Walkabout Thoughts #86

Thoughts & Stream of Consciousness, rough and ready...random but sane thoughts from an insane mind...from an award-winning filmmaker and author you’ve never heard of while walking off the feeble remains of long Covid, and listening to podcasts…walk day Wednesday (Garbage day) June 19, 20 24

Happy First Day of Summer (finally!), here in the Pacific Northwest, and condolences to many in other places hammered by a heat dome, or where it's just normally hotter than hell!

Weather for the day… nice day, starting out, 53° clear sky, 67° back at home

I’m getting out for a walk early today because it’s supposed to get up into the high 70s. It is now 8:27 AM.

First Podcast The Playlist on House of the Dragon - 'House of the Dragon’: Showrunner, Ryan Condal Talks Season 2, His ‘Jon Snow’ Spin-Off Pitch, & More [Bingeworthy Podcast]

Then I go to Pod Save the World's, Why Is Putin Going To North Korea? for about 5 minutes, then moved onto my friend

Kelly Hughes' Rising Star - Music That Matters podcast episode with Strange Company - Lois Lane

I’ve said this before...I really have been trying to lean more into the creative arts and away from the political. I’m sick to death of politics. I’m sick to death of Donald Trump. I’m sick of liars. I’m sick of autocrats and people who can't see their authoritarian hand in front of their Great Fooled face. I’m sick of the great MAGALoon infected Republican Party. Yeah, yeah I grew up with politicians as liars, but that hasn’t really been so true as usually they are just basically spin artists.

Until recently. When they realized (thanks Trump) that they can just blatantly lie. Lie in one room then walk to another and tell the opposite lie all just for votes. You do not elect a person of low-quality like Donald Trump, a career criminal and now convicted felon as POTUS in what was quite obviously an honest trial where he was convicted by his “peers”.

Anyway, it looks like this blog today will be on the creative arts. 

And I’m so happy about it.

I know, these are long blogs, I try to make them shorter but I keep thinking of things to say, so...

Anyway, I’m listening to a podcast about House of the Dragon, S2E1, Season ("series" in the Britspeak), Episode 1. Host Mike DeAngelo is singing the praises of season one, and in the beginning I would say I’d liked it. But it had a lot to go up against. I’m a big Game of Thrones fan and it’s difficult to do another series based in that universe. Wise to do a prequel. But I finished season one of House of the Dragon thinking I have high hopes for season two. Episode one of this new season gave me what I was hoping for. I also enjoy the series on MAX, The House That Dragons Built, on the making of the show.

I’d like to say thank you again on this blog of mine. It comes out at 6 AM but on random days. Sorry about that. Within a minute or two of its autoposting on social media, there were already readers. So, that’s always nice!

OK, On "GOT", so while the John Snow spin-off may not be coming, another one is. excellent! What to know about every 'Game of Thrones' spinoff in the works, including 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms'

So on this podcast, the House of the Dragon co-showrunner Ryan Condal is saying how much he’s enjoying the series "Ripley" on Netflix. I watch that too. I had started it and stopped it when a friend said to finish it. I did and I liked it. Lot of bad press bout it but I liked it. Ryan mentions the movie The King on Netflix, which he thinks should’ve been a series, and says it could’ve been really good. He says he leans into the Conan series as a way to tell epic stories. I’m not sure what he means by that. Or maybe I do.

I first learned about the Conan book series in the 1960s as a kid, in junior high. I was reading a comic book and in the back (I had a history of utilizing back page ads in comic books as a kid as with the old Johnson Smith Company). There was an ad for the Robert Howard, Conan paperback series of books. So I took it to my mom and asked her if she would get it for me and amazingly she did. It wasn't very expensive. So I got the entire series of books in one shot. I no longer have them because to protect them I had Scotch tapled the edges of the book covers and a few years later it had all yellowed and peeled and left a stain. I figured they were worthless as collectibles and they went by the wayside. I was angry at my own stupidity.

Once I started reading those Conan books, I couldn’t put them down, especially after I read the forward or the preface. I don’t remember what it was. But it told a little about Robert Howard's history. And I was fascinated ever since. I read all the Howard works I could. I remember telling my mom about how excited I was about what I was reading. Giant ice worms, sex with warrior women, fighting demons and men and monsters. That eventually led me to the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This was all long after I'd been reading the Golden Age sci fi authors from the 1950s.

OK, the Ryan Condal is now referencing medieval war and the fighting style of knights. I grew up with the Hollywood romanticized version. But I’m a big believer in reality in story. In my film “Gumdrop“, a short horror, I did my best to adhere to reality. Even in a story about a serial murderer and a criminal either touched by the paranormal or mental illness… Your choice.

Having started martial arts in fifth grade back in 1965, that was my orientation in martial (war or fighting) scenes in movies. I grew up with the Hollywood nonsense of "make it pretty, make it romanticized, make it highly sellable/purchaseable."

