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!

"The Teenage Bodyguard" screenplay - Ruminations - Happy 4th!

Wishing you all a very happy 4th of July, 2023!

On that patriotic note, celebrating one of our own... 

I know a producer who’s worked with A-list talent on films, and read my screenplay, a true crime/biopic titled, "The Teenage Bodyguard". It sucked him in enough to then work with me on a rewrite. The rewrite was a selling script version while my original was what I referred to as the “Bible“ for the story that was the most researched, accurate and detailed. 

I get the concept of a biopic been entertaining. But for myself watching one, I prefer do at times, accuracy over entertainment value. As long as it’s interesting, engaging, evocative, and informative on things that happened, especially when in arenas I am unfamiliar with, even if it's a bit harsh, or bittersweet, I much prefer that in biopics better than the ones I would like which are merely entertaining and then, I later find out that half or all of it was just pure bullshit. IF you're going to tell a true story, based in a true story, at least try to be as accurate as possible, as much as possible. Unless possibly, if at the beginning your clearly state, "This is all bullshit, but very entertaining."

That producer said about the ending of my screenplay, a true story about a 17 year old guy (he was actually 18, but the producer thought 17 was a better idea), and about his experience over the course of a week in 1974 while protecting a murder witness. She had been a cocktail waitress at Tacoma‘s first popular topless club, run by the local crime family, the Carbones, enemies of the bigger and scarier Seattle crime family, the Colacurcios. And yes, all of Italian ancestry. The Carbone situation made national news in the late 80s for their federal court trial that had to be moved to San Francisco.

This producer said of my ending that he hated it. It had "ripped his heart out". Which was the point. The rewrite we did together, I wrote it, he guided me, and is a more mechanically functional screenplay than mine. But we left out that ending. I loved that. I loved it because this was the orientation of the entire story: bittersweet. For the young guy in a real world, growing up in a tough town of Tacoma, Washington in the Pacific Northwest, a town far tougher than he knew. This is not a typical "coming of age" tale. It is darker than light. Sadly, so many who I have tried to share the screenplay with, latched onto the young guy, hot girl, both caught up in the absurd situation storyline.

The first producer I told about this story was a London producer who triggered the whole thing. He said it was a great story. And that bittersweet intensity was its selling point. I have ongoing access to the actual character in the story and full agreement from him to tell his story. He and his story both are the selling points of this screenplay/story. The problem I ran into with the story immediately when I started writing a screenplay about it, after a lot of research and ever more as the screenplay developed and through rewrites (before I met the producer I was convinced to rewrite it by) was that no one believed this guy‘s life when he would tell anyone about it back in the 1970s. 

So he eventually quit telling this story to people. Stories he would tell people about this life story in general were discounted and disbelieved. "Kids just don’t do things like that," they would say. What is so sad for him about all that was that he was already downplaying those things but still people disbelieved him. Which surprised him. They would claim he was lying to try and make himself look better. But he didn't lie. His desire to never lie is another story altogether. So when people disbelieved him, he was shocked to be questioned. Why would he lie. But then he learned how unusual much of what he had done was to most people. Back then.

Nowadays we know far more about people and more about kids who are known for doing amazing things. And more kids are doing more amazing things now. Just consider Greta Thunberg, for instance.

But back then, for that woman to have happened upon that kid, at that time in her situation, really was an amazing stroke of luck for her. Or them both, depending on how you view it. In the end, he succeeded in his first job as a bodyguard. He later had a few protection jobs after that and into adulthood. She remained while in his protection, unharmed, unseen, and unfound by her enemies until she left the Tacoma at the end of that week. The awakening of this young man, raised as and by then a lapsed Catholic, with an old-school Slovakian mother, and a distant, seldom seen, Irish father, with a troubled stepfather who really didn’t like him very much, these are all entirely other but interesting elements of his story. 

It was a different time in the 60s and 70s. Drug culture was more prevalent. Free love was, if not more of a thing, more of a cultural phenomenon. There were no cell phones. If you were in danger, you had to get yourself out of it or find a phone somewhere. People could commit crimes more easily, and get away with them more easily. 

