Flipping Bills

         
           I was at the grocery store buying a couple of tall-boys.
           $6.48, the cashier said. 
           I pulled out my wallet and started flipping through my bills. I had just gotten paid and I had more money than usual.
           I was peeling back the bills trying to find a five. I had a bunch of twenties, but I didn't want to use a twenty, because I don't like small bills and change.
           I usually organize my money. I'll put the twenties on the bottom and the ones on top and the tens and fives in between. The president's heads have to face the same direction, but I hadn't the time to organize, so there I was searching for a small bill. I was peeling back the bills as quickly as possible so not to hold up the line, when it occurred to me that it felt good to have a wad of bills and for a split second I fell in love with my money and started to show it off to the cashier. That's when one of the twenties pulled between my fingers and ripped right in half while I was flipping it. I felt dumb after that. I was holding half a twenty. 
            "Oh man, I ripped a twenty," I told the cashier.
            "Just take it the bank," he said. 
            For some reason it really bothered me that I ripped a twenty in half. I couldn't stop thinking about, as if somehow I had cheated myself out of some money.
            

The Virus

            
            It wasn't the Green Dragon and the chicken with black bean sauce. It was a virus, a bug, that did me in. My sister caught it too. It's going around. Warnings to you folks. The virus doesn't last long, but it's a bitch. 

The Trotsky's

         
            Beware of the Green Dragon. I ate some chicken with black bean sauce that didn't agree with me. My stomach is usually pretty strong, but it rebelled in this instance. I got the Hershey squirts, the trots, or the Trotsky's, the runs, or whatever you want to call it. 
            This event wasn't as bad as that time I ate fish soup in Mexico, but it was still uncomfortable. 
            I'm not sure why I'm sharing this information. It think it has something to do with publishing a blog once a week. It's the new year and that has been my goal for sometime. Sorry about that, but I have production quotas I have to keep, and sometimes in the haste to make quotas, quality slips a bit. 
            
             
             

Sex War

         
            The couple who lived across the street from me moved out. I found out later that the husband was cheating on his wife and they broke up. That would explain why it felt like she hated men whenever I saw her.
            I'd wave hello to her and she'd either pretend not to see me, or give me a cold, insincere wave back. I was thinking that she was just a bitch. I really started to hate her after a while, but it all makes sense now.
            Had I known what she was going through I would have handled things differently. I would've said, hey wait a minute, I'm just the neighbor! I'm not him! 
            Supposedly, it's a common occurrence for women, and I guess men, to hate the opposite sex after a bad breakup. I certainly can understand it, but I'm not sure I ever felt that way.
            Wait, on second thought, hell yeah I've felt that way. 

Sunny

            
            I was at my Tuesday gig. It was a slow night. The drunkards had chased all the women from the room. I broke into Sunny. 
            I played the first verse flawlessly. My voice was coming across strong and I was feeling pretty good about myself. In the past when I played Sunny I wasn't sure what I was going to get. My fingers found ways to hit the chords wrong and I worried that I was going to forget the words. 
            The second verse was just as good. I looked about the room to see if anybody was listening. Maybe one depressed looking guy sitting at the bar. No bother, I was falling in love with myself. I could do no wrong. Look at me go. I was so happy with my playing I started to think of how far I'd come as a guitar player, and how the chords were falling into place like butter.
             The third verse came along and I wasn't prepared for it with all my thinking. I stumbled into the first line, but tried to recover. I botched a chord and tried to recover. I forgot the words and tried to recover, at a certain point I realized there was no recovering. I finally said into the microphone, "fuck it! Who gives a hell?" and ended it. The drunkards didn't even flinch.

The Racist Cure

         
            I think I figured out a cure for racism. Well, maybe a partial cure. It won't work in all circumstances. 
            I'm of the opinion that if we held racists to their own convictions and demanded they stay true to their beliefs of superiority and ate only foods from their own culture, they'd quickly abandon racism as a practice. It's hypocritical to be a racist and sneak in a taco or order Chinese food to be delivered. Or to eat spaghetti. Or enjoy any food from a culture other than your own. If it's your contention that your culture is superior, then in theory, you wouldn't need the culinary achievements of others.
            And to be true to the historical record, I'm going to have to take away the potato. It was developed and grown by the Inca's. They had two-thousand different varieties. Bye-bye French fry. 
            

Angel Dust

            
            I heard that kids today are drinking whiskey made with propylene glycol, or anti-freeze. Anti-freeze?
            One of the dumbest things I ever did when I was young was to smoke angel dust. I didn't know it was angel dust. I was at a party in the hood, and someone passed me what looked like a joint. I took a hit, and luckily for me it wasn't a good hit.
            Back then, people used to smoke dust and turn catatonic, or just plum freak out and take off all their clothes and run naked in the streets. When the cops tried to arrest them, inevitably, the "duster," would become agitated and turn violent, with super angel dust strength. It took five or six cops to restrain them. The police had to hog tie them by their wrist and ankles, then toss them head first, stomach down, into into the backseat of their squad car.
           I was at a park once when I was a kid, and there was a man sitting in the bleachers. His face was ghost-white, and he was staring into space. I knew enough to stay away from him. Somebody called the police on him. When the cops arrived they tried to ask the man questions, but he didn't respond. He just stared into space. When they moved in to arrest the man he went ballistic. His super angel dust strength kicked in. He fought the cops off pretty good, but eventually they surrounded him and took him to the ground. The man was wiggling and yelling like a maniac. The police hog tied him like an animal and threw him head first into the squad car and whisked him away.
            That was my lesson about angel dust. That's why a few years later I freaked out when I found out I had just smoked it.