The black hole of reality continues its process of swallowing up

Every so often, I write a long essay.   This is the first half of my projected long essay.  Both halves will be on this blog but the first half will also be in an email to the remaining 14:  Once there were hundreds on my email list.  Today that list is down to 14 (including family).....and I anticipate that this number will also decrease over time.

Once I thrived on email.  Now I want to minimize it along with eventually eliminating my phone - I rarely use it.  I still have the need to express myself and I do it in this blog, a brief (most of the time) commentary that is close to but not always daily. If you choose, you can occasionally comment on the blog - that would be nice to show me you too are still alive!  Anyway, if you want the second half of the following first half of a rare essay from me, you'll have to go to the blog as I will not email it......Cheers!!  LL  20 July 25  Santa Monica, CA

It was during my May, 2019 daddy-daughter trip to New York City with Joanna that the idea of writing my 8th book came into being.  That was spurred on by Covid and China's locking us out on 23 February 2020......and thus, Good-Bye and Thank-You! (Katherine came up with the perfect title) came out in the good ole U.S. of A. where no one reads anymore......or if they do read, it is off of their phones and what they read is of a different genre from prior days - and a hell of a lot shorter.

Such is life.  I say this today because yesterday I became $12.30 richer!  Yes indeed, one and all who may read this (besides me, and I don't really read this stuff after writing), I earned royalties - someone out there is still interested in buying what to me, at least, is a major memoir.  This is a book that is now in the collection of the Los Angeles County Library, the Santa Monica Public Library, The Salina, Kansas Library - and they publicized it!  Hey, tax essays I've written are in the British Library - as is a hard copy of my 2012 Tax Guide.....and two countries - Hungary and the DPRK - used my first book for years a guide to taxation in Asia (without paying me any royalties.....dammit!!!). I am not complaining - while it would be nice to have made a bit more out if all of this, I am proud of what I have accomplished.....and most of it has been fun! I am as old as I am for unknown reasons but I am enjoying it and that is what matters. I made enough from writing and activities related to writing as a wonderful fringe benefit to the tax work, my prime income, along with  playing harmonica in jazz cellars around the world - this could never have been done  otherwise.

I've written.  I've been published - 8 books and between 3-400 professional essays (from 1979 through now),  I've spoken before some very large audiences (2,500 in 2004 - is that large enough?) I've played jazz around the world (between 2009 and 2018).  And I attended a Santa Monica College evening stand-up comedy workshop that ended with a gig at the Improv on 17 May.........and it was fun - a whole lot of fun!!!!!

I was pleased with my first gig as a stand-up comic.  I never had problems speaking for extended periods of time - teleprompter software on my iPad helped make me a very successful speaker in Asia - especially where the audience needed someone to speak English S L O W L Y so they could translate, first, to their native tongue.  But speaking before an audience from a script with 3-4 (hopefully) laughter-provoking moments per minute is entirely different because it simply will not work if what I say does not sound like me but from a script.......and for the two weeks prior to that 17 May gig, I went out every day for more than an hour, looking like a well dressed, old, mentally ill walker around Santa Monica (and there are plenty of mentally ill who walk around - they avoid me in passing because I likely seem far more mentally fucked up than they are).  Anyhow, I pulled it off: I acted from a script but it was me!!! I was in a trance-like way as I did my gig.  I felt the reactions - especially those few tags that got the most laughs.  And a couple of promoters along the comedy club circuit got in contact with me as a result.

It is 19 July today.  Two months and a day after the Improv gig.  The group picture from the Improv show is my phone cover photo on my phone.  I have not changed it - I like it too much.

Monday night, 21 July, there is an open mic night at The Trip, Santa Monica, near the intersection of Pico and Lincoln.  I can get there by the #1, then #3 bus.   8pm show.   No, I will not perform - I want to see what it is like.  I am also finally ready to watch the video of my Improv gig, too, and from that point, to start rehearsing what I already have...BUT.....eliminating the stuff that either did not work or what I was not pleased with and writing new stuff - I have notes in a notebook that is actually legible - and I am starting to write new material............

Am I hungry enough to want to see an open mic night and then, after initial rehearsals (a week of looking like a mentally ill Santa Monican who animatedly talks to himself during weekday afternoons on Santa Monica Blvd), doing a few open mic nights before doing one or two stand-up gigs at the Three Club Lounge in Hollywood?????   It all depends............

.....it all depends upon how it goes  at The Trip, Santa Monica, 21 July 2025..... will I go there and see?  If you want to find out, sooner or later, part two of this essay will appear.....

From a couple of days ago:  my chili rellano lunch plate from Nina's