Walkabout Thoughts #26

Standard header: "My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…"

Weather for the day… 40° and very scattered clouds and other nice cool day for a walkabout. Also, air quality today is a rather pleasant 13 on the index.

Podcast for the day John Heilman, Helen Highwater podcast an episode with Kara Swisher

Instagram post for the day, not a post I made during my walk as is usual. But a year oddly compressed (from previous 2022 posts) into the last quarter of it. "Enough of Covid and bad times. 2023? Bring it on!" (No! Really, I'm kidding, please, 2023 take it fucking easy on US!) Covered is the Sausage Fest 2022 (annual rock BBQ in Port Orchard at Jack Moriarity's dad's house, cartoonist Pat Moriarity). It was a Kiss tribute and memorial for the late Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country

Yeah, I know it’s been a while since my last, "Walkabout Thought". But I've been enjoying the Christmas season. TV is a wasteland if not for the streaming channels. I took a break, but I’m still working on my companion book to my film, "Pvt. Ravel‘s Bolero". And I just submitted to Bob Zimmerman who is doing an Oral History of Tower Records, that he really needs to include our friend, Mark. Although Mark managed Tower Video stores, he and I both worked at Records, which is where we met. He was there for a while when I started next-door at Tower Posters, when I started college in 1980 after separating from the Air Force. Mark's a great guy, who would never ask for the recognition, and much like me, believe it or not, prefers not to get recognition. Though we both enjoy it when it happens. Might as well, right? My fault was in trying to work in a field now, in entertainment, where you really need to promote yourself. Which took me a good 10 years to get used to doing, though I still kind of despise it. As I’ve always said since my first tiny, brush with fame at Western Washington University, "Give me Fortune, you can keep the fame." Fame, is a pain. Unless you're narcissistically leaning. That's not a bad thing, only if you take it to the extremes.

So, I queried him about getting a piece done for our old friend:
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"Hi, just wondering if some piece of history will show up about my old roommate, Mark. You know him, right? I thought if I laid it out, it might make sense, him being a part of the history.

"We lived up on Queen Anne at the end, when he managed Mercer St Tower Video and I was a supervisor. I was supposed to be asst mgr but the new manager of Tacoma video wouldn't let me go for a while (I guess because she knew I knew how to run the store better than she did, at least someone said that). I finally got her to let me move to Seattle when I began living in my car behind the store, because I was paying for an apt in Seattle with Mark, but living in Tacoma. By time she let me go, he had a new asst mgr.

Mother Love Bone, Jeff on right

Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam was there at Seattle Video (he was playing in Green River then, later Mother Love Bone). When he decided to leave one day, he told me, "I want to finally get serious about music. I don't know if I'll make it or not, but I'm going to give it a serious try." I took over his job as media buyer (blank VHS & cables, peripherals). I told him that day, "Of anyone at these stores here who I think could make it, I believe you could do it." He looked down for a minute, then said, "Thanks, I really appreciate that." He was the nicest guy. And I was never so right about anyone in my life. I see that in one other guy now... Jack Moriarity. And I told him so, too this year.

Mark opened the 38th St. Tacoma Tower Video replacing the old Posters Store where I first worked when I started college, and after separating from the USAF. I'd gone to apply at Records one day, nervously talking to some woman next door in front of Posters. She helped me relax and we talked. Then offered me a job at Posters. I said I wanted to work at Records. She asked me, "So do you want a job, or hope to get a job?" She seemed nice, so I took it. 

I ended up later moving next door to Records where Marked managed the cassette section and I worked under him. We got to be friends. I worked under managers Kevin and Tony and then one other for a short time. After getting my AA degree, I left for Western Washington U. in Bellingham, for a while. I got my degree in psych, minored in writing/screenwriting. Though I retired eventually from IT work in 2015, I'm now published, producing my own films, founded an annual film festival with a friend (Gorst Underground Film Festival with Kelly Hughes), and now setting up a new streaming movie network. I have won awards with my films, as with my new WWI antiwar, filmic poem/ documentary "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero". As I was about to graduate, Mark said if I ever needed a job, come on back, as he was opening a new video store. So I ended up returning to Tower and joined the new Tacoma Video store. It was weird working in the same space as Posters. So many memories. Eventually we moved to run the Seattle Mercer St  Tower Video. 

I mention all this because Mark used to open new stores with Russ Solomon (Washington DC store, story comes to mind), and he has some interesting stories about all that. He'd return home from these trips and share some interesting stories in our apartment, as we sat having drinks and talking. Which was why I thought maybe, he should be a part of a history too? Maybe not. I just thought I should mention it. No need to mention me whatsoever, I just wanted to give you some context of my relationship here. Anyway. Love your stories. Cheers!

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Now, back to...whatever this is...

I'll include below a text my oldest son sent me today, below. And a link to my youngest son's new coverage and rather glossy local magazine article about them and their spouse's, pretty damn amazing drag performance art team and costume makers.

Here’s something I can address. Kara on the podcast is talking about the Joe Rogan incident regarding his using a certain N-word. I went to Lincoln High School in Tacoma, a graduate of 1973. A school that I believed at the time was half Black. I looked up the numbers recently and it appears it was more like a third Black. Located on 37th  and G St. I lived south of there around 50th and Park Avenue. But a lot of these kids, Black and White were from downtown Tacoma. The Highland Hills area, though I don’t know if the school district went that far. But it was an area as a kid, I was warned to stay away from because of race riots. Largely a Black community. Where any of the Black kids I had interactions with, interpersonal ones, not just seeing them in the hallways, I had good relationships with. So typical, the "asshole" you get to know, turns out not to be one. I was not raised racist, although my stepfather was. My mother wouldn’t put up with it. She was very accepting and a little nuts. I see two versions of my mom, the one I loved as a kid who was funny and crazy and loved us intensely, but very fairly. She’d stand up for you unless she thought you were wrong. And the mom I knew as an adult with drug and mental/emotional problems. When her friend's two sons came out as gay? She was right there, standing up for them, and would even go party with them. One of owned part of Tugs gay bar in Seattle. And she go there and party sometimes with her girlfriend who she knew since they lived across from one another in an apartment building in the late 40s, both with their first kids. My older brother and her girl friend's daughter, who's younger brother would one day own part of that bar. Not the same with my stepdad. So anyway, to the point... Joe Rogan used to use the N-word on his radio show, radio or streaming, or whatever, until he finally got "woke" about it. Look "woke" is not a bad word." Wokeism" however Includes the extremist and ridiculous. But anyone who says it woke is bad, or stupid, or whatever is like saying "I’m not racist" when you probably are. While some have may say something racist, and yet maybe they aren’t racist. Binary thinking can easily get one into trouble. Still, a lot of the anti-woke types are indeed fucking racist and ignorant, and too trivial for their own good.

Getting to my story...I can only remember using the N-word once. And probably a good introduction, that a lot of white people should’ve gone through. I was never around Black kids or families, or people growing up. In junior high we had one Black kid. Nice guy. Cut to the 10th grade, starting is a Sophomore at Lincoln high school, and suddenly Black people where everywhere. It was culture shock. But it wasn't about them per se. It was about learning to navigate high school and a new group of people from basically another culture. And at that time in 1970 Black people with attitude seemed to be everywhere. They had a good reason to be pissed off. I just didn’t understand it. What are you pissed off about? Why are you pissed off at me? I didn’t do anything to you! I was 14! What the hell did I know? There were random run-ins with the occasional black guy who was posturing for his friends, mostly. But high school was scary at first. Regardless. Anyway, further back, the summer before seventh grade. I had gone to Summer camp at Camp Don Bosco, which was a Catholic summer camp for a week or two. It was run by priests, and those who were working toward being a priest. I saw and experienced as a kid absolutely no Bad experiences from any priest, or all through my life. I was shocked about all the child abuse in the Catholic Church when I got older. It just wasn't my experience. Abuse, yes, sexual, no. I could tell you stories about the Sisters at Holy Rosary school... I went to eighth grade at a Catholic school. Long story there. I was raised by an old-school Slovak Catholic mother and church, where I was eventually head altarboy. I spent years after studying Catholicism, Christianity, and other religions, trying to find what I felt was the truth. I ended up an agnostic and then an atheist and settled on my own style of Buddhism. So that summer, before seventh grade, my parents were broke and didn’t have money for my Catholic summer camp. I was heartbroken. Which was funny because that first week of that first summer camp I thought I would die or something. Missing home. I would say the camp was like a Cadillac of summer camps. Well in my experience. We didn’t polo ponies. But I got sent instead that final summer of my summer camp experiences, to I think it was a YMCA inner-city summer camp. Yeah with some of those kids I’d latter go to high school with, probably. Some of them were white trash kids, I saw some of those as criminals in the making. Though the counselors were good people I’ll give them that. We were in a circle one day in the middle of camp playing with a ball. Passing it around. I almost caught it and then did as another kid went for it. A Black kid. So this black kid came over to me, and for no reason, grabbed it from me and really had no right to do. It pissed me off. It was wrong. I felt slighted. Having had no experience with a black kid before, I thought quickly, in a split second... what’s the worst thing I could call this kid? Yeah, it was that word. And it had the desired effect. He almost dropped the ball in shock. You could see it in his face. He put the ball under his left arm, walked up to me and punched me in the face. Knocking me down. I think he hit me several times. And I was the one that got sent to my cabin. I was pissed. I said, but he hit ME, he took the ball!" They said, "But you provoked it." HE provoked it in taking the ball, grabbing it, ripping it out of my hands (HE really WAS in the wrong). They said, "We don't talk that way here." OK, that seemed, I guess, justified. Apparently that was a worse word than I'd realized. I still didn’t understand. I would eventually get it, but not until a year or two later. But I pretty much learned at that moment, that’s not a word you say to Black people. So when I got to high school, I actually got along good with everybody in it. Except for a few run ends with guys who were just posturing or being assholes, and I won’t go into that. I'll just leave it at, I went to school armed for a while, but not with a gun. Probably like a lot of kids, with a knife or two, or at least something. But I never had a need for any of them. I just needed to feel more secure. A sharp "comfort blanket".  The one kid that actually jumped me in high school, was a white kid. And I almost killed him. It took a security guard to pull us apart. But a lot of kids didn’t realize, especially in that eighth grade Catholic class full of white kids and one black girl, if I remember correctly. I had started fighting tournaments in karate in fifth grade. Our sensei was the guy who put on the biggest tournament in the area and first or second biggest on the West Coast beginning in 1966 and so on. Sensei Steve Armstrong. He eventually because head of Isshinryu Karate as a red belt. After Tatsuo Shimabuku died. Ironic that the most fights I had in K-12 was in Catholic eighth grade class. By time I got to high school after that I had a reputation of "don’t fuck with this kid". Something the kids from 8th grade spread by those who went to to public school as I had. Some went to preparatory school. Mom asked if I wanted to go. To what? An all boys school? Hell no. So about half the kids who  would have messed with me in high school, didn’t and most of the other half were Black and didn’t know me. I can think of two times where more than one black kid picked me up and threw me up against the wall. Once was these two tall basketball player looking guys, who just wanted some firecrackers they heard I had... that  whole story resolved in a pretty entertaining way (long story). The other time was in gym class locker room when five Black kids came in because one thought I had flipped him off across the cafeteria, which scared the crap out of me, and all the other white guys in the locker room, who not only all moved away, but left me alone there. I convinced the kid that I liked him, I had no reason to flipped him off, and I wouldn't have. And I I said he knew me that I didn't bother anybody, which was true. I could see him become confused and then he recounted. Good old Tyler… The lesson here? Well, there’s certain words we should leave to that culture to abuse. 

