QuadTalk
April 11, 2019
A capriciously disseminated newsletter written by a hemp-inspired quadriplegic jester who, like King Lear, impotently screams ineffective vitriol at the raging antediluvian squalls of societal indifference that violently smash the planet and callously destroy the things I love. I cry, defeated by a redoubtable sea of troubles as my siblings, whose pursuits of happiness do not coincide with the status quo, are mowed down by ignorant privilege while comfortably content indifference ignores the anguished cries of people's suffering simply because they don't look the same.
— SSTJazzVocalist

#Wheelchairistocracy #GroovicusMaximus @frangeladuo
Preamble

Welcome to QuadTalk. I am Rusty Taylor, a complete, level C-4 spinal cord injury who, for thirty-two years (and counting), has been unable to perform even the most rudimentary acts of daily living, and, as such, I am a victim of the nefarious for-profit healthcare system we, the citizens of the U.S.A., have callously ignored for too long. This will not be a media blitz of superfluity; I am a vitriolic antagonist against the status quo, so if you are naively looking for a feelgood story about a “poor li’l ol’ cripple boy” who done good against the odds, then I suggest you go find the Hallmark Channel and infuse your brain with enough endorphins to make you forget that separating children from their families is simply morally unconscionable or that a casual rapist majestically sits as Supreme Court judge. Otherwise, welcome...

CAVEAT

This newsletter is inspired by my capricious Muse. Unfortunately, I alone am responsible for its content and dissemination. I have no proof-reader or editor nor do I have corporate sponsors to moderate my tone and style, so...

I alone am responsible for all the typos contained herein, and all I can do is promise to try not to make additional grievous errors. Please excuse an occasional rhetorical mistake. They are unintentional.
—SSTJazzVocalist

I Am Alive Again


Back when we could more easily afford it, my mother and I enjoyed going to watch my hometown city’s semi-pro hockey team the Columbus [Ga] Cottonmouths. I even got to sing the National Anthem at one of their games. (I am really good at it.)

During one of the hockey matches, an announcement came over the loudspeaker to evacuate the building immediately… a bomb threat. Admittedly, there was a very good chance that it was a hoax, but… well, there was still a possibility that there was a bomb. In my mind, even a one percent chance of instant death is greater than or equal to zero, and if I had to guess, the probability of an actual bomb was at least ten times greater than one. We were on the second floor of ‘‘a state-of-the-art multipurpose sports and entertainment facility with 10,000 arena seats, 23,000 square feet of flat floor space and 5,000 square feet of hospitality suites.’’

What the website fails to mention is that there is but one elevator, and it is on the other side of the Civic Center, so my mother and I start our trek to the elevator while verticals [1] are scurrying like rats abandoning a sinking ship, a mass of dispersing humanity scattering hither and yon while my wheelchair gracefully glides through the chaos.

We get to the elevator, and, you guessed it; there’s a line. After seeing me and my wheelchair, a few people standing in line slunk off towards the steps that were twenty steps away, but others stubbornly stayed their course, and, yes, my mother and I were among the last to get out.

As it turned out, it was a hoax, but still, as my mother and I were slowly making our way to the elevator, there was the thought, and it was pressing… no, it was throbbing… it was an acknowledgment that I am not in charge of my corporeal destruction; my terrestrial manifestation can be quickly snuffed in a callous explosion meant to negatively affect somebody else. I can easily become a meaningless statistic in the fulgurous instant of a bright senseless flash.

That’s how I feel every day.

I am an emotional mess. Just a scant few months ago, I seriously thought I was going to die. No big deal; it happens, and I imagine that every single one of the kabillions of people who have had similar thanatological experiences are screaming their emphatic ‘‘Duh! Damn, son! You ain’t that special!’’

Fact is that I embraced the fact, and I am still at peace with it. What makes it easier is that everyone I know has come to accept the reality that I have already outlived expectations. And that’s cool. I believe that, in retrospect, people are going to look back at my life, and their assessments will be mostly positive. Ultimately, in very short time, I will be forgotten.

