Walkabout Thoughts #82

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…walk day Friday June 7, 2024

Not sure I'm walking off long covid anymore now. Cheers!

 
Weather for the day… nice day, starting out, 57° nice sunny day blue sky cool breeze starting out, 73° when I got home at about 11am.

Podcast Pod Save the World ep. World Reacts to Trump’s Guilty Verdict

with Dan Restrepo. You may have heard his name before.

Noticed yesterday my walking shoes had a hole in the tip of my left foot so I tossed them. Then my back up pair also had a hole in the tip (of the right foot) so I tossed them too, so I’m wearing my new casual shoes to see if they work for walking.

A member of our little Port Orchard Washington artist community a few years ago, a woman offered to help me with my social media for an extremely good cost per month. We only did one month, then she moved to Texas. I’ve helped her with some charity events by sending her books of mine to give out. Last week she asked for links to see my films and really liked my documentary “Pvt. Ravel's Bolero “. She just told me yesterday she finally got around to seeing my film noir/horror short, “Gumdrop “, a short horror.

She’s now asked me if I would consider doing a Director viewing party online with her small online horror group. I asked if she had gotten one of my DVDs because I sent them out to a bunch of people. I think she was gone to Texas by then and she said she didn’t get a copy.

I was waiting until the end of the film festival run for both films, for when I had all the awards they would receive, so I could revamp the DVD versions I produced. Plus, with “Gumdrop“ I also did a Director's second audio commentary track. I figured I’ll redo that now, and and send her a copy. She can listen to it and then we can talk about having an online viewing party. I was going to do one for the documentary film too, but it had so many awards, the way I included those laurels on the desk ate up all the spare room. So I have figured out how to share those awards with a much smaller footprint. I should really update the trailers and maybe the beginning of each movie with at least a few of those awards.

I’ve had been trying to put “Gumdrop“ up on Film Hub, a film distributor, but they had problems with the way I designed and edited the production. I get it as regards streaming issues, to eliminate problems, but some of those "issues" I think are just ridiculous concerns.

Kelly Hughes found another film distributor that we're looking at: Pay Hip. Another is Gumroad. As far as I’m concerned, this is not something a Director should be dealing with, but that’s how it goes when you’re funding everything and doing the entire project yourself as a filmmaker.

OK, moving on…

From the podcast… There’s a "iron river" of guns are flowing to Mexico out of America. People like to talk about all the violence in Mexico or all the guns and violence in America, which 2nd amendment advocates love to claim are supposedly just mental health issues. Look. You put any dangerous substance into any group you’re gonna see problems. You restrict those dangerous substances and the problems decrease. I’m not sure how that’s confusing to anyone, but when you make it political, tribal and partisan, there you have today’s Republican Party and Trump MAGA infection talking points.

OK, these shoes are kind of working but one foot has a sock that wants to be an insert under my foot. I’ve been buying "Dr. Scholl's Energizing Comfort Everyday Insoles with Massaging Gel" inserts (about $13) and they’re pretty awesome. I liked them so much I got a pair for my sheepskin slippers. And a pair for my oldest son who is on his feet all day managing a health food store.

I’ve got really flat feet. Which USAF discovered when I was in basic training. But while they aren’t bone spurs, they’re still pretty uncomfortable. Of course, when you didn’t have bone spurs and claimed you did, well that’s another thing entirely. My foot surgeon when I was in 10th grade said I had the flattest feet he'd ever seen even on an operating table. Had some bone growing out in my left arch and he cut it back. I was starting to have the opposite of an arch.

Look, I never had a problem with someone getting out of Vietnam. I was very happy when my older brother had some legal issues that kept him out of Vietnam while some of his friends ended up there. My brother is deep into the MAGA delusional infection. I can't even comprehend what he'd be like had he GONE to Vietnam.

But some people really should’ve gone. Just think how much more bang for the buck America would have gotten out of Donald Trump, had he gone and given all in Vietnam. 

To reiterate, my disparaging of Donald Trump has never been about the stupid conservative fake disorder, "TDS". I'm also not just a “hater “and it's not just a personality conflict about Trump. The man is a horrible human being. 

I just don’t like criminals in public office. That’s really all there is to it. When people rationalize and disinform, as many Republican leaders are doing now, I don’t like that either. Reality and honesty is just better for a nation.

That’s all there is to this. I don’t like talking about Trump. I don’t like feeding a narcissist's fetishes. But if we do what I (we all probably) feel like doing many and ignore him or avoid talking about him because it makes one sick to one's morals, ethics and decency in humanity, then we might as well just hand the election to the autocrats in not voting or voting third-party because of our own petty lazy narcissism.

If you eliminate lies and disinformation and a desire to break, not fix things as they are… Trump and his MAGA would instantly evaporate. The Republican Party itself would simply cease to exist.

I’ve said this a bunch of times and I’ll say it again here. I think our best course of action going forward is not to get angry, but make fun of those like Trump. It would do as well to get rid of the Republican Party and split the Democratic Party in 2 with our most conservative in a new GOP replacement incarnation.

Putin's new show on Fox News after 

his own State TV "RT" turned him down?

Let’s face it, the GOP is that airplane pilot who flies upside down in the clouds, who wants to pull up into the ground, thinking that would take him "up", merely because he can’t face the reality his dashboard instruments are telling him. Or his copilot who in this case (interpreting Trumpisms) the pilot must’ve shot, expecting to be parised for being such a "hero" (AKA conservative “patriot “).

Yes, it's all MAGALoonacy for fun and profit...by some.

A bit about the Arts...

As I said in a previous blog, I’ve been watching film franchise sequels. So yesterday I started watching or re-watching "Game of Thrones - The House of the Dragons", the "Game of Thrones" sequel. Loved that show. The fact that the two creators and showrunners had never done anything like that at the time, then achieved something remarkable… Remarkable. As an author, I can't stop thinking about how hard that series would be for me to write, and so it makes the show that much more appreciated by me.

On my first go round of "The House of the Dragons" in watching it the first time, I didn’t like it so much. Perhaps in being too close to "Game of Thrones" going off the air. Perhaps because I had to wait a week for each next episode. This past week I watched it all in one day. And I liked it a lot more.

Matt Smith, previously “The Doctor “on “Doctor Who “, I never much liked him as The Doctor. He was just too odd-looking for me, if nothing else. But I really like him as the contrarian uncle and brother of the king on this new show. My oldest son recently finished watching all of the first series (or first season) of "Doctor Who" from the 1960s. He has interesting perspectives on the show.

So I thought I would watch the show again within a week or two of the upcoming series two premiere. And now I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m also watching a "making of" series called, "Game of Thrones - The House of the Dragon: The House That Dragons Built", which is an episode by episode behind the scenes documentary show. Oh, I do love those. This one is so fun. SO much work and detail in this series it's staggering. What a show to have worked on!

I liked the making of "The Fall Guy" documentary. Really made me look forward to seeing that flick. I’ve always had mass respect for stunt people. I could’ve been a stunt person and I could’ve enjoyed that. Maybe up until my first broken bone. I’m just too protective of my body. Which, if you said that to any of my friends who knew me decades ago, certainly back in high school and into my 20s, they would laugh and ask, "What? Him?"

Maybe so. But doing extremely dangerous things safely is quite different than doing it on a movie set for a living. Actually doing anything for a living is way different than doing it for fun.

Which is why I never wanted to be a gigolo... or a porn star.

OK 1st mile walked. I can’t take it. I’m gonna go home and get a different sock. It’s only like half a block across from the street route that I walk. And extra steps and that's good.

This is nice, with these newer shoes where my toe tips aren’t hurting because they’re not sinking into a hole in the tip of my shoe.


I started watching "Stax: Soulsville USA" on MAX streaming. So much incredible music came from them. Music I grew up listening to on the radio in the 60s & 70s, and more. I was into pop and rock as a kid, later hard rock, then heavy metal until it started being called that and got a bit weird. But the Black music was some of the most amazing stuff. And without them, no rock n roll. "Soul Music" spawned in 1961 when Gospel music blended with secular lyrics and rhythms. Rhythm & Blues. I do love the Blues. Something my older brother indoctrinated me into when I was in high school. Though I knew about it from hanging onto his records in the late 60s will he tolled around America on his Triumph motorcycle.

Also check this out: 1932, a women demonstrating self-protection on stagea women demonstrating self-protection on stage.

FYI - In "It Can't Happen Here", the American version of the Nazis were called Corpos (American Corporate State and Patriotic Party). “The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—Salon

You know what’s sad about this whole immigrant thing? Especially MAGA lunacy professing what a "shit hole country" (Donald Trump quote) America is or what a "banana republic" it is (another of his quotes and of his minions, not noting that refers to an American corporation in another country) because we actually do have a justice system that actually does do something to criminals like Donald Trump. 

If you think America’s as bad as the disinformation about us is, try thinking about why those people are trying to get into America. How bad does their country have to be to make them suffer through their trip here to our border and immigration issues once here and the right's idiocy and toxic conservatives who are out for only their narcissistic leader and his best interests.

I just saw a World War II veteran on TV at almost 102 years of age on Amanpour and Company last night. She was over in Europe for the events there as it’s been 80 years since D-Day. In her conversation with him, he said he wasn’t a hero, they’re all dead, he said. "I like to change that word so that it spells 'here too'. because I was "here too".

If this was an MAGA Trump bootlicker, they would just say "Yes I'm a hero" or knowing that's questionable, state it in such a way they mean that, but doubletalk around it. Sad. That is again that mindset of theirs where they believe "the end justifies the means". "It doesn’t matter if we’re right or wrong if it’s what we want then it’s right."

If that’s not evil, then evil doesn’t exist.

Damn. The new sock I used to swap out the old sock that kept slipping down appears to have been an old sock too and perhaps the companion sock to that sock I just threw out. So it looks like I have to stop at home after this mile, again. And if this is the worst thing that happens to me this week, I’m kind of good with that.

Since 2015, 6 million Venezuelans have left their country. 3 million ended up in Columbia for they seem to successfully at keeping these people close to their own country. If we can’t fix the root cause in these countries or in countries like Haiti and others suffering similar issues, why aren’t we at least helping Columbia with this?

Well? Biden has been. They just haven’t been talking about it very much. Trump hadn’t been and has no plans to help there. He just wants to abuse and once they arrive here it’s a good political fodder for complaining about others. That’s who he is and that’s what MAGA is. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have told congressional [MAGA] Republicans to shoot down any immigration plans Biden has to help the border immigration situation that might make Trump look bad. Why is that even an issue. 

