Walkabout Thoughts #83

Thoughts & Stream of Consciousness, rough and ready, from an award-winning filmmaker and author you’ve never heard of, while walking off long Covid, and listening to podcasts…walking day Sunday, June 9, 2024

 
Weather for the day… nice day, starting out, 66° nice sunny day, blue sky with broken sparse clouds, cool breeze starting out, 73 once back at home

Podcast Pod Save America, ep. The Wilderness Could Trump-Curious Black Voters Swing the Election? (Ep. 3) about the Black vote with Terrance Woodbury and Lavora Barnes, Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. This is an interesting podcast episode because things are not what we think. 

On what he would say to a voter about voting sane and in this election, for Joe Biden...

“Here is why I need you to help me to keep winning because of what we’ve been doing and want to do for you." This, because telling them to vote for a third-party candidate gives the election to Trump.

When you have people who think Trump was the one who gave them their government check and not Biden, that they got training for a job because of Trump, not Biden, you’re up against the brick wall of at least misinformation and misperception.

When people think "I get the idea that Trump and Biden won’t do for me what I need, or want them to do, I'm not voting for Biden," it's time to make it clear that protest voting is not for the General Election, but the Primary. Third Party voting so often doesn't do at all what people think.

It would seem that one of our big problems is a lack of accurate information and an utter misunderstanding on how our elections really work in America.

A protest vote against your candidate? Do not vote for third party opposition in the General Election as voting for someone else will not get you want, when the person you vote for won’t win the election. It's just throwing away a vote. While the person you preferred can end up losing the election. So? How does that help you?

The problem greatly seems to be simply getting the correct and apprpriate information out there.

Today we really have to prove to people what's accurate. I wouldn’t even waste my time proving what's inaccurate, or disinformation, or propaganda. Politics today is very counterintuitive. While it always has been, it also had been based in facts, or spin. Spin being the twisting of facts up to but before they becoming a lie. That makes them an opinion, a perspective, an orientation. A lie is where it’s no longer spin and just an untruth, misinformation at best, mistaken information, but when you’re spinning beyond spin into lying, it’s really now weaponized information as disinformation that is disingenuous at best, but typically just meant to be a lie.

I'd like to comment on my last blog where I was talking about martial arts and fights I’ve been in. While I’ve been in thousands of fights at dojos, I’ve only been in a few actual and serious street fights. I do believe had I been like some of my friends from the past, I would’ve been in more street fights. But I was a good talker. In talking to a friend years ago I came to realize how many fights I would have been in, had I not diffused the situation with logic or humor.

We were taught as kids by our sensei that before you choose to fight someone and harm them...choosing to, as you can usually run away...in choosing hurt ego over hurting another human...we were trained to kill quickly. Not as in tournament or sport fighting...as in judo in Japan...so we were told we had to acknowledge that street fighting is a choice.

Which was why when I first learned in college about Aikido, one of the top 5 martial arts of Japan, I quickly switched from Karate (or any other martial art I had tried). Yes, I know about all the arguments against Aikido and nonsense about that. So many detractors to Aikido in that ignorant "my martial art is better than yours" nonsense. No martial art works in every situation. Which is what Bruce Lee talked about. It's just a moot and useless point with so many variables.

When I first learned about Israeli Krav Maga, I found it very interesting. Also, Systema, the Russian martial. But once I hit a point in my life where I wasn’t worried about a need to perhaps killing to protect myself, I no longer found a need for that kind of thinking, for the harder and harsher martial arts. There is of course, JuJitsu, and so on. Effective forms all. But for me in the end it was which martial art seems to be making you the most happy in practicing it? Aikido.

What I liked about Aikido is that in all the dojos I’ve been in, I’ve never seen one where there was so much lightheartedness and happiness from practitioners. When I was younger, Karate was all about "pushing through the pain." In Aikido, it's more like, “If it hurts? Don’t do that." Or you'll often hear, “You’re doing it too hard." That's not to say it's weak, though there is the harder  style of the younger O'Senei Morihei Ueshiba, the Founder; or the Steven Seagal style, which one could argue is abusive egoism. Or the softer style of the older O'Sensei who also allowed finally, women, and children to study.

All that being said, I've seen some seemingly magical movements and techniques in Aikido. Like blocking or throwing someone... without touching them. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it. I’ve experienced it happen to me. 

Aikido: "You don’t take their body, you take their mind." Or, "You don’t throw them at the ground, you throw the world at them." It’s the only martial art I’ve known with a philosophy behind it that translates directly into the movements, and the movements into the philosophy. I've had others claim that for their style. I still haven't seen it to be true.

Back to politics… 

If I could convince people of one thing before I die, it would be to vote in our elections. Don’t get all wrapped up like an extremist. Don’t get so wrapped up in your leader as MAGA does to where you end up supporting a delusionally, pathological, convicted sexual abuser, narcissistic authoritarian like the vastly ignorant and petty Donald Trump. Sure, get as involved as you want. Be fascinated. Be annoyed. But keep your anger at a minimum in the Buddhist sense of moderation in all things. Be objective. Find accurate information. 