The question that keeps surging into my consciousness is why am I still alive? I have convinced myself that some puissance is directing my course. You, dear reader, may call this force God; it’s name is irrelevant, but for the record: I believe that the energy that is guiding my lifeforce is, itself, subordinate to an ultimate power. Again, it’s a matter of semantics.

I am a man of limited options, but I feel that my two most accomplished activities are singing and writing, so it must be one of these or both that encourages the temporary stay of my terrestrial execution by ineffable thaumaturgy. One of my hopes is that my collaboration with my singer/songwriter friend Ted McVay will synergize enough positive energy to appease my terrestrial benefactor. Still, I cannot abandon my writing, so I will do both until a change is mandated. However, there is another possible reason that I am still alive. My terrestrial benefactor may want me to experience emotions I’ve yet to experience.

A distant friend recently reached out to me with such an overwhelming gift of love that I am now reevaluating everything I’ve ever thought. My mind is a whirlwind; it’s chaos; I can’t think straight, and through the meandering emotional squall, I write, and sing, and wonder…

† † †

I am, once again feeling the magic of music. Even now I am listening to Sting’s ‘‘Englishman in New York,’’ and I extra-sensorially feel the music, a soprano sax’s melodic dervish around a funky bass rhythmically morphing into aggressive percussive syncopation. Nice. Now I’m listening to Pat Metheny’s ‘‘5-5-7’’; the Dixie Dregs’ ‘‘The Riff Raff’’; CSN’s ‘‘49 Bye Byes’’; Bela Flek’s ‘‘The Yee-Haw Factor’’; another Pat Metheny tune, his contemplative composition entitled ‘‘Forgiving’’; Kenny Rankin’s ‘‘Haven’t We Met’’... I’ve been groovin’ on this cat’s vocal prowess for some time now; Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach’s ‘‘A Little Max’’ from their album Money Jungle ; Joni Mitchell’s ‘‘Eastern Rain’’; Kenny Rankin’s ‘‘Name of Love’’... Kenny’s scatting on this song is inspiring; Mussorgsky’s ‘‘Pictures at an Exhibition’’; and Led Zeppelin’s ‘‘Misty Mountain Hop.’’

I’ve got a groovy playlist; I am, once again, in love with life; and I still yearn to positively move people through my writing and singing until my terrestrial benefactor’s needs necessitate change.


Peace Through Music

___________________________
[1] Verticals is the name I give to people who walk upright. It's not meant to be pejorative, but it is creative and funny.



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Twelve Second Angels
An Archived Essay From the Past

And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And looking on it, with lack-luster eye,
Says very wisely, "It is ten a' clock.
Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags.
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven,
And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale."

Richard II
III.iii.147-54



I broke my neck in a single car accident on April 18, 1986, and I stayed at Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta with a blooming pink mimosa greeting me every morning from my window until September of that same year when I left the security of rehab to try out my new life as a quadriplegic in Byron, Georgia, where, at the time, my parents lived. That was the same year that Atlanta set a record for consecutive days with temperatures 100 degrees or higher. 1986 saw many events of interest, but the most memorable event was the space shuttle Challenger's explosion. I remember walking from the cafeteria to my dorm-room at Georgia Southwestern College and wondering why the flag was at half mast; it wasn't long before I realized the significance of the mid-raised banner. In 1986, the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl (for the '85 season); L. Ron Hubbard and Georgia O'Keefe died; Clint Eastwood became mayor of Carmel, California; the infamous explosion of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl stunned the world; and I broke my neck.

Of course, the transition to home life was an anxious adjustment, as is, I suppose, any new relationship (and this was the larval stage of my paralysis); at times it was awkward, most of the time loving and warm, embryonic (you can say), very nurturing; the biggest problem, and nothing in the least major, came from numerous family members trying to help me too much, incessantly asking me if there was anything that I wanted. This was, of course, overcome with relative ease, and, in retrospect, I am very fortunate to have had a very strong, caring family unit without which I would've become stagnant, both physically as well as cerebrally, very quickly.