Moving on...

So apparently people’s lives are so meaningless they have to cast themselves as heroes in their own mythic quest to achieve success in something. They make up myths and conspiracies, and self-radicalize. They go online and find others through synchronicity and zeitgeist, who have come up with similar conspiracies, and they feel joined and emboldened. They talk about it, and they rant and brag, and they create a loop or a spiral, and feed it energy until it drags them along with it. So that for maybe the first time in their lives, or in a very long time, they feel self-actualized. Yeah, not how you go about self-actualization.

The podcast today has a good discussion about media personalities and media companies and how they avoid responsibility for what they’re doing. Which also gets them back around to things like Twitter and their hands off, "Oh, we didn’t do it" approach.

 I’ve got a little stock in Tesla, maybe sadly. I know it’s dropping like a rock so I shared an interesting meme today with Elon, and then said something like "Fuck you very much Elon" regarding Tesla. Like he’ll ever see it or comment on it. But he needs to quit playing with Twitter like it’s his own toy as he’s affecting all of us and get back to his job as CEO of Tesla. I do hope the board removes him soon because it’s surely headed that way.

By the way, I’ve known this since 2016 maybe, and it's becoming more apparent to everyone. It sucks seeing things ahead of time, before most other people. I’ve been going through that most of all my life. And yes, I can prove that. But as apparent as it is now, for most critically thinking people, and aside from them also including Trump and his lawyers, who have never admitted it publicly (but know), that...Trump is fucked. 

The only question now is will DOJ and our government act appropriately? I would and have argued that appropriate punishment  for Donald Trump would be capital punishment. And that’s about the only thing that’ll really work. Life sentences for his inner circle and others who need to lose their public office seats, forever. Including governors who supported him, etc.

I like that Kara on the podcast says there’s a whole "aggrievement economy" of people like Joe Rogan and Donald Trump, etc. who like finger-pointing and blaming others and shout out whistle calls of "cancel culture", etc. So their fans can all go, "Oh poor  them", or something. Uh huh. Hundred million dollar contract, Joe Rogan. Whatever. Yeah, just listen to the podcast. 

Joe Rogan, another one. When he was on "News Radio" I loved his dumb character and I liked him for a long time after that, because of that. Then I saw him on UFC and I thought, that was all pretty cool. Then he'd say some weird things once in a while, he got his podcast whenever that was, and I heard some other questionable things. Not a fan of that now. Never been a fan of the other big shock jock, Howard Stern. Never quite got it. Basically, not into that shock jock crap. Which is what and where Donald Trump belongs on an AM radio somewhere, just a' spewing and a' salivating. Dance fat old monkey, dance!

Regarding my kids. I have one younger trans son and my first born older son. Both in their 30s now. I love my kids, dearly. When they were very young I used to say, "As long as they're healthy, happy, not dead or in prison, I'm happy." My job was to raise them to one day be adults, be critical thinkers and have a positive and productive outlook on life. I always accepted them for who they are or would be, as my mom was with us kids. We turned out pretty good. Mostly. My job was to teach them the basics in life, take their natural abilities and show them how to make the best of them and life. Not prejudge them or hate them for being themselves. I pity kids who have parents who do that. That's not loving your kids. That's loving your religion or you beliefs over your offspring and family. It's bizarre and cruel.

So... my eldest son texted me today regarding a long running discussion on, "God". The "Great Architect". I'll share that here. After my walk today he called and we talked more. Basically, we're on agreement with all this. Yes, I'm writing this now...later, at home. 

First, my youngest's and spouse got a very cool write up in a local glossy mag, "Strait Up!" on their performance duo. They're amazing, helping others, they are very talented, creative and people are starting to notice. Whenever they perform they seem to be the top act there. I'd like to see them get more attention, nationally, or internationally. And they are, in their protected social media. But it's problematic, because of trouble makers who refuse to mind their own business and feel they need to insert their ugliness into the lives of others, doing them no harm. 

Being a little circumspect here all because of right wingnuts, Christian nationalist types and anti-LGBTQ+ types. You may have heard of the troubles in our Olympic Peninsula & Port Townsend area because imported radical anti-American, anti non-binary types moved in to protest and intimidate. The issues with unconstitutional militia types up here are problematic and incidents you won't hear much about. But the intimidation here is ongoing. Stopping people in their cars or on the streets to harrass them, along with "soft" intimidation, and so on. 

Americans are Americans. "Mind your own business." "Live and let live." "The pursuit of Happiness." Remember all that? America? Or are too many of these people too young having grown up during our 20+ years of wars and tribalism, Fox News, and attempts to insert toxic religious beliefs into our secularly intended government?

My kid

The Spouse

Now from my oldest son:

"Ok, bam. That's what I was looking for. This is my logic about atheism. The way they put this is perfect. The absence of evidence is not evidence if absence. I love it. Basically if I were Vulcan I would say this logic would disprove the accuracy of atheism. To be truly scientific We'd need proof that is unattainable." 

See graphic he's referencing, below. From IFL Science:

My reply, while I'm walking:

"Yeah, it's a good way to put it. But my argument to you has always been that there isn't an absence of evidence ( in atheism) and it took me graduating from two colleges and getting a university degree before I fully understood and accepted what I came to believe. It required the interdisciplinary studies of humankind, archaeology and anthropology, psychology, and sociology, and when you put that all together, it becomes extremely clear that the concept of God in organized religion is bullshit and made up. And as we've discussed, the concept of other than God is where you get agnosticism. No one should use the term "God" and that's why the Freemasons don't. Unless you're referring to the organized religious "God". Because that who owns that word. So as we've discussed before, I would still argue, there is no "God". Because that refers to an organized religion and when people refer to anything else, it's a usually loosely used and essentially incorrect reference. Again, it's why the Freemasons used "Great Architect", which actually if you think about it makes more sense. Their "G" can be used by members as "God" if one is so disposed, or better as "Great Architect". Because if you seen all of Star Trek, you know very well and how easily an alien being could be seen as God or a Bic lighter in 1 million BC seen as magic and therefore you are God. And so that's why I refuse to use the word "God" and why atheism is actually correct. But not as you point out, for most people who are just guessing about it. Because for me in college, it took years of pre-college work surveying religions, talking to a lot of people and then getting into the hard-core studies and discussing with professors. Before I came to a Gestalt about it. The problem with organized religion is it has rules and those rules never cover everything and so people are harmed, abused, murdered, slaughtered, or genocided."

OK, and that's it for that, and for today!

Got in only 2 miles today because I was only going to do 3 and quickly realized I was wearing the wrong shoes. I had swapped out my sneakers for winter boots when the snow was here the other day and not thinking today, I put on the boots without thick socks and my toes are killing me now. So rather than get blisters, thought I'd replace them at home. Then do another 2 miles. But then I realized, 2 miles is good for today. 

Cheers! Slainte!

Wishing a 2022 Merry Christmas to all & for all others a Happy Holiday Season

  Many happier and bountiful 

Christmases and Holidays for you and your loved ones,

and for all sharing our entire planet!

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #25

 Weather for the day… 35 overcast nice cool day for a walkabout

Short one today. Blame, Kelly. 

Podcast for the day Intelligence Matters episode with "Former CIA Chief Operating Officer on his Career at the CIA". Very interesting. 

Not quite as interesting (nearly) as the podcast I listened to the other day. Pod Save the World episode with "Brittney Griner is Home (with Jen Psaki)" Fascinating episode (both were). The latter thoroughly explaining the reality of why we should want Joe Biden for another term if he's willing to go for it. I was on the line going either way. Now, just for it. Why? Listen to the episode. 

Instagram post for the day from last Friday night when I shot film for a benefit Drag show for anti racism for #JCARF. 

None shot as usual during my walk, oddly enough because Kelly called and we talked for 2 hours about the new streaming movie channel we're building, as I walked.

Yesterday I watched a new series on Netflix, "The Recruit". I like it. It was a lot of fun about the CIA. Nearly cartoonish (or stereotypical) sensibility of working at/for the CIA at some times (making fun of it), extremely accurate at others (and oddly enough in the making fun of it part). Ebert called it "Dull". No idea who the actors are (Some (one) I remember from, for instance, "Orphan Black"). I look forward to a season two.

I’ve been writing my companion book for my filmic poem, and historical documentary, "Pvt. Ravel‘s Bolero". But mostly I have been working on the new streaming movie channel, getting it up and running. 

In the book I had hit a section about "combined forces" in war and I was trying to remember the three types of intelligence in HUMINT (Human Intelligence), SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) and one that for the life of me I couldn’t remember all week, and couldn’t find references to it online either. But just remembered it, ELINT. Electronics Intelligence. Now they have it broken down in more parts and differently. From the book.

"As well as integrating the five distinct modern intelligence disciplines: CI (counterintelligence), HUMINT (Human Intelligence), IMINT (Imagery Intelligence), MASINT (Measures and Signature Intelligence), and SIGINT (Signals Intelligence)."

It was about here that Kelly called and we started talking about the streaming movie network. We were kicking around ideas about format and genres and how other streamers work and are set up. We got off topic a few times. 

Mostly I can't talk about what we were talking about. So, sorry about that. But it will be more obvious next month.

Today finally, I got in five miles. Last two few walks were only four. I had a good time yesterday. Big glass of wine with lunch, some food all day that would have left me ill today from long covid but nope. Feeling pretty good. Also noticed yesterday that I don't have to take Benadryl so much. If I can ignore any blood pressure issues, they fade after 20-39 minutes rather than causing me grief. I always try to stop taking meds as soon as is reasonable and useful. And that's all in my book on long covid. Of course I'm sharing a link to it...

Cheers! Slainte!

Walkabout Thoughts #24

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…(12/14/22)

 

Weather for the day… 42 overcast nice cool day for a walkabout

Podcast for the day Janes episode on "Using OSINT to understand geoeconomic statecraft." With Brigadier General, USAF (retired) Gwyn Armfield.

Instagram post for the day

So today I don’t feel like walking at all. But I am. Finally received the new magnets that I put on my new front gate to hold it shut in the wind. Hope it works because when trying to locate them on the gate, where they should go, they snapped together and pinched my little finger, painfully cracking the skin open. They did come with a warning, saying be careful, and I was but… Be careful.

Before I left home, I was watching Amanpour and Company and they had on Sharon Horgan (known for the show, "Catastrophe") the creator of the Irish comedy drama “Bad Sisters“. I do like my Irish comedies/shows. Like the old restaurant series “Raw“. Or Love/Hate, the crime drama. Oh, and I don’t know if this counts but, "Black Books" (Dylan Moran), a kind of funny dark sitcom. Love that show. I actually watched it in Dublin and maybe in Belfast when I was there in 2015, killing some time at my Airbnb one night, when I wasn’t off doing something. But I highly recommend “Bad Sisters“. I also just started “Katla“ on Netflix about creepy mysterious things happening around a spewing volcano. Three episodes in so far and it’s pretty entertaining.

Here’s a thing about exercising with long Covid, obviously when you can and you’re capable of it. I know that once I started exercising the long Covid was less prevalent and when I don’t exercise, it's more. But on days like today when I really don’t feel like getting any exercise, I think because of the long Covid, then I really need to do it. Because if I can make it through, I know I will feel so much better the rest of the day and days. It’s worth struggling through the misery of getting out there to do it, and doing it. And I’ve seen before that usually by mile three, I guess endorphins kick in and I start feeling better anyway.

Add Trump trading cards to blog

From Tweet of Guy Inchair:

"In this festive season, please enjoy this curated assortment of MAGA outraged responses to the Major Announcement." MAGA be pissed...hit his Twitter link above for more.

Also...this, and this...

Sure, maybe not this, but it would be right on Trump's brand of crime things

So currently Trump is giving away as he has before a chance for dinner with... Donald Trump. He has never followed through with that before. But this time he should have said Nick Fuentes was one of those "winners". Lost opportunities.

Finally, on Trump, this... "MAGA rioter 'can't believe' he's going to jail for Trump after watching trading card stunt."

What if all of this extremism today, especially this MAGA bullshit, all has to do with our not raising our kids to have enough patience in life and desire to put it in the hard effort, to do the hard jobs, to change things? Instead of just switching the dial, or wasting time and taxpayers' money to build (poor concepts) from scratch? Rather than fix our democracy they prefer to trash it to get rid of our Constitution and our democracy (which aren't just THEIRS) and replace it with an autocracy. All because they weren't taught as kids to have grown into having mature patience to take the time to put in some sweat and effort to make things better, rather than just blame others for how bad it all is. When many times it's not even bad or that bad, but they've been indoctrinated to believe it is. That's Republicanism today.

Republican methodology is make an enemy out of what was nothing, or a mere slight into a fright. Attack them, attempt to pass a law, or executive order to end or cripple, whomever, or whatever the selected perceived enemy may be. Even if courts knock it down as unconstitutional, or illegal. Or not within your executive or legislative powers you have chosen...you are  showing that you are an enemy of your electorate's manufactured (by you) enemy.

Now in the Janes podcast they’re talking about where there used to be a few professional sources, and maybe some journalists, even in newspapers, or later radio and TV, now we’ve got like 5 billion people who are sharing information. Like the woman in Ukraine, who shot video of Russians, moving to a certain location, outing what they were trying to be quiet about. But Armfield's talking about triangulating information and selecting good sources from bad, and disinformation and misinformation from Actual information. And so in that sense. This is a good episode for... good grief, especially MAGA type to listen to. If only we could get out of this mindset of how information and truth seem to be for sale profit and instead, see people to raise our kids with ethics, and be willing to sacrifice for reality, for truth, decency and honesty. Rather than warp those things to fit your ideology or for profit. Let’s face it, if your religion is bullshit, stop working reality so it will make your beliefs work. If something doesn't, it doesn't. Just be honest about it.

2 in X 13/16 in X 3/8 in Channel Magnet-Rectangular Cup Magnet W/2 Countersunk Holes $8.99 ea. Estimated Pull Force: over 60 lbs

2 in X 13/16 in X 3/8 in Channel Magnet-Rectangular

Cup Magnet W/2 Countersunk Holes $8.99 ea.

Estimated Pull Force: over 60 lbs

About the magnets I got and put on my gate… I don’t understand why they don’t have a paired couple instead of just cheaply, throwing them all onto the brackets the same way. So when you want to use two together, as  one has to go to one way as it’s meant to be screwed down, the other has to go the opposite way...as you can see in the photo. It’s really annoying.

So off the Janes topic, I was thinking about this toxic MAGA conservative anti-democracy NONSENSE we’re going through and how, I would argue, it goes back to Newt Gingrich in the early 90s and his shenanigans on C-SPAN. But at least it goes back to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. I was wondering, this is going to pass, so how long is it gonna take? When you go back to the last time this stuff happened in the 30s and 40s and you can reference Rachel Maddow’s “Ultra“ podcast. And so we’re probably looking at this... although times have changed and it could go faster, cause everything does now… you could figure 10 or 15 years. The first time we went through this insurrection and working with a foreign country, Russia this time, Germany last time, you could figure we're now more than halfway, or approaching halfway to this being over. We don’t just have to hold accountable and punish Trump and all his enablers and helpers and those involved. And we should purge Congress and the courts of those people. But the mindset and ill philosophy of the toxic capitalist, toxic conservative also needs to be washed out enough to be ineffective, and then that and those looked upon, as many of those types now... look at their worst consideration of minorities.

So I went outside this morning and broke down some cardboard boxes and put them in the recycling bin. I came back inside and sat down. My heart was pounding like I’d run a quarter mile. OK maybe not even that far, but at least a block. And that’s the long Covid. I sat there thinking about going for my walk today, and was thinking, naw... But it calmed down. I took half a Benadryl which helps, especially if it’s a histamine related issue, or some kind of allergy reaction. Other than that, I thought, maybe. And I got to a point where I felt normal, so here I am just rounding my first mile and a half. Do. Not do. But do more.

The general on the Janes podcast is saying when he was still active service and they were using open source, he was asking the guys that work on that if they can put a trust meter on it... like green, yellow red... or, one through five. He said that was a very nascent thing. It’s kind of what we need nowadays. Although I did get threatened by Facebook the other day when I posted a screenshot of what Trump had said on his social media site, which was utter nonsense. I was discussing that on my Facebook post. And they tagged me and said "this is incorrect information." No kidding! They said if I kept doing that they'd rate my posts lower so others would see them less. Good grief. They meant the screenshot of Trump's ignorant comments of disinformation. Not paying any attention to the fact that I was using the Trump statement to verify what I was saying. So yeah, this is pretty problematic. We really have to get this under control. Think about it. If starting right this second, everything that went out was 100% true, this country would change on a dime. I know it would be messy and there'd be a lot of pissed off people. And it would probably wipe religions off the face of the nation. But hey, I’m willing to sacrifice for the others. At least it might make religions, more honest, and functional. I mean, if we could just get greed and profit out of mega churches alone? Big step forward.

I should direct you with that last comment to my newest sci fi novel: “Anthology of Evil II Volume II The Unwritten“ where one universe in the book go through the "Religion Wars". Followed by the "Science Wars". Where science wins out. And yes, I do lean bit on the problems about science in that book. But really, it’s not so much about science but it’s application that's problematic at times. How humans affect it through politics, profit and tribalism. That’s a problem with humans. You can’t get away from some of our foibles. Because the things that protect us most within us, that are inherent in us, also can takes us to the extremes. Which we find pleasant to do and it leads us to things like this MAGA nonsense we're ensconced with today and this ridiculous surge of autocracy around the world. Because when democracies have issues with economy, people look elsewhere rather than looking inward and fixing what they have. Because the lazy and conservative and immature prefer to break things, then start all over again. Rather than do the long, hard work of fixing things. Kind of why we have so much divorce, too.

We need to stop electing sociopaths to high office. We also need to stop ascribing that condition to those who aren’t, so they can be removed and replaced them with… Fucking sociopaths. I tell ya.

Interesting. The general in the podcast is saying here he once gave a threat assessment to a steel eyed killer commando type who was going to go on a mission and he wanted him to basically dumb the threat level down because he just wanted to hear it’s good so he could go. But he told him, "I’m gonna give you the actual threat level assessment as detailed as it is, and you’re gonna have to make up your own mind what to do about it. And if you want to lose an aircraft or whatever on this, that’s on you. But you need to hear the actual assessment." And how true that is with our government and voters today. He is said that they worked it out, and after that, they had a really good relationship. But he didn’t cave to power. He stood up to it speaking truth to power and power accepted it. As often they will. It’s the really sick bastards like  the Donald Trump's of the world who are the problem. And the Vladimir Putin’s of the world.

General  has a good point about reality and accuracy. Special ops have got to be able to depend on their Intel. Their lives depend on it. It’s the same thing with our politics as voters and citizens. The problem is too many don’t see it that way. They think they’re putting in the effort and they’re not at all. If everyone who voted for Donald Trump had put in the actual effort about him before voting in 2016, he would’ve never gotten a vote. Or at least he would’ve gotten third-party level votes. There’s always gonna be some mentally deranged, social, psycho, political, deranged types out there and those who just want to spew chaos. Which is very much the Trump and Putin playbook as well as most autocrats. At least in trying to gain total control.

So I get it, America voted in Trump because they want change, because they thought they were fighting corruption. How do you fight corruption by putting somebody corrupt in place, well, that’s another issue. And if you look, you could see how corrupt Trump was, like forever. Which doesn’t make sense in the hypocrisy running rampant and the logic that's lacking in it. That’s MAGA's  contention about Trump in 2016, 2020. How did they justify voting for those they voted for now? Like Herschel Walker? You don’t vote for bad candidates. PERIOD. You don’t blindly vote for your party or your tribe when they’re doing bad, when they’re offering you bad candidates. I swear, young grade school kids can do better in voting for classmates in class "office". I guess because they have a better sense of right and wrong.

I know one could pick apart a lot of what I said above about politics, etc. But that would be getting into nuances. MAGA doesn’t do nuance. And so when they delve into the nuances, they try and pick apart Democrats, liberals, progressives, it’s disingenuous, and leaping forms of logic. It’s going from whatever pole they can, sweeping as far out as they can to prove their point only to be right. To win. So dumb. You only want to win when you're right. We don’t do that just to be right. We settle on a solid foundation based in a solid foundation and verified facts and make logical decisions from that, bringing in needed human elements and considerations. Don't forget the humans. We don’t just say... this is my ideology so this is what we’re gonna do. If you die, meh.

An absence of doubt, is an absence of clarity. Absolute faith eliminates absolute clarity.

Now, the general on the podcast is referring to the 80s movie "Wargames" with their WOPR, saying that we’re finally there when we have machines making decisions. We’ve always got to have humans involved. He also references to a general they both know, who in receiving an intelligence briefing from an expert would fire him on the spot if the intel was poor, and replace them with his lower Corporals, because they just knew that shit better.

“Delegate down to the lowest competent level,” the general.

The general, again: "It’s dystopian or Orwellian that people carry around 24/7 a device which feeds unknown collectors, and pay for the opportunity." He added that, "the end doesn’t justify the means. Because it starts disestablishing your society. It's trading convenience for privacy (security)." And after all, it leads to some form of MAGA.

I just noticed this, long Covid-wise. I’m starting my 4th mile, and my heart isn't beating really hard or even noticeably. When I started this walk months ago, I could make it maybe a half mile, and I’d have to sit and let my system calm down because my heart would be beating so hard. Ha! There’s some fireplace again burning wood. I do love the smell of wood burning in a fireplace. Not when it affects my long covid though. But when I moved to Suquamish, a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island from Seattle then when you just get off Bainbridge Island there is Suquamish and the Suquamish Clearwater Casino Resort, and just passed that, Kiana Lodge where David Lynch shot the corpse scene of Laura Palmer in his first Twin Peaks series. I actually got a picture of it on my Instagram. But when we moved into that house on a couple acres in the woods, there was 11 big piles of timber and waste wood. My oldest son and I, he was in seventh grade when we moved there, spent the next five years working on those piles of wood. I wanted to give him something to control in his life so I gave him control of the wood. We cut the wood together and stacked it in cords, but he owned it and he had to make sure the fireplace was always stocked with wood. And for five years we heated the house just with firewood. By the end of that five years we’d reclaimed all the lawn and moved some into the forest (there was still lots of forest). I was living there with my two kids and had been divorced for three years. But I was then making enough money where we could easily afford the electric heat, which was pretty expensive. We couldn’t afford it when we moved in. So we were pretty happy about the wood. I don’t think we burned wood anymore after that. It was such a luxury to just have the heat happen. And pay a few hundred bucks a month for it in the winter. But no more dealing with the wood, or keeping the fire going, stoking it every night, getting it going again in the morning, stoking it to last until we got home in the afternoon, or the smoke and ash issues. 

Janes: you can’t take open source Intel and interpret it and expect your view through your society to be accurate to where you’re going to apply it. If you understand that, then it’s much more functional. This is much and the same as what happened with MAGA. You could look at their social media and Fox News, etc. as open source, although a lot of that is disinformation. Some of it is misinformation But the end result leans wrong. Even when it’s right, they take that and try to apply it to their opposition (most of the rest of America) and the results they get from it are as we've seen. Manufactured nightmares. It's too frequently thoroughly inadequate and inaccurate. That's then taken by conservative leaders, social media and "news" and used to inflame them even more. Then you add in a president like Trump in office and you get a January 6 insurrection. And autocratic attempts still now, to do really dumb things like end democracy in America and end our US Constitution. Unbelievable. They use the Constitution to support their beliefs until that was so dysfunctional, finally somebody said, "Screw it! Let’s just throw it out and say it was not legit to make the Constitution when they made it. Therefore, this country doesn’t exist and we’re going to remake it how we want it." It’s dangerous rhetorical lies and pretty immature. 'We keep losing because we're stupid, so we'll just take over.' Uh huh...

So finishing my last 1/2 mile length, and...I’m gonna stop today at 4 miles. I believe I can do 5. But I’m gonna stop for today because of the next two days. I don’t wanna overdo it and then not feel good and not get to see my friends tomorrow, or my kid perform on Friday.

A "kid" by the way, who is my youngest and 30 years old and a great on stage performer with their spouse. And they're bright and funny and smart and talented and people that MAGA seems to want to take rights away from, and some of them, want to kill them at their performance, Friday. It’s ridiculous, that it's now important they have armed security to protect them from these dumbass fucking unConstitutional militia types and this moronic MAGA breed of idiocy. It’s internationally embarrassing. that a minority and a really pleasant group of people who some look down upon just because they’re different. And they go against anachronistic religious nonsense. Horror fantasy theistic cosplayers. How troglodyte is that? Aren’t they just.

Mao’s cultural revolution in China sought to: kill the educated, the doctors, the intellects the scientists, the elite. I get them, abusive elites, wanting to kill elites and wealthy who are abusive. But the others? That set China back 50 years.
Hitler: kill the Jews, kill the gays, kill the blacks.