Like Reagan, disallowing jCarer a win with the Iran hostages until Reagan was elected. So that the hostages were released within minutes of Reagan being sworn in as POTUS. Some say that's a conspiracy theory. But the timing is perfect. Not to mention, 

On the Iranian hostage crisis, it oddly ended on January 20, 1981, literally MINUTES after Republican Ronald Reagan's inauguration. So there wasn't a deal so he would win, stealing Carter's hard work for an October surprise before the election? Please. More GOP Dirty Tricks.

But let’s not look at that kind of thing. Let’s just talk about how bad Biden is?

Give me a break. We have to find a way to break the back of disinformation politics. DO understand there is a different between spin, as opinion, and out right lies, where the GOP is today, especially MAGA and Trump.

I don’t have any new episodes of Marc Maron WTF? And that was the tail of Pod Save the World. So I’m switching to the latest episode of Pod Save America.

Oh yeah Steve Bannon is finally going to jail. Lose the key Jailer. If it wasn’t for that clown, his puppet Donald Trump wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did in the first place. Once in office if it wasn’t for Stephen Miller, we wouldn’t have seen a lot of the abuses that happened and that little prick is still out there lying on TV and on toxic conservative social media shows.

Oh yeah. When your party in this case, the Republican Party, is trying to block access to contraception? WTF is that about? One could rationalize their bullshit about abortions. But when you’re gonna force people to have kids? Fuck you guys! This is theocracy at its worst. Actually, they’ll get there. If you’re clueless about what that can look like? Please start watching and binge "The Handmaid’s Tale". Or read the book. It’s like a couple hour read. I read it when it came out and it was frightening then back when I knew that couldn’t happen. Wow, was she prophetic and were we stupid. But then that book came out before Newt Gingrich got on C-SPAN in the 1990s and started applying… I’m gonna say it again...Soviet KGB disinformation tactics for the GOP.

OMG if people cannot as yet see that’s what happened, then we’re truly hopeless.

Seriously, start investigating what the USSR KGB was doing in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and onward until now. How Trump took that and ran with it, feeling so comfortable as if he was in his own, but in our public arenas.

You will be shocked what you uncover! Because at some point, the Republican Party starts to blur with the Soviet Union. Once they fell, Russia had Hope in the 90s. But their leadership didn’t like their new path to democracy and the newly grown oligarchs liked their wealth and came to realize that the "end justifies any means" (sound familiar?). And that led to Putin as president in 1999 and the rest... is history.

That’s not my bullshit, that’s not disinformation, that is history. Go look it up.

Though now that I think about it, I've got a warn you. I wonder if everybody goes through this who pays attention? I lived through the Cold War, more aware than most. I have a certificate on my wall from the US government thanking me for my Service in the military during the Cold War. 

Out of high school, I was looking at a career in espionage..I’ve said before I actually got through initial screening for the OSI in the USAF with the highest score that CO said he had ever seen. Before that and from that point on for a decade or two, I kept apprised of what was going on in the Soviet Union and in America, and around the world as related issues of espionage always blend into international relations.

I took civics and then world problems in high school from one of the best teachers one could take it from. I learned a lot and I was inspired by an embedded kernel of interest. I didn’t know existed for decades. But my teacher did. She had been in the middle of international relations about Taiwan when Chang Kai Shek was involved.

So while I was really only interested in espionage issues and intelligence issues from a CIA perspective, or an NSA perspective, it all led you into MI6 and Russian KGB, that again, inevitably led to issues of international relations. Which I avoided at first but eventually just gave up avoiding because you had to know a little of everything to know a lot of some things in that.

Fast forward to the 1990s and suddenly I thought I should start paying attention to American domestic policy which inevitably means international policy. Because I had two kids then. Two young kids. I thought it was high time I was a responsible adult as an American citizen. I grew up with an older brother who was into conspiracies (still reasonable back in the 60s/70s) and was pretty anti-government as many rightly were in the 60s. He didn’t grow up with my nuclear family but lived with his dad and we missed him a lot as kids.

My family, mostly because of my mom, was a Democratic Party/ union family. My stepdad was also a teamster on top of it.

So I grew up with a rather open attitude. In 5th grade I asked my mom one day why she didn’t seem to trust me. She looked at me surprised and said "because you lie all the time". I had stumbled across the teachings of Aristotle at the library, that year and so I told her that I’m never gonna lie again, And I only wanted to tell and learn about the Truth in the world.

Being raised Catholic, I graduated high school trying to avoid the “Jesus Freaks “and searched out religion to try to prove God existed, that the Bible was real, and that Catholicism was correct. That didn't work out so well.

That’s the best way to do it. Prove your case by trying to disprove it and if you can’t then you’re right. You don’t take your opinion and prove that as we see MAGA do all the time.

What I found out updated and altered my beliefs. So when I hit the 1990s and started to notice that things I had studied about the KGB were now coming out from the Republican Party, I fucking paid attention and started looking into that. Trying to disprove it.

What I found was devastating. In telling others what I had found and even offering proof and justification to them, no one believed me. I got lots of looks indicating I was crazy. And why is that?

That's because we are America. We defeated the Nazis and Fascism. So it can't happen here. Right? We relied on that too much, for too long. As some like Rachel Maddow are now showing us, we had Nazism and Fascism in America too. But we defeated it here too. And now we have to do it again, apparently. 

Guess what? Look around today.

Beginning my 3rd mile. 

Today is tough. My allergies have been acting up, which doesn’t help things. But the more you get outside in my view, the better your allergies get. Hiding away from them… You know, doesn't help? "You snooze you lose." "You don’t use it you lose it." That may not be true somewhat of allergies but here’s the thing. As with most problems if you don’t confront them and figure out how to solve them or become functional through them, then uou don’t address them and they won’t get any better.

It’s like the adult told me when I was a kid, one of a few good pieces of advice an adult gave me in the 1960s (outside my grandmother, or sometimes, mother): 

"If you don’t face your fears, you’ll be running from them your entire life."

I’d been picked on as a kid by bullies bigger than me. Size seemed to matter to them. It wasn’t until 10 grade when I lost a few pounds and shot up a few inches and suddenly people didn’t want to screw with me. Which I found humorous. Girls also started paying me attention. It all seemed odd. My life changed a lot and I hadn't done a thing different. 

I had started fighting in karate tournaments in 1965 in fifth grade. One of the biggest events of that kind at that time, in the world. But no one could see that in me, they just saw the short guy. I remember asking a friend about that and he had a good observation. 

To paraphrase him as we stood between classes, in the hall at my locker:

"You have to let people know who you are, they can't see your history by looking at you. If you don't want to hurt them and they're picking on you or egging you on, make it clear to them. Educate them."

Anyway, when that adult told me that about running from fear, I spent the rest of my young life facing all the fears I could find in myself and there were too many, more than I had realized.

If I was afraid of it, I did it. 

I would reflect on that from time to time. Like when I was hanging off of a cliff, up the side of a mountain. Or while falling out of an airplane with a parachute that had malfunctioned. Which I fixed rather than do what you’re taught to do, to breakaway and deploy an emergency chute. 

Something ironically that I got to pack daily in the USAF. Parachutes. Emergency chutes for high-speed egress from a jet. Not civilian emergency chutes. But a parachute that can open, deploy, at 400 miles an hour.

I thought about what that adult told me as I was watching a car wreck happen to me right in front of my face. Oddly, I have never been in a car wreck when I was street racing, or racing on amateur night at a professional dragstrip at Puyallup Dragway.

I thought about it when I was an armed bodyguard to someone. I thought about it when I was backpacking alone off the trail in the Cascade mountains. Or SCUBA diving solo out in Puget Sound.

When friends who took scuba diving with me, would warn me about diving alone because we were harped on about it in class, they asked me why I would do such a thing. And my comment in the 1970s was “Hey Mike Nelson did it all the time."

Referencing the character Lloyd Bridges played in the 1960s TV show, Sea Hunt (where I got to know Jeff and Beau Bridges from). Finally, one day somebody said yeah it wasn’t his character an ex-navy frogman and demolition expert? Yeah I’ll give them that. But it didn’t stop me. And again, I’m still here.

My grandmother had told me as a kid and my mom got it from her I think, to always learn from the best. Always find the best professional you can get your hands on to learn from. Grandma told me to surround yourself whenever possible ith the best experts. Hang with doctors, professors, or lawyers if you can. 

And so I learned you can do dangerous things, but if you learned how to do them professionally, you learned how to do them as safe as possible.

So when I heard people say I had a "death wish" in my earlier years, I didn’t understand that. We'd hear of other people doing the same things I was doing who died and my friends and family would worry. Yet, I’ll be 69 in two months. And I’m still here. So I must have known something, or done something right. Luck only gets you so far. Luck does have something to do with it all, but one has to place oneself where "luck" can see you to do its job.

From the podcast. A new New York Times poll shows that because of Trump’s felony conviction he lost 7% of his voters of 2000 polled swing State voters they had polled previously. Apparently, they didn’t want to reward an unrepentant felony criminal with the highest office in the land. Which as far as I’m concerned, they should’ve seen back in 2016. I told everyone about that. I warned everyone I could. And by the way? 4% of those polled are going to vote for Biden. Which is more important than it sounds.

Those numbers are small but nowadays in politics, important. And it’s relieving to know that things do still matter to people. Granted not enough people, it should BE a lot more. We have far too many people who are allowed to vote who are lost in a fantasy land of manufactured delusion by a toxic conservative, political machine, oddly enough supported by some of our worst international enemies. And some Republicans say they'd prefer to be around a Russian than a Democrat. What is WRONG with you? It's not Russian citizens per see, but the ignorance involved.

What is so difficult to understand about that?

And why have I been having an urge to eat salads again lately? Am I somehow getting healthy again? Well. Cool. I went through several periods of just eating salads over the years in trying to lose weight and it never really worked. And yes, with exercise. No idea...

I was 229 pounds yesterday morning and I would like to get down to under 200 pounds. I mentioned this on blog a while back that I happened to look at my USAF ID card from the 78 when I was in my early to mid-20s and I was 165. And I felt great!

So you'd think the least I can do is get to 200. Wimp.

