LIVE MUSIC IS HARD | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 4

LIVE MUSIC IS HARD | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 4 bret harold hart Why?, Whuffo?, and Howcum? are better community puzzles to solve in Life than Whodunnit?...., circuitously detailing, while sitting on my porch smoking cigarettes, three music performance concerns I have been processing for about 50 years. VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/5yo8HeCmATQ?si=zmJK39iU6sf2jXqt ------------ 0:02 hey y'all Brett here 0:05 again spectating and speculating I guess 0:08 this is going to be the 0:10 fourth upload for this particular 0:13 playlist when I get around to getting 0:15 done with 0:17 it I want to talk about 0:21 paytoplay 0:23 Um kind of the the paytoplay ethic 0:28 uh within 0:30 the business of performing live music in 0:34 various kinds of 0:36 venues because 0:39 um I've been doing it for a really long 0:43 time since about 0:46 1978 and I've done it all around the 0:49 country I've played out in California 0:54 Texas 0:56 Florida 0:57 Maryland Virginia North Carolina New 1:00 York 1:01 Massachusetts on an island off the coast 1:04 of Portland Maine uh as well 1:07 as in Korea South Korea when I was 1:10 living over there for four years 1:13 Basically anywhere I've ever lived I've 1:15 sought out creative people to hang with 1:18 or at least to meet I like interesting 1:22 people You know there are all kinds of 1:25 ways that people can go out and perform 1:26 their music You can do it in schools You 1:28 can do it in churches You can do it in 1:31 parks if they let you You can do it 1:35 um in bars You can do it in art 1:38 galleries You can do it in restaurants 1:41 And you can do it in larger venues of 1:43 all sorts that are more suited for huge 1:47 crowds and stuff like 1:49 that And um you know those are the kind 1:52 of places I perform music in over the 1:54 years And you know generally if you're 1:56 playing in a 1:57 park if you've been invited to play in a 1:59 park you're going to get paid by the 2:01 city that runs the park And if you're 2:04 playing in a bar if if it h if it's a 2:08 bar with any decency whatsoever 2:11 um you'll at least go home and not have 2:14 spent a penny on what it took you to get 2:17 there and play the gig and get home And 2:20 if they're cooler than that they feed 2:22 you and keep you from getting thirsty 2:24 while you're there 2:25 too Um but anyways pay to play 2:30 So I've encountered paytoplay in various 2:33 places and 2:36 um venues that uh and this is usually 2:39 bars and 2:40 clubs and sometimes restaurants that 2:43 have a stage in them Um it's it's very 2:47 very hard when you live in small town 2:49 America and even in big cities um to get 2:52 paid to play unless of course you are as 2:55 I've said before kind of econ 2:57 economically independent In other words 2:59 you've got an agent who's making sure 3:02 these things are going to work out for 3:03 you and setting you up places to stay 3:07 and your travel and so forth or if 3:10 you're just a simply a wealthy person uh 3:13 or a famous person who doesn't have to 3:15 worry about the costs of 3:17 things as well as the means of getting 3:21 from place to place like that And of 3:24 course I've always had to take travel 3:26 into concern and lodging and food and I 3:29 sell my own stuff I've always gosh since 3:32 about 3:34 1983 I've had some sort of record 3:37 company as it were or music business um 3:41 that started off releasing stuff on 3:43 homemade cassette tapes and went all the 3:47 way through to CDs Uh I'll try to 3:49 remember to post a picture of 3:51 the the CD 3:54 uh archive that I have here I'm not 3:56 going to take pictures of all the 3:58 cassettes They're in a apothecary 4:01 cabinet scores of 4:03 them But anyways um you 4:07 know when I was a kid you know not even 4:11 20 years old yet playing in clubs and 4:14 things Um you might get paid $300 $350 4:18 to play a Friday and Saturday night uh 4:21 for about three hours a night Um they'd 4:25 feed you p they'd give you pictures of 4:26 beer to keep you going and 4:31 um that was a very long time 4:34 ago 40 years ago um I could get paid 4:37 $175 4:40 um well a portion of it anyways in a 4:43 band and not get thirsty And this would 4:47 be you know local college gigs kind you 4:49 know towns that have a whole bunch of 4:51 little venues here and there for the 4:54 college 4:55 crowd By the time I got out to 4:59 California couple years later I began to 5:02 hear about this paytoplay where you 5:04 literally I also heard about it in 5:06 Boston where the club that you're going 5:08 to play play at gives you the tickets in 5:11 advance and you have to sell the tickets 5:15 right 5:17 and that's how you make your money 5:20 presuming you don't have any merch to 5:23 sell and and and and kind of push it 5:25 along in that way I never thought that 5:28 was cool because I really believe 5:31 that if an artist 5:34 provides a suitable image that that can 5:38 be used promotionally that the place 5:40 that stands to make the money that night 5:43 should do the promoting 5:45 And I 5:47 know you know the whole DIY ethos a lot 5:51 of folks think about the band the 5:53 Minutemen for 5:55 example they took the whole they 5:58 shouldered most of the work themselves 6:02 They took most of the responsibility for 6:05 things getting done and you know held 6:08 themselves accountable for how well that 6:09 went and stuff rather than being flung 6:11 around by some clown And uh they did 6:15 good They did great Mike Watt's still 6:18 doing great You know I I I I'm I'm sort 6:22 of a a merger of the DIY ethos plus a 6:27 certain standard of respect that 6:29 musicians were paid when I was a college 6:32 kid way up on the top of New York State 6:34 in Potts Dam same campus that has the 6:37 Crane School of Music on it The venues 6:40 in a town that has a music school 6:42 typically pay 6:43 better It makes sense You know I've been 6:47 in a number of bands over the years that 6:49 that got paid to play Hipbone uh was one 6:52 of them Uh the Bo Cleav Project was one 6:55 of them Uh the Bandats only performed 6:58 once but we got paid pretty good for it 7:00 Um and some other bands over the years 7:03 out in Reedsville on occasion We get 7:05 paid to play out there I've been paid to 7:08 play at various festivals and uh you 7:11 know street festivals and local events 7:14 that happen in parks and stuff like that 7:16 where they have music going on Played in 7:19 a lot of different types of 7:21 situations I don't I don't like this 7:24 paytoplay I I think that's terrible And 7:27 uh so I'm just going to put my foot down 7:29 with this first thing and say I just 7:31 think that it is the responsibility of 7:32 the venue seeing as their their region 7:36 is where most of the people that would 7:39 come are coming from So they have a 7:40 greater likelihood of knowing the kind 7:42 of folks to contact than somebody from 7:44 another state would I I I think 7:47 paytoplay is a really bad paradigm and I 7:49 don't accept it And I have made a lot of 7:51 um not friends as it were um because I 7:55 hold to that But that's just the way 7:57 it's going to go I'll I'll say no I'm 7:59 not playing for 8:00 free any more than a plumber you don't 8:03 know is going to come fix a pipe for 8:05 free It's just not going to happen It's 8:07 a work day Okay Uh in addition to 8:10 paytoplay I want to talk about this 8:11 whole horrible 8:16 lensure violation uh and fines and fees 8:21 and stuff that can be levied against 8:23 venues 8:25 which haven't paid for that kind of 8:28 lensure And I personally think 8:30 it's obscenely expensive but the the 8:34 fines are worse 8:36 And in a number of places that I've 8:38 lived over 50 years of playing music 8:41 when I after I'd become kind of aware of 8:44 the need to have some sort of permission 8:47 or lensure in order to go out and play 8:51 music by other people Okay of course if 8:54 you're playing songs you wrote or music 8:56 that you composed or stuff that exists 8:59 in the public domain there should be no 9:03 fear of legal action for having so done 9:08 Um but those particular lensure 9:11 companies um because they've just had 9:14 skin in the game for so long 9:17 uh and represent so many 9:20 publishers Um they're tough to fight 9:23 with And here in the town that I live in 9:26 now I know of several people that that 9:29 you