Some crimes, like the one this story begins with and because, in that of a bouncer at that topless club, in reality his murder was committed at 2 AM in the club's parking lot. It was deemed by a corrupt Sheriff's office, first on the scene, as a random event of violence by an "anonymous person". When in reality it was done by that crime family, to one of their own and most likely, the Sheriff's office, at least some, probably the Sheriff himself, knew what was going on, and what had happened. As he was in the Carbone's pocket, 

I had well known screenplay site, "The Blacklist", perform coverage of the screenplay. One of the reviewers asked in his review, "Why isn’t this already on the screen somewhere?" And that was years ago. Why? Because I don’t live in Hollywood? Also, although things are easier now with the Internet, the Film Industry is still after all a business. For whatever reason, I've been unable to find just the right person who gets what I'm selling here. Hard to believe, but it's true and I bet this happens all the time with great stories/screenplays.

The aforementioned producer, when he read the screenplay, said he had trouble with the beginning. But he got himself through it and in the end, it made him want to contact me. He said he wanted me to rewrite it with his help. Which I think says something right there. 

After it was rewritten, we talked to several directors he got interested in it, who wanted to make it as a film. But either we didn’t really click with one another, or I simply didn’t like their "take" on the spirit of the movie, and it didn’t happen. Because I wouldn’t go forward. We had three chances to make it into a film that I turned down. Because no one seemed to catch onto what the film is really about or who the protagonist was/is. He wasn't just some teenage boy with raging sex hormones. As one true crime podcast put it ("Scene of the Crime"), he was incredibly knowledgeable for his age and time, a quite disciplined young man, with ADHD, who was quite ethical, and had since childhood had a strong sense of character and of right and wrong. Things that had gotten him into trouble at times. 

He had found the works of Aristotle in the local library, in fifth grade and read him. In the early 60s as a little kid, he had liked watching adult detective and court ("Perry Mason") TV shows, and espionage shows. Some he watched with his grandmother. While he watched kids shows too, these were not shows other kids watched. Anyway, overall this a very good story. I just hope before I die, or even after I die, that somebody makes it into a good (great?) movie. 

Ah, now I remember what that London producer had said about this story… It reminded him of the film, "The Place Beyond the Pines" (2012). Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling. A gritty crime drama. And that is what "The Teenage Bodyguard" is.

THAT is what I have been shooting for. More of a serious drama. But everyone wants to turn it into a teen romp or some bullshit. I don’t understand it. The screenplay starts with a few scenes that lead into the protagonists childhood in order to make his story/character all more believable/acceptable. It stresses ta bit on his family situation. He was perhaps immature emotionally, but in other ways much more of an adult than many adults. 

By the time he was 18 he'd done many things that some adult would never do over their entire lifetime. He was a trained marksman by 9th grade. He was military trained in the USAF auxiliary, Civil Air Patrol with search and rescue training, where in his squadron, he was a Flight Commander training other cadets in drill and discipline. CAP kids can get called out of school for search and rescue missions, whenever a small plane goes down, to search for it.

When he actually entered the US Air Force, he was made primary squad leader which the entire flight of 50 men take their lead in marching from. Granted, at over 6' the tallest also goes to the front right for reasons that should be obvious.

He had his Radio-Telephone Operators permit in 8th grade in 1968, in order to operate HAM radio and that same year he flew and landed his first airplane. He landed it with a 2-point landing, which the USAF pilot owner of the plane (a "Senior" in CAP) said was excellent. "Better than some pilots would do", he had said. That scene is in the screenplay. He took pilot ground school, twice that year. He had begun Isshinryu Okinawan Karate in fifth grade and fought tournaments around the Pacific Northwest. 

By time he got connected up with that waitress (through a "friend", or so he thought...), he might well have been the most adept teen in the entire region, if not one of the most adept and well trained on the entire West Coast. 

Tell me that isn’t all set up for one hell of a story!

I’ve not named that Hollywood producer who I had worked with, because we’re not actively working together now. However, he did said should I find a buyer on my own, he would definitely be interested in  being a producer on it. He also said he’s always looking for somebody for this project. 

He's a really busy guy, working on more active projects. He saw this film as a small indie feature. I see it as a little bit bigger indie project (again, "The Place Beyond the Pine"). So we’ve kind of parted ways, but on good terms and may still work together one day. I will say, at the time I worked with him, the last A-list actor/producer he had worked with, has been one of my performing arts "heroes" since childhood. Not to mention, his father. Who, when I was very young, with my own birth father absent, was one of my "TV/movie dads". I've spoken to other guys over the years, who knew exactly what that means, and who also had absent fathers.