But do be effective. And the first step of that is voting. When you vote, it forces you to make a decision. To make a decision you have to know what you’re talking about, or should. When you take responsibility and vote, it leads to other good things. Simply casting a vote sets up a pattern in your mind that's not only healthy to yourself, but to your fellow citizens and your country at large.

Approaching mile 1.5 mile and I swear I just got the faint whiff of a skunk. 

Aw yes...nature.

When I post my blog, it has two presets. One for tags (like hashtags) and one for published time and date. Each blog is a little different, but there seem to be primary themes. I think I’ll ask the AI what it thinks are the best top 10 tags I should use for this. That way I can always add or delete as need be. But at least I'd have some standard tags.

Damn right sock again keeps slipping down, trying to become an insert in my shoe. I think what’s going on is with these low cut, Costco socks. It's my older white ones that are messing up. I recently got a bunch of the newer dark-colored ones which are fine. It’s interesting how when I was a kid you'd get a hole in your sock and mom would "darn" it. She'd say, "Dark it, another sock to darn." Then she'd darn it by slipping a wooden darning "egg" tool with a handle extending from it, to inside the sock so she didn't stick her finger with the sewing needle. Which I'd seen her do plenty of times.

Or you’d get a hole in your sock and just get a new pair. Which happened more often after I moved out of my parent's house. I actually darned my socks for a while. Then when I was making enough money, just tossed then and bought a new pair. These socks seem to be designed now to where before they wear out, they purposely lose their elasticity so you have to dump them as they won’t stay up on your foot properly. Designed obsolescence, nonsense.

Like...it’s too expensive to repair a TV now, so you just buy a new one. I refused to do that like 10 years ago with my Spectre flatscreen TV. It was my first flatscreen, so I thought I would stick it in my bedroom to replace the old CRT tube one. I'd been in a process of trying to get all flatscreens ASAP. It took a while but finally got rid of all the high energy burners. I took a chance and took it apart and replaced a blown part that I had to solder out, and solder in a new one. But it still wouldn't work and I could NOT find the problem.

I had purchased some kind of electronic device around that time and I bought a plan with it, which might’ve been at Best Buy, I don’t remember. If you had an electronic device break, they’d fix it. Probably for my new receiver/amp for my home entertainment devices. I cherished the one I'd had for years that my girlfriend got me for my birthday once. Then we later married. I'd had it a long time. The most expensive gift any woman had ever gotten me at that time. 

Back in the 80s I had a lot of home entertainment devices back in the early 9os. I'd been an audiophile (worked at Tower Records in college), then a videophile (after college when I worked for a while at Tower Video). But I had no way of connecting all those devices and it took a lot of remote controls. This new receiver had one remote. It meant a lot to me.

She gave me the remote as a wrapped gift. Leaving me very confused. Then she opened the front door of our apartment at the show horse farm we lived at and she was a horse traine at, and there was the receiver. Amazing!

So anyway, I called Best Buy up. They sent a repair guy out. He looked at my repair and said, "Good job, I won’t have to replace that." He then found the secondary problem and fixed it. And the TV was back up and running and for no cost. 

I eventually ended up giving that TV to my son. He’s had it for years now in his apartment. It’s also his game monitor. My game monitor is my video editing station's monitor. Which is way smaller than his TV. I think his is a 42 inch. I think mine is a 28-inch. My living room LG TV is a 55-inch. Which I do like it a lot. When I gave him my old tv, I thought it wouldn't handle the newer graphics as it wasn't super clear. After a few days of his having it he found a switch or something and voila! Instant HD clarity. What the hell?

That was weird...remember the twice-viewed cat in the matrix indicating a glitch in the matrix? I just saw an ant walk onto the side of the road. I took three more steps and saw an ant walk onto the side of the road, again. Almost in the same exact pattern of walking. I know. Stupid. 

But that’s what writers and filmmakers do right? They notice patterns and build on them... to entertain. So...

One of our big problems today is how religion and entertainment have blended with politics. Evangelicalism and charlatanism blended with the con arts. It is a heady mix. Easy to weaponize. Handy for the con artists among us. Or the religious leaders. Of politicians weaponizing religion for their own self-benefit.

The male guest on the podcast, Terrance Woodbury, is saying he’s told people “Because you voted, we have been able to do these things for you." And then indicates to them what those things are. He definitely has a point. Rather than go out and prove what a louse, a liar, a cheat, a felon Donald Trump is, push on the empowerment of the voter and what that has led to them to and it’s not Trump's "baffle them with bullshit" method. It’s to overwhelm them with reality and how they do have a choice so they can after all, affect their own benefit. Terrance is saying Biden has been doing that and he also acknowledges their pain. And that too is important.