As a kid, when I saw my first Sam Peckinpah films… I thought, "Yeah, that!" On his films, as I remember, there was an uproar about the amount of violence and how he was producing "violence porn". A term I believe was coined later on. But they said he was glorifying violence. When asked about that, Sam responded, "What are you talking about. If we don’t show violence, accurately, how are people gonna be horrified by it? How are they going to see how much we should avoid it?" Yes. I’m paraphrasing there for old Sam.

“Let’s look at the facts,” Sam said. “Most violent crimes are committed by the family or close friends, most violent deaths are involved with people involved with each other.” This quote reflects his view that violence is deeply rooted in human relationships and not just a spectacle for entertainment. 1

He also expressed his perspective on the nature of violence and its portrayal in films with another quote: “Both the movies and television have perpetuated the idea that shooting a man is clean and quick and simple, and when he falls down there is only a small hole, or a blood-stain, to show how he died. Well, killing a man isn’t clean and quick and simple. It’s bloody and awful.” Peckinpah believed that by showing the true nature of violence, he could influence the audience’s perception of it.2

I grew up in the period of old western films where they hired white guys to play Indians with red face on. The first few times I saw a real Indian in a movie, it was amazing.

My older sister, though she prefers not to talk about it, is half native American When I was a little kid, I asked our mom, when I learned of that, since her dad was either chief or head of his tribe in Montana, if that made my sister an Indian princess. My mom laughed and thought about it. And she said, "Yeah I guess you could say that in a way."

For some reason, I was always very into ancestry, into our roots, origins, and history. I knew that my mom and her parents were Czechoslovakian. But then in about 9th grade, I learned that my dad‘s family was Irish. I found that culture far more interesting than what I'd grown up with. Which is kind of typical. 

Our family films had a scene in Philadelphia in the late 1950s, after mom had met our stepdad. In the scene at our home, there was an "Erin go brah" string of green cut-out letters, festively designed with an Irish slant to the decoration. The phrase “Erin go brah” is an anglicization of the Irish phrase “Éirinn go Brách,” which is commonly translated as "Ireland Forever". The decoration went from one side of the room to the other. 

I'd asked her about that: "You're Czech, not Irish, so why?" She explained it was something she picked up from my dad. She said she enjoyed it, it was fun, so she kept up the tradition. She also said it irritated my soon-to-be stepdad. But she didn't care. That's mom in a nutshell. That started me asking her questions until it sunk in that I was "half Irish." I got interested in Ireland. Years before I had seen and loved the John Wayne film, "The Quiet Man". So I started paying attention to all things Irish.

To the point that when I learned of "The Troubles" going on in Ireland, on the news in the early 70s, I made me angry. Ireland obviously should be an entire country. I wanted to go fight for their independence and join the IRA (Irish Republican Army...seems strange today to use that acronym and someone thinks it's something else entirely). I was not very politically savvy as a 10th grader at that point. But I was growing into my politically aware mind.

One day, I actually went around in our high school cafeteria educating my friends while they were eating lunch, telling them about The Troubles and how maybe we should go over and help them fight England to free Ireland. No one listened. What I had learned was how abusive England had been to Ireland. I learned about the potato famine. I learned about the ignorance of growing only one strain of potato so when the blight hit, the potatoes were wiped out and like 1 million people died, in part because England took the best of the remaining healthy crop. 

So yes, I wanted to go fight for Ireland. But I couldn’t get any money to take a flight over. I wasn't in touch with my father to talk about this and he would have probably thought I was a fool.  And had I arrived in Ireland in 1970 or 71, what the hell would I have done? The easiest thing would be to walk into the pub until you found a Republican one. But would they let me into a pub when I was 15? I don’t know. Maybe? What would the IRA have done with me? Put me on a plane back home? I actually wrote a novel about that. Half a novel. Started but never finished. About a few college friends on spring break who fly to party in Ireland because one of them is from there. A splinter group of the IRA (this is set in the 1980s) and uses them as dupes to plant a bomb. Little hilarity and much panic and horror follow. I should finish writing that.

We all do understand that Irish "Republicans" are vastly different from American "Republicans", especially with this recent MAGA infection of authoritarianism as a personality cult. Even American Republicans aren't fully American Republicans anymore as a minority of them have seized power under the criminal tutelage of one Donald Trump, a convicted felon.

Apparently, Marjorie Taylor Greene said something about Democrats making a big deal about Trump now being a felon but she worships a felon. Meaning Jesus, when really she's talking about Trump, Freudian slip anyone?