Apparently, a woman who works with convicted felons and was a Biden voter was going to switch to Trump all because Biden let Roe v Wade be overturned by SCOTUS. Yeah that’s pretty stupid. Conservatively stacked toxic judiciary and it’s Democrats' fault? Well, esoterically it is.

But this woman now wants to know how Trump can be convicted of 34 felonies (with another 54 in the queue) but her guy she’s trying to help has ONE and can’t get a job while Trump supposedly can go on to live his life and become president again?

WTF is that about she wonders?

Also, Donald Trump says he’s never made a mistake. He’s just a victim. Wow. 

Uh huh… Interested in buying a Brooklyn Bridge?

I agree with the podcast. How stupid do you have to be as a rich, white guy and still get convicted within 24 hours of the jury deliberating on 34 felonies? Of course, if Trump hadn't tried to screw with his representation, to leave his lawyers to it, he'd probably not have been convicted of all of those. Or maybe he just was going to be anyway because he's such a lowlife and that was apparent in court, clearly, to the jury, and the judge. An obviously even handed judge with the patience of a saint.

One former Trump supporter in that pole in the New York Times article said they want a president who could effectively cover up $134,000 hush money bribe to a porn star because if he can’t do that, he’s not gonna hand him the nuclear codes. I get the feeling behind that, but he's saying he wants a criminal as POTUS. Sheesh.

Did you know that some group sent out real people to interview for jobs like at Walmart  and shopping malls and other places where normal people would apply for a job and used Trump's conviction history instead of their own? Think about that. Why are people even thinking about giving him a break when not one of us could get anywhere with even 100th of what Trump has been convicted for?

Damn this walk is kicking my ass today for some reason. I feel swollen or maybe dehydrated. I’m sipping some water and I was gonna take half a Benadryl but then I discovered I don’t have one on me and I always carry one on me.

Regardless, what you think about Trump or his politics? Why are so many convicted felons associated with him and his political aspirations? Remember when not allowing criminals into government was a thing? Seems odd nowadays, doesn’t it? Nostalgic. Melencholy. 

Just think of that lowlife, motherfucker, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Remember when Trump brought him on stage kissed him? That was just the other day. Kissed him! Trump said, “I don’t kiss men, but I’m kissing Joe Arpaio.“ WTF? And Trump said he loved Kim Jong Un. Are ANY of you not getting this? 

Sheriff Joe had said that his prisons were “concentration camps.“ Someone Trump loves. Trump loves Putin and Xi. Come on people… Joe denied food and medical care to prisoners. That’s against the Constitution. That’s "cruel and unusual punishment" which is pointed out in our Constitution. 

When you take away someone’s freedom and civil rights, they don’t lose their civil rights, dumbass. You are responsible, we are, for everything literally everything about them. Which is why I’ve objected our prison system for decades because I see them as cruel and unusual punishment. Kind of 18th century revenge paradigm human storage. Rather than educating and training them toward returning to our public streets as a better person and a more qualified worker. We’re doing what? Locking them up like animals? 

You don’t lock someone up and just leave them there. Solitary confinement around the world os considered torture. As I think it was, Michael Cohen who said, "Solitary confinement is torture because you don’t want to be locked up with only your mind." 

Well his detractors would make fun of that. It’s a valid point though. For anyone. I have a degree in psychology and I’m telling you solitary confinement is bad. Timeouts for an hour or a few hours is different. Give someone a chance to reset their metabolism and their mental state. But after that it's solitary confinement and torture. if you have to remove dammit someone from GenPop in prison that doesn’t need to be in solitary confinement. Outside of physical contact of others does not have to be solitary confinement.

Joe A. also locked people up because they only spoke Spanish. You know how many American citizens don’t speak English?

Fuck you failed exSheriff Joe A[sshole].

Here’s the problem I see with too many in police, jurisprudence and government. Who seem to be conservatives. Because things are hard and difficult and not easily, if not fixed, made better. It’s too difficult? So we go "Old Testament" on people. Which is proven to be dysfunctional, which is adding problems to problems. So you don't hear things from conservatives like government agencies are there to protect us and our environment. But you do hear them want to break or eliminate parts of our government. Get rid of the IRS and Medicare and stop Social Security and taxes. I have taxes, but we do need to pay enough to have a safe country. Yes?

Those conservatives are Americans, on a path of America's enemies.

We need a Trump dictionary of how to say something without saying anything because you don’t know what you’re talking about, just make it sound like you said something. This is aside from politicians who say nothing. Because politicians a lot of times, we know they know about a subject, but they don’t want to talk about it because of political reasons. Or their electorate. But that’s different than not having a fucking clue what is being talked about. Which is Trump... 99% of the time.

Starting mile five and last mile. Boy, I’ll be glad when this is over today. I headed out early today cause it’s gonna get warm today. It’s now 10:42 AM.

Trump on climate change. Before... he would say "we lose coastline it’ll just add more beachfront property." Those who had beachfront property would have property that is literally under the ocean. Now he just says, "It’s just weather." the man isn't very smart, but you don't have to be when those who support you accept crap like that and move on to vote for you.

I’ll give you nightmares real quick:

Donald Trump re-elected. Steve Bannon in the WH.

Stephen Miller becomes his chief of staff. 

You’re welcome.

I swear to God within 50 years, maybe 10, there will be movies about sending people back through time machines to kill Donald Trump as a baby. He gets re-elected, maybe sooner. Maybe not made in America.

You know the problem with MAGA mindset, is the way to counter-Weaponize against it. Disinformation is to do it back at them. And then we have the end of democracy. They dare you to do that because they know it’s hard to counter them. How do you prove a false negative? How do you constantly be disproving thousands of lies so you’re not doing anything important? It's why we never before allowed us going down this path.

This is a good Pod Save America podcast episode because they’re talking about if Trump gets elected. Can he do the revenge on his enemies that he’s claiming he will do? Short answer is, yes. He will have the energy and capability. And won't fool around with putting people into positions that aren't like him.

OK, mile 4.5. This is pushing my limits today for some reason. But that’s OK. What's interesting about this is if I were in the middle of long Covid, certainly the middle to worse form I had, this could put me in the hospital or at least have a paramedic visit. But while I am beat right now, it feels pretty good. I'm feeling very exercised as well as not fearful of a hospital stay.

MAGA conservatives like Ron DeSantis in Florida who are members of the Republican Party, who are the party of, as they claim, “business “, most of us would argue of “big business“ and against all the rest of us… literally are killing off small businesses run by gay people. Especially if they’re selling gay merchandise 

And I don’t mean questionable merchandise or sex-related stuff but just gay merchandise. What’s wrong with taking pride in who you are, in America? Just because you don’t believe in what they believe in or you don’t like who they are, and have no saying in who they are, any more than they do you and who you are… I mean if suddenly gays took over and they expected you to change your clothes, or gender or sexuality, because after all, it’s just a choice? Right? Yeah, that.

Let’s try that again. 

There’s a bunch of conservatives who want to force people into acting heterosexual: "We don’t want to see who you are, just be who we are, so we feel comfortable." I get that in a way. But turn that around. Gay people are in charge and they want you to dress very gay all the time and act gay? 

Again. Yeah, that.

I guess that some gay people are over the top. But really there’s not that many of them. They’re just “loud and proud. “If you don’t like it, change your channel, or look the other way, or move on. If you don’t like your kids, seeing it, try talking to them about it. Or if it’s in the wrong area, don’t go there. But so are some misogynistic tech-bro types. And other obnoxious, toxic, masculine types. Etc.

You know what I find more offensive than anything I have ever seen in gay people, or trans people, or toxic masculine types? Having Donald Trump as our POTUS.

Almost done walking today. And I didn’t need a Benadryl. I think it was just dehydration. Drank some water, felt better. My feet are killing me though. I’ve always aired on the side of not taking drugs or medicine. That’s why I never got addicted to opiates. Well that I don’t think I have an addictive personality. And I do think that some people just do. And like bipolar people who are really fun and then, just a nightmare. Kind of.

Kinda like electing an autocrat. It’s all fun games until he starts to not like you or your group, or gets paranoid that you're part of his problem. And now you’re in the concentration camp with the rest of us who you don’t like. 

Welcome! Because now WE'RE in charge in here. And oddly enough because of your actions, the actual inmates are running the asylum out there. And no, we’re not safe in here. Because the inmates out there have the keys to in here.

And that’s all on you.

Welcome…

I’ll just leave you with this for today… 

Please do not have sex with our American flag. 

Love it or leave it but don’t populate with it. 

We already have one fat white dumb authoritarian nutcase guy doing that on stage and in public. 

We don’t need any more doing it in public or in private.

On that note, I’ll bid you adieu…

And leave you with that. 

It’s noon and time for lunch.

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #81

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, Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Weather for the day… starting out, 61° and 64° when I got home, nice out, sunny day, lots of blue sky with some clouds, cool breeze, perfect hiking day.

Took an Instagram shot.

Podcast Ep. 9: “Bulletproof” with Hannah Einbinder

I had put on Pod Save America which I always enjoy listening to and often learn something from. I’m so fucking sick and tired of Donald Trump and his MAGA disingenuous lying bullshit. I just don't want to take it anymore. We need to stay informed, but we have to live our lives. Trump would be happy to suck up our energies always focused on him. Naw...

I so loved this third season of Hacks and especially the final episode, especially the final 10 minutes. Oh yeah!

I’ve seen this sort of thing in my own life regarding the arts or even at times in my career in IT. We don’t always get what we deserve or have worked toward, and sometimes those in authority and power know that they aren't producing for you from their end, sometimes they are clueless, and sometimes they just do it for themselves or others for their benefit, rather than tossing something to those who earned it. Such is life. At least air is still free. For now...

I’ve heard music, seen films, and read the writings of those who never made it into the big time or a profitable career off of their art, or just a viable living. While others who have maybe half their talent have. But it’s all about timing, luck and perseverance, and the right kind of mindset many artists simply do not have

And that’s tragic.

I can prove that simply by pointing out all the sequels in films. I spent over 20 years in IT and though I should’ve done better, this is how it turned out. One thing I could have done was go into management. I had talked to my boss a couple of decades back about that. He told me not to do it. Not at our company, anyway. He had been a worker like I was then and my team was, and he hated being in management. So I didn’t do it and I think he was right. For me anyway. For him too, obviously.

And there lies my problem and excuse for why I have not done better. In some areas.