It’s your basic positive over negative. Trump's all-negative. "Revenge!" Well? Fuck him. Revenge isn’t American. Accountability is. We didn’t go into World War II for revenge. We went to make Nazis accountable and stop them. And we did that. The world did that. We don’t need to be doing it all over again in our own country.

Again, Terrance on the podcast is saying that this is not to say we’re waving the "mission accomplished" flag, as Pres. George W Bush did once, we're acknowledging and representing.

While toxic conservatives would label me a "liberal bleeding heart", I’m not. I’m middle of the road. Trying to be neutral. Seeking out the Truth and simply demanding justice where necessary. The problem is the that right has moved so far to their right, the sane people on the moderate left look extreme. It's in the arena of the "mad".

When I watch a documentary series like, “STAX: Soulsville USA”, by the end of that four-part documentary series I felt justifiably angry about what was done to that record company, to those musicians, to those Black people involved, to that culture in general. 

Also in what I had lived through as a kid back then in how I perceived reality through the information we had been given. I don’t think that makes me a "bleeding heart". That makes me an angry fucking American! Angry at how American citizens were treated. How many of us treated them with false information. That's fair. That's honest. That's reality. That's wrong to have happened. 

By that conservative definition, American troops freeing Nazi concentration camp victims would make those soldiers bleeding liberal hearts. No, no, no! They were pretty much just angry, fucking Americans! For good reasons!

The whole thing about our democracy being broken? It’s not really broken. It’s just at times difficult and complicated among a diverse cultural population. When you have one conservative party that is feeding fear in a steady machined stream to citizens, where they have so skewed things into believing that their "ends justifies their means", they have effectively for their side, broken democracy. But it’s not broken for all of us, not yet, not if they would just stop their narcissistic bullshit. 

No one is asking them to turn into Democrats. Just to start from a fair position of being American in trying to sell their beliefs, not force them onto others who disagree with their orientation in life. To understand that Christianity is a very wide system of belief, and not just whatever theirs is. It’s not Christian Nationalism, overall. It’s not white supremacism. It’s not authoritarian, or theocracy. 

For ourselves, we are all American and this country needs to be American, where one can not and should not, define all those negative principles into empowering fear and abuse to modify citizens into unreality, just in order to fit their illiberal, autocratic desires. 

Desires that oddly fit some of our international enemies' desires. Which is just weird.

Does that all sound like a bleeding heart liberal? Because to me it sounds like someone who believes in utilizing honesty, truth, justice and a more accurate viewpoint, that there actually is right and wrong. But also that while some things are binary, when you bring humanity into it, especially with individuals, it’s a nuanced situation. 

People have to be treated humanely. The Republican Party thinks too much about numbers, binary concepts, and corporations (basically and too often, toxic capitalism). People aren’t those things however, while those things that run because of those people, they expect us to take those people out of their equations? Really?! While people comprise corporations, unlike "Citizens United" (ununited), those corporations are NOT "People."

It's nonsense. If not, utter bullshit!

Regarding our democracy and elections. I know, when you don’t get what you want it's frustrating. But do consider how cynicism leads to authoritarianism. We need to be positive and move on, changing what we can as we can, when we can. But we don't need conservatives (or liberals) blocking the ways to advancing our culture, our country and the quality of life and enhancing the human experience. In the end it is NOT all about enhancing our country, but our citizens. 

HOW is that so hard for so many in the minority to recognize and comprehend? How did we allow them to become so often in our single points of failure in our elections and power offices to control inordinately far more than they have any right to?

I once unknowingly, maybe in high school, possibly in college, argued for authoritarianism. I wanted things to change like right fucking now! But my teacher, or professor, in being wiser explained to us that instant change in government tends to be damaging, if not deadly to citizens. 

Government is designed to move slower, like a lumbering giant, and for a reason. Things need to be thought out, info acquired and accumulated, evaluated, assimilated and planned, and only then executed. While Trump wants to flip a switch and get it done like it’s a corporation, which is often damaging to corporations. Remember, Trump has always failed upward protected by fools and greed. And he gets cheered for all that. But in the end it's ignorant and deadly. Even in a corporation.

I’d like to see a study of how many citizens are dead because of POUTS45's (incorrect and in...)actions. I do believe over 100,000 Americans are dead because of Covid due to how Trump handled things, especially in the beginning. He put someone at the CDC to make them dysfunctional and skew their figures so the Trump administration looked good. His corruption of our agencies and departments under his control has taken years and millions of dollars to correct...and to heal. Using our tax dollars. And also the healing of the trust of the American people, which may well take decades.

All because of one petty, greedy, pathologically, narcissistic little man. A fool who will literally say anything to get what he wants. That’s not how you lead people.