know booked live music in 9:31 restaurants and clubs and bars that have 9:34 existed over 30 years we've been here 9:37 and they got creamed when somebody 9:40 turned them 9:41 in And uh I've never been on the 9:44 receiving end of that kind of a 9:45 punishment a legal punishment financial 9:48 punishment for providing your customers 9:51 with some you know some enjoyable music 9:53 to listen to 9:56 Um but it's a racket and I do believe 10:01 that if a 10:02 person I'm not willing to really do this 10:05 much research but I I feel that there 10:07 are regional rats 10:10 um round and about uh who have sort of a 10:14 uh freelance 10:17 uh relationship with these licensing 10:22 agencies 10:23 And uh as a sort of a supplemental 10:26 income periodically 10:29 uh and very anonymously I I I have not 10:32 quite figured out who the person in this 10:34 town is that's doing that Um one moved 10:38 away and it's still going on So I'm I've 10:42 kind of got it down to three 10:45 people But as I've said before I'm not 10:47 in the business of getting people in 10:49 trouble It's not my job Um but I do like 10:52 to know things At any rate um I have 10:56 been 10:57 told that you can be fined as much as 11:00 $700 per cover song if you don't have 11:04 that kind of uh you know lensure 11:07 agreement with these guys right so so 11:11 here comes you know 11:14 Carlos the cover tune man and he comes 11:17 in and he wants to really hit everybody 11:20 in the first set with a bunch of stuff 11:22 that they know and like So he's he's up 11:24 there you know hitting uh Beatles songs 11:28 and Browneyed Girl you know Freeird and 11:32 all that stuff This isn't a songwriter 11:34 This is just a human 11:37 jukebox and sitting in the back of the 11:40 restaurant because the person saw the 11:43 promotion that this person was going to 11:44 be playing in the restaurant or 11:47 wherever is sitting back there taking 11:50 pictures and and recording audio clips 11:52 in the back of the room as evidence that 11:55 the thing that they're going to report 11:57 occurred and they're going to cash in 11:59 They're going to they're going to make a 12:00 nice little bit of mailbox money off of 12:04 that But what bothers me about it is 12:07 that it is a absolutely horrid betrayal 12:10 of one's neighbor uh in a town or city 12:13 that you know where you live You're 12:16 ratting out musicians They're not going 12:18 to get punished for it The venue is 12:20 going to get punished for it It can put 12:22 a it can put a restaurant out of 12:24 business or make them downsize staff you 12:28 know 12:30 And I think that's really bad I think 12:34 it's a rotten thing to 12:35 do You know I I I'm sorry that some very 12:39 nice people who were providing places 12:42 where live music could be listened to 12:44 and where musicians could you know make 12:45 a little chunk little change on the side 12:48 tips small payment for playing there for 12:51 a couple hours It's gone Our town is 12:54 without music at this point this small 12:58 town that I live in And um that's really 13:02 sad that the effect of one person's sort 13:08 of monetary 13:10 gluttony could could shut down an art 13:14 form Unbelievable 13:18 Unbelievable And these 13:21 people they they don't hide They're very 13:24 public influencer kind of people who do 13:27 this kind of thing you know Once a 13:30 person is in a lot of groups and on a 13:32 lot of boards and stuff there's this 13:34 really bizarre presumption that they can 13:36 be 13:37 trusted you know i mean look how many 13:39 boards and chambers and stuff you're 13:41 sitting on right i don't know My 13:44 experience over the years both in 13:46 business and education is that in 13:48 administration is generally corrupt and 13:51 that corrupt people cling to one another 13:55 you know uh like Kurt Vonagget said take 13:58 the average of the five people you spend 14:00 the most time with you know from week to 14:04 week and the average of those people is 14:07 you and birds of a feather and all that 14:11 stuff right and uh so I'm not cool with 14:15 that And I think it's very excellent 14:17 that a number of businesses uh who have 14:20 serious FM um lensure in order to be 14:23 able to play radio and you know stuff 14:25 like that songs in their venues 14:29 um this new paradigm the Sirius FM 14:33 paradigm Sirius satellite and all those 14:35 channels and stuff When you get that 14:37 kind of lensure for your business um 14:40 those songs can be played or performed 14:45 in your venue 14:47 And um I don't think this is 14:49 terrifically widespread knowledge yet 14:52 but I'm here to tell you that those 14:54 other folks that uh license music are 14:57 probably going to have to come down on 14:59 their rates unless the serious 15:04 people start hitting the bike pump on 15:06 their own profits and uh you know 15:09 getting crazy getting crazy Don't hire a 15:12 CEO who likes fentanyl too much Um but 15:16 anyways uh so that's my second thing 15:19 that I wanted to talk about is the whole 15:21 uh notion of making sure that you have a 15:26 a decent type of lensure that will 15:28 protect your venue um from being it's 15:31 not really being sued but I bet it feels 15:34 like it Um a real good brick oven pizza 15:39 place relatively new in our town got 15:42 clobbered Um another place that was a 15:46 restaurant up on Kings Highway that we 15:48 used to enjoy going to they got 15:49 clobbered Um and some other newer 15:53 businesses got clobbered too And I I 15:56 hate that That's really bad That's 15:58 really not cool And the third and final 16:01 thing that I want to talk about a little 16:03 bit here 16:05 Third and final thing I want to talk 16:07 about here is about cover 16:11 charges at the door 16:14 um in order to 16:18 offset what would otherwise be a budget 16:20 line item for a venue that has live 16:23 music Okay And 16:28 since about the year 16:30 2000 this this is what I think This is 16:33 how I remember it since about the year 16:36 2000 So now for about a quarter of a 16:38 century 16:39 um I've found that where in when I was 16:42 younger you know the first half of the 16:45 period of time I've been playing music 16:48 um charging a buck or two at the door 16:50 and this was back when a buck or two 16:52 bought more than it does now Okay so 16:54 let's just say five to $7 at the door 16:58 How about just five 17:00 okay five bucks today buys what a dollar 17:03 or two bought back in 1985 17:07 Okay people don't venues 17:11 won't have h have a donation for the 17:15 band you know that's that's usually what 17:17 it's called um at the door as though if 17:22 somebody puts a $5 bill in there for the 17:24 band that's $5 they won't spend on micro 17:28 bruise or coolers or something in there 17:30 right or food or whatever which is a 17:32 very that's stupid math That's not 17:35 ignorant math That's stupid math 17:39 Okay 17:41 because every single person that comes 17:43 in there is helping your bottom line 17:45 because now you don't have to pay that 17:48 $5 to the band And I think you're 17:51 overestimating just how much push back 17:54 you're going to get from people if you 17:56 have somebody there at the door with a 18:00 bucket with a sign sticking out of it 18:02 and it says $5 band 18:05 donation Right if somebody can afford to 18:08 go to a restaurant or or afford to go 18:10 somewhere and indulge in their drinking 18:12 habits they've got a five They can part 18:15 with 18:15 $5 They absolutely can part with $5 I 18:20 can part with $5 and I'm on a fixed 18:23 income right whenever I hear about the 18:26 national average you know the national 18:28 average income it's forever Remember I 18:31 was a public school teacher It's always 18:33 been twice what I've ever made And yet 18:36 somehow we we we're provided for 18:40 right we don't need a lot of money to 18:42 live because we know how to do a lot of 18:44 things by ourselves We didn't raise our 18:46 ch children on you know chicken 18:49 McNuggets and 18:51 uh you know Mountain Dew and like a lot 18:55 of folks seem to do And life's life's a 18:58 lot cheaper when you're not lazy and 19:01 also when you just accept the fact that 19:03 you don't have a lot of money and um 19:06 it's kind of fun So anyways I I'd like 19:09 to argue for more places to grow a pair 19:12 and let the public compensate the band 19:15 or at least offset some of what the band 19:18 has been guaranteed You could guarantee 19:19 the band 200 bucks to go up there and 19:22 play for two and a half hours right and 19:25 you're going to give you're going to 19:26 keep them from getting thirsty and 19:28 you're going to ask people to pitch in 19:30 five bucks as they walk through the door 19:32 Okay well if you have a slow night and 19:35 only 40 people come in there and some of 19:37 them leave but each of them pitches five 19:40 bucks in there because they enjoy music 19:42 for the duration of the time they're 19:43 there uh you've just majorly offset what 19:47 you told the band you were going to pay 19:48 them and it doesn't come out of your 19:49 pocket anymore I think it's a wise move 19:53 Um at the very least people people 19:55 should have the courage to give it a 19:56 shot right give it a shot Start with $3 20:03 Have some ones on hand for change right 20:06 i think it'll work It used to work 20:10 People like things that are 20:12 nostalgic Why don't we get on 20:15 with treating hardworking traveling 20:18 musicians especially the ones that write 20:20 their own 20:21 music like professional bluecollar 20:24 workers It's precisely what we 20:28 are Tip the band folks