Money was not a priority in my life. My life was a priority in my life. My family was a priority. When you get to the end days of your life, and I’m approaching that stage, you can’t help but reflect.

When I look at my scattered childhood, I have every reason to be proud of where I ended up. I think that’s all we can ask of ourselves. My children don’t hate me, or dislike me and my family doesn’t want nothing to do with me. Even my older MAGA brother, I believe respects me and still feels I’m family. Regardless of our contentious moments, almost always because of politics. Ridiculous really.

He’s not stupid or ignorant. He’s just chosen to absorb things I considered an ill path to exist on. Especially as it regards groups of human beings, as in a society or a nation. It's not sustainable, as we're seeing today. Conservatism is good for specific times and issues. Perhaps in an apocalypse, perhaps during a war. But taking normal every day life and claiming it’s either of those things, all the time, leads to mental and social illness, and "life exhaustion". That makes us easier to manipulate. And then you end up with a MAGA, or cult-type mindset and begin to desire a leader like Donald Trump, where you cannot see his criminality, even after he’s legitimately been convicted of a felony or of multiple felonies.

The world is horrified that America is even considering re-electing an ignorant disaster like Donald Trump, who should never be allowed anywhere near the White House, or any kind of leadership. Not in public office and not in business.

I’ve never met a business leader so ill-suited to leadership and so bad at it, as Donald Trump. I have walked away from a few managers, but they were nowhere near the level of ignorance and abuse that Trump has achieved.

It’s sad. And therefore, we are sad.

It’s interesting, on my last walk when I was listening to Marc Maron's WTF? Podcast. He was one of the first to do a serious podcast 15 years ago, in September 2009. As he put it? He's still doing the same thing. He’s not added video.

I’ve been avoiding doing a podcast, especially with video. Although if I did a podcast, video would make sense today. Marc has enough of a fanbase he can do what he wants at this point. 

This is my 81st walkabout blog article. I looked this morning and was surprised to see as many people reading it as there are.
,
I thank them for that. That is you... whomever is reading this. Although I do wonder why you’re reading this? I know why I'm writing it. But happy to have you aboard.

As you may know, I started doing this to engage my mind in trying to work my way through and out of long Covid since February 9, 2020 when this whole Covid nightmare began which has been particularly interesting and frustrating. Doing this blog has helped me regardless and if it’s been even a slight interest to any others? Well that’s pretty cool.

Back to the Hacks podcast... they’re talking about “Cliff Biff “, a retired big shot who had turned down character Debra Vance from running what I assume is supposed to be "The Tonight Show". I hadn't realized he was Hal Linden. Loved him on "Barney Miller" years ago. I haven't seen him for a while and well, we've both gotten older looking.

Biff tells Debra she’s talented in the show. Everybody knows that he said and she works hard. And everybody knows that. But if she were to run the show as host she would have to pray that no one finds a reason to say no to her. Because in being a woman it doesn’t matter how good she is. She still has to “pray “that nothing crops up to give them an out for a reason to say no to her." Well, that sucks.

But that’s also interesting. Because that’s today. How success can be defined. It’s a little different across different fields and industries. It may not even matter if you’re making them a lot of money. 

When someone famous says publicly, regardless of their talent, that luck had something to do with where they are now, they’re not being disingenuous. It’s a fact.

There are so many talented people around, but only one or a few can make it.

That’s life.

Today because of technology and social media more of us have an opportunity to get out there and be seen or heard or read. Because there are so many in our contained global economy. There’s only so much money to go around. So you can have massively wealthy superstars, like it used to be, or a bunch of little stars, or big fish in their little ponds, as it is today.

Which is better? Well, today we have diversity. And that used to be lacking. So maybe this is a good thing now.Music record labels used to make a few wealthy, but also rips many artists off.

So when you think like the character Debra Vance, wondering if she were just funnier or better would she have “made it", if you think you ARE already funnier and better, then you’re doing something wrong in another area, so look at that instead.

Generally, that's networking. Getting your work to the right people, or in the right place or time. Someone told me once to position yourself so that luck happens to you. Be at that “place or time" where good luck falls on whoever stands in your specific location in the time/space continuum. Be where Luck will be.

For me, through most of my life, I was raised and punished to be shy when I just wasn’t. I was outgoing and gregarious and funny as a child. In the 1950s that was embarrassing to the family. Same in the 60s when I was a little older but learned to tone it down and avoid punishment or spankings or whippings. ADHD makes you want to avoid overstimulation. You tend to seek it but when you receive it, it’s typically as a form of negativity or punishment. It doesn't have to be that way. 

Whenever we appropriately support those kids, we often see great things happen and not just for them, but everyone. Even while some of them may have interpersonal and social difficulties.

I’m happy to see shows out there like "The Good Doctor", where neural diverse people are raised up and their situations explored and different ways to interact with them are shared and promoted.

We are all different. But the majority of us learn to try and be the same. Successfully learning how to be kind of different in a way that makes them accepted as being the same. Fitting in your inability to fit in.

An anthropology teacher once told me in college that humans are a species set up to raise up leaders and some great leaders. But the greater the leadership, the more the irritation is to humanity so that eventually they want to cut them down or kill them. He gave Jesus as a prime example of that. Here’s a guy who grew up in a rich area in a region with caravans from other lands traveling through with new ideas. He was smart. He would discuss at a young age, things above his station. I’m not comparing myself to Jesus, but in the 1960s I fit that mold of trying to talk to adults about things they didn’t even know about. So I was condemned for it. Looked down upon for it. While Jesus was lucky to  find religious leaders who debated and discussed with him, apparently unafraid of looking stupid. How amazing is that?

And in the end what happened to Jesus? His own people demanded he be put to death in the cruelest of ways. Showcasing, what an extreme irritation he had become to the people he was trying to tell, "Maybe there’s a kinder, gentler way to look at reality and religion and God?"

I don’t buy into the God mythos. I don’t doubt there may be more evolved beings in the universe who we could perceive as a God. But what kind of God would come down and lay out strictures that would lead to so much abuse and tyranny and devastation? Where is the wisdom in that?

There seems to be nothing in the Bible (for example) where seeds were dropped that 2000 years later could be picked up and realized there was something more than those people could understand when the Bible was compiled. Built by the "Council of Nicea", by way of the emperor Constantine who had converted to Christianity and just wanted to keep his empire from dissipating. Religion is a great equalizer for authoritarians. Just ask Hitler. And you can see Trump utilizing the same nonsense. And the Christian nationalists.

Which is why we should fear not God, but organized religions. And not so much the religion being organized but the organizers of the religion. Sooner or later, they realize the power they have and we all know about how power corrupts. It' just too fun for some, and addictive. Some just take to it in the most evil ways possible. Others use it to do good, then realize cutting corners does more until suddenly, you're evil. How did that happen to YOU? You're such a good person. You mean so well, so you must still be good and the "evil" isn't evil and now finally, you're off that cliff, into the deep end and those who once loved you are now suffering and despise you. Or worse, one another because after all, you keep telling them how you are the "Good One".

It’s how I was originally attracted to Buddhism. Moderation in all things keeps us from that. Some people point out the example of how Buddhist soldiers in a Buddhist country are some of the most vicious fighters in the world. I would argue that was in part because when you grow up with anything as humans with our OCD proclivities, we always try to turn good things into religion. 

And therein lay our dysfunction.

Listening to this podcast about "Hacks" and about how a late night show could be all-consuming… makes me think of many things I’ve been talking about. I never wanted massive success. I just wanted to make a decent living to leave something for my kids to make their lives easier when I die and maybe help boost them up into a little more security as they age. 

I didn’t have that with my family. There was some money in my family. But as we moved to the West Coast in the 1950s, actually I think it was 40s for my grandparents and kids... when anyone died on the East Coast, since we didn’t see them that often, nothing came over to us. That’s fine. But then our West Coast family never made much of themselves. 

Grandpa did, but that went all to his daughters though that was a rough time. Mom burned through all that when my younger brother had liver cancer and died.

What went to my mom's sister from that has now gone to their only child, my cousin. Kind of my sibling's and my alternate sister. My mom was a spendthrift all her life. As she would say as a Catholic, she would “Rob Peter to pay Paul “. Because we never had enough money and when it seemed like we did, it was her clever financial tricks. Floating checks, or I don't know what. I just know we grew up with more and doing more than was reasonable or possible. Some of that was my step-father working two jobs. But that didn't explain it all.

I guess she did what I did when I got divorced in 2002. I took the house in the divorce, paid off all the bills for both of us, gave my ex all the extra cash, and then would refinance my house through the years to give my kids a better life than they would’ve had. I should’ve sold the house almost immediately but wanted them to have something familiar. Also got a puppy for the same reason. Distraction. Someplace new to put some love and attention.

This reminds me of my own art in my books and movies I’ve produced on my own. It’s rewarding. They won many awards worldwide. I had hoped something would come of that financially, but all I’ve done was pay out money to promote for now useful reason. Maybe. 

As with my most award-winning documentary, I discovered too late a song that I thought was public domain was not. I’m still working that out. If I can come to an agreement, maybe I can make a few bucks on it. I found a free legal group at an East Coast Ivy league University that does free legal work for people with situations like this. I just have to get the energy level up to deal with them and that situation.

Then my true crime drama screenplay “The Teenage Bodyguard". I've worked on that with a producer and script consultant and it’s won awards around the world. It’s a good damn story and a true crime story no one knows about. True crime is popular right now. So why isn't it getting made?

I don’t wanna make a fortune off of it. I’d like to make a few dollars from it, but… I had once told the producer and a director we talked to (we talked to three different directors), but they were all too small-minded for my taste. They were looking at a "teen romp", or something. I see this as the first producer who got me to write the screenplay in the first place saw it, who thought it was a good dramatic story. Apparently, those who have given it awards around the world agree.

So I told both the producer and director I see this as “Sarah‘s“ story, the woman being protected from 1974's Tacoma mafia after she had witnessed a murder they committed against one of their own. That means little to the producers and directors so far but it’s come to mean a lot to me that I would like to see her story told. More than mine. Because it’s a story of so many abused women like her back then and even still today. And that’s another thing this screenplay has. The whole "Me Too“ side of it. In my teens, I saw a lot of women who had lived through and survived the world men ruled.

It was interesting to experience. I experienced some of what those men experienced. It felt odd. I guess it was...I don't know. Women who gave up sex to you because you're a man and they know you want or need it, but they were detached from it. I prefer someone 100% into being there. Not just satisfying MY wants or needs. I guess I was on the cusp of that paradigm shift. 