It's been interesting to watch a new 3 part documentary series, "Ren Faire" on HBO about a guy who started the Texas Renaissance Faire and now wants to sell out and retire. It's a study of power among people who have to alter their behaviors to assuage one man's existence ("King" George Coulam), and desires. He doesn't seem to be an evil man, but in that position, people react in ways to blend with his mind and desires and it warps reality. It can lead to harming people who are merely trying to succeed, and do what the man wants. It's cultlike. When you apply that consideration to someone like a Donald Trump, it's very insightful. Especially when you add in Tump's own pathologicals. I have a couple of friends who worked at Ren Faires years ago when they were younger. One on the east coast, a guy who did "medieval comedy & stage fighting among the crowds". The other a woman who had some horror stories about a "king and queen" who really seemed to think they were and the Faire workers as their 'kingdom" or cult. Abuse happened.

It's interesting that another Faire in Texas, distanced itself immediately from the documentary series: Scarborough Renaissance Festival.

Trump as POTUS45 involved some of the “corporate thinking" I’ve mentioned before and have seen time and again in CEOs who were severely damaged, and sharing that at a company, who perhaps even got fired, but then failed upward into leading another company. It's a weird kind of thing.

Trump has been failing upward his entire life, protected by people greedy to get their hands on the wealth and power that surrounds him. But as we seen in his not really being all that much of a billionaire, while a truly horrible businessman (and person). While some of us, some conservative Americans are doing their best to make true, Trump's (bizarre) "wonderfulness" regardless what he truly is. While all the facts surrounding Trump are to the contrary. And what is Trump doing in response? He throws a tiff and is obnoxiously contrary, to state it gently.

Regarding what I said above about being negative and positive in battling Trump and his authoritarianism...that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pointing out Trump’s failures and lies. Remember, the Trump administration's "infrastructure week" that went for years until the end of his presidency. And yet, never did complete? Then Biden came into office and did it.

Yeah. That happened. And we can’t forget it. We do have to remind people of it. Especially those who never knew it and don’t believe it. How do you accomplish that? I suspect in using the Russian or Republican concept of "quantity is quality" (no really, they ARE very similar), and just flooding good info out there in ways that even Fox News would end up having to carry it. Even Russian State TV could end up carrying some of it and inadvertently share the information, not realizing, they're spreading Truth, which they seem so allergic to. How very Republican of them.

I have Alexa. I've waited for something like this since Star Trek TOS in the 1960s. 30 years ago I probably wouldn’t have had one in my house, 40 years ago, for sure (certainly NOT when I was in the USAF, and they were monitoring our home phones, or whatever, which they openly acknowledged and we didn't need to help them with it).

Just in being paranoid and careful back then I wouldn't have had a "smart speaker" (monitor). But I’m at an age now I don’t really give a damn and I really do like the convenience of remotely turning a light on in another room. Or turning my air conditioner on or off remotely, or adjusting its temperature via speech. Or turning on my living room and kitchen lights as I'm getting up out of bed. in the dark of morning. Or turning my home lights off or on while driving. Though I also have it doing that in set up schedules.

So right now while I’m out walking about I can open my Alexa app on my cell phone and turn on the air conditioner before I get home so that it won’t be really hot before I even open the door.

I can just speak while I’m walking and say, "Siri" to get a response on my iPhone 11. I did that and said, "Have Alexa turn on my air conditioner." And it said, "You haven’t turned that on in your home app." So apparently it can’t converse with Alexa, but I can set that up on my iPhone. And that my friends, is awesome.

A bulldog and a spaniel just came up to me and said, "Hi." Well, that was nice and friendly.

Yesterday, I watched John Wick one, two, three, and was headed to four but they wanted money. I had already paid to watch it and my 30 days are up. I would like to offer them a suggestion. I wonder if they charged a dollar to rewatch it, if they wouldn’t end up making more money than the way they’re doing it now? Because once I’ve paid for a movie, I’m never paying for it to see it a second time, outside of that 30-day window. Though I might go $1.99, I would resent it. But $0.99? Yeah, just not a problem. 

Reminds me of the first days of video store movie rentals. $99 to buy a movie? Nonsense. We kept saying $15 and you'd make millions. While they were selling way more at $99 than we could believe, when finally they DID lower the price to about $15, they really did break the market and make a fortune off of their late-in-the-game paradigm change.

Starting mile four… it’s starting to get warm out.

If you’re gonna look back into a politician's history, then you also have to look forward to see if they dropped any their anachronistic nonsense they used to be into. Because it’s those who haven’t that’s a problem.

It’s 12:13 PM. I'm usually home by now. But my son had called me and we talked for a long time. When he called I had been editing my blog that will come out tomorrow morning. So I got a late start on this walk. It’s a little warmer out than I meant to be while I’m still finishing up walking.

For those saying that Biden hasn’t done enough for his POTUS 46 years? Damn, you’re not looking around very much are you? If he has one more term, he’ll be able to push harder for things because it’s his last term. One more term.