CONNECT-THE-DOTS | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 3

CONNECT-THE-DOTS | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 3 bret harold hart VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/zl0K0QMxlkc?si=kDESvNs580Tz-HFq Why?, Whuffo?, and Howcum? are better community puzzles to solve in Life than Whodunnit?...., circuitously detailing, while sitting in an old cemetery, the synchronicities surrounding the fate of a suddenly-abandoned Old World house a stone's-throw from my own. 0:01 well now off in the 0:04 distance you can hear it you there's 0:07 some lawnmowers running and a weed 0:09 whacker and that is a young man named 0:12 lson who uh is owning owning a 0:15 landscaping business 0:17 here in Eden North Carolina and he's a 0:21 kid that I taught him and I taught his 0:24 older 0:25 brother and as I was walking by he I was 0:28 looking at him and I thought my gu that 0:30 guy looks kind of familiar and uh then I 0:33 looked at his truck and it said 0:36 larsson's 0:38 landscaping and then I looked up at the 0:40 house that they were Mowing and it's the 0:43 very same house that I uploaded a 0:46 video gosh it can't even be a month 0:50 ago uh about this abandoned 0:54 house and lo and behold it's all of a 0:57 sudden the grass is getting cut there 1:00 month later I'm not trying to forge any 1:02 kind of bridge between my video and the 1:04 grass getting cut but I do believe that 1:08 in 1:10 life sometimes I 1:12 think um the Lord kind 1:16 of if you're paying attention suddenly 1:19 dots begin connecting together for you 1:22 and you can think of that as you being 1:24 real smart um or that just simply you 1:28 know sometimes if you're on the right 1:31 path you kind of 1:34 spot things that remind you of places 1:37 you've been before on the path and so 1:40 anyways me and this young 1:42 man I asked the the kid that was the 1:45 young man that was working with them uh 1:47 standing there with a push mower I said 1:50 hey y'all I said uh y'all going to be 1:54 pulling the vines off the side of it 1:56 there also which are really tearing up 1:59 the 2:01 siding and uh it's all up on the roof 2:05 and you can just the facing boards you 2:07 know everything's just wet all the time 2:09 I wondered if they were going to take 2:10 them Vines down he said I don't 2:13 know and then I asked him I said what's 2:16 the last name of that guy over there on 2:17 that Mower and he said that's Larsson 2:20 and he told me what his last name was 2:22 and that's when I realized this is the 2:23 young fell that I had taught and uh so 2:27 then I walked over to him and so we had 2:30 a little reconnection asked about 2:31 families and stuff and I said you know 2:34 anything about this house and he said 2:36 this uh house belongs to the uh but 2:39 anyways uh this house belongs to a 2:42 family and it was a family that he knew 2:44 and being neighbors of mine that I knew 2:46 and I had taught both the young girls uh 2:48 in that family and you know they Liv 2:52 quite near us and have wondered for 2:55 years what happened when that house was 2:57 just simply up and vacated super fast 3:00 fast and uh everything left 3:03 behind and I've observed looting not the 3:06 people looting the place but maybe once 3:09 a year once or twice a year I'll just do 3:11 a walkth through to see what's going on 3:14 I'm kind of pleased that nobody's stolen 3:17 the nice cut glass panel in the front 3:22 door 3:24 uh but anyways 3:28 uh he and I walked through there and did 3:31 some speculating spectating and 3:34 speculating and 3:36 uh oh I wish that thing right there was 3:39 in the shade I need a place to sit down 3:42 I got a really bad leg I don't talk 3:44 about it that 3:48 much oh my there's a I'm walking past a 3:52 big old graveyard here in Eden the 3:55 uh Lawson 3:58 cemetery and 4:04 uh it's an old 4:07 one oh let me skip back so anyways uh 4:11 Larson and I walked through the house 4:12 and I pointed out where some stuff had 4:15 disappeared I bet you if I looked not 4:18 too terribly hard in about five places 4:20 I'd find those things for 4:22 sale 4:24 um here in the 4:27 county but I'm not really out to get 4:29 people in trouble that's not my 4:32 game that isn't even my 4:34 job but I have a very very hard 4:39 time not thinking about a puzzle that I 4:41 haven't solved 4:43 yet I think everybody knows that about 4:46 me and I told young little mean Larson 4:50 you 4:51 know big old handshake and a hug I said 4:54 you just do well I'm real proud of you 4:56 young man and got your own thing going 4:58 here and I think that's just 5:00 super say hey to your brother for me and 5:03 uh off we went and it was a really nice 5:06 connection and uh oh I asked him if he 5:09 was still going to that church we both 5:10 both our families used to go to and he 5:12 said nah and I said me neither but 5:16 anyways on that 5:18 note 5:20 um connect the dots 5:23 happens and I think that uh that 5:25 conversation was worth having today on a 5:27 whole bunch of levels 5:34 um and maybe that house is going to 5:37 get cleaned up and you know sold to a 5:41 family before it falls in on itself I 5:43 think that's the absolutely best case 5:46 scenario okay I'm done

RUNOFF FROM THE WELL | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 2

RUNOFF FROM THE WELL | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 2 bret harold hart VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/kTGUXSBmq3c?si=GV53hHWqI9117HA8 Why?, Whuffo?, and Howcum? are better community puzzles to solve in Life than Whodunnit?...., circuitously detailing the creation & subsequent 'devolution' of art, sculpture, plantscaping, & assemblage on our "Art Yard" since 2002..., while sitting in an old cemetery. 0:02 hi this is Brett um I'm 0:07 sitting sitting here near Patterson 0:10 Street with an interesting view and 0:14 uh it's a real nice 0:17 day feels like it's about 0:20 60 0:22 95 degrees right in that range there's a 0:26 real light bleed breeze that'll make the 0:28 flag wiggle but not 0:31 wave kind of 0:34 dance there's a few flags next to these 0:37 stones that are dancing around right now 0:43 and 0:45 [Music] 0:52 uh looks like there's a certain level of 0:55 respect here not seeing a lot of things 0:58 toppled i'm going to talk on the subject 1:01 of runoff from the well 1:08 and back 1:11 in I think it was 1:15 2003 after we'd purchased our house 1:18 first 1:19 house a real fixer upper not as bad as 1:23 the one in my video called fixer upper 1:26 certainly not that bad uh but it it it 1:30 really was uh it in in a whole variety 1:34 of ways 1:36 uh it was in need of tender loving hard 1:39 work and expense uh in order to get it 1:43 up to a place 1:45 where you could live in the 21st century 1:48 in it and these things have involved 1:51 roofing and you know getting rid of the 1:55 old iron pipes you know that were all 1:58 blistery and leaky uh getting the 2:03 electricity in the house grounded so 2:05 nobody got killed when they plugged in 2:07 their guitar amplifier or something and 2:11 um oh a host of other things you know 2:15 fixing eaves and gutters 2:18 and all that you know and cutting down a 2:21 mess of big bothersome trees that 2:24 basically kept the roof shady and 2:27 covered with leaves most of the time 2:28 which as most of us know doesn't work uh 2:33 you know that's when your insurance 2:34 company says "No that's your problem." 