OK, let's take her at her word about Jesus being a felon:

The term “felon” is a modern legal classification and did not exist in the same way during the time of Jesus. In the context of Roman law, Jesus was not considered a felon, but he was arrested and crucified for what was deemed a crime against the state. The charge against Jesus was claiming to be “King of the Jews,” which was seen as a threat to Roman authority and could be interpreted as sedition.1 Crucifixion was a punishment reserved for slaves, bandits, and enemies of the state.1

It’s important to note that the historical context and legal systems of ancient times were very different from today’s. The concept of felony as understood in contemporary legal systems did not apply during the Roman era.2 Jesus’ trial and execution were more about maintaining the status quo and the power structure of the time rather than a formal legal proceeding as we would recognize today.34

OK, getting back to the podcast…

This is funny. The show runner is saying back when they caught Osama bin Laden. He always thought rather than bringing them back for trial or executing him. They should’ve brought him to Hollywood and forced him to show run the first season of a new show.

Starting my 2nd mile…

Ryan Condal is now saying he really wanted to do justice to George RR Martin’s “A Song of Fire and Ice “book the new series is based on. I’d like to say this about Martin’s stories… and I think I’ve mentioned this before elsewhere, it’s hard to impress me with story. But his storywork really impresses me.

I think the most multi-layered thing I’ve ever written was my book “Death of heaven“ which I think many people have read it, may not fully have understood what really was going on.

From the first short story I ever wrote I wanted people to be able to re-read it and see things they didn’t see the first time around. Because as a reader I love that from an author.

For that book, I took a novella and a short story, literally a one-page single-spaced micro-short story, and built an epic novel out of them. I wanted to write a book that had everything in it... plus "the kitchen sink." To go from the beginning of the earth's creation to its demise. Potential demise…

I remember writing one part of the book, in a scene where there are some zombies. And I remembered a story my psychology professor and departmental advisor at University had us read. It was titled I believe, Over The River By P. Schuyler Miller. I always think that is titled, "Across the River", but nope. Great short story.

That and another story, “Secret Snow Silent Snow" (film) by Conrad Aiken. Both of the stories had a lot to do with my novella “Andrew", and the overall book. An epic story which covers millions of years. But actually starts at the beginning of "Andrew " (Kindle), the novella at the end of my very first published book “Anthology of Evil".

Anyway, I was writing that scene with zombies, and one person who is “turning “goes into a bathroom at a deserted restaurant, in the book near the end of the world. He goes to the sink in the bathroom, partially because of that story “Over the River" in my desire to put “literally everything in this book including the kitchen sink." OK. It was a bathroom sink.

Well, that would annoy my ex-wife. It’s in a restaurant, it is therefore a "restroom". "Can’t be a bathroom if there’s no bath in it."

Anyway…

On the creation of "Death of heaven"? Apparently, I am a "frame Savant". I say that because several times I have encapsulated stories in a framework and producers or reviewers or people doing coverage on a screenplay have preferred the frame over the main focus of the work.

In my screenplay “Gray and Lover the Hearth Tales Incident" I wrote that paranormal horror/comedy screenplay because of three stories I wasn’t getting any use out of and I really liked.

Three shorts I had, two I had converted into short scripts: “Poor Lord Richie’s Answer to a Question He Knever Knew on the Knight When He Lost All “, “Sarah “, and "Popsicle Death" (which began as a short script in a university team scriptwriting class).

It was suggested I take those stories out and go with the frame I created around them, especially the demon hunting, steampunk, female duo. And so I left the stories in, but cut all of them down, except for their lead-ins, and then I jump elsewhere in the story. I seem to be very effective in that kind of maneuvering, story building.

"Death of heaven": I had adapted a novel to screenplay format for an author who was doing quite well. The book was “Dark of kNight “ by TL Mitchell, who has since fallen off the radar for me. She had decided to leave her publisher and start her own publishing company. I was getting frustrated with her because she wouldn’t publish or even read any of my stories. But she did use my freely written, screenplay adaptation. 

You know, I've sent off a one act play, screenplays, books, and films for awards (Death of heaven was a finalist for Science Fiction: General, in the American Legacy Book Awards 2024). But I never sent off either of my screenplay adaptations from novels. I'll have to do that, too.

I did it for the experience. And said I'd never do that again Until she contacted me later saying one of her authors wanted me to do a transliteration for her too. I was saying no until she told me it was a "spy romance". I wasn't thrilled to do a paranormal romance, though it was fun and educational (as my first format conversion from novel to screenplay). I've long been into espionage as I nearly made that my career and had studied it quite a bit for decades. So I said yes. 

That was "Sealed in Lies" by author Kelly Abell. That was a fun project. But I submitted it for coverage and they tore the plotline apart. Still, she was the one who contacted me having had her novel optioned. After that year was up she was shopping for another producer and found one who wanted to talk to me. Augustas Liiv. 

I mention this because he is the one who got me to write the story I pitched to him, in my thinking one day of writing it: "The Teenage Bodyguard". He loved the story idea, the true crime element and wanted to see it first if I wrote it. Nineteen days later he had a finished draft. I never heard more about the adapted novel or my screenplay. 