 Goddamn, if that doesn’t sound like MAGA today. And Trump. Who doesn't have to come out and say it. We see their actions, hear their dog whistle racism, sedition. And by we, I mean our majority decent citizens. None of this crap MAGA porn affects me directly. I’ve got all the privileges in being white, male, raised Catholic leaning atheist/ Buddhist (with my own form of it and not what you might know of it or most might think of it...Buddhism that is), I'm retired, a veteran, so I pretty much check all the boxes. Still, it embarrasses me to see others like me who are all MAGA crazy because they are so ill informed and cherry picking beliefs (as religious types also do). Especially the smart MAGA ones he should (and do) know better. But they fell down that disinformation propaganda rabbit hole.
Even if I didn’t have a kid who fits any of this, I still as an American see it affecting other Americans. That counts. MAGA holds the American citizen in contempt...if they don't fit their paradigm of the few who should be citizen. One citizen does NOT have the right to kill or abuse another citizen. That needs to stop. I guess I just have my idea of what America should be. Freedom, the pursuit of happiness, live and let live. Mind your fucking own business. Keep your religion to yourself. It should be private, personal. Separation of church and state. Productive and not toxic capitalism. Which is why we created monopoly laws so long ago. Very nice if we would use them more often. Competition to better products and services and keep prices lower.  Truth, honesty,  decency. All that Boy Scout stuff. What happened to all that? Look. It’s pretty easy to understand what went wrong: toxic capitalism, toxic corporate thinking... infected everything. Schools were set up for that in the 19th century. "Cooperate thought" infected our government long ago and now even our churches/religion (Thanks, mega churches & evangelicalism). Republicans wanting everything to be for profit. Some things require government not private ownership. Anyway...

Yay! OK, back on my home block now. Got my 4 miles in and I’m done for the day. Feeling pretty good. Much better anyway. Well, all the best.

Cheers! Slainte!

Walkabout Thoughts #23

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…(12/11/22)

 

Weather for the day… mid 40s, overcast, nice cool day for a walkabout but a bit muggy

Podcast for the day Pod Save America episode, "51 and Done"

Instagram post for the day

So this morning before I took off for my walk, I did something I haven’t done in years. I reviewed my reviews on my audiobooks...and was pleasantly surprised. Actually I was blown away. Especially on a few of my works. One being an article on psychology (you can read for yourself), synesthesia & schizophrenia. I had delivered that in my senior level seminar on abnormal psychology at Western Washington University in 1984. I cleaned it up a bit and published it some years ago. My professor, after being blown away by it, said it could be a seminal piece of work, a psychologist could spend his career on. Seminal meaning, a fundamental, new area of study. Which was basically two use synesthesia and schizophrenia to study one through the other.

Also, I found some really good reviews on some of my fiction works. Like "Simon's Beautiful, Thought", a sci-fi romance. I had written at years before I published it, and then I heard the movie "Her" came out. Which had some similarities. Today I noticed at least one reader noticed that who said they saw the movie and kept wondering how familiar it seemed. They went back and found they had read my ebook or listened to the audiobook. I don’t remember which it was, and said that I had done it first. To be fair, it took them about 10 years to get that movie done, if I remember correctly. My story is quite a bit different, but still involved somebody’s AI assistant and their cell phone and romance which I took a different tact about. All through it you’re wondering if this a romance story, or a horror story, or  just a sci-fi story? You be the judge.

And this is nice to see on Amazon for my newest non-fiction work:

I’m listening to Pod Save America who are now talking about Senator Warnock, his election and what he had to go through the past few years, and the whole control of the Senate issue. Which got me thinking here I am back into politics again. That made me think about a podcast considering some of the reviews I read today which have me pumped up a little bit. It’s hard work. I think my ratings are good, so that seems fair. But then I remembered in the interview I did with Kelly Hughes not too long ago...I think might be on my documentary "Pvt. Ravel’s Bolero".

Happy and sad I can’t talk about it, but I think I can say this general thing that I’m involved with starting a new movie streaming network. I have a good deal of a high-end IT background, so I’m kind of the IT guy. It’s fun watching something like this develop. Hard putting up with all the issues involved in getting something new off the ground. I’m also watching the Richard Branson documentary series. Which is very interesting. I especially like in the episode today where apparently his mother told them as kids, because he was kind of shy...I was kind of shy, partly because of my stepfather didn’t much care for me and our moving so often as a kid. I’d make a good friend and by end of year I'd never see him again... over and over. Anyway, Branson‘s mother told her kids whenever you’re being shy, you’re only thinking of yourself and to think of others. I wish someone had told me that as a kid, because it might have helped. I learned how to sort a put on a façade, to be funny, to be liked. I was a big toddler, then smaller for my age until about 10th grade when I got up to 6', eventually 6'2". A bit pathological from it all, but functional. Karate starting in 5th grade helped a lot. But it wasn’t really  until university when I broke through all that. To get a degree you had to take a class that was like group therapy. I tried to refuse, but they said, Well then, no degree. So I took it. It was difficult and a little painful, but in the end, I came out after that quarter, if not a better person, a more open one, less fearful of my fears and social anxieties. Although I thought I wasn't really all that bad to begin with, but I'd still had to deal with it, internally. It was uncomfortable and may have involved drugs and alcohol to relax enough through my late teens and 20s but, well, I got over that. And made for an interesting, 70s and 80s.

You know, I’m really not into war, not into violence. Somewhat as a kid. Westerns, war movies, John Wayne, and so on. Vietnam on the news during dinner at night, etc. I like action movies, make believe, special F/X, but not real violence. I think some of that came from fighting in karate tournaments as a kid around the PNW (I was a contestant in these for instance). I got in five fights per night in the dojo, I didn't need fights at school, or on the street. I don’t believe in the death penalty, except under specific, and very special exceptions. I am of late reasonably very focused on Ukraine and "Putin‘s Folly" illegal war there. And, so I'm focused on Putin’s demise (only since about 2000) both politically, physically, literally. I mean, Putin really needs to die and all humans should be focused on that.

After my working on my companion book yesterday, for my documentary and reading reviews of my psychology articles, and fiction online, I’m feeling focused on the arts today. So I’m struggling with today’s podcast on politics. (which is good, I think)

OK, so looking around for another podcast as I walk but I can’t find or think of anything I feel like listening to. I feel like Doing Art, not listening about it. Huh. Maybe I’m just in a productive mood and want to act on things? Because that’s kind of where I’m at working on the new streaming networking, editing my book and dealing with issues of marketing my works, a pastime which I dearly despise. Although the attention is nice I very much prefer some the income. "Fortune over Fame", as I like to say. Especially considering all the years I’ve put into this and all the hours sitting and writing.

I graduated with a Western Washington University degree in psychology in 1984. I stuck around that summer and took one final quarter, already with a degree, mostly for the final money left from my VA benefits. The purpose was to leave college with a screenplay which I thought would happen after a year of team script and screenwriting, which didn’t happen. So I wrote my first screenplay, a Syfy called, "Ahriman" about a prince prophet on a desert planet. It almost got sold in a pitch in 2000 to a Middle Eastern investment group by a producer from Scorpio Pictures. He moved to LA and I never heard form him again. Sean, where'd you go, man? 

I spent the next 10 years after graduating WWU in 1984, submitting my short stories and screenplays. I did a really bad job of marketing my screenplay. Back then I couldn’t figure out how to do it (other than moving to LA). Sort of easy to get a writer’s market book, however, mostly for fiction/non-fiction writings. I finally, in 1990, got my first horror story published: "In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear", in A horror quarterly on the East Coast.

It was another five years when I started working as an unpaid writer for Scorpio Pictures, also on the East Coast. After five years there of never getting anything on screen, I moved on. Back in the late 80s I almost got a manual published for Digital Equipment's word processing software, "WPS+". They quoted me about $50,000 a quarter and worldwide sales. They said my book would go out with all mainframes and Digital PCs (DEC PCs). Seattle was an IBM mainframe city. Few had VACS mainframes. Their software was known for being buggy and I put that in my manual, which was heavily used where I worked at University of Washington Medical Center. Also remotely for Harborview Medical Center (regional trauma center we lovingly referred to as "HarborZoo"). I was running mainframe and miniVacs for both of them for the radiology and pathology labs departments. I went back years later to work for a bit and found everyone impressed to meet me. When I asked the boss about it (who I had trained and had eventually become manager of the HMC mainframe), he said, "Well, they're impressed to finally meet who wrote all the manuals they use every day." I spent time working on that mainframe word processing software, that would lock up on you at times. You'd have to reboot your terminal to get back control which was a huge pain. Over a year or so. I figured out how to quickly get passed that through trial and error and documenting what I found. I put all that in the book, saving everybody time. Everybody, be they radiologist or pathologist (the Gods of the departments), or technicians, nurses, transcriptionist, etc., LOVED my manual. Also for how I structured the manual. But when Digital Publishing showed Digital proper the manual, and they saw me using the word "bug" they literally threatened me and killed the book. They actually said if I tried to publish anywhere else they would squash me. Good times. So I (perhaps, foolishly) dropped it. I should have submitted it elsewhere or at least tried. Ironically, I had changed the format of the manual for the editor's desires and his comments were also that they wanted a manual like (then described the manual I had written and he asked me to alter). When I said I have that manual right now, he said, no, it won't matter. And that was when I realized it was about the "bug" mentions. And he agreed that yes, that killed the project. There went my $200k a year. 

Thank you for the air pollution! Fuck. Somebody or somebody’s are burning their fireplaces, but at least it smells like wood and not garbage. hate smelling people burning trash in their fireplaces not to mention it's not good for the chimney. It all affects my long Covid to make my blood pressure go up.