2:38 and um all that you know so anyways we 2:41 bought the house and I've been I'm still 2:43 working on it a lot less i'm old 2:46 everything I do makes me hurt 2:50 anymore i got such a dayong stretching 2:54 regimen you'd think I was you 2:57 know 2:58 freaking on that kung fu TV show just 3:02 you know my wife says she can hear she 3:04 can hear my neck pop from 5t away 3:08 anyways 3:10 um the well yeah so um after about two 3:14 summers I guess it was give or take 3:18 uh late spring summers and falls I had 3:22 uh realized that this property was just 3:27 a trove of art 3:29 supplies um it's been my motto for many 3:33 years or is it a motto or an ethos 3:37 um the Lord will provide art 3:42 supplies i believe that right now i 3:44 believe that I could walk a 3:48 circle of 50 yards around me just about 3:53 anywhere and gather up enough stuff to 3:55 make a pretty cool assemblage 3:58 uh that would stick to a certain theme 4:00 uh I might even run across somebody 4:03 throwing out a 4:04 stretched print big old painting 4:09 looking print made in China that they 4:12 paid a hundred bucks for just sitting by 4:14 the road they'll take it home paint over 4:17 it with white paint and bam free canvas 4:20 um but anyways 4:22 uh yeah the Lord will provide art 4:24 supplies 4:27 so one of the very first times I was 4:29 mowing my back property and and what I 4:32 want to say is that it's about 20 steps 4:34 from the porch to the sidewalk out front 4:37 but it's 4:39 about 200 steps to get to the back of 4:43 the property i got about a half acre 4:45 back there and so I fenced it all in my 4:48 son and I fenced it all in 4:51 um and you put posts in and put some 4:55 good 4:58 tall with a good shelf life kind of wire 5:01 fence up and uh you know wrapped it up 5:05 so we could give our dog dogs over this 5:08 the years it's been about five of them 5:11 uh place to run around and have a good 5:13 time but anyways um I decided because I 5:17 showed up I got a job first at a print 5:20 shop running their computer room they 5:23 did that and back then they were doing 5:26 it on these giant 2-in thick tapes on 5:30 spools that were super noisy and I'd 5:33 have to degas them and stuff like that 5:35 it was just a bunch of fun um I got 5:38 hired by a guy that used to be in the 5:39 Navy like I was he was a he was in this 5:41 he was a submarine guy and uh he hired 5:44 me pretty much on the basis of being a 5:46 veteran and I worked for him until I 5:48 started teaching maybe 6 months later i 5:51 really appreciate that uh shout out to 5:54 Jeff 5:55 Lawson and 5:57 uh and then I started teaching and right 6:00 away people would walk into my classroom 6:03 and say "Is this the art room?" I'm like 6:04 "No this is an English room." "Oh looks 6:07 like an art room." 6:09 I'm like well you know I I I for for the 6:12 ones that best express what they know by 6:15 drawing something I give them ways to 6:18 let me know that they know 6:19 it and sometimes they look cool and so 6:22 we put them up and uh then people you 6:26 know and then I got Oh yeah and then I 6:27 got a a small little art show at the 6:31 public library and after that uh all of 6:34 a sudden um you know people love novelty 6:38 and so here's this guy that moved in 6:39 from out of state he does art he's weird 6:42 and he plays guitar and writes songs and 6:43 stuff and he's married to this woman and 6:47 you know they got the step kids with the 6:50 new baby thing going on and it's all 6:52 just a bunch of fascinating stuff to 6:54 gossip about and 6:57 um that's a paradigm I've watched repeat 7:00 about 25,000 7:03 times thousand times a year since I 7:05 moved here but um anyways uh yeah so um 7:11 you know so arts artsy people we were 7:13 meeting artsy people and I thought well 7:15 you know what let let's do a little one 7:18 day Saturday outdoor art show here on on 7:22 our property in the backyard you know 7:24 like zone it out tell people you got to 7:26 bring your own table and you know how 7:29 much room you need and uh we had a 7:32 really cool gathering of a number of 7:35 artists that day 7:37 um and uh I won't I won't the only one 7:41 I'm going to name is uh Ivon 7:43 Eastston and um who was a dear friend of 7:47 ours uh my wife was the first person she 7:51 called when she had the stroke that 7:52 killed her um lovely gal uh and some 7:56 other people local artists and 8:01 uh oh yeah and there's this one guy they 8:03 call Fish from Ridgeway Virginia who's a 8:06 welder but he uses his welding equipment 8:08 to make these crazy sculptures he's got 8:10 a dinosaur in his front yard and and he 8:13 came down with his motorcycle he's got 8:15 this amazing Harley and it has I I I 8:18 can't even describe it except to say 8:20 it's otherworldly 8:22 um with all kinds of biker iconography 8:26 all over it you know skulls and stuff 8:28 that he's welded about anywhere you 8:30 could weld something it's beautiful 8:33 really is makes you worry about going to 8:35 hell really to look at the thing like 8:37 Lord have mercy is that what the demons 8:38 ride over your head with and um anyways 8:42 he had that bike there too oh the 8:44 children that came loved it they just 8:46 flocked over to that thing you know and 8:49 um looking at the art and stuff we ended 8:51 up having a sudden rainstorm land on us 8:54 that day so we must have been doing 8:56 something right um that the powers of 9:00 the air come down against us quickly but 9:02 fortunately we actually had tarps and 9:04 plastic and stuff just in case it 9:06 happened and I don't know how many 9:08 people might have got some little water 9:10 on something of theirs i hope it didn't 9:12 do any damage but otherwise it was a 9:14 pretty good day and 9:19 um I don't know maybe about 6 months 9:22 before that show which was called fear 9:24 not with an exclamation point um I made 9:28 a sign and put it right over the arch 9:30 that goes toward the backyard where the 9:32 steps go down that said the well and I 9:35 called it the well because every time I 9:37 dipped into that yard I I was able to 9:39 pull out art supplies uh I remember 9:42 mowing the backyard one of the first 9:43 times I was mowing the backyard the 9:45 blade hit something i'm like "Oh Lord 9:48 hard enough to make the engine stop I 9:51 pull it back and there's a piece of pipe 9:53 sticking out of the ground." I'm like 9:55 "Oh man." And I get pulling on it cuz 10:00 sometimes you know you just pull it 10:01 right out i get pulling on it and it's 10:04 coming up laterally like in a line so 10:07 this is a this is like the elbow i've 10:10 got my hands on this this this little 10:12 2-in elbow on the end of a that's 10:15 screwed onto a longer straight pipe and 10:17 then I'm watching the the ground come up 10:19 as I pull it and I pull it and I pull it 10:21 and pull out comes about a 12t long pipe 10:23 with an elbow on the end of it and I'm 10:26 thinking what in the and as I'm 10:29 wondering why you know I can I guess I 10:31 could imagine somebody dropping a pipe 10:34 in their backyard but anyways 10:37 um but I noticed that when I pulled that 10:40 one up way down at the other end there 10:41 was a spot where it kind of hung up a 10:43 little bit and then came out and I 10:45 looked and I there was another piece of 10:47 pipe that had a little bit been 10:49 unearthed when I pulled the first one up 10:51 and I'm like what in the world and so I 10:54 spent I stopped cutting grass that day i 10:57 just started walking around looking for 11:00 pipes that the lawn mower might hit and 11:01 finding them and honest to God I found 11:05 well over a ton of pipes 11:10 conduit even I I think scaffolding 11:15 uh you know lengths of parts of 11:17 scaffolding all kinds of metal all up 11:21 under the ground out in the 11:23 backyard and I got them out of there as 11:25 best I could and leveled it back off and 11:27 stuff and 11:29 um and then I 11:32 uh a lot of them don't exist anymore but 11:34 I but I use those materials to make um 11:38 sculptures that had some element of 11:40 balance or balancing in them you know 11:42 like you think about Libra the 11:44 constellation where I 11:46 would you know use the joints and welds 11:51 and bends and so forth in the pieces of 11:54 metal