter and bannana smoothies. I keep up with the news more than I ever have, which makes me depressed. I joined a gym that I'm going to on a regular basis and that I actually enjoy going to. I learned how to eat healthy without much effort. I got a new apartment. I purchased high-speed Internet through the kind people who work at Cox Cable. I stayed up drinking coffee and perusing the Internet until 4 a.m. on countless occasions. I got slightly addicted to eBay. And many other things. It's been fun. I hope I get to do this again before I retire. I doubt it will happen. Anyone who doesn't work for three months is either a drug dealer, crippled, homeless, or a housewife. I'm not any of those things.

The Rev show at the Grand Emporium, Kansas City, MO

At the end of August I had plans to go back to Missouri to see my family. About three days before that, I found an apartment. It was more or less kind of an accident. When I went out looking, I wasn't expecting to find anything. Luckily I found one and moved all my stuff into it and then went to Missouri.
In Missouri me and my cousin, Mike, went to see the Silvermen and Reverend Horton Heat at the Grand Emporium in Kansas City. Pre-drinking a little at the hotel, we decided to get there a little early to insure a good seat. We made it there in a cab about an hour and a half early and sat down in the table closest to the band after the guy at the door said he'd get our tickets later. At the Ticketmaster website, it says that the tables up near the front were reserved. Asking the waitress verified this to be true. Or so we thought. Shamed, we made our way further to the back of the venue to sit in "General Admission" seating, and later asked the guy taking the tickets if there was reserved seating. He laughed and said, "Well, I'm not checking tickets. As long as you got one, sit where you want." Of course, this is about a half an hour later after two people already had our seat and the rest of the tables had filled up. We told our waitress and she smugly said it was our fault for not knowing because they were our tickets. Sure, we had never been there before in our life and you work there. We were wrong. I think we were the only ones there knew any songs. The majority of the crowd other than the people standing up right in front of the band looked like they were retards on meds. Trying to make the show as interesting as possible, during the Rev's set, we started yelling out song names and sure enough, the Rev heard us and played 'Bales of Cocaine' and 'Where Did You Go with My Toothbrush?' The people around us just stared as we kept on with our personal drunken chorus in the back. We couldn't have been happier. As somewhat of a surprise, after the show Reverend (Jim Heath) Horton Heat walked off the front of the stage to the bar to talk with people. As Mike made his way through the crowd, we basically walked right up to him. With a stolen flyer from the wall in hand, as an intro Mike said something about me being in the war earlier this year. The Rev said he supports what we're doing and shook my hand. As we asked him to sign our flyer, he put his small plastic cup of gin and tonic in his shirt pocket and signed our flyer. We noticed that some Mexican senorita was being pretty flamboyant in trying to take him away from the crowd and back to her place, so we promptly said thank you and scrammed. Such is the life of the lead singer and lead guitarist of the best rockabilly band ever. After that, I decided to buy the Silvermen album because they were really good. As I was standing at the merchandise table, they were standing right there and one of them said, "Wow, someone's buying one!" I told them I liked their show as they signed my CD cover and said thanks for the support. I've listened to that album about 30 times since then. After a cab ride to the hotel in the pouring rain, we found what I think is the only Denny's in the world that isn't open 24 hours. So we opted for a SoCal style taco shop in Kansas City, which despite the locale, was actually pretty good for Midwest Mexican food.

Here's the flyer from the concert, signed by the Rev himself: