Walkabout Thoughts #80

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 was Thursday 5/30/2024

Tomorrow is my oldest son's birthday! So much has happened in 36 years!

===

UPDATE: --- 

30 May 2024 Thursday 2pm

After I got home after this walk today... 30 May 2024 Thursday 2pm Donald Trump is now officially a convict. Officially a criminal while he's been a career criminal all his life.

Now convicted of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the 1st degree.

I said in 2016: Trump is a career criminal.

I'm on my 3rd pint of Guinness now.

Slainte! Cheers!

"34 for 45"

34 felony counts against failed FPOTUS45.

I truly take no joy in our having to convict a FPOTUS.

I resent his initial election, knowing it could end here.

I do take joy in the functionality of democracy & Justice.

Hold onto that.

Donald Trump's a mob-type boss corrupting all he can and that which he comes into contact with.

He corrupted our Legislative Branch as POTUS45 & since.

Corrupted our Executive, for a time. Pres. BIden has been cleaning that up from the day he took office. Is Biden perfect? No. But he's at least trying to be an American President and not a fascist wannabe dictator.

Trump tried to corrupt our judiciary & succeeded somewhat.

But not all. 

Our Rule of Law held. So far.

===

OK. Back to our regularly scheduled program...

Weather for the day… starting out, 56° nice sunny day starting out

Podcast "Hacks" Ep. 8 “Yes And?” with Carl Clemons-Hopkins and Johnny SibillyEp. 8 “Yes And?” with Carl Clemons-Hopkins and Johnny Sibilly and Ep. 9: “Bulletproof” with Hannah EinbinderEp. 9: “Bulletproof” with Hannah Einbinder

WTF? Marc Maron episode.

About long Covid... exercise really helps it and it's a big sign now of how low level or gone, it is in how I can now eat sugar or drink alcohol again. Back deep into Covid, drinking alcohol might’ve killed me or would feel like it. But I drank a bottle of wine with lunch over two days this past week. I had a couple Guinness on Memorial Day with lunch. I’m loving it. I never drank all the time. I grew up, you know, drinking at parties or going out and having drinks, maybe throwing darts at a bar. It's just been one of those things in Covid where you're restricted from doing it and so you want to do it more.

Whenever I’ve not felt well or I've been ill, alcohol had been an aid, something to take that edge off of the discomfort. Something long Covid disallowed.

It's now the fifth month of 2024 and I still have no motivation or desire to do any work. Fucking Covid broke me good.

I have been thinking more lately that maybe I should contact that free legal aid for filmmakers at an East Coast University to see if they can help me with my music licensing issues for my film “Pvt. Ravel's Bolero.“ A film with 78 Official Selections worldwide and 63 Film Festival Award Wins.

I’m trying to finish the film companion book for it and I’m so close. I was working on it end of December 2023 when I started getting much more ill from Long Covid. I really need to get back to editing and actually finish writing it. That is a book I could sell. NAXOS owns the copyright on the main song (1930 version of Ravel conducting "Bolero" in its first recorded public performance), and American Music owns the sheet music. I was sure it was public domain when I started that project and was surprised to find I t wasn't. 

If I can get some kind of a deal from those two, I can perhaps make use of this documentary. Or if nothing else, I may just open it up on YouTube. I can’t make money off it there, but it might bring me some kind of notoriety. When you put that much time and effort into a project, when it's that well received worldwide, I think you deserve something for those efforts.

The reason why I don’t share on my blog here, Instagram posts I used to make during my walks is because I got tired of it screwing up when I tried to shoot something and post it. In 2016 I retired as a software engineer in IT on a front-line engineering support team. When our company's websites went down, I would be on call every few weeks as the point person to be sure the website went back up. I have an extensive background in many computer IT things. 

I spent the 90s studying books on PC architecture, back when I was working on a VAX mainframe at two Seattle hospitals. I have to say though, that lately I’m finding it more confusing to use software than ever before. Instagram has done nothing but make it more difficult to use, in my view. I’m kind of sick of it. I’m hoping that AI eventually will make things easier. It's about time. I mean, I've been waiting for many of the things that are finally happening in the realm of computers and machinery, since I was a kid in the 1950s/60s.

I’m looking forward to my Alexa answering my questions better than merely super simple ones. I use my Alexa all the time. Watching something on TV, I can just ask a quick (easy) question, get an answer, then go along with the program, film or show that I'm watching, being better informed. I find it a great aid to myself and people in general.

Anyway, on my last walk I did shoot a short video for an Instagram post but it wouldn’t upload and by time I got home, it was just gone. I’ve done that before where I’d get home and it would upload off of my wireless internet connection once reconnected. But something's changed. So I’ve just kinda had it.

I have to say, I’ve never been one for social media about fan-based stuff. But I do love behind the scenes stuff about the making of films and shows and such information. I guess some kind of fan based stuff then, about the actors and filmmakers of such products. I mean, I grew up learning to love film and TV at first vicariously through my mother, who saw Hollywood stars, especially Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, as America’s royalty. And I've always found structural filmmaking interesting, especially now since I am a filmmaker. And a screenwriter. You’re welcome to check my IMDb listing, or my website jzmurdock.com, or y Linktree, which lists all my links.

I really been enjoying many of these podcasts about working talent and "the making of".

I really enjoy the podcast for the Foundation show. I’m really liking this podcast for Hacks. I very much enjoy Marc Maron‘s work on his WTF? podcast because it explores so many things I find interesting. I like his comedy and observational humor. And I like his acting, even if he does just act himself.

I originally got into Podcasts because of Covid. Especially when I started walking to fight long Covid off. I tried to listen to podcasts based in art, but I didn’t find a lot I liked. I got to where I was watching the news all day every day because Trump was president and Shit just wasn’t good with that moron. So when I started walking, I listened to political podcasts like Pod Save America and their "Crooked Media" brand podcasts. Intelligent people who worked in the world of government and had a sense of humor.

When I started feeling like maybe people, and I, had had enough of politics, which I had, I started looking more for artistic oriented podcasts and found Marc Maron and the Foundation podcasts and I’m happy to say I’ve been able to lean more into that. It’s my hope Trump doesn’t get elected again so we can move on from Trump's MAGA idiocy in our White House and not just authoritarian criminals trying to rule us as they rip us off. Right now the jury is in their six or seventh hour to decide on what to convict Trump for in his criminal trial. While he’s obviously guilty, it just now needs to be officially proven appropriately and evidentiarily, and I think it has been.

I’m so sick of these people like Trump and his MAGA and their conflations and exaggerations and outright lies and utter bullshit. False equivalencies, disinformation, propaganda...it’s just so far over the top that it’s in another universe.

So if Trump becomes president again? I’m afraid I’ll fall back into watching the news all the time out of fear for protection and being prepared for the next fucking nightmare he pulls on us, while his MAGA praise and cheer the demise of both us and themselves. And in a second term there will potentially be an endless Trump term of office, God knows whatever he’ll try to pull that next time. So let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

Back to the Hacks podcast… They just played a funny scene where Jean Smart’s "Debra Vance" character's estranged sister arrives to her Christmas party that she finally invited her to. The dogs are barking at her sister and who says it’s almost like they were trained to do that. And "Debra" laughs and says, "They were." Flashback to my childhood with my mother...

Our mom was a character. She’d be married every time for each one of us born. All four of us. She miscarried on her first pregnancy and so didn’t get married. But she used to tell us kids that it was, “Me and my kids against my husbands and the world!“ I grew up with our dog since first grade, a mixed collie, medium size breed named Bruno and she used to “joke “holding one of our stepdad's dirty socks up to his nose and tell him to attack, or something. I don’t remember. Feigning training, our family dog to attack our stepfather who worked two jobs. We are always happy he wasn’t around much and I think so was he. The guy she said she hated most of her husbands was the one who lasted the longest and whom she married like three times. Divorcing once after four years of putting up with him, and then a year later remarrying him. Then having a recommitment ceremony with him years later. We all thought it was nuts. And I never liked the guy since I was 4, before they got married. But then he was mentally abusive to me growing up, while treating my older and far prettier sister like a princess, who never really experienced what I did with him, but did experience their tumultuous and scary arguments that our parents would have.

So in my walking here...that chest tightness ss back today that I’ve mentioned before lasted until just after about a half mile today. WTF? (Not the podcast) So I don’t know, I wonder if I died, does that mean my books are worth more? And films I’ve made? Cuz, that'd be cool

I got an invite today to send two screenplays to two different contests. So I did. "Colorado Lobsters" (MIT grad on drugs at a nuclear generating station his dad had died (been murdered) at, and "The Teenage Bodyguard".

I’m so sick of this damned "speech-to-text" app. I was just recording. Got a sentence out and I looked at what it had transliterated and it didn’t record any of it. Plus, I have to keep turning it off and back on to get it to respond.

Dammit, it just did it again!

I’m done submitting my films as they both had a several-year run and won some awards and my documentary won a lot of awards. So now I’m just submitting my writings. I should send some short stories off.

I’d love to have someone survey all my writings and maybe films and write up an analytical review of what all of its orientation is (my orientation). What I’ve been doing, saying in my writings. I wonder, if I started a contest and charged $500 or $1000 to do that for someone if they win. Could be an enterprise. Or maybe someone else should do that.

Had to put on a fleece shirt today because it was so cool out bu now the sun is coming out and it’s warming up. PNW weather, layer when you go out so you can adjust as all the seasons can happen in a single day.

Here’s a teachable moment…

I’ve had moments in my life where I was confronted with something I didn’t know how to deal with, or couldn’t deal with, or didn’t want to. 

Looking back on those times I really regret them. I prefer to always have the right things to do or say. 

I became good friends with my girlfriend's best friend, a guy, when I got out of the Service. They had gone through school together and graduated high school. One afternoon I was driving him somewhere or he was going with me somewhere in my car and he tried to tell me he was gay. 

We wondered for years after that if he was gay (he later laughed and asked me how we could NOT know?). But I so didn’t know how to deal with what he was telling me at that time. I thought about it later. I was 25, just out of years in the service and clueless about dealing with such things. And this was 1979. So I avoided. I just said, "Guys don’t talk about stuff like that." I feel so bad about that now.

A few years later, after moving to Seattle and talking one day with my, at that time ex-girlfriend, I decided to let him move him in with myself and my apartment mate, and we gave him a job. We thought if he really is gay, he needs to get out of Tacoma. So. Got him set up. Got him a job. Actually, my roommate got him the job where we worked, who was also my manager at Seattle Tower Video. 

After six weeks of him, sleeping on our couch and my new girlfriend being there a lot (who worked at Tower with us) and my roommate's girlfriend there and sometimes his daughter, the bathroom started to mildew because it could never dry out from all the showers. 

So we threw everybody out. Except his daughter. Our friend found a place with a guy we worked with and they had a good time. Everybody was much happier. Then after a while, we decided we’re gonna move out and in with our girlfriends. Whom we both ended up marrying. Then both ended up divorcing them. They both ended up having affairs on each of us. 

It was after I moved in with that girlfriend, that I got a new job and left the whole Tower Records family after more than half a decade which got me through college. At that point, my friend disappeared for about 18 months into Capitol Hill's gay community. Next time I saw him he was doing much better. So we had saved him from getting beat up, murdered or committing suicide living in Tacoma. Which at the time wasn’t real gay friendly back in the mid 80s.

Another time… decades later, my oldest son about to graduate high school, had his girlfriend move in with us. One day she was so happy with her life with us, which had previously been pretty broken, said she loved us both so much that she would be pleased to do some rather questionable sexual act for us which I’d never have conceived her offering. 

Now I came to my sexual maturity in the 70s. I’d had plenty of interesting sexual encounters with women & girlfriends (or maybe with a couple of girlfriends at times) but this one threw me. Partly because it was my son’s girlfriend. When she said that, I looked up at him down the hallway past her, and he’s just staring at me also not knowing what to say. I looked at her. We were in the hallway and I tried to say something. Come up with some response. But I was completely at a loss. I just shook my head, and walked into my home office. I'd been standing by the door for it.

I heard him ask her "Why would you say something like that?" And I heard her say, "Because I mean it, I really love you guys." And I mean from that perspective it was for her a wonderful thing she was saying about how she felt about us.

How would I handle that now? I wish I had just given her a hug and said, "Thank you. I appreciate the feelings behind your offer. But you don’t have to offer anything like that. Just enjoy your life."

About that particular girlfriend of my son. Apparently, she had begun living with us for a month before I knew about it. And I worked from home in my home office directly across the hallway from my son’s room. That door was shut all the time when he was gone. There had been a thing between both kids about going in the other's bedroom and he started keeping his door shut. Then the other started doing that in response. But apparently, the girlfriend had been in there. silent while I was blasting music and coding, or working on servers remotely, or whatever.

So one day I got a call from my ex-wife, my son‘s mother in Portland. Oregon. She says, "I just thought you should know his girlfriend has been living with you guys for a month now and I didn’t think you knew about it." And I said, "No, no one’s living here." But she was adamant. So when my son got home, I asked him and sure enough, he fessed up. WTF? (Again not the podcast)

Someone else also called to tell me that. A friend of the family, a woman who had been taking care of my son's girlfriend before she moved in with us. He met them both on the same day, one thing led to another and he gave her a place to live Fine, but next time ask dad FIRST? 

My older son’s mother had called me once before, years before, about my last wife, the one after her. Sigh... yes, this is at some point, confusing.

At that time some years previous, I was divorced from my youngest’s mom (the one who more recently had called about the hidden girlfriend living in my house). that was back when we lived in the first house I'd bought with my last wife. The kids were younger, my wife was a horse trainer who traveled around the country to horse shows for from 1 to 3 weeks at a time. 

Something I’ve never been good at dealing in having an absent spouse. Partly because of my college girlfriend, in having had an affair on me and then leaving me after we'd been together for years...that was my first time, at the age of 30, for a woman to break up with me. I had no mechanisms then for how to deal with that. Which devastated me for about 18 months, putting me in a downward spiral of partying, until finally, I pulled myself out of it, with my oldest son’s mother's help at that time. Back in the 1980s. What a mess.

So while I was still in my last marriage, my oldest son‘s mom had called me to tell me that my wife told her she was having an affair at horse shows with some guy. I told her that I didn't know if I could believe her or not. Maybe she was just trying to screw up our marriage. But she said, "No, I’m just trying to tell you the truth." She told me she had been on the phone with my wife one day, setting up getting our son for the weekend, and said my wife was drinking wine on our bed and she was giggling about how she was having an affair one me with a guy at a horseshoe. Apparently thinking she was talking to a kind of compatriot, to my ex, who'd get a kick out of it. WTF? (Yeah, right, not...whatever)

I had told both her and my current wife at that time, if they ever wanted to leave me, please don’t have an affair on me. One doesn't do that to one's one-time best friend. Especially when they still think they are YOUR best friend. It's just uncool. It's so, as I put it then, "common" to do something like that.

So to this day, I don’t know. But I do know that now ex-wife does have a mental condition called, splitting. And she very well could’ve been having an affair and then when she’s with me, simply not remember it. She/we used to joke about the "black hole" her memory had where she wouldn't remember things she obviously should be able to remember. I hadn't realized until after we broke up, it was a mental condition perhaps from multiple concussions having grown up riding horses.

She has now descended even further in her issues after divorcing the next guy she had married after me, after I had warned her that he was not good marriage material. Even the kids could see that. Even one of the kid's friends saw that actually he saw it first. I tried to warn her as her one-time best friend, not as her ex. It wasn't indicative. I truly was worried about her, and out kid. If she married him. She did, she found out I was, we all were, right about him. A guy who now has been convicted of Washington state's largest restaurant tax fraud in state history.

And she’s gotten now so toxic her entire family doesn’t want to talk to her, or so I hear through the grapevine.

I’m currently single and the drama and stress here are quite low. Cheers!

Just thinking about the T-shirt I'm wearing today and it’s my "That Metal Show T-shirt. I've worn it around different places and events and no one has ever come up to me and said anything about it. So does no one know that show? Been off the air for a while now. But I loved it. All those rock bands I have listened to for so many years and finally got to see their bandmembers being interviewed by three rock aficionado’s, one brilliant rock historian, and two comedians. What a fun show if you’re into Rock and especially heavy metal.

I think I should also mention that yesterday I was wearing my Gogol Bordello T-shirt from the Ukraine concert. Love those guys. Gypsy rock. That was the first concert I took both my junior/high school aged kids too I think at the Showbox SoDoShowbox SoDo in Seattle south of Pioneer Square. 

I was pretty annoyed to find out my youngest child’s new stepfather had taken them to a concert. I think it Bumpershoot (local Seattle festival). I’d also found out he took her to something else I should’ve taken them to at their school for an event. Pains of being a divorced parent. Anyway that was the loudest bass I’ve ever heard at a concert. I have all their albums and I do like their music. What a concert! The documentary about Eugen Hutz, going home that was very good: "The Pied Piper of Hützovina."

I just moved to the next episode of the Hacks podcast and they said that Barbra Streisand is into the show and listens to the podcast. So I’m not sure if that’s true. Sounds like it might be somehow. I don’t know but that’s pretty cool.

You know one of the nice things about Hacks? They address the protagonist being older. What’s going on in our culture as far as generations. Having a trans son myself I’ve had to deal directly with the gender rules issues and the political issues and I basically try to stay out of it as much as I can so I don’t screw up. 

I felt bad about that until I realized that even those people who are in the middle of that because they have no choice, also have difficulty with Issues of how to address people in different things. So as I was told... as long as you have a good heart and you mean well, you can make mistakes. The problem comes in when you’re an asshole in general when even if you don’t mean to make a mistake in that area, when you do, you’re gonna get attacked. Because basically, you are after all, just an asshole.

Anyway, they just played one of my favorite lines from Hacks about those issues. On episode eight where somebody does a Super cut of the protagonist's older stand up as pretty cancelable humor. Which is so problematic today. It’s weird to cancel someone today for them simply doing what no one understood was wrong decades ago. Especially when so much of this has only transpired in the last 10 years. 

So lighten the fuck up. The only thing worse than people needing to be canceled is over canceling people who don’t need it, or who may be on your side, and yet you make them...not. As with the Trump MAGA thing. You wanna smack them in the back of the head because they’re being so stupid sometimes, maybe with a baseball bat, but you’re never gonna get them over to your side or to even consider they might be wrong at any time. Ever.

Last walk yesterday 2 miles because of weather. Today I’m starting now on my 4th mile. Woo hoo!

“I can’t be woke. I’m tired. I’m exhausted." yells "Debra" on the show.

This brings me back to reflecting on my own writings and works from my past which really started in the early 80s while at University. But I don’t think I’ve written anything that's offensive. Man, I’m hoping now. On the other side of that, I used to write horror, so a lot of offensive things there as far as killing human beings. I never shot a dog, though.

I guess I could mention that "Gender Bender" article about me that another writer wrote  on Indies Unlimited. She read one of my stories and wanted to know if I was male or female. Because of the "JZ" thing (doesn't help the "J" stands for "Jean" in the French, not the English as too many think, as "Gene"...nope). 

So I sent her a short short story she read and came back and said, "About the woman protagonist in that story… ", and I asked, "Why do you think they are a woman?" And she said, "Well it is." I said, "Go back and reread it and tell me what gender the protagonist is again." She came back stunned and said, "I can’t tell you." Because she was so sure a guy had written the first story of mine she read and was so sure a woman had written this next one, she said, "Don't tell me your gender, I'm going to write an article about this. Then you can tell us on the article." And so she wrote an article about. I don’t know how talented I was to be able to write either gender like that, but she thought I was, so, I’ll just take that as high praise

And then, as an adjunct to that story, she must’ve liked the article so much that she republished it again as, "Gender Bender Again", when she didn't have an article to publish once.

Reminds me of the first time I got quoted internationally by a guy down in Australia. I had posted the telling of a fight I got in back in the 70s. I think at first I pulled out my knife to offer to the guy saying to him that he's really gonna need it. He declined but looked worried. I had advanced in my martial arts at the time to where I found weapons were just in the way for the most part. 

Also, at that time in America I found nearly always, if an opponent in a street fight was using almost any kind of weapon, other than a gun, it tended to disable them from fighting effectively. Because so many people thought a weapon looked and seemed cool, but if you don't know how to use it well, better you don't use one at all. 

Let me just say here, I'm no "tough guy". I'm just me. Many of the things I've done were scary to me, but you learn to maintain and follow your training. Train and maintain. Persevere to the end and try to be successful. It's paid off for me all my life. Sometimes it's just about a hard project at work, finishing writing a book, or exercise, or learning a new skills. 

Yes, yes, someone will say something like, "Well, you never had a fight where I lived." That's really beside the point. I'm talking about a specific time and place and my experiences and reality...not anyone else's. 

I just ran a few times into guys who thought they were tough and I don't know, maybe watched a lot a martial arts movies but had little training or experience actual fighting. That was a time when few people in America were trained and Karate dojos were only starting to get a foothold in our country. Today, it's different. I have no desire to get into a tangle with some MMA guys. 

For some reason, there was a short period of time when I'd go into a bar and get harrassed Usually if I was with my girlfriend or wife. Couple of times with my wife and her girlfriend. Couple of times two guys were giving me crap. They were alone, I had two good-looking women. they were drunk and stupid. I had studied martial arts and was carrying a firearm. Not that I'd pull it out, unless they pulled on out. I was always able to talk them down, diffuse the situation. One time they went over to the bar, bored with being unable to push me into a fight. 

They actually argued with me about how a good fun bar fight is fun! I said the trouble is, if you have fun, you can actually kill someone, accidentally. And it's hard sometimes when you do want to kill someone, but they can be very hard to actually kill. Had they pushed it, I would then have told them we can do this, but I'm going to try to kill them as quickly as I can. One or both of us are going to the hospital, one of us may not survive. I do not fight and if I'm pushed to, well...that's how I see things. 

When I was a kid, our sensei said he'd prefer we run from a fight than harm someone. So I'll do what I can, but if I can't get away or end it, I would fight back. I don't fight hard, just smart, if possible. As Bruce Lee said in his book, your entire surrounding environment is a weapon.

When I started in Karate in the 1960s, I'd wear my gi on the bus to the dojo sometimes and the looks I got from citizens were mixed and comical. Many hadn't a clue what was going on but some older perhaps WWII guys had bad looks on their faces. I guess just seeing a racist version of the Japanese and wondering why a white kid would mimic them. And perhaps understandably so. But I stopped wearing the gi on the bus after that.

Anyway, back to the Australia reference about a fight...at one point, I threw the guy down and realized he was about to slam his head into the concrete. I realized as I started the movement on him, I could speed it up and kill him. But even at that point, I might unintentionally kill him. So I grabbed his arm and yanked up so his head didn’t hit the ground. 

I had said in my online article that there’s no reason one cannot be a gentleman, even when someone’s trying to kill you. I used to say that sometimes. Perhaps "gentleman" is the wrong word nowadays and I would instead use there’s no reason you can’t be "decent" or polite in a fight. IF you're good, you can be. So train. I taught my kids that concept. Decency even in having to kill someone who tried to kill you. But you also have to be good enough to have that option.

My last post mentioned missed opportunities, and I just thought of another kind of a weird one. In my senior year at university when I was getting a minor in creative writing and playwriting, and script and screenwriting, aside from my major in psychology and phenomenology… I took intro to theatre because I wanted to learn about the stage and the proscenium arch and the technical aspects but it wasn’t a technical class. Though I’m sure that was part of it. 

The Harvard grad student who taught the class, which always irritated me as at a university you’re only supposed to be taught by doctorate-level professors… he had us count off by threes. We were all sitting in the theater seats while he was sitting on the edge of the stage. After we counted off, he said "OK you’re gonna come up here by numbers and act out who you are on stage." About eight guys got up and walked out immediately. I looked around and it was all these really good-looking girls left with one or two other guys. I just sat there terrified. The other guys had scared looks on their faces too. The girls all seemed fine and relaxed. He talked for a bit and said about the guys who left, "Good, we don’t need them. Best to get rid of them right off." 

Then I really felt like a shrinking violet. 

Finally, it came up to our going to the stage and I couldn't take it.  I got up and walked out too. And, all the women moaned, sad to see me go. That surprised me. Somehow I was apparently considered pretty good-looking on campus. Ahhh, the good old days, so sad when such things fade. 

But my missed opportunity was that within a year of graduation, my girlfriend would leave me so we could’ve separated in college during that last year, and being in that class, had I just had the balls to get up on stage and make a fool of myself, things might have gotten interesting. I mean, always wanted to act. I just didn't have the self-esteem or the courage. Part of getting my psych degree, before this theatre class, was taking a psych class about group therapy. Basically, doing group therapy as you learned about it. Which I objected to, but no class, not degree. So I did it, and I loosened up quite a bit. it was really pretty good for me to have done.

I’ve done some acting in recent years. I don’t give a damn much anymore. All my life I never had a problem jumping out of an airplane or any sort of dangerous thing, or facing down a gun stuck in my face, which is happened. But acting? Putting your soul out there for people to hate, or love, maybe? Meh. It wasn't happening.

By the way? Today I remembered to bring my collapsible umbrella but, I didn’t need it, still, better safe than sorry. Wish I'd had it yesterday.

I was talking to my oldest son yesterday on the phone about my life orientation and trying to help him with his, since he’s in a tough space right now, times are just kind of hard for him. I’m trying to entertain him from hundreds of miles away, as I can and offer advice, which you know, he often doesn’t want to hear. But I told him I think I was never focused on money in my life and maybe I should’ve been more so. I just never focused on business because my mind simply doesn’t work that way. Too bad, really.

If I had a better business mind, the art I have produced would’ve made money. But I always was concerned for myself, my life, relationships over working 24 hours a day, being concerned for others and having good experiences. Being the best person I could be and always looking for the Truth. Not my truth. Not a religion's truth. Not a political party's truth, not an ideology's truth, but the actual, and as best as you can find it, objective as can be truth. What I’ve learned through physics and philosophy is that there is an objective truth. While there also is no objective truth, as what's objective is subjective. How’s that go? "Objectivity is subjective and subjectivity is objective"?

And... I got in my 5 miles today!

I just got home at 59° and the Trump criminal trial jury has been deliberating for 10 hours.

Wrap it up people.

[And as we now know and as I said up top, Trump is now finally officially... a convict.]

On that note, I’ll bid you adieu…

And I’ll leave you with that. It’s noon and time for lunch.

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #51

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts… July 11, 2023, Tuesday

Weather for the day… 57 degrees began walking at 8:10 AM, 71 degrees upon arriving home

Podcast: State of Ukraine, then Pod Save America, then Strict Scrutiny

Check the price of the house for sale across the street.

Yesterday I mailed off two DVDs of my films ("Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" and "Gumdrop", a short horror) to a filmmaker in Albuquerque at Experiments in Cinema.

Why did I stop posting an Instagram shot/video on my walkabouts? Because of changes to Instagram that I found annoying and convoluted. I liked just posting pictures... for years. Something I really got into when I was traveling around Ireland in 2015. I got home and found I'd lost access, someone hacked my account. It took a while but I eventually got it back. Then they made changes toward shooting videos for Instagram, probably because of TikTok and maybe also because of YouTube shorts. But now it’s just gotten, for me anyway, not simply click and shoot like I used to do. Some of these enhancements we see may be financial enhancements for the company, but too often seem like just a pain in the ass for users.

I have to take usually half a Benadryl if I take anything on these walks. Usually I don’t have to. If I feel my blood pressure being uncomfortable, which can be just slightly high, I take one and then I don’t feel it. I assume it’s got something to do with histamine levels. I’m hoping it’s just long Covid dragging on because I figured if it goes away by April 20, 2024. I’m doing good. That would be two years. If not, then long covid may have evoked some permanent changes. Or who knows, it could go away in an extra year or so after that. I bought a bottle of Benadryl from Costco for years ago and it was so much I gave, probably less than half, to one of my kids who lives with heir spouse on 5 acres, up north. My bottle sat with far too many for too long. I didn’t think I’d ever use them, just end up throwing them out and buying a new bottle when they expired. But because of long Covid this past year, I’m now almost out of what I had left and bought a 2 bottle pack from Costco online which has now arrived.

From the podcast, Pod Save America (or was it this ep?, the Ukraine one is only ever a few minutes long, which is sad, but always informative…). They’re talking about how years ago they helped Bernie Sanders beat Pete Buttigieg for POTUS election. Got me thinking because I was a Bernie supporter as were, I  my kids (no, they didn't always agree with dad as I was for Hillary, they way weren't, much for disinformation reasons, some promoted by Russia, however). I know one of them for sure went with me to see one of his speeches in Seattle, which was an awesome event. I suspect had Bernie won the presidency, what Republicans did to Obama would’ve happened in a different format to Bernie. Because when you consider the reaction against two terms of Obama, in Trump elected ridiculously as POTUS, they viewed Bernie's social leanings as toxic Socialism. Which is not America who doesn’t do foreign versions of toxic Socialism as other countries did. We’re just not designed that way. So all this talk about we’re going to be socialist is fantabulistic bullshit. Mostly propped up by those who immigrated from an abusive socialist  country like Cuba under Castro. So in their misguided well intentioned diatribes, they have damaged America and caused this issue of China in Cuba now, Because we didn’t at least somewhat normalize relations long ago, because we didn’t like Castro, which I didn’t like Castro, but there must’ve been a way we could’ve kept our enemies there closer? You know? Goddamn political science isn’t that difficult unless you bring humans into it! Yes, that’s a joke. Sort of. But it’s also true. So Conservatives and Republicans and bigots equated Obama being a black president, as they would have Bernie being a “socialist“ POTUS. The ignorance and divisiveness, stupidity and disingenuousness around social programs merely to aid our citizens, and not just reward, and not tax the wealthy and corporate... it’s just mind-boggling in our country. What's left of it by this point (Thanks GOP). How Republicans ever got poor people to vote for rich people is really kind of insane.

Once again on that, how are Republicans in power at all ever, reminds one or two of the old adage, "they can’t see the forest for the trees", because Republicans pick these little annoying thing just to fire up their base and those people can’t see their overall plan and path. Which of late has been autocracy. I noticed on "Alex Wagner Tonight" (last night she had on her old friends from "The Circus", great show), that behind her on the background graphics at the top of a "building" it said, correctly: "Authoritarianism"). In every autocratic country they bring an autocrat populist leader to power. It never seems to farewell however for those delusional people in their belief that what, an asshole will make things better? Really. As example Turkey and around 50,000 buildings that fell because of bad building codes due to Ergogan's backroom deals with contractor friends. And let's not mistake or forget the role of religion, which is basically an ethereal power and magical thinking autocracy with “God“ as the "populist leader".

When an atheist ever says things like, “thank God”, they’re not being hypocrites as I’ve heard theists claim, they’re being ironic. And if they’re not being ironic, because they’re not really thinking that deeply into using such a common idiom, then they just using a common phrase, perhaps one we all grew up hearing. Which was much the same during the founding of this country and many who claim that makes this a Christian nation, don’t know much about our Founding Fathers, or the elements and extent of Freemasonry in our nation's founding. Of which I can speak, because I was nearly head of my lodge in Freemasonry years ago, but had to step down due to nearly tragic, traumatic family matters. As it should be, my family, and in this case, my kids, were more important than anything outside our home.

Insert photo here of my Covid book in Yakima at my eldest son’s store (top of photo).

"Suffering Long Covid"

Stopped "Pod Save America" and switch it over to find and add/follow (thinking I had already done that), the "Strict Scrutiny" podcast about yet another ridiculous enemy of democracy, The Federalist Society. And apparently on societies at large, there is that one Clarence Thomas that joined years ago, that introduced him to all his wealthy billionaire friends. The, Horatio Alger Association, for the wealthy (from Rolling Stone).

The Republican Party ended various infections, such as the Tea Party, WSnon, MAGA, but they are our party of weaponizing and being that concept of flight inversion for a pilot where they think they are upside right while their instruments tell them no, and they cannot accept or believe reality and so ended up pulling up on their flight control, and right down into the ground. I can think of no better metaphor for what we’ve been seeing these past few decades with the GOP, and especially since Trump hit the political stage. Again Republicans getting the lower classes to vote Republican, or minorities, including Latinx, in moving from the Democratic Party, who granted, had ridiculously ignored them, because I get you shouldn’t be ignored. But whether I’m ignored or not, I would still stick with the people who have my best interests at heart. The GOP are petty retailers using their consumers, their voters, in any way possible to profit off them with the belief that even if they killed them, there will be more to come. At least Democrats don’t look at voters that way.

I really need to finish my academic book on my film "Pvt. Ravel‘s Bolero". The older I get, the harder it is for me too feel the motivation and endurance I used to have, which could be at times, fucking heroic. My last summer quarter of University after graduating, I had wanted to graduate with at least one screenplay under my belt. But that hadn't happened in my year long special team screen and script writing series of classes. So I wrote my first full length screenplay that summer. I was taking three classes in the mornings as college classes typically are, twice a week or whatever, just to get my VA benefits. I only had one school quarter of that left to pay for my school and apartment while my girlfriend went to Tacoma, where we’re from, to get a job and find us a place to live. I spent all day and night, studying and writing the screenplay. Sixteen hour days wasn't unusual. I rented an RCA video player which uses vinyl record like discs to play a movie, audio AND video, which fascinated me in 1984. I rented a machine and I think five movies. One was "Brainstorm" with Christopher Walken. I liked it so much the first time around, I watched it four more times that day taking notes and mapping out the structure of each scene. By that evening I was pretty tired of watching the same film, fives times. Or I should say I mapped out the overall structure of what kinds of scenes were where? I plotted out the kinds and format of the scenes. Like when you have a lighthearted or comic scene prior to someone being murdered in a horror movie. I built my screenplay on that model. Just for something fun to do and to see what happened. I liked what I came up with – two professors gave me an "A" on that screenplay. I had first talked to them about doing this. One credit per prof for a self study class. You could create your own "class", if you got a professor advisor for it to have them sign off on it and then turn it into them at end of quarter and then they to grade you or maybe give you a pass/fail. Professor Schaeffer said, "Cool", and I gave him the screenplay end of quarter and that was it. The same with Professor Rees. I had previously done that with Dr. Reese for shooting a film on phenomenology. Which was my first ever film, shot outside of maybe our family home movies if my parent said, "Here, shoot this", when I was a kid, or something. I was also an AV tech for my family and later in high school I took a class as an A/V tech (Audio visual), where I was one of those guys who came to your classroom to run whatever your teacher needed. I remember taking a projector to a girl's "Health" class in 12th grade but some of the girls complained. The teacher sent me out of class after I had set things up and the girls voted: should he stay to run the projector, or should the female teacher? I could see them raising their hands or not through the window in the door. I nearly was voted in to stay. For some reason that made me feel pretty good. Anyway back at university, Dr. Rees also said I would have to give him a log I should keep, which would be what he “graded“ me on. I so wish I had made a copy of that. He later told me he showed it to all his classes and one girl in particular complained that especially in one scene, all she saw was my ego. He corrected her, having read my log and intentions and mindset, that he knew for a fact she was incorrect. What I found interesting about that for myself, was that in cinema it doesn't always matter what the filmmaker intends, but also what is being projected and/or understood by viewers. As for Dr. Rees, my girlfriend were lucky to get Dr. Rees as advisor. We had many of the same classes together and were kind of a noted couple on campus for our tending toward being at the top of any class we were in...except for psychology statistics, one of the hardest classes either of us ever had and we had a legacy professor and statistician whose father and grandfather were noted people in the history of that discipline and to be sure as he warned us in our research we would repeatedly run into the three of them. We were lucky to have gotten Dr. Rees as our advisor at Western Washington University, but the moment we first saw him, the way he looked, like a thinner crazy looking Einstein, with wild hair and a forked beard like some Chinese philosopher, we knew immediately... he was our guy. And he was an incredible choice. If you ever heard about. and I’ve talked about this before, when Brown University shut down in protest in the 1960s, when the students took over the college president's office, they went to the on campus think tank which he was a part of as a student and the leaders of the students did something smart. They asked their group: "Here’s our situation. What do we do?" So his group of guys got together, talked about it and then presented their model to the students. Which the students then executed, and made international news. Anyway, that screenplay of mine is, “Ahriman” which I have also discussed previously on this blog years ago. This blog which has been running since 2010.

Perhaps I should mention this. I got connected with a company who will take your screenplay and turn it into a book format, give the elements to you and then you can upload it to sell on Amazon. They just the other day sent me the cover graphic [df file and text elements file, which simplified my work to put it up on Amazon. I’ve asked the AI if it's a good idea. After a few iterations of honing my query to it, and it thinking I meant, should I sell it in novelization form… No, I meant a book that is the screenplay, just in book format… it basically said, "probably not a good idea, if you’re still trying to sell it to a studio." So I put it up there so it’s ready if I ever do want to publish it and that way I get my own copy of it, but not open it to the public so I can give it to others. I know my kids would like a copy. So I did that and I have copies coming as a proof and sent my oldest a copy as he's into collecting them and my youngest doesn't yet really have the room at their place.