that I found to make things that 11:56 would stand upright often starting with 11:58 a tripod of some sort that might be 15 12:01 feet tall and and then find ways to 12:04 attach other things to it without using 12:06 any kind of welding or wire to make that 12:08 happen and when I could get something to 12:12 a place where I I thought I liked the 12:14 way it was looking then I'd come in with 12:16 the wire uh when I when it was able to 12:19 stand by itself without anything falling 12:22 off um and some of them were really big 12:27 um I'd go in and kind of hard literally 12:30 um hard wire with wire uh at the various 12:33 places where pipes intersected and a lot 12:35 of these things stood 12:37 for 15 years there's about two of them 12:39 that are still 12:42 up everything's finite down here ain't 12:44 it um but I decided I was going to call 12:46 that place the well and it still is you 12:50 know it's it's amazing 12:52 um in so many ways this property has 12:56 provided us 12:57 with good stuff you know not memories um 13:02 you know the perfect tree to hang a tire 13:05 swing from um a very good place to build 13:10 an outdoor enclosure for a pet 13:13 um a very large space 13:17 for children to run around safely and 13:21 have a lot of room to have a good time 13:23 where there's very little danger you 13:25 know where there's nothing you might 13:28 that's sharp that you might fall on that 13:32 you know wasn't growing there 13:36 um you know and you know 13:40 uh the street that we live on I was 13:43 driving down it a long time ago 20 26 25 13:47 something years ago 13:49 and somebody was throwing out a long 13:52 yellow fiberglass slide they sell these 13:55 at you know the big you know Lowe's and 13:59 Home Depot uh where you can buy things 14:01 to make swing sets and they're expensive 14:05 right and there it was just laying out 14:08 there with a pile of other stuff for the 14:10 big clamp truck to grab and take to the 14:12 line landfill and I'm like you got to be 14:14 kidding me i grabbed that and threw it 14:16 in the back of my truck and brought it 14:18 home and took it out there and attached 14:19 it to the same tree that the rope swings 14:21 on and the tire swing and um it's still 14:26 there to this day our kids could use it 14:29 our grand able to use it 14:32 um the well every time I dip in there 14:36 sometimes when I'm bored I'll just go 14:37 out there and walk around and it'll 14:39 provide me with something to do because 14:42 a big limbs come down you know one of 14:46 them big limbs that's got too much 14:48 English ivy or Virginia creeper on it it 14:51 just weighs the tree down to the place 14:54 where the old branch just comes right 14:55 off and uh sometimes I find a place 14:59 where I have to fix the fence 15:02 up sometimes it's connected to a branch 15:04 coming down and 15:08 uh sometimes I chance upon something 15:11 that I have not seen in years and years 15:14 and 15:15 years you know like the remnant of a 15:18 sculpture that has 15:20 just decomposed you know it was made out 15:23 of wood or something organic and it just 15:26 kind of give out like we do and I'm not 15:31 real precious about the stuff I make 15:33 people like "Dude you use a stapler to 15:35 put your paintings on the wall." I'm 15:37 like 15:39 "Yeah you're going to lose your mind 15:41 about a couple of little tiny pin pricks 15:45 in a 15:46 canvas why that that's not what you're 15:50 supposed to be looking at stupid." 15:52 Um but anyways 15:55 uh I'll find a remnant of something i 15:59 was out there yesterday chucking 16:01 branches you know over into the branch 16:03 zone a lot of bamboos come down and 16:08 uh I look down I'm like well damn and 16:11 right there I see a black leather shoe 16:15 and I realized that it's it's a band 16:18 shoe from when my youngest girl was in 16:20 band playing horns and 16:26 um the uh there was a year 16:29 that the county gave them a big hunk of 16:33 money to replace the band the marching 16:35 band uniforms which 16:37 were really really long past their shelf 16:42 life and had certainly not been dried 16:45 cleaned often enough okay I'm just I'm 16:47 going to leave it right there okay think 16:49 about marching bands in the hot summer 16:51 sun and um anyways uh the the county one 16:57 year this happened one year it was an 16:59 arts win for high school bands uh gave 17:02 the high school uh a big chunk of money 17:04 to replace their uniforms and the band 17:06 the director of the band was like "Hey 17:08 any of you guys want some of this 17:10 stuff?" Because I I suppose and I don't 17:12 blame him he didn't want to have to 17:13 carry it to the dumpster himself you 17:16 know my god this band 17:19 At one point I think we had 80 kids in 17:21 it when we were on the band boosters 17:23 back then it was right big um it was it 17:27 was really something at any rate 17:31 uh my daughter having been 17:33 raised by a daddy who was always saying 17:37 "The Lord will provide our supplies," 17:40 said "I'll take some of that." 17:43 She might have been thinking about 17:46 me actually I'm pretty sure she was 17:49 thinking about me because there's much 17:51 of it that she that she still has let me 17:54 put it that way but uh my daughter came 17:57 home with a whole mess of band uniforms 17:59 and them funny hats with the pointy 18:00 feather things sticking out the top and 18:03 all kinds of this cheap sort of military 18:06 looking uh you know little eagles with 18:09 flags and stuff like that that would 18:11 attach to the fronts of the hats and u 18:14 you know little fake brass things and so 18:17 forth i cut my finger on a couple of 18:20 them when I was going through them 18:23 you know the well the well the well is a 18:26 place that just where art supplies show 18:28 up and uh it's pretty cool we actually 18:32 were able to give those band uniforms to 18:34 u a local uh theater group uh you know 18:38 that does plays and stuff uh I can 18:41 imagine there's plenty of context where 18:43 something like that might come come in 18:44 handy you know like if you were doing a 18:46 version of the Nutcracker around 18:47 Christmas time you could probably whip 18:49 out a couple them uniforms or if you 18:51 were doing the Wizard of Oz you know you 18:53 could have the the guy at the gate 18:55 wearing one of them or something like 18:56 that um so anyways yeah so we were able 18:59 to take a thing that came to us at no 19:01 cost and pass it right along to somebody 19:03 who could use it uh eight years later 19:06 and and all it cost us was having a 19:10 place to put it until that happened i 19:12 think that's the best use of storage you 19:14 know I think a lot of folks pay for a 19:16 storage space in order to you know it's 19:18 kind of like that thing in the Bible 19:19 where it talks about you know I got to 19:21 build another barn for all my 19:26 stuff how'd that work out for you boy 19:29 you know I don't mind storing stuff if 19:31 it's got a place to go but at some 19:33 point me and Tana have been downsizing 19:36 for years we just give stuff away you 19:39 know I don't even have a recording 19:41 studio anymore i I just I gave it to one 19:44 of my girls why well because she was 19:46 wanting to record music and actually 19:48 trying to do it and didn't have the 19:50 tools and so I'm like well it just seems 19:53 natural that I'd pass my my recording 19:55 equipment along 19:57 to one of my own kids who's carrying 20:00 that forward see now that's not 20:02 generational sin that's 20:06 generational creativity i like that you 20:09 know we were created by a creator who's 20:12 creative and if we're made in his image 20:15 I guess we're supposed to be creative 20:16 too you know in some way some way art 20:22 cooking building things 20:25 whatever you know leave something behind 20:27 that is better than what was there 20:29 before you got 20:30 there so anyways runoff from the well 20:34 the runoff from the well is what happens 20:36 when we reach in and yank out a bucket 20:39 full of art supplies and 20:42 uh turn them into things um 20:46 or set them aside for the future use 20:50 that will be revealed about them you 20:53 know it's still going on i was just out 20:55 there today and I realized that the yard 20:57 back there actually looks bigger and 20:59 brighter kind of right now this year for 21:01 some reason and it occurs to me that 21:04 it's because the tree trunks are getting 21:07 taller and the shady stuff is in a 21:10 different spot with cast 21:12 shade that like I was able to do when we 21:15 first bought the place I can once again 21:18 drive in from the back with my truck and 21:20 get within 20 ft of the house um because 21:24 the trees are big enough that I can get 21:25 up under them again uh which is kind of 21:28 nice i mean Lord we have a pine tree out 21:30 there that 21:32 uh our grand one of our uh 21:34 granddaughters well we only got one 21:36 granddaughter we got a great 21:37 granddaughter um our granddaughter 21:39 brought home this from a I think it was 21:42 vacation Bible school she came home with 21:44 a Dixie cup with a little tiny pine tree 21:48 seedling growing up in it that was about 21:50 4 in tall a really long time ago 20 some 21:54 years ago she gave him she says "You 21:56 want to you want to plant this out there 21:58 in the back can we plant this out there 21:59 in the back?" I said "Come on now." And 22:01 we went out back next to where the 22:03 trampoline used to be and uh stuck it in 22:07 the ground you know it was it had a kind 22:10 of a it was in a sort of an enclosure 22:12 that I would never mow in there so it 22:15 was safe by God that thing that that 22:19 thing is taller than this weird obelisk 22:21 that I'm standing next to uh right 22:26 now i reckon that tree is probably about 22:29 25 ft tall now so some things get bigger 22:33 like the Bible it gets bigger every time 22:35 you open it and some things aren't 22:39 supposed to get bigger and we're 22:41 supposed to give them away and 22:43 uh so anyways whatever your well is I 22:47 hope you're scooping good stuff out of 22:48 it and 22:50 sending that good 22:53 stuff where you know it ought to go.

THE WALKING DEAD F*ceBook ACCOUNT | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 1

THE WALKING DEAD F*ceBook ACCOUNT | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 1 bret harold hart

VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/5m-3P_I-wl8 Why?, Whuffo?, and Howcum? are better community puzzles to solve in Life than Whodunnit?....circuitously detailing my effort to exit a fraught and often ineffective 15yr social networking learning-curve, while sitting in an old cemetery. ---------------- 0:00 all right well good afternoon this is Bret 0:06 again uh spectating and speculating and 0:14 uh doing my best to keep out of the way of what ought to be going 0:23 on I'd rather let it happen and what I want to talk about 0:30 right now is the whole incredible experience I've had mostly not 0:38 enjoyable um in trying to First deactivate and later 0:47 delete a Facebook account that I'd had for about I don't 0:53 know I think maybe 2 three years into Facebook 1:00 finally caved and saw that it was maybe a viable way to be in touch with people that 1:07 are too impatient to talk to you on the phone uh or too 1:13 busy and uh because that's just the way things have gone in my 66 years is that 1:21 you know I was raised by people that weren't just readers but who enjoyed it 1:26 were kind of acious about it you know many magazine subscriptions and uh you 1:35 know grocery store Encyclopedia set in the living room and uh you know boxes of 1:43 National Geographic Magazines in the basement on a shelf and uh that's the 1:49 kind of people that I was raised by and around and I'm still a 1:57 reader but Lord knows I barely ever hold printed media 2:03 that I'd have any interest in Reading 2:08 anymore and um you know over the years here up in 2:17 New England middle Massachusetts 2:24 uh hell all the way back to the high school newsletter and art 2:31 magazines we had back in the 70s mid 2:36 70s I was a writer and I guess you could call all of that journalism and I I 2:42 suppose you could call what I'm doing today journalism and I'm just kind of like that Silver Surfer you 2:49 know I'm just kind of riding whatever most 2:55 recent uh tool for Comm 3:00 communication um that comes along and some of them are 3:05 very brief fattish kind of things that vanish real fast you know like the laser 3:13 disc and um and the eight track tape for sure and 3:19 then we got I don't know now there seems to be a 3:26 return to analog recording as though people have run they're feeling 3:34 nostalgic and uh wanting to sound like the old days when things sounded like 3:40 the stuff that the digital Music Revolution thought it was solving the problems 3:47 of Journalism well anyway so I tried to leave I tried to deactivate myself from 3:53 Facebook and delete myself from Facebook when um I don't know I I really hate to 4:00 name names because sometimes you name a name and it's like a frecking mental force field flies up and and and F some 4:09 folks can't even listen to the next syllable they're already formulating a a 4:17 way to enact Justice on you for what you just said even though it was an incomplete thought and um yeah you know 4:25 so forget about names you know forget about names 4:30 labels names stuff like that uh but I made a decision after many 4:36 years of really having a lot of failed relationships begin and end um and I 4:42 don't mean uh you know you know what I mean professional relationships music art uh and when I was a teacher at one 4:50 point there was even a sort of a local encouragement to use social media to 4:55 connect with the parents of your students if you wish and of course we were for bidden to um communicate with 5:03 the kids we taught online that was just a hard and fast Rule and I agree with it 5:08 um but there was a period of time and I suppose it persists uh when parents use 5:15 social media rather than phone calls or direct emails um to express stuff you know to 5:23 teachers and back and forth I remember that that was not fun 5:30 um and I would say that the first time that I very nearly left Facebook was during the time when I was still 5:36 teaching at the middle school level uh in the Arts and we were at the Apex like the 5:44 baby boom of that kind of thing going on with Facebook being the main conduit you 5:50 know and for reasons that I won't speculate about um because I'm just 5:57 going to take her at a word my wife really was beginning to have a problem um with a number of the uh mothers of 6:05 several of the kids I taught and I was you know I've been here long enough that 6:13 I taught the children of kids I taught okay so I've taught entire generations 6:19 of children you know I could name a lot of families that I taught all three of 6:25 the children all three of the daughters both of the sons you know that 6:31 kind of thing and I've I've even worked with my ex- students and stuff as you know in 6:39 education it was pretty cool interesting I got a deep look you know teaching 6:44 thousands of kids and dealing with where they came from you 6:49 know but um my wife was beginning to have issues with 6:55 uh I suppose the frequency and really lack of urgency from her 7:02 perspective with which some of these women um 7:09 were wanting to be in communication with me and I really couldn't argue with her 7:14 um because I get a lot of I'd say that eight out of 10 7:21 texts or emails or even Facebook comments or notifications that I ever 7:28 got eight out of 10 there was no point in them ever having been sent they communicated nothing 7:35 usually they communicated well they didn't communicate nothing they communicated vanity um or narcissism and I started to 7:43 actually get caught up in that you know who was it I think Kurt vonet said we are if somebody wants to know what a 7:50 person is like look at the five people they spend the most time with and kind 7:55 of do an average of those five people and you'll get the sixth one and 8:02 um you know Kurt vonet was the kind of author that would make you think about 8:07 something for the rest of your life and uh that's one lens through which I look at people and families and stuff like 8:14 that but anyways uh to get back on point I digress I'm sorry 8:21 um she one day had 8:27 a uh completely in hindsight I'm saying this I don't think I handled it very 8:33 well at the time um no I didn't handle it very well at the time I got defensive 8:39 about uh my uh right to since there wasn't any weird [ __ ] going on uh oops 8:46 I'm have to delete that too and she knows this we both know this in hindsight there wasn't any weirdness 8:52 going on but as women do really if they're 8:58 right-minded um they're going to