In this story, this screenplay, almost as a kid, a teen in my last teen years, I was sitting there listening to an abused woman in her brand new bedroom I had just driven her to, where she was now staying, in trying to hide from that mafia. She was telling me about the guy who ran what was Tacoma's first topless restaurant in the Lakewood, Washington suburb, by the Villa Plaza. Just south of Tacoma.

In telling me her story at one point, she said “And the manager was acting agitated. I knew what he was like when he got that way and what would calm him down. And I wanted him calmed down. So I let him 'throw me up against the wall' for a bit and then he was better.“

“Throw you up against the wall?“ I asked. I thought I knew what she meant but the context was so bizarre and our of my experience I wanted confirmation.

“Yeah, you know. Sex. Up against the wall, in his office. The guys did that a lot with the girls there.“ Guys in an office, at a business, did that kind of thing? What kind of people WERE these?

At 17 it was an eye-opener about a world (of sex and crime) I knew nothing about. It was then she finally asked me what she'd been preparing to ask me: “I don't suppose you have a gun, do you? “She thought and added, “Probably a rifle though if you do, right? “

It barely surprised me and I responded. “No I do have a gun and yes, it’s a handgun."

That was when she asked me “Would you stay with me for a week until I can get out of town? I'd make it worth your while. But, but you’d have to bring your gun.“

"Worth my while?" Interesting.

That set the stage for the screenplay. It actually happened. And that’s just the beginning.

There’s a well-known screenplay website called "The Blacklist" that rates screenplays and does "coverage" (screenplay evaluations and reports) for them. I had multiple coverages done for the screenplay. Rewrite, and have another done. The last two were good. One of the reviewers asked, “Why hasn’t this been on a screen somewhere yet? “

And that was years ago…

OK. Back to the show HacksHacks. I love the character of Jimmy who is "Debra's" agent. Because he’s a good guy, and protective. And that really comes out in this episode although perhaps in a questionably inappropriate way. They like to explore how we are, how we interact with others and how that is obviously problematic. We just need to be more aware. It's not impossible, just kind of annoying. But I've been dealing with this my entire life. Now is just a bit more obvious.

Paradigm shifts are like that. They've always caused us grief until we acclimate. Problem now is, the shift isn't just advanced in volume, but we're dealing now a days in multiple paradigm shifts. And that's just painful.

I just happened to flash on what I was doing before I left the house for this walk today. I was watching C-SPAN from yesterday when the asshole Republican Jim Jordan, who chairs this judicial committee, a cosmic joke now, is having the committee question Attorney General Merrick Garland. Of course, it’s a partisan circus. It's what Jordan does so well. Waste our time and taxes on his Party's ridiculousness. 

I’m so tired of politics in this way. We elect these clowns to legislate and they spend their time trying to "own the libs" and tear down the Democrats to prop themselves up. Pushing them to disallow us any kind of legislation. Like to fix the Mexican border situation, as a prime example.

Makes me think of the Iranian hostages in the 1980s that Reagan brokered so he could win the election and not give Jimmy Carter a win for all the work he put into that situation.

I had two glasses of wine with lunch yesterday. Georgian Marani Mtsvane Qvevri AmberMarani Mtsvane Qvevri Amber or Marani Rkatsiteli Qvevri AmberMarani Rkatsiteli Qvevri Amber wine from over by Russia made in the old way in giant clay pot buried under the ground. Like 1000-year-old technique. I love this wine. They call orange wine. I prefer Amber. But as I was telling my siblings at my sister's last Christmas I think I like this wine because it’s “chewy “. My cousin who knows wine a little bit was very confused. What the hell is chewy, she asked? It's just lots of flavor, boldness. I think because they make the wine with the vines and the skins.

Starting my 4th mile

I heard this mentioned years ago, but I noticed my hands swelling when I was walking last year. Never experienced that before. So my sister, three years older than me, goes on walks at different parks around the area with her ex flight attendant girlfiends (she's retired), and said to me, “Oh yeah, as we get older, that’s a thing. You have to maybe hold your hands over your head as you walk for a bit to let it go back to normal."

And getting older just keeps on giving and giving and giving…

The "Hacks" podcast was just talking about season 3 finale in the airplane scene. That's so funny. Then about the final boardroom scene which is amazing. The scripts on this show are so tightly wound and written, and the callbacks are so delicious, even if you don’t like the conceit of this show, the writing is just so good it’s worth watching. And if you’re a writer (especially a script writer), you really wanna watch the show, listen to the podcast (for fun too!) and study it all.

I shared that last paragraph above with the Hacks podcast Reddit. Had to.

Oh, I should mention this. For the past week or so I’ve been watching franchise movie series. I went through the last three Star Trek movies because of something said at my friend's house in Tacoma, something his son said. I had driven over for his wife Angie’s lumpia that she makes. They are so good and I haven’t had any since the 1980s. Last time it was with our late friend Mark. So we celebrated him as we stuffed our faces. Miss ya big guy!

Those films got me onto the last Alien films, Prometheus and Alien Covenant. I went to look for the next film and it turns out it’s supposed to be released this year, or so says IMDb and is titled Alien Romulus. There’s some trailers going around, but they are just garbage.

So that led me into watching all of the Terminator movies. And wondering when the next one will be. I watched the making of, which was interesting and I dug out one of my DVDs of Terminator 3 and I want to watch the extras on it. I tried to watch & listen to the second audio tracks, which are with the Director and actors and another with just the Director, but my Blu-ray player refuses to play those tracks!

I also watched all of the RoboCop movies and some documentaries on that. A while back I bought "Robodoc" on the making of Robocop but then I found it for free on Amazon Prime. It wasn’t free when I bought the DVD, but that was months ago.

I bought the criterion version of the RoboCop movie yesterday, which I think is the director's cut.

So now I’m looking at other film series to watch (I actually still have "The Avengers" original TV series with Mrs. Peel to watch, and the Zatoichi series of Samurai films on DVD, and "Wolf and Cub" series). I'm just kind of into sci fi right now. I did action a could of weeks back (Bourne, John Wick, etc.)

But I’m not finding anything else as inspiring to watch the whole series of. I considered Predator and Matrix and others.

The interesting thing about these franchises is I don’t want to watch them again because I’ve seen them so many times and I know them so well. But as the Terminator series showed me, I don’t even remember some of those movies so it was fun watching them again. 

As if I could perform the mental forgetting technique as described in, Stranger in a Strange Land" where you can read your favorite novel, use the technique to forget it, and start again from the beginning. How many of us have wanted to do that with a favorite movie or even music album? (or relationship?)

The Hacks cliffhanger in the final episode for this season was one of the best of all shows I've seen this season.

I’m also watching a really good sci-fi show, "Dark Matter" on Apple+ (Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly, Alice Braga), that screws with timelines. I’m really liking that show and the new episode comes out the same day as a comedy which is very sweet, "The Big Door Prize (Irish actor Chris O'Dowd). Love him, just wish he'd been in more things and more things I'd like to see him in. A similar issue I have with a very funny Irish comedian, Dylan Moran (Black Books). Love everything I've seen them both in, actually.

So that was the final Hacks podcast episode for this season, number nine. That show is so well set up for an amazing next season.

I was gonna switch over to Pod Save America, but then I thought I’d switch over to Pod Save the World (both Crooked Media projects) because they’re going to be talking about how the world is responding to all this stupid bullshit about Donald Trump who we never want to hear from again. If ever someone needs to be locked up, it’s that shithead loser. I say that as a professional using professional lingo.

Here’s the thing about Trump, but I’ve been saying this since he first ran for president. If you like him, if somehow you can divine what the fuck his platform even IS. If you like his platform, I don’t give a shit. Just get somebody else to do that platform for you. We just don’t choose certain bad people to be our leaders. And he is the fucking patron saint of criminals and bad people.

You just don’t allow some people to run the most powerful nation in the history of the world. I mean, are we stupid or what? Because literally, nothing else I’ve heard explains this phenomenon. When you have a cult that can get people to drink poison to kill themselves, purposely too, I don’t know, suddenly to magically appear on a spaceship out by Saturn, or something, as if there’s a logical excuse for what you’re being asked to do? I guess that could explain MAGA and how people can still support Trump.

I posted a meme and a blurb yesterday on Twitter, who is now apparently literally “X” in allowing X-rated media now. Gee should’ve seen that coming, huh?

I took that brief aside... now I can’t remember what the meme was.

Oh, yeah. This...

Al Capone, the Trump of his time, the better criminal, more charismatic creep, here in what would have been his MAGA-claimed weaponized court trial that finally brought him down & sent him to prison, forever. 

As Trump should be. Notorious gangster Capone was not officially affiliated with any political party. His political views were more aligned with toxic (Trump-like criminal) capitalism & just Machiavellianism.

So, it wouldn’t be accurate to label Al as party-affiliated on the available info...his actions were more about personal gain (like Trump) than political. Today, MAGA would elect Capone just as & for the same reasons they have Trump & now wish to AGAIN!

MAGA & the Trump GOP are now our party of crime & criminals with their actual national leader BEING  a Convicted Felon...just like Al Capone!

Weather today is perfect hiking day weather of broken clouds, plenty of blue sky light cool breeze sweating a little bit, but not excessively, not overly hot for hiking. I used to love backpacking in the mountains in. There’s so many things I did when I was younger at times just so I would have memories and now I have to thank my younger self for that. 

Thank you younger sel!. You did me a service, so many interesting moments… 

Thanks, dude!

Starting my 5th mile, yay!

Mexico elected a female president! Mexico! We barely got a female VPOTUS. Come on America! All this bullshit about MAGA. TRY to actually do something to move America into greatness beyond where we’re at now, or have been. Not trying to go backwards to be great, but progress into progression. Conservatives don’t even know what the word conservatism means anymore.
But give it a shot. Learn who you are. Or change your name.

I’ve been saying this all my life...to stay in place requires moving forward, certainly as a society, to maintain an equilibrium to maintain a status quo, requires progression to actually stay in place. Having no progress or progression is to go backwards and regress. And that is where the Republican party is today, who even say they want to go back(wards).

They want to break, not fix. They have no idea how expensive that is or how dangerous or how destructive, when it’s right there in the name of breaking something. They want to defund the DOJ, defund the FBI and defund our agencies created to protect us and our environment.