He disappeared. Researching him, it seemed he was a micro producer, a producer of small projects. This screenplay of mine is at least $5-7million to produce, in my mind, anyway. In looking him up now in IMDb, something I've never thought to do before. Seems he directed a short, Bibbendum, 6.3 IMDb rating. Not bad...but he's done nothing on there since 2014. This is all new info to me, found out for this blog today. Cool. 

What I find interesting about this is, he was just some producer in London in 2014. Now I see his IMDb and compare it to mine. I had NO IMDb back then. I dreamed about getting onto it. When I finally did a few years back, I looked up my oldest son who was in my first narrative film to add him and he was Already On IMDb! He'd been a game tester. Good for him! So I looked up my younger kid. They had an IMDb page TOO! Good grief. Cool! But...really? They didn't even know it.

Finally, TL Mitchell (of the paranormal romance adaptation) said she knew someone who would be interested in publishing my work because it’s just not her area but he would be interested. She had actually just signed a well known former child actor who was doing well and wrote a book, so she was headed in a kind of a different direction than what I wrote. Her loss as I've gotten very good reviews.

So she turned me onto Cal Miller at Zilyon Publishing. He was interested and he said, "Send me your stuff." So I sent him 1000 pages of my short stories.

Yeah. Too much.

He wrote back and said. "Yeah that’s too much. Send me about half of that and I can do a book of short stories." So I went through the stories and chose what I thought were good standalone stories and those became “Anthology of Evil “. Later I added to that in the sequel, "Anthology of Evil II" in a two-volume set (Vol. I & Vol. II "The Unwritten"). Volume two is a one-time Novella that was supposed to end that second book (now Vol. I) in the series. 

But I had so much fun writing it that it became its own book. “Three universes. Three stories. One ending.“ That book took me two years to complete. My longest-ever story to finish. I'd started it on Wattpad on a lark and wrote myself into a corner so tight it took two years to work myself out of it. I don't update/write there anymore but my old stuff is there there. Whatever there is of "The Unwritten" is not much like the published version. But interesting for some perhaps to see its origins.

So Cal was going to publish my book of short stories and I had all these short stories left over. What to do with them?

I looked them over again and again, and the idea came to me of putting them together and wrap them in a framework to turn them into a Portmanteau novel ("Death of heaven"). Which I did.

That was a lot of work. But then I thought about that Novella “Andrew “. And that short, short, micro story, I wrote at university, “Perception" that I gave to my professor the next morning (which he handed out to all his students the NEXT morning). And drawing off of those, I built "Death of heaven" (Kindle). Yes, the "h" in heaven is lowercase on purpose...long story, which the book kind of explains, so...

Cal read it, and loved it. And published it.

And that’s why I say I think I’m pretty good at writing frames for things.

I won’t go into my documentary which is obviously nonfiction and which is pretty much what my degree is in. That is I’ve written a lot of papers and journal articles in psychology.

And my true crime drama "The Teenage Bodyguard" which is another nonfiction piece that has won awards and done very well and received the attention of a couple of producers and several directors. But I still can’t find somebody who has the same vision I do for it. But then I don't have a lot of phone numbers or direct access, either. One of these days...

Ah… The showrunner Ryan Condal is talking about House of the Dragon marketing campaign. He’s saying basically it’s too simplified, which it needs to be, but the story is so complex. I mention this because I’ve run into that same issue with my own works. Like my brilliant genius, younger artist brother (who's in his 60s now like me), I don’t like being pigeonholed in a genre and I like to jump around and do different things. Not because of ADHD, though that may play a role in it, but because I’ve always been able to do a lot of different things very well and I like to exercise those creative or mental muscles

And so like him, I’ve had trouble with economic success. He put it, when I asked him why he isn’t and should obviously be in galleries and living in a penthouse in New York...he said his experience with galleries was they want you to pick a topic. And he can do just about anything, he just doesn’t want to only paint landscapes or flowers or whatever. He jumps around from sculptures to paintings to various mediums. I mean, one time he made a Murphy bed in his art studio out back of his house and it was itself, a work of art. How do you harness that kind of talent to make money? Sounds easy. Until you try to do it, or have to deal with your own mind and frustrations or limitations.

He used to enter his paintings in our state's Puyallup State Fair Art Show. This was years ago. He got to where he would only enter every other year to give somebody else an opportunity to win

Beginning of my 3rd mile…

It’s getting warm out.

In my writing that true crime screenplay "The Teenage Bodyguard", back in maybe 2014? In my research, which was amazing and took a long time, I had dabbled in it for decades since I first thought about writing it. There’s a character in the story who is a real person, who was one scary SOB and I believe still alive when I was initially trying to sell the screenplay. He’s obviously the bad guy and story antagonist. But a real bad guy, too. He worked for the Tacoma mafia involved. Italians. And although he was older than I, he was scary. Enough that I needed to at least be aware of him. I tracked him down online as living in Tacoma after he got out of prison.