guard their relationship with the person they 9:04 married and I'm glad my wife does I don't know if I like her methods um but 9:10 I'm really glad that she uh is capable of 9:17 um she claims what is her right and her right is The Vow that I made when I 9:23 married her and I'm not going to argue with that it in fact it's never failed us 9:30 her getting her getting her throwing up a fence right quick um is always a good 9:36 idea and she said at at that time this is a long time ago my God this is like 9:42 12 years ago maybe I want you to delete every single female friend you got on Facebook that I 9:49 don't know [Music] personally and I asked her how come and 9:56 she said because if they if they want to be friends with you they well better be ready to want to be friends with me 10:02 too okay we're like kind of a a a set here you 10:08 know and uh so I did 10:13 that and um I don't believe I even accompanied the act of doing it with any 10:19 kind of explanatory post I think I just went in there in order to 10:25 avoid um 10:31 what could come and just did a mass bye-bye kind of 10:36 thing and you know a whole lot of it was with people that to be honest with you I maybe had only had a back and forth with 10:43 for over the course of the N9 months or less that I taught their child and then 10:49 we never had another communication after that like they might have at one point reached out to me via Facebook because 10:55 they had a question or something and we ended up um you know friend request 11:01 exchange kind of thing going on like that but I went and did in one Fell Swoop and I think I knocked 11:07 about maybe 125 ladies um right out of the right out 11:13 of the right out of the tool as it were and 11:18 um a couple of them got really pissed about it which she found very 11:24 interesting and and in hindsight I find interesting in also that some other 11:31 person might bring their opinion about um how a man and a woman 11:39 agree um to respect one another uh as though their Viewpoint could make that 11:45 change um but anyway so there's there was an early like okay it's time it's 11:51 time to make a boundary happen here in in this in this so-called networking social networking 11:58 stuff and and uh so then you know time goes by uh I pass in and out of several 12:06 recording groups um one of which was led by a woman uh well at least she was the 12:12 uh The Lyricist and singer in the group and um myself and a u a man who is um 12:21 very accomplished on uh keyboards and and woodwind instruments primarily and 12:28 when I say woodwind instrument I mean from uh baritone Sachs to harmonica okay 12:35 um and during those professional musical 12:43 business um the durations of those um 12:48 Adventures um some women ended up back in Facebook 12:55 as friends as well as I'm I'm not going to ex I'm not going I'm going to be very 13:00 conservative as well as possibly maybe 200 people who I frankly never got to know 13:08 in any way shape or form that mattered to me very much except that they 13:15 purchased an album uh that I played on for which I might have 13:21 made a dollar but anyways I'm you know I'm appreciative I always thank people for 13:26 these things and stuff but you know when somebody's buying something that's not something on which to base a lifelong 13:32 relationship that's kind of stupid um so I ended up with what I will call a whole bunch of barnacles sort of 13:39 business Barnacles uh on my in my Facebook uh friends and 13:50 when I don't know when when one of those musical Adventures one of those groups 13:56 fell apart well basically I I exited the band and 14:02 it was a trio so you know 33% gone I exited it for reasons that I felt 14:09 were righteous and it there was Carnage that immediately followed it was like an 14:15 earthquake occurred within this sort of extremely underground but pretty large 14:22 realm in music that I was operating in at that time many ways still 14:30 do and I just realized that I need to give that ship a good scraping um because of all of these 14:38 various names that connect my memory and my thoughts to something that I'd really 14:44 rather not think about anymore and so once again I went in and did another one of these great 14:51 unfriending H I'll call it what it is because we W well I don't know we weren't friends we were they were 14:59 customers and in some cases they were musicians who um might use another 15:06 person as a ladder in order to get someone that they'd like to work with in 15:13 music I felt a lot of the The Souls of a lot of weird boots going right up my 15:19 back um between myself and someone that 15:25 uh I don't know seemed kind of like overly willing 15:31 to um well they were engaging in a lot of flattery and stuff like that and I I 15:38 don't like that stuff that it bounces off of me there there's a difference between constructive feedback and and 15:44 and and uh flattery When someone tells me like 15:50 everything you're doing is fabulous I really immediately don't trust them because I know it isn't um it could not 15:58 be uh part of how I roll is that I don't hide flaws in the 16:05 process um you know this goes across every kind of art that I'm involved in it's it's it's AR it's immediate it's 16:13 finite it's undecorated it doesn't have a lot of 16:18 makeup on it um it's a immediate grabbing of the moment in 16:26 which the thing is being made and I try to make things I'm not the kind of guy that 16:32 works on a painting for years I'm the kind of guy that spends an entire week 16:38 of 10hour days working on one and getting it done 16:44 um so anyways I scraped the Barnacles off of the uh progressive rock uh realm 16:51 uh that had infiltrated I allowed him to I opened 16:56 the window and the vampire came in you know know but anyways uh let's see where 17:02 we getting with our time here I sure hope this thing's still recording it is we're good um but anyways uh so then I 17:11 did another big old scraping and then last year and I've 17:16 been playing music live locally not doing recording projects or 17:21 getting in bands or anything like that for probably about the last I don't know five years or so 17:29 and that's the way I like it I probably only get out and play four times a month that's plenty I'm playing with people I 17:36 enjoy being around and um you know at a place that I like being in 17:44 uh but last Autumn uh I think it was in November possibly 17:51 December I know it was after Halloween anyways the anniversary of Noah Noah's 17:58 Arc begin beginning and the the flood kicking off that's Halloween for those that like to look stuff up that other 18:04 people have said it is Halloween is weird memorializes 18:12 catastrophe I decided that I didn't want to be on Facebook anymore and the reason why was because having been in the Navy 18:19 for as long as I was doing spook work I'm kind of uh I have a healthy 18:27 paranoia when there is a real reason to be paranoid about something yeah you know um a lot a lot of things that are 18:35 bad are hidden Right In Plain Sight and sometimes you see it and um it makes you 18:41 wonder and and I'm not someone who jumps to conclusions quickly but when I feel a 18:46 lot of dots are being connected around a a certain theme uh I put that theme in a folder in my head and uh just you 18:55 know remember that I have that folder in case something else another dot appears 19:00 as it were and um I made a decision that um from almost a personal you know you 19:06 hear about National Security right and I started to think about it might be a good idea for me not only to uh use it 19:14 less which I've gone through phases of um but to 19:19 just stop and and and just you know I've 19:24 created the you know people have their personal Facebook page but artists and 19:30 musicians and business and stuff you know they set up these adjacent Pages uh 19:37 in order to promote something right and and I was quite vigorous about that I had at least two different 19:45 pages um which sold my paintings and art and stuff and you know a person could go 19:51 there and look at these pictures and so forth in fact two days ago a local woman 19:56 contacted me because she'd seen some of my work and she tried to contact me 20:02 through Facebook and I didn't receive the notification but anyways um but a friend 20:08 saw her comment and called me up and told me and we've connected and so it's kind of cool that uh I might