So decades of fumbling around trying to get published and only getting one piece published in 1990... actually I had gotten some unpaid computer articles published back in the 80s in computer rags. One I think was in Colorado and the article called, "Cyberspace". It was a good article. Then in 2013 (2012, I can’t remember) came around and an author contacted me to write a screenplay from her paranormal novel. That led to what is a long story but it got me published by Cal Miller at a micro press had had called Zilyon Publications. I continued turning my works out and it got easier to send out screenplays, online. I had some success, not success, but close calls. I paid for online working with a producer or two which bettered some of my screenplays. After years of working with a couple producers at Scorpio scorpion, which was good training, even though I was unpaid, I had gotten used to working with producers. All these things, I should say to others in those situations, they led to some very interesting networking experiences, and education. I started out, having no money and saying I wouldn’t pay for anything if I could avoid it. So I avoided things like a AOL when they popped up. I refused to pay for things like a vanity press to get published. I tried to do everything for free or as cheaply as possible. The harder ways. Ways many could not do even if they tried. I learned a lot more that way. I remembered a teaching (in math) once saying, "Always take the harder way, you'll learn more." In the late 80s early 90s I got ahold of software without manuals. From people who were just passing software around that I never would’ve had money for. I got used to learning software quickly, without instruction. I had acquired and learned every major version of word processing software that was available. Which paid off when I became a systems and network administrator. With a degree in psychology. My team members all had degrees in math and computer science. So I always had to find a back door is into things and take the hard way to learn. I spent a lot of time on it in the early 90s. I spent a lot of time reading PC architecture manuals. My wife would complain, mostly because her parents would complain, that I wasn’t making enough money. But how was I supposed to make money in computers if I didn’t go to school for it or get educated in it? Which is what I did in all my spare hours. So after the divorce a few years later, I did get a high-paying job and ended up working on some of the top IT shops in the PNW. I was once up for "Manager of the Internet" at Microsoft when I had only applied for a grunt position, but my resume got shown around the Microsoft Redmon campus. But the other guy got it. Wonder if he's a millionaire now? It’s been an interesting journey. When all I wanted to do was work on Art, and film production, Well, I got there, a bit later than I had intended in having taken routes I'd never have anticipated. But when you can't get where you want to go by the standard roads, you take what roads you can find, or blaze them yourself.

Oh, there’s something I should like to mention. Back in, I’m thinking the late 90s, it was a big deal to build a "digital footprint" on the Internet the new digital superhighway. I took that to heart. That "footprint" used to just be about making yourself easy to find online. Now it entails much more, like protecting your data online (see previous link). The other day I went to Google and typed my name and got 15,000 responses. I typed some of my friends names who do what I do, and although 15,000 is not a lot (look up James Cameron sometime…), I’m at least double my nearest friend and most of them are only around 1000 or two. Not bragging, just stating how all those years ago when they said "build your digital footprint", to do it correctly. I didn’t do too bad. For years after that when I quit doing it because no one talked about it anymore, that was at some point in early 2000s or late 2008, or so, I thought, "Damn, did I waste all my time doing that?" Flash forward years ahead to now and it seems to pay off a little bit. Twitter may be dying but I do get forwarded now by people who are pretty famous and I’ve actually talked to some people like who you'd know online. Not going to drop any names but some people who I would’ve never been able to be in contact with back in the 80s... social media allows you that access. If you handle it properly.

I’ll give you one example, back in 2004, the well know, international actor Rutger Hauer chose one of my short stories in a contest he put on. A short story per week for a year and then he would publish it. I loved Rutger's catalog of films and the more I got to know him, the more I appreciated what are incredibly cool guy he was. But I chose my story, "Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer to a Question He kNever Knew" (shortened in some places to "Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer", the screenplay for it anyway). Rutger chose it and it was funny because when I found out it won, I had believed, I knew, he would choose it. I just knew it. I asked him once why he chose it. And his answer was telling, it was because with a some of his films, they're not great. But if you watch his acting it's always good. He said he chose his roles if when he reads a screenplay, the character has "heart", or the role has "heart" to it. He said my short story had heart. So one of my biggest film "heroes" liked something I wrote and said it "had something". It would have been hard for something like that to happen back when I had graduated college. There's more to this story, a lot really, but I've written about that elsewhere...

The other thing I had to get by, which I kind of addressed above, was to be an author. Especially, as an independent. Or as an independent filmmaker. You’ve got a put your ego aside and just do the work and market it all. Once I got some things published, my first book collection of my older short stories ("Anthology of Evil" vol. I), some even going back to my college days, you have to market them, or someone has to. There is now "Anthology of Evil II Vol. I & II". My next book that same year was "Death of heaven", which I think is an incredible, epic story. And others have said so too. But you've got to market that stuff, unless you have a big publishing house. Or film studio marketing for your films. And that means doing what I hated to do all my life. I hate job interviews. Caveat, I don’t really "hate" anything. I’m just being lazy, saying that. But it makes me seriously uncomfortable to market myself or to push my perceived quality or worth to others. It’s taken me years, but I've kind of gotten over it. The thing is you have got to know your value and you have to know your quality. I know my ratings are good. I just needed to get other people to see it. To get it in front of them to pay attention to it. Years ago, somebody told me (they were trying to help me because my self-esteem was pretty low), and they asked me, "What are you doing with your life? You’re not making much money." I said while I was doing this and that and I wasn't charging much for it. They asked how much I was getting paid at work. I told them. They said, "That’s how much you’re worth. OK, now look at your free time, when you’re not working or getting paid. Now calculate that out and tell me how much money you’ve lost in the past week or month." That was an eye-opener. Know your worth and have an accurate appraisal of yourself and what you can do. I find nothing more distasteful than working for someone who thinks they’re so much more than they are, because it wastes my time and others. Or people who are great but can’t see it and stumble along when they could be helping themselves and so many more. You have to be careful if you’re good. Because if you know your worth and it’s good or great, you have to keep your ego in check. "Fake humble" is annoying and distasteful. So if you’re going to try to be humble when you know you’re great at something, at least believe it, be genuine about it and truly believe it. I used to wonder about this equality stuff. How can we all be equal? If a man is much bigger than a woman, how is she going to do some of the things he can physically do, and endure? Well? Women have to some degree shut that down. But the thing about equality is, nobody is equal to anybody else. However, as individuals we should all be equal. One citizen equal to another. There ARE ways we ARE equal. That illuminates all the misogyny and bigotry. Being in the military could be difficult because you knew you were better than some officers in certain ways. But you’re still going to have to take their orders. While sometimes they are really stupid orders or can get somebody killed. You had to learn how to navigate that. Respect the uniform if not the officer. Or understand what I raised my kids to understand. Sometimes in life, you have to do what’s right and be punished for it. Or refuse to do what is wrong and be punished for it. But you gotta make that choice in the moment, and do what you think is the right thing to do. Don’t destroy yourself uselessly. Buddhism says moderation in all things. And try to be "Enlightened". Which to me is seeing all levels of anything and viewing all things in light of the specific, the medium distance and the far out. The microscopic view, the eye view, and the 30,000 foot (or the galactic) view, to put things in perspective. When someone hands you an apple to eat, you should instantly "see" (recognize) the person handing it to you, where they got it from, how it got to where they got it from, who took it off the tree, where it came from around the world, those who picked it, that tree it came from, and so on. That’s true Enlightenment, which is unattainable. But we just do the best we can. It is similar to, be always better than you were a moment ago.

Damn, my long Covid has been slightly flaring up at this past week or so. Actually since I got my pneumonia shot a few weeks back. I just keep my eye on the date of April fools' day 2024 in how my long Covid should be gone by then. Hopefully. And hopefully much sooner. Knowing I could wake up any day and it’s gone, as has happened before, the first time I got it. I got it February 2020 and it lasted around 14 months, I think. Unless it was completely gone and would come back. Or could be because I kept catching Covid again but was able to fight it off. Which it very well may have been what was happening. I’ve had all the shots and boosters. Then March 2022 this year I got the worst case of Covid and ended up in the hospital, but only a few hours. All the tests I have had since then say that I’m healthy. And there’s been a lot of tests. So it’s either permanent damage that's not showing up, or just long Covid. It’s exacerbating something, though. As far as more on that, I did write an entire book on it. I just got really wall. reviewed call “Suffering Long Covid”. And one epidemiologist who read it, really liked it. High praise indeed.

Yesterday, I heard the weather today would be good for a walk. So I got up and ate a more protein-based breakfast rather than say, oatmeal. When I then checked the weather today, it said it’s gonna rain all day. After I'd eaten breakfast. Because I was gonna eat oatmeal today. I vary my breakfasts. But I decided it looked OK today and it said rain percentages were under 10% for a few hours and so...now I am approaching mile 3 1/2. A bit humid but other than that, it’s a good day for a walk. With long covid, ever walk is a good walk. If I don't walk or exercise enough I feel poorly. When I do exercise enough, I feel pretty damn good.

Oh, and I put my sleeve brace back on my left ankle because my last walkabout without it proved I probably need it from now on.