But this is talking another 10 years since then at this point, and although it’s almost been made into a movie several times, knowing how the old adage goes of "only the good die young", he may very well still be alive. But he’s also older than dirt at this point. I wonder if we could use him as an advisor. That would be cool.

Something to be concerned about when you’re writing true crime about actual serious murderers. Them not wanting their story told.

The podcast host just suggested to the showrunner Ryan Condal that they bring "The Rock" into the show as maybe the grandfather of a Dothraki. The showrunner really liked that idea and said he really needs to work on that one and kind of laughed. I mean since they got Jason Momoa got GOT, I would bet The Rock would be into it. Apparently, this showwriter has worked with him on "Hercules" which was the film that made him a produced writer and changed his life, and the film "Rampage", both with Dwayne Johnson, "The Rock".

He said it’s hard to feel ownership over a movie because of where the screenwriter sits in the production, but it’s easier to feel that on a TV show like House of the Dragon.

Man, when I go back to edit this before publishing it there’s gonna be a lot of links in this one…

Ryan Condal then said about being a Director, that he doesn’t know if he would want to do that because he likes where he is as a writer/producer. He said I would like to try it intellectually just to see if I like that and want to go that direction.

From someone who has been in that position, I had been on film sets for a few years before I tried directing. Hang out on a set until you say to yourself, "I could do that." Just be sure, it's harder than it looks for reasons you might not suspect. But I also found it easier and more pleasurable than I'd expected. But I know quite a bit about film and filmmaking. My first film was at university (not a narrative film) My second was a documentary in 1993 (not a narrative film, again).

My first eight-minute narrative film was, “The Rapping “I did it at home with my son who was living downstairs in the lower half of my house. I had sold our house after 15 years that he grew up in and rented a very large house, a couple of towns over. An old Navy officer's house. Which was basically another apartment, with his girlfriend at the time and her kid. We were pretty relaxed about it as we could shoot when we wanted. He took good directions and I thought he did a good job. That set me up to think I could do a longer film.

Moving forward a year or so, he had moved to another town, with a new girlfriend and I had moved a mile away from where I was to a smaller home with a vastly smaller lawn. I decided to write a film based on one of my writings. Which is why I retired, so I could write and produce films back in 2016.

So I looked through all my films and found “Gumdrop City “ (in Anthology of Evil), a fictionalized true crime story I learned about in a university, abnormal psych class. It was the most disturbing thing any of us had ever heard. So I took on the challenge of writing it as a short story because I thought that story should get out there. It's my younger artist brother's favorite short story of mine, about a father who lost his wife, is drinking too much, and has a young daughter. One day he wonders why she’s late home from school and that turns into a nerve-crushing horror show. He meets a cool dog, though.

Most of my screenplays and stories require a lot of special effects. Years ago, in learning about film production, screenwriting and selling spec scripts,  I heard the advice to write small. It’s easier to sell. So I thought this short story would be the easiest for me to produce on my own with little need for special F/X.

It wasn’t until about a quarter of the way through the production, with actors on set, mid-scene, that we realized what a disturbing story it was. I know that sounds funny because I wrote the short story. I had heard the actual story in a university class decades ago. How could I not know?

Even though I wrote the screenplay, when you get on set with the actors and you’re doing a scene, and you see in your actors face the realization of where this antagonist is going, for real, you’re acting it out like it’s real, it feels real in the moment, and I just remembered the day we all looked at each other and one of us said “This is really dark.“ Yep.

I first realized that when I first heard the story from someone who was there at the scene of the crime. Had entered the building with the police. I realized it when I was writing the end of the short story back in the 80s. I realized that when I was writing the screenplay in one of the final scenes that are very disturbing.

But we were too far as actors and filmmakers into the story to stop at that point. So we threw ourselves into it as hard as we could and tried to not think about it.

A lot of the weight of that film landed on Tom Remick as lead actor and his son Luke Remick. I stumbled into those two very natural actors and was very lucky indeed.

What’s funniest about this concern of the film's subject matter, was my friend and fellow Indie Director Kelly Hughes watched the film and told me when I said we were worried about the ending, that he had seen bigger produced films recently that went way over the top beyond where we had gone and I just shouldn’t worry about it.

And so there it is.

Damn. I never finished what I was saying about George RR Martin up above. About how complex his stories are. About how I’m not sure I could write a story at his level of complexity, let alone read one of his books. I think I would just have trouble following all of it. But it’s some point you don’t care, you just read and enjoy.

Kind of how I got through K-12 with ADHD. I realized I was not going to absorb and regurgitate like the other students. I would just have to learn and assimilate and let it change my personality rather than try to accurately depict the data of the studies in my mind and reacquire it accurately for a school test. It was later after I separated from the USAF when I realized that memory is either recall or recognition. And I was really good at recognition, but I had trouble with recall. I could work with that once I understood it.