My MAGA older brother posted last week something about my "hero sleepy Joe Biden" or "criminal Joe Biden". So childish, so Trumplike. So delusional. Even if Joe were a criminal or his family were a crime family. They wouldn't hold a candle to Trump or his family. Sigh...

Anyway, pointed out to him he’s not my hero. That’s more for the other side. For his side. 

Oh weird I just walked by a woman who got out of her car and walked into the house. They were wearing a perfume my ex-wife used to wear. We got divorced in 2002. It was a weird wrench in the brain in kind of a good way and then kind of a weird way and then kind of a not-so-great way but this pleasant smell lingers. Oh well…

My point about my brother being as well as MAGA, Trump and Republicans, they seem to think we are the opposite of who they are, which just isn’t anywhere near the truth.

I have no undying loyalty to anybody. You break the law you should go to prison. But for whatever I’ve seen, Biden doesn't deserve it. Trump does. I would say Hunter Biden probably doesn’t deserve what he’s getting now, rather some of Trump’s kids do. What they’ve nailed Hunter Biden for is one of those things that is there so they can use it when they can’t get you in another way. 

Do you have any idea how many people do what Hunter Biden did, get caught and nothing happens? Some do get caught and something happens but we need to get into it and we'd see there was something else going on. Whereas what’s going on with Trump is crime, not politics. We can't get it through to MAGA that the DOJ, unencumbered by politics, brought indictments against Trump because he was getting away with Crimes! While the political machine tries to make it look all political, it's really more about an irritation of flaunting the law, breaking the law, and getting away with it. I said years ago, you don't make someone like Trump POTUS. THIS is WHY!

What’s going on with, Biden does seem to be just politics.

OK 4.5 miles reached which guarantees me at least 5 miles walk today! I love getting exercise, always have all my life. I miss the days of being able to work out and push myself beyond my limits. I can’t do that very well now, a little bit. But I have to be careful. Screw careful. Everyone should know that whatever exercise you get through all of your life it’s going to pay off in your later years. So just do it.

My youngest gets plenty of exercise since they kind of own a microform. My older son manages a retail health food store and then plays computer games all night and on the weekends. He has a side gig of gold mining but hasn’t done that in a couple of years although it’s still in the works and he'll be doing it again. Hard telling if he’ll read this year‘s after I’m gone. But I just want the best for him and I know that getting more exercise than you need for a day in your life is very important, especially as you get older. 

He got a massive amount of exercise growing up, being pretty hyper as I was. I just wish I could convince him to ride his bicycle the few minutes to work and back. Or walk there or go for walks or go hiking or go work out at a gym or get some home gear. I would even buy it for him to work with. 

To be fair, he is on his feet all day at work and that's something. I had a sedentary job in IT for the last part of my life and that could’ve been healthier for me. But I did go work out when I commuted, and that commute was an exercise. We also had a very nice health club at work. I would go over to work out at lunchtime, and when I worked from home, in the last so many years, I had equipment there to work out on.

Parents and their kids as adults...

I’ll just say this for everybody… Someone told me this rule decades ago that made a lot of sense. No matter how much exercise you get on a daily basis or in your job… You need to work out more than that to make your day easier, safer, and healthier. And there are long-term benefits to that which you cannot calculate. Well, there are always exceptions to the rule and for most of us that’s the case.

Pod Save the World is talking about the Israel/Gaza conflict. Or War. Whatever you want to call it. Look, what I’ve never understood was how you give land to the Palestinians and then allow settlements in those lands that are no longer Israeli land. I’ve heard lots of rationalizations about how that is or needs to be.

I’ll give you another example. If you give something to someone, it’s legally theirs. You can’t take it back. It’s therefor them to do whatever they want with it. So be sure you wanna give it to them in the first place. You can’t borrow it, because that stuff now, you can’t take it back, that stuff, now you can’t destroy it because that’s destruction of somebody’s property. And again that’s theft

I’ve heard people say the reason for the illegal settlements in Palestinian land is protection for Israel because of who and what and how the Palestinians are. My counter to that would be, yeah sounds tough. Sounds like it’s difficult. But you have to work something else out. Sorry. It’s their land. What the fuck are you doing on it?

And so they finally lash out in inappropriate ways? Surprise? Bet you wish you had figured something else out other than the way you handled things leading up to that situation, huh?

So what was your response to the attack? The slaughter of civilians with the excuse of trying to get those who attacked you?

Uh huh…nice.

Look, I was a fan of Donald Trump’s for maybe decades. Until he started the Obama birtherism shit. I wondered what the hell was up with Trump doing that. It had a feel to it of Soviet disinformation which I had studied for decades and then noticed in the 1990s that the Republican party was using some of those tactics within America... against Americans, for their political supporters support and their own benefit. That made me very concerned and I told people that, whoever would listen. I got a lot of looks of, What? Are you nuts?"

When I was in the USAF, right at the end, I interviewed with the USAFOSI and passed the initial screening and testing with flying colors, and asked to be assigned to Berlin. All I had to do was turn in my paperwork, and CID would vet me and I’m pretty sure it would’ve been good and I'd have been assigned to Berlin. Where I would inevitably have met Vladimir Putin. I decided to get out of the service and start college. But I continued as I had since high school, to study the Soviet Union and the KGB and by association the CIA and MI6, whom we simply know in the media by that name rather than by their name: "Secret Intelligence Service" (SIS).

So when I started noticing the Republican Party using tactics against us the KGB had been using against us for a long time. Which MI6 had taught us about for decades because they had long dealings with Russia over 100 years as Russia and the Soviet Union… in noticing Republicans using KGB tactics it was extremely disturbing. Especially since no one seems to notice in the 1990s or 2000s

Then I started looking into Trump when he ran for president and started to really understand what a career criminal he was. And really become worried. While others threw names at me like "libtard" and "TDS". It was shocking, actually. A bizarre experience because I wasn't dealing at ALL in politics, or disinfo, but reality and facts and decades of education on these things. 

But "I" was the "idiot".

I had great respect for Russian special forces and special elements of the Soviet Union. I had great respect for Israel's Mossad. And for Israel. And they were a benefit to be our friends considering where they’re located, although how they got that land after World War II was problematic. 

But they’re not showing a very good light as to who they are anymore and I find that troublesome.

My2CentsRepost/ @remy2cents

Georgia Clooney owning MAGA for your pleasure - 

check his video out.

On that note, my 5 filmes walked, I’ll bid you adieu…

It’s noon and time for lunch.
Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #76

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…walk day 5/17/2024 [After a covid shot this morning, the next day was rough, so it took a few days to get this up online, apologies...]

Weather for the day… starting out, 58° nice sunny day starting out, 63° when I got home

Podcast Hacks Ep. 5: “One Day” with Adam Bricker

and then, Pod Save America Trump Trial: "Jail Is on the Table" (here's hoping)

Damn, I just got my spell checker working again here. I hadn't noticed it was broken. Cheers!

Update from 5/19/2024:

BREAKING NEWS: This has now been confirmed. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (AKA "Butcher of Tehran") and others have been found dead at the site of the helicopter crash on the border of Iran on Sunday. This is sad but some are celebrating Pres. Raisi's demise and could lead to progress if only someone like Hassan Rouhani could replace both him and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, moving Iran into their future, rather than remaining toxically tied to theocratic ridiculousness. There's hope Rouhani could move into the future.

Moving on and back to our regularly schedule program...

I've never seen such a time
when so many
think they know so much
about so little & yet
are utterly clueless
about just how wrong they are
about so very much.

- from Quotes Along the Murdock VII

America was based upon a concept of a free people who can govern themselves guided by common sense & belief in a Greater Good. Sadly, Republicans today decided to forego common sense AND that greater good for their minor one, through which they will force govern all by, their few. This is not liberal democracy, or a republic. It is autocracy enforced by self-desire.

- from Quotes Along the Murdock VII

Democracy is good for everyone, if you keep capitalism under control from becoming toxic. While fascism is good only for the Fascists, until they finally get around to eating their own.

- from Quotes Along the Murdock VII

Any "Great Stupid" remains dangerous until it stops moving.

Just listening to them talk on Hacks podcast about the shows protagonist losing parents too young. I was four years old when we had moved to Spain from 1958 Tacoma and suddenly one day... my dad was gone, kicked out of the country by my grandfather who had gotten him the job over there in the first place in Franco Spain. We were in Roda, Spain. 

I was just thinking about this yesterday, writing it up for my autobiography. I thought I might write the section backwards, starting with my step-dad after moving back to Tacoma in 1960. Backing up to Philadelphia the year previous and asking my mom where dad was and when is he coming home? How she progressed from the first time I asked that before we had moved back from Spain. Where's dad? "He went home ahead of us." Upon arriving back in the States, where's dad. "He'll be here soon." Then, where's dad? "He's not coming home again." I was four. Then five, when I realized Dad was somehow gone? Could Mom be gone? Then the step-dad arrived and I did not like him. It was a downgrade. What if dad can be gone, then mom can be gone. Will I be stuck with this guy, then? Fear.

It might not have been so bad, as it goes, if the new stepdad we’re "better than", or if I had liked him more than my dad. I remember little about my dad before he left. I remember mostly, after. After we had moved back to Tacoma and he took me out a few times. I remember very clearly when I was like five or six. I remember he took me in his brother's boat and let me, ME, drive it, at five years old. We left the dock at Point Defiance Park, and went over to Vashon Island.
 

I remember playing in the shallow water on that beach. I remember on my sixth birthday, dad taking me out to the "B&I Circus Store" on South Tacoma Way. Took me to the toy section and said get whatever you want. And I went for it. A store famous for "Ivan" the gorilla. A movie, "The One And Only", was made about it, with Bryan Cranston.

I had my arms full of toys that day at the B&I. Finally, Dad squatted down and looked at all the stuff I had, likely thinking there wasn’t enough in his wallet. He was a construction electrician. But divorce can be costly. So he picked one of those toys and said, “OK. You can have this one, or you can have all of those you’re holding.“

That was a miserable choice. But I chose the one. A plastic replica of a Winchester rifle with a speaker in the side butt. When you pulled the trigger, it made a weird "shooting sound". A "Sound of Power". I thought even then it was a corny sound, but in 1960 you made due. And that was my birthday present. My second gun. My first gun having been t wooden army rifle, which they mass-produced after World War II.