By the way, interesting side note… That A-list Hollywood actor producer, whose dad I so admired in the early 1960s, up until he died too soon (but at an advanced age)… that dad of my producer had been discovered by a famous Director, back in the 49? Or so he said. 

After receiving my second-degree from Western Washington University (first from Pierce College), I attended a series of seminars with that famous director. I got to sit and listen to him Saturday after Saturday, about the most amazing tales and advice on film production and the golden age of Hollywood, about his career and the famous actors he had worked with. What I would do to have a video tape of those lectures. Or even an audio recording of it. I’d have done that, recorded it, but it would’ve been too obvious back then. I started that first day seminar to take a notes, but I just gave up because of the onslaught of what he was saying, story after story all that were so amazing and distracting. He moved up north here to the PNW to retire near his daughter who lived up here. Best seminars ever. Week after week of looking forward to Saturday Kramer seminars, in 1984, at Bellevue Community College.

The problem I feared I had with this screenplay, this story, this protagonist, this real person, was getting people to find his character and actions, believable. Just throw him into situations with no backstory seems artificial. It's hard to buy into. People might see it as fantasy. How is this kid able to do all this stuff? Or have the "guts" to even agree to do it? Some is just ignorance. Some is boredom in life. Some was his position in his sometimes troubled nuclear family. Some was his position in his dojo in grade school or his  position as Flight Commander in his CAP Squadron and his first responder training.

Nowadays we can maybe see that in a youth. We see too many films that really are fantasies, but sold to us as action adventure, sci-fi, whatever. I think about the protagonist in "The Teenage Bodyguard" in that he just had a solid foundation. He had a lot of training. He sweat and worked hard since childhood. He was a "dojo rat" from fifth grade, which means he was at his dojo 7 days a week, and even when the dojo wasn’t open sometimes, on Sundays. If he heard the Sensei was going to show up to do some paperwork on Sundays, he’d request showing up alone and working out. And begrudgingly, at first, it was granted. So after mass at St. Joe's Slovak Catholic Church, he'd take the bus to the dojo.

The point of all this? "The Teenage Bodyguard" is a very interesting, well researched, true crime biopic. It just need the right director who gets the story for what it is. One of these days...

Game of Putin, Russia, Trump, America

Why are the Russians acting as they are? Isn't it odd how they act the victim about the recent murder attempt in the UK, how they act so "guilty" as many have observed? Is it a coincidence that Pres. Donald Trump acts the victim and guilty himself? What an odd coincidence.

Why are they doing so well, getting away with so much? I guess that refers not just to the Russians, and in the Russians let's face it, this refers to once again their newly "elected" leader, Vladimir Putin. "Vlad", what an appropriate name for Putin. It harkens back to another damaging leader from hundreds of years ago in that region of the world.

If you've read traditional Russian literature, it tells you something. As a people, Russians are traditionally a complicated people. Complex. Overly so sometimes. But it's certainly worked to their advantage in international relations. And covert operations.

We here in the west, well not so much. We're not stupid, to be sure. But neither are they. Not, by a long shot. They understand better than anyone to and how to play, the long game. At times, the very, very long game. I had learned myself when I was young and fighting tournaments in martial arts, if I played the long game, I won fights more easily. Everyone practiced "techniques". What we called, "combinations" of basic moves. You took basic moves, put them together and you had a combination, then involving in that a strategy, and you had a technique. Now some refer to a movement, a strike of some sort as a technique, too.

As a student of marital arts we learned the basics, offensive moves (and of course, defensive but they stopped the other side from scoring on you, not gaining you points (or tempo in damaging them) but made your points more valuable if you stopped them from scoring, or damaging you). A punch, a kick, whatever single movement that could score a point or damage an opponent.

What I discovered as a kid, even in grade school (and I never heard anyone else talk of it and if I mentioned it to a friend they were surprised and intrigued, which seemed unbelievable to me as it seemed so obvious), was that at that time everyone seemed to practice techniques with two movements. Say, two punches, or a punch and a kick, whatever their favored combination was.