Which in 1979 was how I got through my first college chemistry/physics class. I had sold all my guns and bought a computer, learned how to program it with a book, and when I found I had to learn the entire periodic table I programmed two programs. One utilizing recall and one utilizing recognition. Then I sat every night (I lived alone having just separated from my wife) and played the game every night, sometimes having a beer, sometime getting a bit drunk and play the "games" until I got bored. I did that every night until that test. I was going to pass one way or another. I really had no idea if it would work But it surpassed my wildest fantasies. 

I was the only student in the class who got an "A" on the final. Not one thing incorrect.

So you don’t have to track everything in a George Martin book. Or in any of my stories. You just have to be in the moment and enjoy it. I always enjoyed the prose the most. Which is why Ray Bradbury was always one of my favorite authors.

One of the reviews of my Death of heaven said that it times it’s almost poetry. And yet there’s some stuff in it that one horror reviewer said she found a bit too disturbing.

By the way, I’m not really trying to turn this blog into a marketing tool here today. Especially in having a degree in psychology with a concentration in phenomenology my primary interests are usually in systems and mental processes. I don’t so much care about the story of those I like (after reading them or viewing a film), but how they got to writing that story or producing that film. Obviously, I liked their work if I get to that point.

SIRI says it’s 63°. I just took off my short-sleeved shirt because I’m roasting.

Nuts. Podcast is over. Switching to Pod Save the World.

OK nuts, politics again? Four minutes twelve seconds later...

I’m switching over to check out my friend Kelly Hughes podcast Rising Star and episode of Strange Company– Lois Lane album, interviewing a band member, then another joins named "Crash"..

Kelly is, among other things, a director. I spent the most time on film sets, on his. I’ve known him for going on a decade. I also acted in one of his short films as lead and was an extra in some of his other films. 

The only other film set that I’ve been on was in Seattle back in the 80s for the pilot episode of Starman when I got the hang out all night and hit two locations. One up on Queen Anne Hill, where I lived, and ran into the production company filming on my way home from work one day. I heard they were going to be at the Seattle Center at the monorail so I went down there and the location manager noticed me and realized he’d seen me earlier, up the hill. 

I told him I’d studied screenwriting and just graduated recently but had never been on a film set. So he put me next to the camera and the director. Which was interesting because I was single at the time and they were working with stand ins, with their backs to the camera by the open monorail door. People kept looking at me wonder who is this guy next to the director? Especially the actress who was pretty cute and seemed to notice me the most. Anyway, that went nowhere but I got to enjoy being on the set of a TV pilot.

Anyway, moving on…

Oh hey, I got home from my walk the other day and every mailbox on my block on both sides of the street ones where you could easily drive up to the mailbox, had its door down. Nothing in any of the mailboxes so somebody was obviously stealing mail. I had gotten my mail the day before. Mail comes later in the day and I did get my mail later that day. I looked on the USPS website to report it and it’s kind of a joke. Nowhere to easily do that. So I gave up and posted it to the next-door website. I figured there was no way the postal carrier wouldn't notice what was going on. 

I asked a cop about this some years ago when I saw somebody steal my mailbox at my previous home, up the street about a mile. Before I could get out of my home office chair they s[ed off. I don’t know if they got anything, might’ve gotten some junk mail. Basically they appeared to be meth addicts. I say that because they looked like it. Twitchy not healthy, etc. It was frustrating watching them, plain as dar through my picture window, talking and herring to steal my mail. It just happened so fast and felt like such an infringement.

I saw a guy that looked like the guy in that car at my new neighborhood, some years ago after I'd moved. He was just walking around like he was searching for open easy houses to rob, but I didn’t see him do anything illegal. It just seemed obvious what he was doing.

I’ll never understand this attitude of "if I can do it or get away with it it doesn’t matter how much harm I do to you."

But then that is the Republican Party anymore.

Finally, starting mile four… It feels like I’m starting mile five.

OK, it looks like I’m only doing 3 miles today. The sun is beating down on me and it’s taking its toll. I’ve been feeling kind of weird for a couple of days now, not bad, just odd. Better safe than sorry. Maybe it's time I shift to 3 mile walks daily rather than 5 every other day. Been considering it for a bit but it's nice having a day off. [I weighed myself when I got home today and finally, I lost 3lbs so far since I adjusted my diet and getting in more exercise]

As far as the Lois Lane song the band on the podcast produced, I’m listening to it right now and it’s good. Leans into country rock, which isn’t my thing. Wish them well though. Kind of 90s rock. I'm OK with that. 

On the podcast, Kelly asked him about getting the song license for a show like "Lois and Clark (The New Adventures of Superman)". Better the more recent, "Superman and Lois", I think. And he said, "Yeah that could pretty much change everything overnight. I don’t know what I would do with myself."