Just happened to think of this, as a car was driving by. Random drive-by shootings exist. They happen. Once in a while I'll look at a car and it flashes through my mind. This car drove by just now and my first thought was the windows were up. No idiot would shoot through a window of a nice car like that. And I flashed on news footage out of Iran, Some moronic Iranian police, I'd guess, were going around one car just sitting there with their windows up. They’d stopped it on the road, I guess downtown, and took their stick and beat on the windshield until it was broken. Then walked all the way around the car, around the back to the driver's side, busting all the windows. It just pisses me off. It’s like, dude, get a fucking life you loser. Same feeling I have for these people who want to go out and hurt others in America. MAGA mentally damaged ideologically armed unconstitutional militia types, picking on LGBTQ+ people. I mean, seriously? I mean talk about picking on somebody you can feel can’t fight back. This is kind of the same. Bullies and assholes. Like in high school, a kid going to beat up a third grader type mentality. I don’t mean to take anything away from a beleaguered minority, who can actually fight back and are beginning to and should. But this the mentality of those picking on them. It’s America. How dare you ignobly referring to "freedom" when you’re abusing others and wanting an authoritarian state because of your religious or bullshit toxic Christian white toxic masculinity beliefs. Such a sorry state of affairs. Such sorry people...

Anyone following my Instagram would know that earlier this year I was posting about somebody who stole my fence and yard. It was a joke. The landlord I’m renting this house from, after being here a few years, had started to fix the yard up from the last tenant who trashed the place. He had three big dogs, and they just ruined the fence and the yard. So, my friend Tom, who is also my audiobook voice actor and acted in one of my films had come over and ripped it all out and let it sit until fall to put in a new fence and seed the lawn. So now the fence is done very nice with two very nice gates, front and back. I don’t have a backyard. And the grass is starting to sprout. And so that is my Instagram post today.

Oh, that smoke, oh I see which house it’s coming out of, and it only extends for like a half a block

I was just telling someone that it seems to help that we ratcheted it up the sanctions against Russia due to their warring on Ukraine, as well as other countries who are doing that. But it just feels like at this point, especially with Ukraine now apparently attacking Russia within their borders and good for them, that Russia now needs all the sanctions to double or something. More like a fist in the face or Putin, which Hillary had said is how you handle him, and she’s right. That’s when he listens. I know this is scary, no matter how you look at it. But if a bully comes over to your house and starts beating the crap out of you and won’t stop and then burns your house down? You gotta fight back and send somebody over to burn their house down because it’s really the only thing they understand, in only running on half a human brain.

So I think I did 3 miles last Thursday. I’m shooting for five today again, but I think I’m ending on my 4th mile for the day. The only thing worse than not getting the distance I want is getting there and regretting it. Because with long Covid you don’t want to regret anything.

Podcast quote: "Donald Trump is a unique kind of sociopath.” I would agree. He’s got infections Sociopathy. It’s a kind of mental disease where a person doesn’t read the world around them correctly and they impart that view to others who either partially or wholly buy into it. Then go out and share that with others and it spreads like a virus (see, MAGA). As an example, decades ago, I went to my mother's one day and I was talking to her. She’s had this victim mentality which Trump loves (as a fetish) so much, and she's telling me at that time how somebody was treating her so badly, and this and that. When I left there I was angry, for about 5 minutes. How dare somebody blah blah blah... as I’m driving home I’m thinking about it and my critical mind is starting to pick apart everything she said. Within about two or three minutes I realized that pretty much nothing she said was true. Some of those things may have happened. But the way she interpreted them was in a way to allow her to play victim (yet again) to sell that to others who bought into it and would prop her up with whatever that is she needed, a kind of ego energy negativity. That was when it hit me the kind of mental disease she had. I told my siblings about that so they'd be aware, though they already knew it too, just not as clearly as I had understood it that day. It was useful my sister's husband also had a psych degree. I have been seeing from the start, back in 2016, that same exact kind of sociopathy with Trump. Of course my mother, gone now, had other issues...as does Trump.

There’s an old saying that goes something like, "Presidents are made on the anvil of the Oval Office". Especially Trump supporters in 2016 claimed they believed in that as we mostly all did. But he’s proven it doesn’t work on him. An old brain damaged dog that can't learn new tricks. We can only hope, and we have to get back to the functionality of that belief. That the job of president will mold one to better fit it once the weight of that office descends upon them. So that if DeSantis, were to get elected POTUS (God help us), at least he’s NOT Trump. Would the oval office affect him in the right ways, or not? If so, then I prefer him to Trump. If not, we need to alter the mentality of this entire nation back to that position. Like stuffing the toothpaste back in the tube. Really stupid toothpaste.

I’m just hearing on the podcast that the January 6 committee said Trump will be on the list of criminal referrals. They’re going to submit that to the DOJ. Some progress for America, and humanity. That from CNN reporter, Jamie Gangel.

So I’m at the end of 4 miles and arguing with myself about doing a fifth. I have a funny feeling I'd get about a half mile out and regret it so I'm going home.

You know these walkabout thoughts are stream of consciousness. Which is always problematic (to read). It’s not like cleaned up narrative fiction. I get home and I clean it up real quick and then I publish it. Sometimes I think I should publish both versions, so you could see just how comical (and problematic) the original voice to text is. But I don’t care, you don’t care, so…


Cheers! Slainte!

Walkabout Thoughts #22

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…


Weather for the day… mid to low 40s, overcast, nice cool day for a walkabout

Instagram post for the day

Podcast for the day Pod Save America finishing up the episode from the other day (Tuesday).

Next up, John Heilemann, Hell and High Water podcast with Aaron Sorkin in a reprise episode. Now, this is great, because I keep trying to get away from politics, and into psychology, phenomenology, or the Arts. And I do love some Aaron Sorkin. I loved The West Wing. It helped me get through the Bush years (our first post millennial Republican POTUS, foreshadowing a more ridiculous downward trend into the Trump years. I thoroughly needed The West Wing in the pathetic Trump years during the criminal POTUS45 administration. But we did have The Good Fight and that was not nothing. And for those who didn’t like The West Wing, because of Aaron's style or because of their political beliefs, I know a lot of those people liked, A Few Good Men. The play which Sorkin wrote, from which the movie was made.

I wasn’t much into podcasts when this Aaron Sorkin episode came out. But I’m very happy to be able to listen to it today. He has very interesting things to say. I didn’t know that his To Kill a Mockingbird got produced for 18,000 New York area kids at Madison Square Garden, in the round. Sounded amazing. Being myself by effort, and if not fully and in practice as a writer, author, playwright, screenwriter and a filmmaker, I’m very interested in things Aaron Sorkin has to say. To qualify that last statement, I’ve done all those things, but have yet to have a play or a screenplay produced. And I’ve heard professionals ask me why that hasn’t happened yet, and that it should happen immediately. But you gotta convince the right people. I mean, I started making my own films because I got tired of not just the hoops you have to jump through, and the bullshit to get a play or screenplay produced, or the time it takes, when you can just do it yourself. How many times have we heard a movie or a play took 10 years to get to an audience? My first movie took a summer, that fall, and the beginning of the next year's winter and it hit film festivals around the world started winning awards. My last film “Pvt. Ravel’s Bolero” took me six months, all alone editing, before it hits screens around the world. And won even more awards I’m proud to say.

Well, the upside of Republicans controlling the House, and Kevin McCarthy probably being Speaker is now you have something to compare the Nancy Pelosi House as Speaker to. Order in accomplishments, versus chaos and probably fake investigations for purely political purposes, wasting ever more taxpayer money... yet again.

So if a new Republican controlled House is going to investigate how Trump was treated by the FBI and DOJ, are they also going to investigate how Trump abused the FBI and the DOJ during the POTUS45 abusive administration? Because come on, if you’re so correct about law and order... do your job?

Dear right wingnuts, stop attaching our power grids. Fools. I've wondered for decades why our power grids are not better protected and buried underground. 

With Power Grid Under Attack, U.S. Struggles to Pursue Far-Right Extremists

About this mandatory vaccine in the military issue. When I was in the USAF, we had to get vaccines for swine flu. I didn’t want to get it and a lot of us didn't. We were a bit freaked out about it. There were rumors of deaths. But we got it, because we were in the MILITARY. It has to do with Readiness. It’s like if your job isn’t handling a gun, but in a war they could hand you a gun. And you'd do your job. I find it interesting and disgusting that we’ve got people today refusing to get the vaccine in the military and yet supporting an autocracy and being anti-democratic, and supporting a moron president who also supported )or actually physically)  attempted a coup against the United States of America. People's priorities, have gotten severely twisted into the inane and insane, and the disinformed and propagandized by domestic enemies, some of whom are quite obviously, according to our courts and law-enforcement, have been positions of control in our country, after years of seeding this insanity and sewing it into the fabric of our nation's government (some crazy types have gotten gov. jobs over the years).

For some who wonder why I don’t listen to non-liberal podcasts, or news, I’ve tried. But when you get to where all you’re doing is correcting errors and incorrect information, which I have to do a wee bit with nearly any podcast or just about any news report (at least in my head), I just can’t do it with too many of these conservative media types. It’s just not worth your time. It’s better to put out what’s good, out there in the world rather then trying to debunk & disagree with all that’s bad as it's being pumped into our  reality. There are those who actual do that and I thank them for their service. But we don't all have to be doing it. Do what you are best at. 