So I started practicing three movements in my techniques. And more. NO one I came up against was doing that. They would practice how to counter, or block someone throwing a right punch, then a straight kick at them and they were prepared, but if you continued on, ready to alter as need be, it left them confused because they expected a two combination technique, then they were going to attack again. It confused many of my opponents who weren't ready for that.

When someone did happen to pull that typically in merely throwing a lot of stuff ast me, out of frustration many times, I was prepared because I practed that myself. Understand, there is a difference between practicing a technique, a combination, and throwing them in the moment. A big difference. You do have to think fast, incredibly fast in the moment, but practicing it outside of that moment over months or years, gives you a toolset others do not typically have.

That, is emblematic of the Russians over others. I also started playing chess when I was in grade school. There were a lot of similarities between martial arts and chess. Or espionage, international politics (or international politics for that matter) and chess.

And so, something came to me about this as a way to explain that difference between Russian culture and say that of Great Britain, or America.

Consider the case with who have mostly bee Chess champions over the past decades.

Mikhail Botvinnik 1948–1957 Soviet Union Vasily Smyslov 1957–1958 Soviet Union
Mikhail Botvinnik 1958–1960 Soviet Union
Mikhail Tal 1960–1961 Soviet Union
Mikhail Botvinnik 1961–1963 Soviet Union
Tigran Petrosian 1963–1969 Soviet Union
Boris Spassky 1969–1972 Soviet Union
Bobby Fischer 1972–1975 United States
Anatoly Karpov 1975–1985 Soviet Union
Garry Kasparov 1985–1993 Soviet Union/ Russia

Classical (PCA/Braingames) world champions (1993–2006)
Garry Kasparov 1993–2000 Russia
Vladimir Kramnik 2000–2006 Russia

FIDE world champions (1993–2006)
Anatoly Karpov 1993–1999 Russia
Alexander Khalifman 1999–2000 Russia
Viswanathan Anand 2000–2002 India
Ruslan Ponomariov 2002–2004 Ukraine
Rustam Kasimdzhanov 2004–2005 Uzbekistan
Veselin Topalov 2005–2006 Bulgaria
Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Bulgaria, all once part of the Soviet Union.
My point is as I said, don't think Russians are stupid. I could go on. 100 years ago Britain learned espionage from the Russians and then the Soviets. We learned from the Brits.

America  has gotten fat and lazy, in certain areas.

Back in the 1980s for instance, military might and new advances in electronics meant we didn't need as many good intelligence people. Or so we mistakenly believed. Much to the horror of our intelligence community who clearly knew better. Not just to retain their jobs, but out of reality, sanity and...intelligence. In ever sense of the word.

What's cheapest we asked? And some managers in intelligence who mistakenly believed and agreed with civilian leadership in Congress.  We  had gotten perhaps a somewhat inflated ego. We believed that satellites and computers would, could, replace real people on the ground in foreign counties. We didn't need foreign nationals to help us spy. That was so stupid, that now it almost hurts in just thinking about it.

All too often we have exchanged intelligence for profit or "saving" money in the short term, over how much we ended up losing in the long term, later, and in reality. How much money, and lives we could have saved over decades if we only had not thought to save a few dollars during one or two presidential terms. In this case it was Ronald Reagan who damaged America, and in so many ways, both externally and within.

As the current Pres. Trump, as ignorant as he is in so very many areas, he has no clue how he is internally damaging America from his international actions. Many of which may not play out completely until long after he is gone from office.

Now with Mr. Trump, in his fear of office because of his lack of ability to manage well, with his lips so far up Putin's backside he's not acting properly in relation to the Russian leader. An, if not illegal, then illiberal leader, a criminal much like Trump, and a con man. Though a far better con "artist" than Trump could ever be.

Putin relies on our good intentions and nature. Not unlike Hitler with Chamberlain.

So finally this past week we  have acted, mostly because we have to with long standing agreements with other countries who are our friends. Not that Trump is treating our friends like friends, but as a bully in so many ways. And too often an ignorant bully, as so many are. Putin too is a bully, but a wise one nonetheless, in part because he is Russian but in larger part because he is KGB trained.

And he has the backing of both Russian and other oligarchs, and the Russian Mafia contingent. Criminals working with the State and the  State as criminals, working with professional criminals. But it is difficult too tell in this case, who are the true professionals.