Liked the song Kryptonite. I do like Donovan's Sunshine Superman, but then I've been a big fan of his since the 60s. His music got me through Tech School in the USAF.

By the way, what's with Country doing Superman themes? Like Olivia Lane - LOIS LANE?

On that note, I’ll bid you adieu…

And I’ll leave you with that.

It'll be noon soon 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 #56

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts… July 17, 2023, Monday

Weather for the day… 67° starting out, 72° when I got home

Podcast Deja News by Rachel Maddow, final episode of the season: Episode 6: “Hello America, this is Addis Ababa.” This episode is relating our defense of Ukraine, through to something that happened many many years ago in 1935 when blacks signed up to defend an African country, Ethiopia who were a member of the League of Nations, precursor to the UN, when there were only two black governed nation states in Africa. This was Mussolini, the Italian fascist, not the current fascist Putin in Russia. Mussolini thought if other countries are taking land in Africa, why shouldn't we? So instead of our decision to support Ukraine against Russia today, in 1935 America decided not to for Ethiopia against Italy. This is that story. Mussolini conjectured, they take over another country in a continent where other nations have colonized them. Why was that wrong? Because the era of colonization was over, dumb ass.

An anthropologist once said, "The human race is designed to raise up certain individuals and then take them down. While they were raised up in being something new, different, maybe better (hopefully), at some point they become an irritation to the overall organism and must be eliminated. Thus in example, Jesus was raised up and then eliminated. Where is that happening today and with whom? And are they that useful to humanity or just a small minority who have wrested power to abuse the entire nation (organism) as we see when authoritarianism takes countries over? To be sure at times a majority gets into it, supporting it.

I have published two of my screenplays as books, but for only a short time. I ordered my own copies, and when I receive them, I’m going to turn them off. I'll leave them there until these are produced as films and then, turn them back on again. “The Teenage Bodyguard", is a biopic and true crime story that’s been winning awards. I worked with producer, Robert Mitas (who was a producer on films with Michael Douglas) as consultant and producer to rewrite it is a shorter screenplay. 

But this is the longer original, a very well researched screenplay that got his attention. The second screenplay book I published is my horror and kind of comedy, “Gray and Lover, The Hearth Tales Incident". I entered a screenplay festival, where a side benefit was getting your screen place published as a book. I thought what the heck? But I also thought that if you  are really serious about having a screenplay produced, publish the screenplay as a book after the films is released, or at least after its purchase toward production (maybe not then).

Speaking of other works, my antiwar documentary filmic poem, "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" is available exclusive on ThrilzTV. It has 18 short film awards internationally including, Best War Documentary, Best Experimental Film, Best Director, and others. In my previous blog you can see my previous poster for the film.

It sure seems like we usually know a war is coming, before it starts. So why don’t we do things ahead of time. as if the war has started? I also never understood, we have NATO and we have the UN, and while there are countries not part of NATO, why do we let that stop us from refusing war, ever again? Or at least do everything we can before one starts to cut it off. Yeah, yeah, I get all the contraindications, but while we're still at a point in our infancy, in our adolescence that we continue to allow wars, aggression against other countries? Come on! Sometimes after long paying your dues, you simply have to accept that you are a professional...or you ARE mature enough to do what is right and correct.

Aggressors, either Mussolini, or Hitler, or Putin, do not learn lessons. Donald Trump did NOT (never will), as one Republican Congresswoman Susan Collins had said ("Trump has learned ‘a pretty big lesson’ from impeachment"), learn a lesson from his bad actions. Nope. ain't gonna happen. What these dictatorial autocrats learn from failure is how to succeed further, the next time. What you do with these people, as we saw in World War II with these imperialistic aggressors, is you physically stop them, disallowing them their desires. We have still not done that with Putin, or helped Russia out of their delusions. Putin has fed them propaganda and dezinformatsiya for over 20 years. They have generationally been inculcated through the Soviet union since 1917, and before that as a country of serfs under a czar. Putin should have been reacted to long before the Ukrainian invasions. He should’ve been stopped before the 2014 invasion. Not just western democracies and America seem crippled when it comes to being proactive. One can offer climate change as evidence. I offer Ukraine here as evidence. At some point one has to learn you do not put up with bullies or you actualize them and propagate their existences.

In 2014, when "little green men" we’re running around, supporting Ukrainian Russian separatists, when still no one knew who they were, that was when we should (all) have supported Ukraine. 100% in all ways possible. Because Russian would not have taken Crimea and we would not now be involved in the Ukrainian war because of this delusional, Russian dictator once again. When will we learn that? Never? Apparently. Well, we're doing (a little) better, now.

I also think we need to sign on to the agreement about cluster (bombs) munitions. We need to sign on about land mines (thanks again, Trump). We need to get the world into a knee jerk reaction against international aggression at some point and, granted this may be a little premature, though I hope not, because earth really needs to stop allowing war.