We have some marvelous democratic processes to place in our republic for the continuation of our grand experiment, and for the protection of our people. While we have had some very bad people trying to thwart those processes in the Trump years (and still) and still, certainly in administering those and now a Republican Party that has been absconded by that same individual, and polluted with a toxic authoritarian mindset. When times are hard, we buckle down and work our way out. We don’t abandon our country and turn to autocracy like some banana republic. We don’t need a conservative political party now seemingly dedicated to that, or fitfully and fearfully walking that fine line of thinking they’re good people and doing nothing. While either way, they are indeed doing evil

Government is designed to be a lumbering giant. To make instant change is to do damage and to do damage at that level, is to see citizens die by the hands of the State. People's frustration and needing help immediately and seeing it not happening, is understandable. But you’ve got to be proactive, think ahead, make the government functional, apply laws ahead of time that will handle things when they go wrong. And you certainly can’t do what the Republican Party has been doing in trying to do as little as possible (or less), or use  illiberal or old Soviet tactics to assure forever retaining power. Where their job seems only to be complaining about the other side and repeating over and over, "We’re better!" as a plan. You gotta BE better. And then you gotta act. And then you'll actually make mistakes. Those who do, aren't perfect. Only those who don't, because you can't fail when you do nothing substantive. But you HAVE to act.

Leadership is bravery, it’s courage under fire. It’s courage when not under fire. The courage not under fire, however, should not be the Republican way, as it is. For them to never have actual courage, or show bravery and “leadership“, means they have to be swept up by potentially the lowest common denominator in a tide of citizens, forcing their hand to actually fucking do something. And under those circumstances the something Tends to be, as we’ve seen of late, typically the worst possible action available.

Sorry… I know this is all political. It’s the talking on the podcast, they're talking about Aaron's film, "The Trial of the Chicago Seven". Which is kind of pretty political and just kind of really relates to the past few years. Yeah I know, I can’t win. Just know that I keep trying…

About the Chicago Seven film, Sorkin says people ask him if he changed the script to fit events of late, and he said, "No, events changed to fit the script."

Which is similar in a minor way to my film “Pvt. Ravel‘s Bolero“. I put that film out and one of its first official selections of the film festival just happen to be in Moscow, Russia. Two days after Putin invaded Ukraine. And then suddenly, more of the lines in my film had far more relevance, and I believe affected people who saw it a lot more. Good timing, sadly. Especially, how I ended it. There is a list of all wars ever on earth. I only saw the film once in a theater with an audience at a film festival. At the end, it got a very good round of applause. And then the list of Wars on Earth came up. It got quiet, the applause slacked off. And the list seems to go on forever. In the middle of it you see an atomic bomb explode. Which starts the modern era and indicates WWII, and then a lot more wars scroll after that. Then the screen goes dark. There was silence in the theater. It was eerie. And then the next film was announced. It was about a soldier and his pains after fighting in the Middle East Perfect adjunct to follow my film. After the four films in that block showed, the filmmakers were called on stage for a Q&A. We had a chance to meet briefly and talk. I got handed to mic and may have talked more than most, but there were questions to answer. And the filmmaker whose film followed mine came over, and we shook hands, both eagerly wanting to meet the other. We both had very nice things to say about the other and our work. And then we left the stage. It was actually the first time I got to see one of my films in a theater with an audience. And as sobering a subject as it was, it was one of the highlights of my life, artistically speaking.

There I got some arts snuck in.

OK, I said I want to talk about Art. If you’re an artist of any kind, especially a writer, or a filmmaker, sculptor, painter, whatever… Definitely read this next passage:

Sorkin says he didn’t want to push the 70s aesthetic of tie-dyed shirts and peace signs and protest songs, and that whole playbook. He wanted an orchestral score and nothing to get between the audience when the film was released, and the times when the event took place. Which was a piece of brilliance. For my film, it was based on a poem about a composer and a song he wrote, and his actions in World War I. So I was tied to using that song. Which really wasn’t tied to that war. But the music performances I used were all written or performed by Ravel in the film, and only one song was truly tied to the war. That was the one Ravel wrote that I think he started during the war and couldn’t finish until after and was dedicated to five of his friends who died in the war. Each received a movement in the score. To be precise:

"Interrupted by and after his war service, Ravel finally finished his piano suite "Le Tombeau de Couperin", dedicating each of its six movements to friends who had not survived the war. Which included the husband of Marguerite Long, who performed the work's premiere on April 11, 1919."
That only plays right near the end. Just before Ravel's death. Which goes into how he became the greatest composer in the world. And elicited Stravinsky's quote about Ravel as: "...the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers.". When the subject of your film or story is that well-known, it’s redundant to shove that all down the audience's or reader's experience. Which reminds me of something I’ve used in my writings for years, and exhibited so intensely in my first novella, "Andrew". When you're expecting in a horror movie, to see the most intense and graphic things, sometimes showing far less works better in the reader's mind, to let IT fill in when what you're expecting just isn’t there. Then it comes across as more intensely than it ever could’ve been, had it been written out and described. Then it appears, one might say, far greater than the effort used in describing it. Whenever I’m writing and get lost or frustrated and can find no way out, I look 180° in the other direction and usually find there, somewhere in the curve of that arc, a solution that is typically far better one than I would’ve seen otherwise.

Aaron Sorkin saying when he penned the first episode, the pilot to The West Wing, he never thought it would get on the air because he’d never had any success. I feel your pain, sir. And then it and he went on to be one of our most celebrated projects and writers in history.

When I started these walks to fight long Covid and later started these blogs, I had to wear an ankle sleeve/brace on my left ankle. I'd been so sedentary over two years from covid and long covid and I don’t have much ankle there anyway. But today, I’m not wearing it because hopefully it’s now strong enough to handle this. Just noting that I feel like I’m getting healthier and stronger and oh, yay... we’re headed into the Pacific Northwest winter! Good times!

Sorkin is addressing an answer to a question. John ask him about his writings, as some have said he was naïve or I think he said "pie-faced" at one point… Sorkin said he like writing romantically about things. Which reminds me many years ago, of a girl telling me in response to something, that I was a romantic. Having grown up being a little sociopath, as many young males are, I thought the idea of being a romantic was nonsense. Until I better understood, understood a broader sense of it and realized that, yeah, she was spot on. I believe there was a time, hundreds of years ago, when people referred to plain fiction, at the advent of the novel form, that it was a "romance". That a romance doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with romantic intentions between two or more people: "Middle English: from Romance, originally denoting a composition in the vernacular as opposed to works in Latin. Early use denoted vernacular verse on the theme of chivalry; the sense ‘genre centered on romantic love’ dates from the mid 17th century."

"

John Heilman, comment: regarding those who know how the government works, and excluding the Trump administration on this…” Which is so true. Trump has so little clue how our government works. And he chose people to follow that mindset. Or as some intelligent people might say, lack of mindset.

Here John is quoting Sorkin from other places where he has said, he likes BTS, behind the scenes, but he likes to "write about the two minutes before, and the two minutes after what I’ve seen on CNN." Now understand that reference to CNN, may have been made when it was synonymous with cable, news or 24 hour news. And not politically, as it is known today more as part of a section of news or in politics.

I’ve always very much been a fan of two American writers in particular for film and screen stage. Aaron Sorkin, and David Mamet.

John Heilman, in our overly aware in media society today, everyone thinks there’s a story behind the story, even if the story is all of the story. And that’s how we get these thinking they are smarter than they are conspiracy theorists, who “know”, or think they know, the "real" story.

I give you Sigmund Freud: “sometimes the cigars just a cigar.”

The problem with MAGA and QAnon nowadays is they always think that there’s a story leaning the direction they want to believe in whatever story they’re looking into and that when you offer up the facts, they simply can’t see that story. That’s kind of a problem because they’re ignoring reality and adhering to fantasy. Until eventually, you get someone like Trump as a president.

Originally Republicans pushed for mail-in voting because they thought it was beneficial to them at the time. Now they’re against it because they think it’s beneficial to them at this time. I've been complaining about this for decades. Voting should be for the People and it should be taken out of the hands of political parties. Voting Day should be a national holiday, with long voting hours. It should be open for at least a week ahead of time and we should prefer people use mailing in their ballot, which are inherently safe. Our elections are safe. What’s not safe is toxic conservatives thinking of only themselves, or a political party who doesn’t want democracy, who doesn’t want ever to be out of power, leaning toward theocracy and autocracy. This is ALL about OUR Citizens. None of this is about the political parties. We were warned about political parties at the founding of this country. To be careful, very, VERY careful about them.

This is fascinating. Aaron Sorkin wrote every episode, all 80 episodes of seasons one through four of The West Wing. He and Tommy Schlamme left and new people took it over for the last three seasons. Larry David called him at that time and told him, himself having left Seinfeld a couple of seasons before it ended. “ You will never be able to watch The West Wing again. Because if you watch it, if it’s great you’ll be miserable. And if you watch it and it’s less than great, you will be miserable.“ Sorkin said, since Larry David's known to be professionally miserable, he blew him off. He got episode 501 on a VHS tape sent over when it was available, threw it in, and sat down to watch it. After 20 seconds, he said he didn’t even reach for the remote. He jumped up and turned the power off. Because as soon as he heard words spoken, he hadn’t written, he felt like someone was making out with his girlfriend, and he just couldn’t do it. Then he said, "Now that I’ve said this publicly, I hope it doesn’t hurt the feelings of my friends on the show who worked so hard the last three seasons. But I think they understand." As of the time of this podcast, I think in 2020, he said he’s never seen those last three seasons.

This is interesting. John asked Aaron his top five political movies. Not in order. The Candidate (the first one I thought of with Robert Redford). All The Presidents Men. The Manchurian Candidate, he didn’t say which one. The Best Man. All The Way, the LBJ movie. and he asked if he could have a sixth, and he named, The Contender.

Cheers! Sláinte!