There’s a big story about that one. I was wearing a navy sailor suit when we traveled to Spain. Mom had my older brother and later my younger brother and our sister all in cute little Navy suits for photo portraits that hung on our family home wall all the years of our growing up. Guess she had a thing for Navy guys. Though my dad was Coast Guard, saw action and had a Purple Heart medal.

We had taken the train from Tacoma, to either New York for the flight, or more likely to Philadelphia where our larger family lived. When we took the TWA plane from Idlewild Airport to Madrid, there were all these lockers where you could lock your stuff up until your flight. I thought it would be cool to stick my rifle in there. So when they called our flight over the public address system, Mom said, "OK, let’s go." I told her I couldn't. I had to find my gun! I was in a panic.

She looked at the hundreds of lockers and realizing we could miss our plane, probably wanted to kill me. All of my life since, I remembered crying and her dragging me to the plane, I’d lost that rifle and regretted and resented it ever since. Until a few years ago when I was looking at photos and our photo of us exiting that plane in Madrid, Spain back when still walked down portable stairs, brought up to the airplane on the tarmac plane parking...and there in the photo, as I was walking down those stairs with my mom and sister, is my rifle. That really blew my mind.

About that Navy suit and Army rifle. There’s a notorious photo of me on the tarmac at Idlewild Airport taken by TWA professional photographer, Ken Fletcher, Public Relations. He asked if he could take the picture. My mom just kind of looked at him. He said, "Mam, you got a cute little boy wearing a sailor suit, carrying an Army rifle. This is priceless. I have to take this picture. And I promise I will send you a copy of it. So she said, OK. And so he did send us a copy and I have it. 

On back of  the 8"x10", it says:

"For Worldwide immediate release: Idlewild Airport, N.Y., Sept. 17 (1958): Mixed-up sailor, 3, carrying an army rifle stands guard before boarding his TWA Jestrream flight to Madrid, Spain. The Tacoma, Washington, youngster will be joining his dad, a construction engineer, for an approximate three year stay. Photo by Aviation News Pictures, New York International Airport. Ken Fletcher, Public Relations, 380 Madison Ave., New York City, Oxford 5-4525 Ext. 701"

So I don’t know… but I like to think that 1958 my photo did go around the world for advertising for TWA Airlines. And we loved, Trans World Airlines.

So I’m retired, on a fixed income. Though I’m still trying to produce things to make money. I won’t go into that here, now. I’m living off of retirement from the company I retired from and my Social Security. So, fixed income. But I’m doing OK. I'd hoped to be doing better but then considering how I started out in life, I couldn't be more pleased how well I've done.

Like many, I too go through this round-robin of streaming services and cable TV that a lot of people do. I pay way too much for my Comcast cable and Internet and I also have my cell phone through them. After many years of Verizon since I first got a cell phone, I got tired of paying almost 80 bucks a month, when it went to free with Comcast. So I switched. I get their cable package plus some streamers. I get Max for free. I get Peacock for free. But it's pricey. I go around with Hulu, Apple+ (which I’ve been keeping steadily for some reason). I do like Paramount+. But like for this month, I got Netflix. I watched everything I could & was interested in. Saw some good stuff. Then I let it expire at the end of 1 month. Then I start up another one, this time probably Paramount+ for a month. Or I'll skip a month or so trying to keep the already staggering overall price down.

I had Hulu and actually kept it for a couple of months longer, maybe three even. The last thing I watched was "Shogun". I have the original on DVD with Richard Chamberlain. But my end of Hulu month hit too soon and I didn’t get to see the last episode of Shogun. Bummer. So how can I watch it for free? Or do I just buy another month? I could. I have the money. But try to keep costs down, or they can get out of control after a while, especially if you don't keep an eye on it. 

I go through that with Amazon Prime on buying movies. I watch what I can for free but allow myself a movie purchase on holidays. Otherwise, you realize you've spent $100 or $200 with no idea how you got so out of control. I told that to producer Robert Mitas whom I was working with a few years ago. He's a producer with Michael Douglas. We were working on my true crime screenplay, "The Teenage Bodyguard". 

He'd said something about watching some film he thought I should see, and I offhandedly explained how I try to keep costs down by not purchasing movies without attempting to keep the numbers I watch low. He chuckled, obviously unaware of not having a lot of money. It was a bit uncomfortable because we both realized that from opposite ends of the financial spectrum. He might have been talking about his produced film, "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" (2018). I highly recommend it. I ended up watching it and it was a fun film. It's from a Shirley Jackson story (she wrote, "The Lottery"). Michale Douglas was also a producer on that film.

Shogun...I see they renewed it for two more seasons, or as they say in the UK, two more "series". So I think maybe I’ll just wait for the next season two and watch the last episode of season one that I missed when Hulu month ended too soon. In the past, I have watched the last episode of a new season arriving, just to get back up to where I should be for that season. So maybe I stumbled upon something that will be kind of useful and most cost-effective.

Well, I got in an art podcast today with the Hacks podcast, but it was short. So I switched over to "Pod Save America" now. I already listened to the last WTF? With Marc Maron. Have to wait till next week maybe for a new one of those. I feel like I did when I discovered Jon Stewart on The Daily Show after years of him being on. "Why didn't I find him sooner?"! I liked Jon when he was a VJ on MTV in the 80s.

So it looks like Biden and Trump will have two debates with no audience. Thank God, so it’s not just another Trump circus. Hopefully, they’ll turn off the other’s mic when one is talking. Trump has had his circus long enough on debates. Time to get back to adults debating and following debate rules, not Trump bullshit disinformation and distraction (lack of) rules.

I’ll just say this: fuck Trump and any who still support or follow him, who are too lazy to go out and double check how DIS-directed they are. They would throw that back in my face no doubt to say YOU check YOUR information because WE are right. Sorry, but I did that years ago. The first thing you ever do is go out trying to prove your beliefs or information are wrong and if you can't, maybe you're correct. THATS professional researching. I’d been a professional researcher as a senior tech writer for years. You cannot turn in a white paper on something there to management and be found out it's all nonsense. I would’ve been out of work ASAP. And yet I survived in that career for some time. The respect I received in that career was beyond any other career I've had. I wonder sometimes if it was a mistake leaving it to delve deeper into computer mechanics, systems, and processes?

So MAGA...on your information. If you were right about the insane things you believe in then I would be agreeing with you And since I’m not, sorry. You're wrong. Sounds like I'm full of myself, but when you've done the work, the research, the vetting, you earned it. Unlike those who faultily "do their own research" and come away unduly full of themselves and thus, disinform ever more easily distractable and delusional people. Something our enemies, and Trump, and the GOP depend on anymore. Sad, but true. Proven to be true, over and over and over again.

Fox News is losing their shit over this debate thing saying that Biden is slinking away from the debate by sending it to liberal news networks. Apparently, they never watched a debate with Trump in it. It’s a fiasco. It’s not a debate at all. It’s a little bitch whiny... little bitch, interrupting adults. And trying to make it look like it's all a joke. And his people love that because he's their failed TV entertainer. It's not a joke. It's our lives, our country, our democracy, that they're trying so hard to end. Literally. 

When you hear conservatives talk about "we're not a democracy, we're a republic," that's a whistle call for what is now called MAGA Speak. Anti-democracy, for the purpose as we've now see, of minority rule because conservatives know better what is best for America and Americans. It's just authoritarianism, pure and simple Simplistic binary thinking. Black & white, nothing is grey. You're good or bad. You're with them or an enemy. "IN God We Trust"! Division, separation, partisanship. Friend or foe. 

Which is all bullshit. We're a very blended citizenry, unlike most nations. We support immigration. Not divisively pick it apart and make trouble over non issues, inflating issues, acting like bigots, etc. The immigration system was purposely broken for purposes of division NOT what they profess today.

E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, ONE. THAT is America and THAT is what we need to get back to. This has been a decades-long slow moving coup. And it's finally, here. Republicans are not our enemies but have put themselves in that slot. Some are trying to get that party back finally seeing the dangers they have wrought in trying to regain control. Neither party NEEDS control. We need to work together. Compromise. Taking the other's side, when they are correct. Not refusing to work together because you're not winning. THAT is either idiocy or working for our enemies, saving them money, time and effort.

I guess there will be a vice-presidential debate and that ought to be delicious. I have an odd feeling that VP Harris will shred any MAGALoon Trump picks for his ridiculous VP.

According to Hannity on Fox News, Biden challenging Trump to debate is him avoiding a debate. Good to know? I tell you, these people are fully in some other universe where nothing functions.

The rule I would like to see for the Biden-Trump debate would be both of them in glass cages, and when the other one's talking, no matter what the one does, the one who’s screaming and disrupting would be Donald Trump… You would see his mouth moving and that’s it. I would even suggest CGI to block out his mouth so you can’t see what he saying to lip-read. All we should be asking for is to give each guy a chance to speak and only then let the other one talk and without interruption. It’s always been that way. And if people don’t like it, don’t watch the debate. Because if you’re looking for entertainment, you're just into Trump. If you’re looking for a clown show, that’s where it is.

One has to remember a couple of things about Trump and his GOP and the whole maggot mindset. No, no... I said MAGA mindset and voice-to-text translated that as "maggot". You may know I don’t play that game. Those are American citizens. I do think they are loony, so I do call them. "MAGALoons" because they are NOT based in reality. But that's a joke. It’s satire… You’ve heard of "Looney bin"? An ugly term from the past referring to people with mental issues. However, after a university degree in psychology, I learned that we don’t call the people you take care of in that field “Patients" but “clients “. Because "patient" indicates they're ill and you want their mindset to be that they are either healthy and healing from something, or they are becoming healthier in being your client.

Yes, you could argue under that paradigm that I shouldn’t even call them what I do. But I’m going from a lot of people who are trying to dehumanize American citizens as insects which has led other countries into genocide or a Civil War. Which the right keeps pushing for. And the left keeps seeing may be needed, but we don’t want to go there. So for now, "MAGALoon" it is. 

It’s actually meant in a softer satirical tone. Somebody acting Looney we can help. Somebody that’s a maggot needs to be excised from humanity. Let’s not go there in a country of diverse cultures. And again, let’s get rid of that stupid fucking theistic motto “In God we trust “because it’s led us to far too much of this crap and this devicive and this dividing us and looking down on others and Christian nationalism which the FBI is worried about regarding domestic terrorism. Which is just enhanced religious bigotry. 