Aside from the fact it won’t be for Trump if he wins, if he has anything to say about it. How unAmerican he has become (and always was?) and how autocratic, in using propped up Christian nationalism, of all things. Trump pushes as hard as he can do all the crazy bullshit he wants to do. A lot of that is going to be stuff NO one supported him for. He’ll act like it’s his last term, until he somehow manages to get a third term or just simply be there for life. Luckily, he IS an old, unhealthy fuck and won’t be around much longer. I mean it’s not like he’s one of his kids who could last longer. But that’s another entire problem because once he knows he’s out, or will be out soon, just remember Castro. He’ll choose the next lowlife for president. Which is what he’ll do. That clown won’t let go of power even if he’s out of office, until he drops dead. Because that’s what tyrannical pathological authoritarian narcissists do. What would Putin do? That's what Trump will want to do and try to get away with, if he can. If we let him.

I keep having to stop to pull this damn sock up. Again, glad I’m wearing slip-ons. Well when I get home, it’s in the garbage.

Suns beating down on me, slightly cool wind, this is lovely. Finishing up, just passed my 3.5 mile marker and not long ago I'd be thinking that I’d be going home. End of walk. But I think I’ll be able to get the 5th mile. It feels great, that this feels great. It’s not as difficult as my last walk, which was kind of miserable.

Found a small snail on the side of the tarmac. I put it on the grass, gave it a little water. I’m sure it’s dead. But if you don’t try, you don’t know.

I was talking to my son about this before my walk today, about food and protein. Too much protein and/or if you don’t work out enough, it turns to fat. One of the problems of the elderly is not getting enough protein on a daily basis. I’m supposed to have 4 to 6 ounces of protein daily. I wonder if I actually need that much? But I try to get at least four daily and I know I don't at times. 

Anyway, what I was talking to my son about was how frozen meals have cut protein down so much that it’s become merely flavor and not functional amounts of protein. And they use grams. So if people are told they need 4 ounces and they find there’s 9g or 16 g in some food, especially if you're busy and not paying attention, one might think about it and go, "That sounds like enough protein." What is it? 28.35 g to an ounce? That’s 113.4 g for 4 ounces of protein. But you bought a frozen meal with 12g of protein in it. OK then…there it is.

The guy on the podcast just mentioned that as far as Black people in groups he’s spoken to say, they aren’t worried about Trump‘s racism because "they’re all racist anyway". His response is, "That may be true, but the action of that racism is not working out well for us. When you look at racial violence and the proud boys, and "stand back and stand by" nonsense, Black people aren’t gonna put up with that shit anymore. So it’s all a matter of perspective, reality, information and presenting it in a palatable, acceptable and accessible format and... served to them by the right people. I’m sure if I were black I would listen to someone more I knew from my community, with the same skin color, or at least same culture, rather than some white guy from a potentially different, especially better economic class, or something.

Siri says that it’s 69°. Feels warmer. Feels good though.

Let me say this about politics and how I relate to it. I have things I’d like to see done. But until we're electing decent, honest people, until their politics are based in reality and facts and not alternate facts, we have a problem that’s outside of politics. I don't mean the kinds of people traditionally described as incompetent or corrupt, but the new Trump / MAGA level of incompetent and corrupt. Who too often are presentationally incompetent, while actually fully competent, but functionally useless for America.

I don’t care what your politics are. I don’t care if someone agrees with me or not. That...is OK. Since childhood, I’ve had a strong attachment to what really is. I just want to get back to what the child in me back then demanded as respect, for what’s going on around us today.

That’s good. The guy in the podcast said, "I don’t care what you think. I just care THAT you think.“

Sad that today we have to add an additional caveats to that of, "as long as what you think is based in reality," and if reasonably with the most positive spin on it for yourself, also with a consideration for all people, or at least all (other) Americans. We're in this together, soo may have forgotten that. This tribalism crap has gone too far. There should be consideration of human beings in every decision in the back of our minds. Considerations for all others, everyone. 

While we don't always have to think and act for all every time, to think "globally & act locally" really is a great idea.

I switched over to some other podcast where they're talking about the Hunter Biden trial [update, he has now been convicted on all counts]. I will say this about Justice. In my mind it's about "righting" a wrong and stopping that behavior. But too often Justice is too blind. 

When you get someone like Hunter Biden, or it could be me or anyone, and they’re going through tough times and fucked up, but then they get their life together. We're going to rip them out of that good effort and screw all that up and maybe send them to prison? That’s fucked up. 

Here’s why I say that this isn’t just about them or me, but society at large. Someone who has been having trouble in their life finally gets their shit together. Why would you do everything you can to break them again, to disrupt their lives and that of everyone around them? That’s disruptive to society. One can argue that’s just fucking stupid. There are times when someone bounces in and out of their efforts, I'm not so much referring to those people. 

But in the case of someone has obviously gotten through things, where it's been a while and their life has finally come together...NOW we're going to break them and all around them? How does that make sense? I get the, "But they have to be held accountable like all others!" First off, that's not true, functionally, realistically speaking, that really doesn't happen.