Perhaps, as they have so long been tied together, it is both. Similar in a much less organic and professional level to the American political Republican party and corporations. America is a far less pungent example of  the workings together of criminal organizations and State, or church and State as in Russia and as we're seeing today in Putin's moves. As some have said, Putin looks for an unlocked door in Eurasia and just walks in when he can. Therefore, we need to be vigilant, aware and know where the doors are "unlocked" and be sure to secure them, and our futures.

We need to help to guide Russia in the right ways to be able eventually tu join the world in positive advancements and a free and open world citizenry. Elections as he has been manipulating to date, are not allowing for free and open elections and therefore for free and open citizens. It's a miserable travesty of government and governing citizens, as well as aggressions against other countries.

This isn't mere diatribe against Putin, or Trump for that matter, though both have some bad things about them, and both need to go, ASAP. However, for something substantive on Putin....

The Great Soviet broke in 1989. Later Yeltsin passed power to Putin, partially in order to protect Yeltsin and family for his criminal activities. Putin appears now to be in that same position of being unable to leave power until there is someone to protect him, as he protected Yeltsin. But in Putin taking over, the effort to reconstitute the Soviet Union under a new banner, began.

As US Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI, Chairman, Homeland Security Committee) said the day I wrote this blog, if instead it had been Boris Nemtsov (assassinated as so many Putin opponents have been in 2015, and I'd suggest, indirectly by Putin) taking over rather than Putin, we may have had a Russia who was much more interested in taking the time and effort to join the world in a more open and welcomed situation.

Boris was as Wikipedia put it, "a Russian physicist and liberal politician. Nemtsov was one of the most important figures in the introduction of capitalism into the Russian post-Soviet economy." Russian state news Pravda (which rather sadly translates as "Truth") claimed anything but what the reality appears to be about Nemtsov in report after slanderous report.

Russia has destabilizing Europe as they can only do, because they are good at it and because they're options are limited. They are gaining power in ways that shouldn't be allowed. As with the Nord Stream pipeline Germany has been trying to promote which would give Russia even more geopolitical power especially in the Balkan States.

Long term we need better relationships with Russia. But we have to take a hard line as Putin respects power and Trump has been weak. Very, very weak on Putin. NATO countries need to step up and pay their fair share to protect themselves and stop Putin's soft aggressions that seem to be working so very well so far for him.

 So we we may have stopped being lazy now, but we're still fat. When you've been fat and lazy for a while, it takes a long time to get back in shape. And Mr. Trump acts like he has an inordinately excessive amount of adipose tissues in his gray matter.

This is going to be hard, and it's going to take a while. We can't do it with Trump. Where he's strong he's most likely not being smart and vice versa. Or he wouldn't have so many bankruptcies and so many wouldn't hate him so much, fand or good reason, and for so long. He can be treacherous. But let's not forget, not as treacherous as Putin.

What am I saying? Only what I've been saying for decades now.

Don't play patty cakes with Putin. Act professionally. Be smart, be very smart. Play to win. Leave America on top at the end, as a world leader. With the world looking up to us as how to act, and how to be a leader. We need to be not just a leader of the "free" world, but the world at large.

But I don't see that starting to happen any time soon.

As a brief aside... it's probably useless putting up #VPOTUS hashtag here, in mentioning Donald Trump's chosen VP in Mike Pence, as too many wacko Christian types see a Biblical second coming as ultimately necessary which is simply and solely working against our government and our nation.Yet, it is relevant and we need also to be aware of that path we need not to tread upon. Not in America. Not in a free country. Not in a democracy and one that is adamantly not a theocracy.

We need to be smart, to act with our eyes wide open. In the most enlightened ways possible.

And treat Russia with respect, and a full understanding of who they are, and who they can be. Who we can end up being, if we don't respond to them properly, and direct them in the best ways possible.

If it wasn't for Britain so long ago having learned about the Russians in their long dealings with them over hundreds of years. If they hadn't taught us, been patient with us in our initial disbeliefs of what and who the Russian culture (Soviets back then, even scarier), we'd still be lost in our dealings with them. And yet we seem to be lately anyway? Fat and lazy? Or just stupid for profit and believing Putin's promise and promises? Like Chamberlain baring his throat for Hitler?

And yet, we still seem to play games with Russia, when they most assuredly are not simply playing game, with us.


#GOP #CIA #INTEL #Putin #POTUS #Democrat