It would be a sin against my Muse to describe my family tree without beginning with my paternal grandmother; she is, after all, the grand matriarch. Alice Jackson was raised in Muncie, Indiana, where she saw William Taylor for the very first time and told her mother, "That's the man I'm going to marry." Alice's parents, Arthur and Emma Jackson (maiden name Faux) had twelve more children; Alice was the eldest, and she helped very much in raising her younger siblings. Alice was ten when The Great Depression smashed its shadowless fist into the glass jaw of the world's economy, AKA Black Tuesday. Her father Arthur did anything he could to provide for his family, a small-boned, wiry, proud man about five-foot five, maybe 120 pounds, who did hazardous work for the nearby hospital because few would condescend to do it; he had thirteen children to feed.

Alice (my grandmother) was in her early twenties when WWII broke out, and her husband William was sent overseas to fight in a real war against a real enemy. The funny thing about William (irony, that is) is that he survived WWII and Korea only to be fatally crushed by a Volkswagen Beetle that was driven by a bibulous driver on a military base in Germany. He died in 1965, but not before he fathered ten children: Bill, Bob, Michael, Nancy, Gary and Mary (twins), David, Kathy, Timothy, and Lorrie; although, Timothy didn't live long after childbirth. He had been baptized, however, which was very important to Alice, who was irrevocably Catholic.

Bob, the second child of William and Alice, is my father, and all of his brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, are as diverse as snowflakes, and they're really funny, willing to laugh and cry with the easiness of Sunday morning. I don't want to delve too deeply into each character because that's an effort that needs much more detailed consideration for a more distant project in the future; however, all my aunts and uncles, my brother, my sister, and my parents showed up often for support while I was rehabbing at Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, Georgia that specializes in spinal cord- and brain-injuries.

Although dead now, my maternal grandparents were still around in 1986, and they, too, lived in Columbus. They also extended their love and support for me but in a much less emotive way. I have a feeling that this stemmed from my their rearing in South Carolina. My grandfather was a second generation mill worker (indentured servant) when WWII broke out, and although he was too young, he lied about his age and enlisted in the army. Initially, I'm sure it was exciting to get away from the Protestant-puritan propaganda promulgated by South Carolinian ecclesiastical tyranny, but Milton Charles Banister had been assigned to The Big Red One, and I'm sure he saw atrocities that he wished he'd have never seen, atrocities that grinned with the condescending easy-lust for death as written in the Old Testament, as violently preached from the fiery pulpit. He had been in three wars: WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, but he said that 'Nam was the worst because you never knew who your enemy was.

Needless to say, my grandfather was a tacit, somber fellow; and he was an alcoholic. I never realized it as a youngster, and if my mother hadn't have told me, I would have never known. For my grandmother, his wife, Milton refrained from drinking from Mother's Day until Christmas, which was a decent gift, but every other day but every other day of the year found him buzzing with a beer-drone heard only through his inner ears. He seemed serious all the time to me, and he frightened me as a child, although unintentionally. He loved golf (he even made a hole-in-one on a golf course in Fort Benning, for which he received a small trophy that he proudly displayed on the coffee table beside his over-stuffed lounge chair, Command Central of his universe...), and it seemed like every time my family went to visit him and Grandma, he was watching golf on the television; although, he also enjoyed Hogan's Heroes, Petticoat Junction, The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, Gilligan's Island, and Hee Haw. It seemed to me, however, that after golf his favorite shows were The Grand Ol' Opry and The Lawrence Welk Show. OK. Maybe they were Grandma's favorites.

When I became more of an adult, and I don't remember when it was (although it was after I grew to be taller than my maternal grandfather), he would tell me the raciest jokes I had ever heard... definite Army-humor mentality with the accompanying false bravado, the Charles Bronson, hard-sergeant, nothing's sacred, insouciant, masculine hardness associated with infantry WWII militarism. He told me once that he loved me, and that was after my Grandma Banister died in a tragic car accident. And I think I wore heavily on his heart because of my paralysis, which must've sent him back to the horrific images of war he had experienced, to once again witness the barbaric cruelty of really young men being literally torn into web-like, sinewy shreds of red-raw meat by highly volatile militant energies. Although silent, I know that he loved me.