It's also not that they would have escaped "justice" if not tossed into prison. It's about Justice looking at the situation in an intelligent way to see beyond the individual's issues and review that of society at large. Get me? Maybe in 500 years we'll have evolved to that and today, it's just too immature of a Justice system to ask for that.

Crime is crime, but drug addiction is a different animal. 

We have long criminalized that which should be in a medical environment with medical and psychological professionals involved, not experts in law. That’s not a bleeding heart talking that’s sanity and being informed. It’s an understanding of the human condition and mental and physiological processes. We have to get this straightened out. The number of people who needed help who instead being criminalized, destroying them and families since Reagan wiped out many of our mental institutions in the 1980s, is itself, criminal.

Well, I just passed 4.5 miles guaranteeing me my 5 mile walk for the day. Feels good to be out in the sun. The cool wind has changed to a warm wind. Good times! Much better and more fun to be able to work hard to get a long walk accomplished, than have it devolve into a hospital stay, or ending up dead.

Just walking by a family in their front yard on the grass, lots of kids in bathing suits and remembering those times. Raising kids has its moments of being really annoying and as an adult sometimes you really feel you need to escape and get some alone time. But I always recognized during those times how one day I would miss it greatly. I’m not sure I miss having young kids around. Well I don’t have the energy for that anymore. But I did try back then to make good memories. I think I succeeded…

I just saw an ant walk across my path towards the side of the road again. I flashback to what I said above about the ants and the matrix and for some reason I flashed on a Loren EiseleyLoren Eiseley book, "The Star Thrower", a physicist philosophizing. I highly recommend that book, sent a copy to my oldest son recently. Great book for physicists to read. I read it when I was in the Air Force and it gave me an out from rather complicated feelings and being tied into packing parachutes, hour after hour, day after day, for years. Considerations of supporting people who fly to foreign lands and melt cities full of human beings. Yeah, I know war/bad people... whatever.

Look I did my job. Luckily, as was pointed out to me, my job was life-saving, not actually going out and killing people. This from a kid who would have been just fine killing people for good reasons in war. But I spent those years in the Service learning, reading, and thinking. Lots of time to think, packing parachutes all day.

But I had more dilemmas when I found out that there were AC types ("Aircraft Commanders"), pilots of B-52 nuclear weapons systems, jets, carrying nuclear payloads, who were also troubled by their job, who told me he knew a pilot who said he would simply leave the base if we went to nuclear war, and drive downtown to die with his family. 

That AC said he didn't see it that way but he said he understood, and it really was each person's decision.

He said, "I would fly. I would drop my payload on whatever destinations were ours to drop on. And then I would either fly too low to be consumed by the nuclear blast or simply fly into the ground. Because there would be nothing to fly back to if that happened. There would be no more America. There would be no more Russia. I wouldn’t just do that to my crew. But I think my crew would agree. Better to get it over with, quick. If we flew back, what would we find? Where would we land? Our world would essentially be over."

When you’re working on life-saving equipment for these guys for if their plane goes down, who does a guy in his early 20s deal with that kind of actual realistic knowledge from those few involved in such singular situations?

On that note, I’ll bid you, adieu…

And leave you with that. 

It’s past noon and past time for lunch.

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #30

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…(2/2/23 Thursday)


Weather for the day… 45 and lightly overcast, and I can see blue here and there.

Podcast for the day pod, “Havana syndrome“ episode two

Instagram post for the day

I swear this podcast is a lot about Cuba, but also about the inside scoop on that country related to Obama opening up relations. Also, our government employees. And the CIA and Cuban intelligence. Also, that has to include Russian and Chinese intelligence. Also the Russians who trained Cuban intelligent services, who then got better, reportedly, than the KGB.

It was a career I was leaning towards (espionage) beforeI went into the USAF as law-enforcement. And still considered towards the end of that service when I interviewed with and got accepted into the OSI. Which the USAF's FBI. I was literally reading "FBI" magazine sitting in the waiting room (should have kept a copy), waiting to see the CO in our base OSI office. Didn’t even know the FBI had a magazine before that. But apparently they are only in offices like the FBI, the OSI, CID, and so on. But that’s another story. And so this is a very interesting podcast, for me.

Once I was accepted, after couple months of interviews and testing with the OSI, I requested to be stationed in Berlin as there had been a year long opening there (CO said no one wanted that position). I would have preferred Berlin over Cuba. But then we weren’t doing that in Cuba, at the time. Berlin was the place to be, to become a seasoned agent of any kind. I still wanted CIA, but I was going to go with USAF at the time. I would replace the OSI Officer the KGB blew up when getting into his car one day. Which was why no one else seemed to want that replacement position. It wasn’t unreasonable to think back then that I might’ve run into Vladimir Putin. I said this before, back then I might’ve even liked the guy. But I never thought a KGB agent being the "Czar" of Russia was a good idea. And then some years ago he changed, and eventually, inevitably, became fucking evil. But then I voted for George HW Bush as president, because I thought it might actually be good to have a president who had been had head of CIA. Who actually knew the inner workings of intelligence. So paint me crazy and call me a hypocrite. But then again in that, you can’t equate the USA with Russia, or the Soviet Union.