The bombing of Japan that ended the war in the Pacific was a horrific event that did with Oppenheimer thought it would do. What he pushed for. It horrified humanity. Perhaps what we need now is for Russian nationals themselves to set off a nuke. A college kid can create an atomic bomb, they just need some fuel. Once they find specifically were Putin is at the moment and trying to minimize "collateral damage" as the military prefers to say, that might just wake the Russians the fuck up. But if anyone other than Russians do that, it just simple not serve the purpose to turn Russia around in their current despicable course.

Why do we allow people like Putin or Donald Trump even to breathe the same air as decent people? This is not a conundrum, by the way.

As Rachel says in the podcast, "Dictators force you to consider your own interest against others." In the hope that yours will win out, to support theirs in the end, and the beginning. In this far too narcissistic world anymore (See, MAGA), an entire political party apparently devoted to narcissism, and the needs of the one each one over that of the group or the group over that of all citizens.

Putin has shown himself to be a callous anachronism...someone who displays a lack of empathy or sensitivity in a context where such behavior has become (by him...or them) no longer appropriate or acceptable. And the same is true of Donald Trump, and those who support either of them.

I agree NATO shouldn’t be going to war against Russia because of Ukraine. The United Nations Armed Forces should be. Which doesn't exist in that form. And if it did, might prove problematic. But does end  justify the means?

According to Donald Trump, his January 6 insurrection was an FBI false flag operation. But if we put him in jail, his supporters will do it again. That’s what we’re up against? One has to be unavailingly stupid to buy that line of bullshit. Well...MAGA.

Putin: the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century was the fall of the Soviet Union. Excuse me, while I guffaw. Donald Trump: his not being reelected is the greatest catastrophe in the entire 21st-century. Which we just started. Double guffaw. Moronic comics.

If Donald Trump‘s allegedly mushroom shaped penis were to "eat" all of his ego for a solid year until it was found to be engorged, like him, it would vastly larger than his character could ever attain. The man has no character, from a time when "character" was considered a comment on good character and not the existence of merely ANY character at all. Some "character" is not to be acceptable, or locked up, or wiped from existence for the benefit of Humankind. Remember when we were, "kind"?

After Trump's so far now, mere six court trials get going, I’ll need to be sure to get a photo of him now and from a year ago to compare to his photo from a year from hence. Because I would think his decrepitude will be easily observed in advancing exponentially.

The only metaphor I could think of just now for Trump's ludicrously adoring fans would be if he were seeb as their "cake", where instead of icing, it's just an inch of fat with no sugar, and maybe a little rancid, and they lap it up, loving it. And of course he and they, "want their cake and eat it, too."

Those especially in Congress or Governors of states, or Attorney General’s of states, who still disingenuously cannot clearly see how Donald Trump is criminal and how what he did was criminal, truly should be removed from office. So much of what these people do is not direct logic and they have to be able to draw conclusions and synthesize information, to apply it elsewhere. Tim Scott, saying he doesn’t hold Donald Trump accountable because Trump didn’t personally come and try to kill him on January 6, is probably the most disingenuous thing I’ve ever heard him say. Remove him from office. And he therefore has no right to run for POTUS.

I love Pad Thai. My son told me he read somewhere that Thai people don’t usually eat Pad Thai. That saddened me. On the other hand, there is a lot of other Thai food that’s much tastier. There’s Chinese food too, which I love that you can’t find in China because while it’s Chinese food based or China fusion or something. Chinese people in China wouldn't recognize it. I just don’t much care for Pad Thai with a solid wafer of egg in it. I only started seeing that in the past few years. Chicken, cut up in it is fine. I think when I started eating it, it was with pork, probably, but I’ve come to really like the chicken version. Even the tofu version can be good.

The number of Republicans who believe what Donald Trump did during his January 6 insurrection was criminal is under 10%. These are definitely low information people. Let me explain that. Information is real, it’s factual. They are however on the other hand, rather high DISinformation people. They're not stupid, but they are selective ignorant (on purpose).

What the hell is doing a shibboleth? That from Jon Lovett on the "Pod Save America" podcast: "Shibboleth is a single sign-on log-in system for computer networks and the Internet." Nope, not that. "a word or saying used by adherents of a party, sect, or belief and usually regarded by others as empty of real meaning." Maybe? What did AI said: "The phrase "doing a shibboleth" typically refers to using a particular word, expression, or custom as a test or a way to identify insiders from outsiders within a group or community." Ah, that must be why he keeps using it. "The term originates from an ancient Hebrew word, "shibboleth," which means "ear of corn" or "stream." In the Book of Judges in the Bible (Judges 12:5-6), it is described as a password used to distinguish between two groups of people who were at war."

I switched over to "Pod Save America" when Rachel’s double length, hour long, excellent podcast ended. And everyone should listen to Rachel‘s podcast of her season finale of Deja News ASAP.

Cheers! Sláinte!