My maternal grandmother died in '93, a year after I got a full-time job as a computer programmer and two years after I had graduated from Mercer University, so she at least got to witness those achievements of mine and, hopefully, she realized that my life would invariably be much more fulfilling than the life of the ill-fated quad who returned home from the wars that she experienced as the wife of a soldier.

Obviously, quadriplegia was nearly always fatal during my grandmother's vernal years. (In fact, I was told at Shepherd that had I broken my neck just ten years earlier, the doctors might not have revived me when I went into respiratory arrest.) Be that as it may, I know she realized how content I have been with my life as a quad, and as unconventional as it may seem to anyone else, I wouldn't trade my paralysis even if I could go back in time to prevent the accident that caused it. I've been given a gift to view life from a fairly unique prospective, one that is unavailable to nearly everybody else on the planet, and it has helped me to grow in places that would never have seen the light of understanding had I not become so positively influenced through my paralysis. If I were, now, the physical presence I was before I broke my neck, I'd probably be the most shallow human on the planet. My mother's mother would have never guessed my current exuberance for life, but I believe she understood my contentment.

Speaking of my mother's mother, she had a really simple recipe for chili dogs that would make Lieutenant [1] proud: basically, you put mustard on both sides of a warmed bun, place the weenie ever so delicately in a steamed bun, add diced onions, then top it off with the chili, which is nothing more than ground beef boiled in minimal water in a frying pan on the stove with cayenne pepper added to taste. Anyway, after I got my job in January of '92, my grandmother would drive over to my house every Saturday, and she'd bring me two of these hotdogs, some potato chips, and some sweet iced tea. I enjoyed this ritual every weekend for a little over a year. After I had consumed the dogs in question, we'd sit on the front porch, and we'd talk. Although not formally educated, I believe my grandmother knew everything about plants. Her maternal grandparents were Cherokee, and I believe that Grandma could grow anything because of some long forgotten American aboriginal power that was once familiar to indigenous nomadic tribes. Her stories were fascinating jewels of history, and she was beginning to tell me stories about her childhood when a car accident ripped her out of my life. Just think of all I'll never know but what had been so readily available.

Although my grandmother has passed, my mother has taken the torch, and she creates a comparable chili dog. I'm not saying that it's World Famous, but intelligent beings from planets millions of light years away have visited Hamilton, Georgia just to get a chili dog made by my ma. In fact, I was told by a very reliable source, and if my translation is correct it is my understanding that my mother's chili dogs have recently prevented a major intergalactic war between a planet whose major export is potato salad and another planet whose major import is tuna salad. I'm not sure how, but marching bands performing Sousa's songs were also involved.

Pardon me, but I'm not sure how I got off on the subject of my mother's chili dogs. Seems to me like we were moving along rather quickly through an overview of my wonderful family when I was suddenly affected by a tangential thought that derailed my cohesive rhetoric, and I went athwart into a bayou of different images. From a description of my family to aliens' fighting over my mama's second generation chili dog recipe. How did that happen?

However, I've really nothing more to write about my immediate family, so this concludes a rough draft portrait of them, and I have a few friends that are included in my family circle that seems ever-widening, so it's very easy to see, I hope, that it would have been a sin against all these people had I totally abandoned hope after I broke my neck and had allowed myself to decay in self-pity.

So there I was... a crippled boy with barely twenty-two years of living under my belt, living in my parents' home with nothing to do and the rest of my life to do it. I thought back to when I first arrived at Shepherd Spinal Center a few weeks after the car accident that left me a level C-5 quadriplegic. (I've repressed all that occurred starting from some hours before the actual accident and including the time I spent at the Medical Center in Columbus, Georgia, the Fountain City.) I was laying in bed staring at the ceiling and counting the holes in the tile when I decided that I needed to figure out what I was to do with the rest of my life.