I’ve been setting up a streaming movie network for a niche audience that involves us independent film and filmmaker types. Allow me to qualify that… a set up for them, but not involving them directly. Although we three primaries the two founders, those who brought me on, all of us are indie filmmakers. We’ve all directed and/or produced somethings. I’ve learned a lot about this segment of the movie industry the OTT (over the top) providers (Services like Netflix, Hulu or Disney+ are video OTT services). I’ve actually been in the movie audience industry since childhood.

When I was in grade school, my stepdad got a job as assistant manager and box office cashier at a drive-in theater in Tacoma Washington. No longer in existence. It's now a plot of hundreds of apartments. Not having a lot of money in the 1960s, and him having a day job at a warehouse, every Friday night my family my two siblings and mom and I, would be at the drive-in, in our station wagon to watch whatever film was shown, eating employee discounted snack bar food. It was a good time and I learned a lot about things. I probably shouldn’t have learned some of those things. There is no rating system for films back then. My older brother had a job there, working in the field during the day. My olders sister had a job at the snack bar, in high school. After she left high school, I immediately entered it. Then I had a snack bar job there as cashier, as she did. Eventually, I became a snack bar manager, then also worked in the box office. That all  after my stepdad and his boss, our manager, moved to a brand new shiney Drive-in Theater in south Tacoma.

So that’s the viewer experience end of the movie business. Catering to moviegoers. Now I’m on the back end of that, for movie viewers, viewing from their home or a variety of electronic devices. We’re doing a lot of research in building and learning about film aggregators, and CMS (content management system) platforms. Dealing with investors and bringing on people to support us, as we’re almost immediately having too much work to do for just the three of us. I'm the IT department. I just brought someone on to train up. We had one failure in dropping the first CMS company we tried. A turnkey operation in India. From the start, I liked the platform but there were too many problems, and for us, they were too slow to fix things and be flexible as partners.

Half a mile walked now, taking it very easy on my knee. I’m doing well. Maybe. The VA nurse had told me when this happened on my last walk, how I should always stretch afterwards. I said, "Well, I’ve been on the board of an Aikido nonprofit school for years over a couple decades. I know stretching." I had to quit years ago because of my knees. Five minutes in class, my knees would swell up and I could hardly bend them. So I had to quit. They kindly offered I could just stand all through class and I did that for a class. It’s just not functional. You’re just an apple in a class of oranges. You really need to be able to go down and up and down a whole bunch of times. I do miss it. I started martial arts in 1965, then fighting tournaments beginning that next year. Isshinryu Karate. Aikido and Karate are very different. Aikido is Japanese for one. Karate is Okinawan, invented by unarmed farmers to deal with armed and amored Samurai who had taken over their island. I’ve taken various forms of martial arts over my lifetime until I discovered Aikido in college, in 1980. I’ve never been in a dojo where there is so much smiling and positive energy as an Aikido dojo. Kids just love the classes. More so than I’ve ever seen in Karate classes. My own kids took a form of Karate, we lacked in an Aikido dojo in the vicinity, I put my own kids in a karate dojo just so they would have some of that experience. Even though by then, I was not fully invested in their being in a Karate dojo. It’s better than nothing, but I would prefer Aikido for kids.

Getting back to Aikido, and espionage… Our dojo years ago had a big bear of a guy, who is I believe is Ukrainian. We got talking one day, might’ve been over drinks, out of the dojo, obviously. We both revealed something about our pasts that I’ve just revealed to you here. Him, not knowing any better, he wanted to go into the KGB. And I would argue now, maybe my not knowing any better, I wanted to go into the CIA, or something like it. I never had a desire to wear a uniform, even though I did (USAF). At 19 I took the Tacoma police department exams. I didn’t get it. I was mid-level on the test, not knowing you’re supposed to study for it. But I was way above everybody else on the obstacle course, in my running time. Fastest one that day to be sure by, 10 seconds. I was in the 40's next closest to me was in the 50s. Women were in the 60s (seconds). We were running the Fire Dept.'s obstacle course. I literally flew over it. Ran over the zigzag beams, the raised table, under the table in the sand, up and down the building stairs of several flights. And that was after being slowed down by one of the monitors there, accidentally. She said, "Run up the three flights carrying this 70lb rolled up rug to similate a person, across the top of the building outside, back in, down the stairs, come to me and wait for me to indicate what's next. I did all that, was standing before her again with her clipboard and she just stared at me. I said, "Well? Now what?" She got a shocked look on her face (maybe 5 seconds wasted looking down at her rather attractive face) and she said, "Oh!" Go out that window, back in that one, back out and hit the beginning of the field obstacles." I gave her a disconcerting look so she'd read I was not happy and she'd wasted me time and I took off.