Back to "E pluribus unum" or “out of many, one.“ Back to a cohesive country, or at least trying to be one.

We need to all come together to try to stand in the same basic reality and see where we’re all going wrong, together. Enough standing apart, hating.

I constantly try to see the other side and can modify my view closer towards them, IF I see they have a valid point. A point-based in reality, obviously. Where so often now it is simply not based in reality.

But I don’t see that on the other side. I see their religious based beliefs and dogma. This is what they wish to force reality to fit with and: "I will kill you if you get in the way of that."

Yeah. Let’s not do that.

So I caught Covid for the third time last month. Feeling pretty good now after they put me on Paxlovid on the second day. Which I think helped me with my long Covid. About two weeks after I caught Covid the last time, the VA sent out an email telling everyone they should get a Covid booster now. Damn, weeks too late, guys.

So I went and got a shot yesterday at Safeway. They said the VA would pay for it, but so would Medicare, so they went through that (or Aetna, I’m not sure). It was a Moderna shot. I’ve only had one of those and my arm hurt the next day and I didn’t feel good for a couple days. But maybe because I still have some Covid immunity from actually having caught this version, my arms a little sore today, but I’m out walking and I feel pretty good. So far.

Long Covid has this nasty habit of triggering dormant viruses in victims. I’ve been suffering that since March 2022. The end of last December, as I detailed before I went through a nightmare involving that, has gone on now for months. I’ve had a bunch of tests since December and I’ve been sent to a new doctor to get things checked out. A specialist because my primary care physician isn't sure what the hell is going on at this point. But now all of a sudden, it’s like I’m healing from that, too. And I don’t know if that was part of the Paxlovid but seems like it.

I know last year I read that a study gave an infusion of Paxlovid in one shot to help with long Covid suffers and their long Covid went away for somewhere around six weeks. If you’re a long Covid sufferer, especially if you have it bad, that’s a Godsend, even with only a few weeks off. Which might even help you in the long run with the condition.

I just realized I’ve been previously saying lately it was two weeks for long Covid alleviation, after a Paxlovid infusion treatment, but it was six weeks. Because I just noticed my calendar says next week my six weeks are up. Which means my long Covid could return. Here’s hoping not!

Starting mile three.

I just thought of another debate format Biden could pull against Trump. Things go the way Trump does it. You know it’s like an adult debating with a child who doesn’t have answers and just throws a little tiffs and fits. So when Trump interrupts, just lean back at your podium and let him go and at some point ask something like, "Are you done with your little tantrum? Can I talk now?" 

And just keep it that way, exhibiting what a fool and immature brat Trump is. Fllod the news, esp., where MAGA would see it, to prep them for what Trump will pull. His anti-debate tactics have to be neutralized. The thing is, MAGA needs to really see who he is. They praise and worship and support and follow that clown and Biden needs to have stored up like 30 or 40 little debate-deflating knife piercings for Trump who can throw Trump’s bullshit back in his face during the debate. Things that would either shut Trump up, or down, to show HIS audience that they really should be embarrassed.

That would allow the old concept of free speech, where we allow bad and evil speech out there and those people who support it, TO talk. But we need people smart enough to counter them, to debunk and deflate their premises. I do believe Biden is a lot smarter than Trump. But the problem is that kind of debating idiots and disruptors,  takes a very kind of special debating skill. Trump doesn’t have good debating skills. Trump has pontificating and obfuscating and distraction skills. 

Trump is basically a five-year-old, who at that age, most kids also have those skills. Apparently, Trump locked into those emotionally, but never matured into an adult. Something you get from alcoholics, drug abusers, and the pathological narcissistic sociopath in a career criminal such as Donald Trump. The image above is one that I shared online the other day of a brain scan of a person with Trump's pathological condition. 

"Pod Save America" has a good point here about those debates. If Biden makes the mistake again of saying another country for some country he’s referring to, huge five-alarm sirens go off with the conservatives and maybe everybody. But if Trump says "gravity isn’t real" people just laugh and say "Ha ha there goes Trump again". There’s a sad double standard that’s dangerous to this country. And to democracy at large. Because people around the world, watch America closely.

Damn, I think I just walked by JD Vance’s parent's house…

Trump went to Wildwood, New Jersey the other day and said some weird shit. I got roughed up by a cop there when I was 16, on the boardwalk, and for absolutely nothing. Anyway, people need to see these debates because they need to see what a fool Donald Trump really is. But for that to work, they need to be primed and ready. As I mentioned above.

They need to put our promos detailing what to watch for from Trump in the debate. Use a viral orientation with humor or something. In such a way that makes it obvious when you see Trump actually do it on stage in the debate, that it takes you aback. A shock a little bit so that you go, "Oh fuck I’m supporting THIS guy? I used to think this guy was funny. Maybe this isn’t funny. Maybe it’s not funny anymore as Nikki Haley said she believed he was the right guy for POTUS45. Though she was 100% wrong. Where now she says he’s not that guy anymore at all. And he’s not." 

Sitting through this criminal trial is ripping up Trump's personality and ego from the inside out. He may go forward-looking the same to some, but he’ll never be the same again after this. When he’s convicted, well… there it is.

I hear the podcast, that Biden isn’t making a mistake in attending the debate because it’s a "high variance maneuver". It may be time for high risk action. I learned this when I was a child… when there’s something you’re fighting off, or fearful of, or in a situation that is existentially dangerous, you need to hit it head on. Hit it as hard and as fast as you can. DEAL with it. And you know what? That has worked for me really, really well. It takes your opponent off their equilibrium and disorients. That's what Trump is so good at. Disrupting, and disabling people's decency, and their expectation of normal behavior. 

I think honesty and openness are healthy for humanity. So I’ll admit this. I can count on one hand the times I let fear overtake my better judgment. Not my better angels. When I was at risk, I may have shied away. It didn't happen often, as I was trained for that very young. But when others were at risk, I didn’t shy away. I don’t know. I go to stupid protection mode, maybe because of my childhood nuclear family dynamic. But I’ll say about those times... I can count them on one hand… those failings when I wish I had acted better. We are all weak or strong at times. IF the wrong situation hits in those moments, we can find we have exceeded or failed, for those moments. 

So "heroes" can be seen as cowards, and vice versa. That is part and parcel of being human. Some act correctly, heroically, always. But they are honestly few and far between. Most people react out of self presevation. Training increases the odds of acting above the norm in extraordinary situations. 

Had my orientation been different? I probably wouldn’t be able to count all those sad moments, as being limited only to one hand, out of my 68 years at this point. Personally, I think that’s a pretty damn good record.

This was fun. I had a salesman call from Armed Forces Vacation Club yesterday. He asked me some questions and I answered and he thought it was odd. I could tell. I told him I’m 68. I could tell it wasn’t a salesman tactic, but he was taken aback by that. He said, "Wow you don’t sound 68 to me." I thought he meant the texture of my voice. But I shared that with my son later and he laughed and said, "Well, look at the conversations we have about physics and different things. You don’t have an addled brain at all." I had to laugh at that. But, good to know.

As for mentioning my condition and health status at times, this is a blog about walking off long Covid. I mention my condition, symptoms, and issues from time to time for the same reason I wrote a book on long covid. So if anyone reads this who has long Covid and reads some of the things I’m going through, it may aid them in some way, or emotionally give them some kind of benefit. Or relief. Or warning. Forewarning, hopefully.

And on that note, I’ll say that because it was winter and I wasn’t getting exercise I wasn’t feeling well. I’ve had to use melatonin to get to sleep and stay asleep. I use 5 mg tablets and break them in half. I don’t think I got enough exercise and sun, which is important for the production of the melatonin hormone. But I try to take it as little as I can. You have to understand that anytime you take something into your system it alters it. The view that eating is medicinal isn’t a bad way of looking at things. So if you take in melatonin regularly and then stop, your body isn’t going to immediately produce enough.

As far as Trump claiming Biden took drugs whenever he seems animated or at every debate that he’s on something? Fine. Give both them a blood test before the debate. Both of them! Better, as I'd said before, surprise them. See if Trump doesn't mumble as he runs from the studio.

Well, I was gonna try for 5 miles today as I shot for the last time, but only made 4 miles. But I hadn't gotten a Covid shot then and now I’m a little concerned. I might be overdoing it. That’s what the consideration was in walking at all today, as it might be overdoing it. So long Covid and vaccinations and such, it's best to err on the side of caution as much as you may want to push on through. It's normal for me to push on through, but with Covid and long covid, it could kill you. Though I think I may be beyond that point now, it can lead to being unnecessarily uncomfortable for a day or two.

So today it’s 3 miles.

I know my mom was pretty emotional when I was growing up and I know she had some interesting emotional or mental issues. Though I know she was smart as a whip, but also only made it to to ninth grade. I always said that I’ve followed my heart guided by my mind. Though I have come to wonder, although my life wasn’t that bad, that maybe I should’ve reversed that. I know those who did that but I wouldn’t want to have lived their life.

It could just be that they tended to push things too far on top of it. Maybe I wouldn’t have. I don’t know. I do know I was a little sociopath when I was a kid as most children are. I think most of us grow into our higher emotional levels. Or EQ. Something that Trump is very low in. My mother had some pretty strict rules within an environment that was rather loose, even for those times. I think that helps to get you into your teens and 20s to a time when you evolve more and lose that sociopathy. Hopefully. Although some of us never do. 

Once again...Donald Trump.

I will add about that "little sociopath" thing. I jest some. But it's also true. I didn't have a deep emotional base as a kid, but then I did. Mostly about animals. I think I had the basis for emotions. I was emotional about some things. Very protective of my family. I was teased about it as a teen. I wasn't emotional about movies, even when a nearby female typically was crying from a film. So I used films in my mid to late 20s to grow emotions. Once in college studying psychology, I worked to grow emotions and I used films to aid that. As a touchstone. Until finally I did feel things without trying when watching a film. 

It's well known we become more emotional as we age. In old age, we can become quite emotional. It's why we do not send older people to war, but the youngest available. They lend themselves more so to the blood lust of battle. I'm now at a point where it's almost too much. An advert can even get me emotional now. As my younger self laughs... 

And on that note, I’ll bid you adieu…

And leave you with that. And it’s noon now and time for lunch.

As always, I wish you all, all the greatest success and good health!

Just put in the time and effort for those successes.  
Until next time!

Cheers! Sláinte!