Actually, I had been crying. I won't lie; I did cry a few times, but these were excursions into a depression that was so incredibly anticipated, slightly desired. Sometimes self-pity will lure you into a yearned-for emotional abyss from which your return is questionable. I fought hard for the most part, focusing on the positive, and I was meeting special people at Shepherd who were the most diverse, creative, incredibly warm human beings I'd ever met, but on about a handful of occasions, I did allow myself to wallow in the pitying of my crippled body, the body I had until just up to that point in time, worked so hard to build into a temple of egoistic idolatry. It was a call from a banal, nasal narrator of harlequin romance:


"My poor, pitiable son. Your life has become irrevocably changed. You have a formidable obstacle to overcome before you find emotional equilibrium, and although you will ultimately find solace, you must first histrionically portray Human Sadness; you must emotively and, yes, vociferously descant to your god the unfairness of the burden you must now bear; you must become visibly upset, both emotionally and physically (well...as much as physically possible; you are crippled after all; you know what I mean: you can still control the crying, yelling, cursing, breathing... you know, those kind of things). Ha!

"You now realize that you are totally paralyzed for the rest of your life. There's a pre-prescribed amount of time for denial, anger, and depression, but then you'll be encouraged to finally accept the fact of your paralysis as well as everything emotionally and physically associated with living the rest of your life with the inability to perform even the most rudimentary acts of daily living."


I cried.

I had been laying for an eternity in a too-sterile, achromatic hospital bed, a bed that had been harboring vengeance for a crime I had committed, quite possibly against it's mother (a crime for which I still remain ignorant); it was while I lay in that cowardly, yet malicious dark-gray and lifeless bed in a frown-ridden, leaden-weary spinal cord rehabilitation center, smack dab in the middle of the South's Renaissance City, and I dropped my stoic character (actually felt it's brittle fracturing into illimitable shards); I so flaccidly slid into embryonic depression, crying about my bad luck and my unanswered prayers, when a couple of paraplegics wheeled into my room.

I am very sorry that I don't remember their names because they were benevolent, celestially luminous powers that vouchsafed my first experience into spirituality: the unknown ethereal, intangible, enchanting aspect of terrestrial existence that had been hitherto hidden from me. All I remember is that the couple were young, attractive, healthy, and happy, and they were only a part of my life for about twelve seconds, but their existence in my life was perfect. What else could they have been but a collective ethereal entity whose existence I will never fully understand? my two personal advisers who had helped me to see that focusing on the negative was not helpful to my life's quest, whatever path that may be.

This bicipital duality was not the only celestial advisers I was to meet throughout my four months of rehab. I witnessed myriad glowing angels effortlessly floating just above a communal expression that bordered sanctification. It was like listening to Bach, or the letters written by the really young men who fought in the Civil War: sober, emotional, sacrosanct, hallowed... inspiring. How could I ever fail to achieve my most important goals? I saw a peaceful serenity that was steadily increasing in power, a spiritual landmark that I've never equaled before or since, a tranquility that grew increasingly more hungry the more it had consumed, and the energy was fed by complete tolerance of everyone's neighbor. A communal acceptance of the positive energy that exists in every person... regardless... of... anything.

It was the first time that I had been introduced to a small community that included homosexuals, who were the most giving, caring, loving, nourishing people I have ever met, men and women who showed me personally that homosexuals in our society are grossly misunderstood, and as such are mistreated. In my personal experience, every homosexual I've met, without fail, has loved me for who I am. I have strictly heterosexual yet irrevocably shallow acquaintances who won't help me tuck my shirt into my pants because their fingernails might scrape my scrotum and thereby threaten their anthropocentric, male-dominated ego with insidious seeds of homosexuality that will invariably grow into a tangible temptation, invading their emotionally hardened resolves not to ever think that Val Kilmer is a truly attractive man! And it goes on beyond that!

It's so ridiculous to think that many of the people with whom I am acquainted, sadly a vast majority, are myopic when it comes to observing mankind, and these comically impassioned idolaters of infallible musings are unable to see how foolish it is to think that the human being could possibly be compared to God, that the human being is the nexus to God, even made in Its image. Humanity doesn't come close to reaching Its lofty definition as characterized by kindness, mercy, and compassion; how could any human possibly be compared alongside perfection?