possibly 20:14 make a sale uh she wants me to do a painting of her home I can do that I've done it before I decided to get off 20:21 Facebook the first thing I did was I deactivated it according to the procedure that says this is how you do 20:28 that that and I will say right now that Facebook doesn't make it easy for you to 20:33 get out it really does not okay and then shortly thereafter um I 20:41 upped it to the delete after I had given myself time to be mindful about the 20:48 consequences of deleting my Facebook account okay and if 20:55 I delete my Facebook account that means I can no longer laun in and moderate uh 21:03 other Pages I'll call them commercial Pages um that I had out there for music 21:09 and art and stuff and uh events and so forth like it's almost as though you've 21:16 you know you're being towed Along by a ship in your own little boat and you are 21:21 cutting the rope that connects you to that ship the bigger one that you built but 21:27 you kind of willing to let that just kind of sail away uh like a lot of the stuff that you find you know if you know 21:35 about archive.org if you use their way back machine you can find stuff that 21:40 that that was once on domains that no longer exist and I'm kind of willing to 21:46 let some of my stuff go off into that ether um not really trusting that it 21:51 will be preserved but that it might be and I don't care I'm a res I can 21:57 untether from those things I don't even have those things to sell anymore who cares right bye I also knew that I was 22:05 going to probably have to um find a new way to 22:12 communicate to replace the Facebook messenger chat box which I think most 22:19 people find them useful locally for some reason I don't know and I I had found it 22:26 I just find Facebook to be a generally crappy way to communicate anything that 22:32 you want to get feedback about or attendance to unless you are 22:38 already a celebrity of sorts or independently um economically 22:45 independent you know what I'm saying and not caught up in 22:51 uh monetary dependencies that involve other people uh and I made the hard decision 22:58 that yes I'm going to let go of that and I know that this is going to disconnect me from photographs that I no longer 23:04 have I no longer have and then I remembered that I 23:09 actually did a dump uh of my Facebook 23:15 media just a couple years ago and that I actually do have most of the photographs 23:22 I've taken since then and that was the thing that made me say okay fine I'm 23:27 going to actually delete this account and let it go away make it vanish when somebody looks for it it ain't there and 23:34 that was at the end of November around the beginning of December all right so what happened 23:41 right after that was I started getting these funny messages that I hadn't gotten before that were saying hey did 23:48 you Lo someone logged into Facebook using your account in such such a 23:55 location you know and it might have been in Charlotte North 24:01 Carolina right or uh Boone North Carolina now these people are too far 24:08 away to be hacking my my Wi-Fi right and 24:13 the first couple of times that happened I'm like what's up with that 24:19 like you do and like I did I don't anymore but 24:24 anyway so I I I went for the bait on the 24:30 hook that was dangling right there that someone's messing with you know your communication 24:38 tools and guess what happened as soon as I clicked on that 24:44 thing up came a thing that said that to proceed to The Next Step you'll need to 24:49 log in I don't think of myself as a stupid person 24:56 okay I'm ignorant about a lot of stuff but I'm not stupid I clicked that damn 25:02 button to go find out if somebody was in my stuff okay they weren't they weren't 25:12 I never found a explanation for why that occurred okay cuz I wasn't driving out of network or anything like that when 25:18 that was going on so I don't get it so what I'm guessing is it it's part of the 25:23 game right so then what I did was create a filter to make those kind kind of 25:28 messages not get to my inbox just poof go away all 25:34 right months pass I know that if I go to in order to 25:40 check whether or not my Facebook account isn't 25:46 there I have to have a I'll have to log in to find out and I 25:53 know what happened before so several months go by here we are on the middle of March and I don't log into Facebook 26:00 never a couple more of those did you log in I they sneak through they get past 26:07 the filter I I spam them and get them right out of there okay so just a couple days ago this is 26:14 the funny part for me our older daughter's over at the house and we're hanging out on the porch right drinking 26:21 coffee and uh smoking cigarettes I say do me a 26:27 favor anyway no I don't go in there and see if 26:34 you can get to my Facebook account because as far as I know it shouldn't be there and I don't 26:42 want to be the one to look okay you got a Facebook account and of course we've been Facebook friends go see if my 26:49 account's still there and so she picks up her phone 5 seconds later she goes yeah it's 26:55 still there she holds it up and shows to me and I'm like damn it and I just do 27:02 not get it okay I just don't get 27:08 [Laughter] it so on me 27:16 right this is called the devil's tennis so anyways I'm smoking these 27:23 inexpensive crowns Menthol Lights they're all we can afford down here in 27:28 this tobacco State anyways 27:34 um that's another video all together so I am just racking my 27:43 mind and tin and I are watching a movie last night this apocalyptic thing called 27:50 How It Ends from about six years 27:56 ago with ad so during one of the ads I push the mute 28:02 button and I say hey h h how do you I haven't used 28:07 Facebook at all for months I just don't get it I say this to my 28:13 wife and she goes well I use it sometimes and I 28:20 go what do you mean and she says that our 28:26 friend who um is a great teacher and just a lovely lady and and she's um she's really fond 28:36 of Tina's crocheting work and and has actually found all kinds of great ways 28:41 that Tina can can crochet things and and uh you know them get the people that would enjoy them and stuff you know so 28:48 anyways she says well you know like when Shen sends me something that you know like I should check out you know like a 28:54 pattern or something and I said yeah but and this is when the light bulb came on 29:02 I said you've never had a Facebook account you flat out refused for years 29:09 to have a Facebook account I said you don't even have an email address I 29:14 said don't you understand what you what you what's happened 29:20 here so funny to me I said you kept me 29:27 in Facebook each time you looked at something that 29:32 somebody said hey look at this and it was on Facebook you know on some 29:37 crocheting group page or something you use my email to log into 29:44 my Facebook page in order to have access to viewing that thing and she's 29:50 goes oh oh and then her light bulb came on 29:58 I'm really proud of her for never getting caught up in this junk I'm telling you you know like this is the kind of this is ignorance is bliss you 30:06 know she's never been on any of that Facebook stuff and whenever she uh someone else sends her there to look at 30:12 something it generally causes aggravation and I wouldn't have it any other way so anyways so the mystery of 30:19 the the you know The Walking Dead Facebook account why won't it just die 30:25 um has been solved and she went in and did a for stop on uh the uh app in her 30:32 phone right so that she uh won't be tempted ever again and I asked her also 30:38 if she would be so kind as to communicate to Shannon that please don't send me any Facebook links but anyways 30:45 so I'm I'm saying that here you know my good friends know even the even the ones 30:50 who never like or comment on my videos I see how many views there are I know what's going on out 30:56 there but anyways uh you know that you know Facebook wasn't fun either um it 31:02 did sell a bunch of records though so that's cool so pretty soon I think I'm 31:08 going to be able to actually shoot the head off of The Walking Dead Facebook account you know it'll stay down 31:18 right so you know I hope I don't have to make another video about uh on this 31:24 subject and this video is all oh Lord this recordings all the way up to 33118 so I better give it a stop