Anyway, my friend at the dojo and I worked out in Akido together, the Ukrainian guy and I, we enjoyed working out together. Both respected each other in that. I said once that we could’ve one night met up accidentally, or on purpose, in a back alley in Berlin, us in the KGB and CIA (or for me maybe as OSI), And probably we would’ve ended up being more friendly. But in considering if we had to oppose one another, we both grimaced. I said, with him being bigger than me, I’d really not want to tangle with you in a dark alley like that. And he, perhaps, kindly said, "Hey, I feel the same way about you." Which I thought was a high compliment. And I said so. But he said, "No I’m serious. I wouldn't want to take you on." Perhaps he knew about my other martial arts history. I don't remember. There were one or two others in our dojo who thought they were pretty hot shit. Especially as I was learning and coming up to speed. They perhaps assuming incorrectly I was new to martial arts, after decades being in it since childhood. And I knew they were better than me, at Aikido, until I got equal to them. What they didn’t realize and I knew back in 2000 when I started at that dojo, I had already had 35 years of experience in other martial arts, which I kept too myself for a while. Aikido is a very different animal. So I was very much a white belt when I took my first college quarter class in 1980. Then returned to it in 1999 or 2000, maybe 2001? When I first heard of a local dojo, my wife read about it actually. She said, "Hey, you said if there’s ever a dojo nearby, you would go to it." She was taunting me some. I said, "You’re right." So I went down to check them out. They received me with friendly, open arms, and the rest is history. Our Sensei always said, "If someone cames into the dojo, welcome them right a way and asnswer any questions. Make them feel at home. Postive energy." And so, anyway, if you go to Hombu dojo in Tokyo, you can look my name registered in their records.

Now about my comments on my orientation, wanting to get into espionage. That came up sometime after high school. I never read spy novels. I read my first spy novel around the time my first born's birth in 1988. Somewhere I had aquired the entire collection of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. Old black cover hardback additions. 

My pregnant wife read of them first, after I'd had them for years. I can't remember now where I got them from. I want to say from someone in my family. Perhaps one of my grandparents after they had passed. My wife said they were pretty good. I assumed. She said I should try reading them because I loved the movies. Yes, I loved spy movies. I have to admit to that. I saw "Dr. No" when it first came out, with my mother at the walk-in Community Theater on the corner of 56th & M St. a few houses down and across the street from where she had for a while, grown up, in a house across the street. Later my sister would have her first apartment in that very location, where an apartment building had been constructed replacing a few of the old houses there.

I love the tension and the espionage elements in those movies. Then I saw "Thunderball" with mom, at that theater again, when it came out. Then we saw my favorite, "Goldfinger". And so I read the books. For decades I hadn't wanted to fill up my mind with specifics, that were all fiction. Instead, I had read a lot of books by ex-agents and heads of the CIA and the KGB. Those who had retired and wrote a book, especially after the Soviet Union fell. So finally, I read those James Bond books and was stunned to find how different they were from the movies. And I liked them. By some time in the early 90s, I started to realize, "Hey, you’re not going into espionage, pal." So I started reading that fiction genre and really enjoyed some of them. Like, John le Carré. Who had friends who were spies, so he was good to read. And my favorite author, Len Deighton, who wrote novels that my favorite movie spy, next James Bond, "Harry Palmer" was in, played by Michael Caine in the films. Loved his characterization of that character.

So my point in saying all that, I spent decades, familiarizing myself with espionage and its culture and tactics, and especially the Soviet Union's, and their KGB and I would key into any news about either of them. "Know your enemy well. Better than they do." Which was why, as I’ve said many times, that back in the 1990s, when the still Republican Party started getting so weird and polluted, I started to notice they were using old tried and true Soviet disinformation tactics which only got worse until today. When even traditional Republicans don’t recognize the GOP anymore as an American political party.

So, in this episode of the podcast, they’re interviewing an ex CIA officer who was in Cuba after Pres. Obama nomalized relations, long overdue, greatly because of old Florida Cubans hating their old government, after abandoning Cuba. This CIA officer was talking about his day. He was a new CIA officer back then and he said, "I come home, maybe watch a show on TV and then go to the gym. So people ask anymore, 'What show did you watch?' He laughed, and said, "It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia". Everybody laughs on the podcast. I like this podcast, a lot.

That's it for the day. Got my lame 1 mile in. Headed home. Knee is doing well. This getting old thing, ain't for the young (or the old), to be sure. I remember all the wild things I did when I was younger and thought or someone said, "You'll regret this when you get old." "I'll deal with it then," I'd say, or think. Yeah, thanks younger self, much appreciated. But then, I did have some good times, I do have some great memories.

Cheers! Sláinte!