Peace Through Music

__________________________________
[1] Lieutenant is, arguably, the gastronome who created the Scrambled Dog, and his original recipe is still sold at Dinglewood Pharmacy on Wynnton Road in Columbus, Georgia across the street from the headquarters of AFLAC


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Peace and Love
Progressive Aphorisms
I, unapologetically admit that if anyone confesses to me that they admire Tucker Carlson for any reason, her IQ then, in my mind, drops significantly in the same way as the IQ of a mentally impaired person after I discover the corroborating vacant look in their eyes. It’s not pejorative because there is neither malice nor nefarious intentions in my observation. I really do not care because their ignorance does not affect me in any way. I strongly believe that anyone who digs Tucker Carlson lacks cognitive abilities. That doesn’t necessarily denote that their excitement for change portends proclivity for evil, and it also does not connote that I am in any way negatively effected; although, initially, I was very disappointed when I noticed that some of the people I love are so influenced by bigoted negativity that I lashed out emotionally. My bad. I am just a simple dude, but I really despise hypocrisy; and, yes, I believe that anyone who professes to the top of their lungs that they are a Christian (or metaphoric equivalent) and yet still watch Fox Pravda exclusively, I can’t help but think about the Pharisees and Sadducees at the beginning of the Common Era. 
—SSTJazzVocalist


It makes me laugh aloud when I see shallow older men wearing ridiculous toupees and fancy suits to ameliorate the fact that they are not equipped to satisfy a young woman who may take more than a few minutes to warm up her intentions. These selfish men look foolish to me, especially when they brag about being able to grab really attractive females by their pudenda and then boast that women enjoy being exploited. The truly despicable aspect about this childish behavior is when other similarly infected slugs of humanity emulate this sad behavior.
—SSTJazzVocalist


I am now at a point where I actually feel sympathy for Trump. Basically, he is an easily manipulated buffoon who is, himself, being bullied and thereby exploited by the nefarious intentions of a former KGB agent who is swollen with the fantasy that he is the paragon of patriarchal authority when, in fact, he is a small boy who wants to eat ice cream for breakfast every single day of his life. After a couple of weeks of trying different flavors of ice cream, these two prepubescent followers of insipidity are now craving oatmeal.
—SSTJazzVocalist


Dan Coates, the current Director of Security, recently directly contradicted the president of the United States about North Korean threats of nuclear escalation. Let me get this straight in my head... the president is at odds with the intelligence community. Duh? The dude ain’t got no intelligence. He denies climate change... he thinks that “Trickle Down” economics is equitable... he thinks that he is the healthiest president ever... he thinks that a wall is an effective permanent solution even though the Berlin Wall has proved as impotent as he and that the Great Wall of China is a tourist attraction... he thinks that the water from hurricane Maria had the “wettest” water... that the government mismanages the distribution of fresh potable water because they allow rivers to just empty into the ocean... he thinks that all the government needs to do is rake the forest to prevent wildfires... and that he is the paragon of benevolent masculinity who is desired by all women, although he would never deign to pleasure a woman who is not up to his standards.
—SSTJazzVocalist


Word for the day... 'micturate.' For some reason, 'Aureate Micturition' comes to mind when I think of our president.
―SSTJazzVocalist


I really don’t understand how a friend of mine hates Jane Fonda with the intensity of a thousand suns because of her anti-Vietnam antics but, n the same breath, he is so proud that he helped elect a draft dodger as president of the U.S.A.
—SSTJazzVocalist 


I just got through watching the movie Ivanhoe on the oldie movie channel sponsored by Viagra and Preparation H. The movie starred Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Taylor, no relation. I read the book by Sir Walter Scott a while back, but I can’t remember the details; however, in the movie, the Normans and Saxons are enemies. The Jewish community is represented in the movie as well. Briefly, a Saxon falls in love with a Jewish maiden who is accused of being a witch. The maiden is played by Elizabeth Taylor, and she is hotter than a fire-person’s headband. The Saxon offers the maiden a way out of death if she renounces her faith. She refuses and he is noticeably upset.

The sentence of death is announced by King John’s court, but Ivanhoe throws the gauntlet and announces that he will be the maiden’s champion. The King sees that his Saxon knight is distraught by this and announces that he, the rejected Saxon knight, will volunteer to battle Ivanhoe to the death so that God can determine the Jewish maiden’s fate. It’s a pretty cheesy movie.

The noble Saxon stands... dramatically... and then announces, “My liege, I am honored that you have picked me as your champion, but I must ask that you reconsider by the grace of the Lord Almighty... and two Corinthians. But I have bone spurs that will prevent the successful completion of my duties to your imminent highness... What? You look as if you don’t believe me. I’ve got a note from a highly respected doctor. Many people say that he’s the greatest doctor on the planet, so you needn’t worry. I will survive... somehow... so... we good? Brave Sir Robin wants to do it. Maybe...”
—SSTJazzVocalist


According to an ESPN article...
Trump is widely blamed for the demise of the USFL - Several teams were having financial difficulties at the time, and the league lacked the fall TV contracts that supported the NFL. The USFL instead tried to take on the NFL in the courts by filing an antitrust lawsuit. The hope was that the USFL would either merge with the established league or win a sizable settlement. The merger never happened, and despite winning the lawsuit, the USFL was ultimately awarded only $3 for its troubles. The league soon folded, and Trump's push for the fall schedule and a lawsuit against the NFL is generally cited as the main reason.
—SSTJazzVocalist
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GoFundMe Update
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has donated to my GoFundMe campaign both with encouraging affirmations and financially. Your kindness has helped immeasurably. I did contact my lawyer to settle up with him, but he told me that I didn’t owe him anything. Keep in mind, I am as ignorant about law as I am about economics, so I don’t know if he’s lying or not, but I believe he did some work for me pro bono. Regardless, I am in good standings with my lawyer, and that makes me happy.

I had to buy two new batteries for my wheelchair, so I had to pay the 20 percent that Medicare doesn’t cover, so that’s pretty groovy, but I had to ask the folks at the hospital supply business on 13th Street if Medicare could assist. Initially they weren’t sure; although, they did research it and found out that Medicare should, so the business will bill the government; otherwise, I would’ve had to pay just over $500.

What?

That’s right. $500 for two 12-volt deep-cycle batteries. I was wondering why batteries are so expensive when it hit me… health care is a for-profit institution.

Oh yeah… check this out: Y’all remember that I told you my brother was hit by a SUV a while back? And the government/Insurance bureaucracy kept him from seeing an Army physician? Well, earlier this week, my brother finally got to see a Fort Benning doctor, and the doctor found that the thick thigh muscle just above his patella has about a four-inch rift, which causes the knee bone to easily slip out of place as well as catalyzing excruciating pain… as if my brother was unaware of the distressing sensory experience that causes him to fall frequently. Anyway, his surgery has to wait ‘til next month because he is in charge of a military operation for his Army Reserve Unit. Seems like the Army is hesitant to pay for the surgery, so the bills accumulate. I’m not sure how this will end, but I’ll keep you posted

Fortunately, the bank finally gave him some of the money of his loan, and we’ve got a plumber now working on the house. I know as much about plumbing as I do about medicine and economics, so I am hoping, weather permitting, that the plumbing will be completed in a month or two. I’ll keep you posted.

All in all, things are good. We are above water and are encouraged about the future. Again, thank you for your support. We’ll be paying bills for a while, but it’s really groovy to know that there are kind-hearted folks who are willing to help neighbors.

Peace Through Music



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Shameless Solicitation

It’s time. I need money to pay for someone to help me because I’m wearing out my family. I’m hoping to solicit enough money to overpay someone to help me throughout the day and night for a weekend... or longer; my septuagenarian parents need a break. Please read my story, and if you can, donate a few bucks. If a bunch of folks give just a little, I can stay home; otherwise, I will consider going into a nursing home. I am tired of being a burden on my family. If you are unable to donate, your support will be just as appreciated. Thank you very much.

Read my story...
...or you can buy my CD of jazz Vocals

Abel 2's MISSION STATEMENT:

To enhance the Quality of Life of People with Disabilities and the Under-served by Creating Music and Arts opportunities for Employment and Enjoyment!