As I told my son yesterday about this, I remember in high school when "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" came out. Big film. We all loved it. My cousin went to a high school south of my school district in  the suburb of Parkland by McChord Air Force Base. That's the area I lived in when we returned from Spain and Philly in 1960. All of her actor friends had a paperback version of the "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" screenplay. Which I thought was bizarre. But of course I bought my own copy and read it. Which was fascinating for me in it being my first screenplay read. I was a voracious fiction/non-fiction reader. I wish I still had my copy of that that paperback. Anyway, I really need to quit procrastinating and finish my academic companion book for "Pvt. Ravel’s Bolero". [I'm working on it again now, a little be every day after asking the AI if my Table of Contents was good...it said yes, but made other suggestions to add and, I have, now I just need to write those chapters]

I got this short sleeve Tommy Bahama shirt some years ago. It’s light blue and I like it a lot, it’s in good condition, just a little sun bleached. I had an interesting green pull over coat that I really liked years ago, and I’ve discussed on this blog in the past, which had the same issue from being in my car too much in the sun hitting it too much. I had given it to my youngest, who a couple years later didn’t want it any more, so I happily took it back (having had regretted giving it up) and thought, "What the hell, I gave it away, I’ll try dying it green. I knew some of it had maroon trim in it and I thought I'd ruin that, but, oh well, better all  green." So I died at green and... it came out looking brand new, the maroon was still maroon, but the green now looked a nice solid green again. So I’m gonna get some light blue dye and toss in the shirt and see how that works. I know, not rich peoples concerns, but yeah, maybe “"irst world problems". Still, doesn't hurt to look nice.

I have to say. for those who might want to walk or exercise, maybe listening to a podcast or music to distract you, especially maybe if you feel a bit isolated or alone, which I kind of like to do, transcribing your thoughts when you have a thought, especially one that others might be interested in, is really an aid and positive technique to make you feel less isolated.

It's been over my 13 years of this blog, which began with two blogs a day, seven days a week to quickly get articles online back then. I now have 1600 posts, with this one here. I always thought it would be fun to go through all of these and pick out any little pearls of wisdom I may have inadvertently dropped, to put them all into a single compendium of thoughts. Which would be better if someone else did it, objectively. That would be a lot of work. If I were rich, I could hire a writer to do it, or a researcher. Or maybe someday, probably soon, I’ll be able to point an AI at it and for a small fee, have it digest, analyze and divulge said compendium of knowledge. In the meantime, years ago I did have the foresight to start some pages off of this blog as what I called, "Quotes on the Murdock" (oldest, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, newest). Because, I'm always seeing quotes by others, famous thinkers or authors, or just known people being quoted, and I wanted somebody to do that with me. No big deal but I do think I've said the wise little observation in life from time to time and I just wanted to think I had something to say it was worth sharing. That I actually said something worth repeating. It’s funny, I look over those pages now and I find, reasonably so perhaps, that the more recent ones are the ones more relevant to the masses. The earlier ones are too long and maybe not quite as well defined.

Damn sweets! I went shopping at Winco yesterday and while I didn’t get sweets to last until the next shopping trip, I did get some for yesterday and hopefully some where I’ll just have like one cookie a day after lunch, and I don’t think that’s a problem. I’ve been having a healthier kind of ice cream bar which isn’t very big that I have after lunch, but rather than having one of those after lunch every day this time, I got 1 pint of Ben & Jerry’s and ate that yesterday and now no worries, no ice cream in the house. Eating something not good for you once in a while is fine. Maybe a small amount every day is fine. The reason we eat healthy is so once in a while we can enjoy eating for fun. But I need to drop 20 pounds or I’m gonna start getting telegrams from my knees going. "Hey! Knock it the fuck, off pal! YOU try carrying your weight up there...down here, like we do!"

One of the women on the Strict Scrutiny podcast is talking about her book “Ideas”, that she said one reviewer said was "jarringly academic". Reminds me of my own academic/scientific e-book on the history of psychology and using synesthesia and schizophrenia to study each of those through each of those, if you see what I’m saying.  "On Psychology: With Illustration in Psychopathology via Synesthesia and Schizophrenia". That was weird because I just wanted to get it out to people. I wrote it in like '83 in senior level university abnormal psychology seminar. it was my final paper. And I completely blew away my professor and our small class, sitting around a round table. This was that exciting, final senior year where we were told there’s no more tests, you have to prove yourself through oral and written reports and discourse. Speaking for myself, I didn't know that was coming. It was a day of exhilaration. No more tests?!! That was so exciting and rewarding. Of course any other non psychology classes I had not in my major would still have tests. But then I was also that year into my special series of team screen and scriptwriting, which also was awesome. I had a lot of credits so I could almost have gotten a double major having gone each year through college to summer classes.

Anyway, my ebook on psychology, schizophrenia and synthesthesia, is an interesting article, with references, which was the problem for an audiobook. In an ebook at the end of a sentence, you just see references, that correspond to the bibliography at the end. In an ebook which is supposed to match up to audiobooks, so people can switch from reading to listening, back-and-forth ("whispersync"), and find themselves in the same exact spot where they left off in the other format...how do you do that? Well, I thought "Occam‘s Razor". So I read aloud the references at the end of each annotated sentence, or quote. Which was the name and the year and there are at times several. Easy to skip over while reading but painful when you’re listening. I could’ve release the ebook and I kind of wish I had, and just used a footnote that may be referred to at the end in the bibliography. That way at the end of a sentence, I could just say "1" or I could say "2" or whatever the number is, thus quickly referring you to the end of the document in the bibliography. I got some interesting reviews on audible.com for that. Some said that it was an amazing piece of work. My professor had said in class, the day I presented it, when I ask why the room went silent, that I didn’t do anything wrong. Everyone in the class was just... stunned. I thought I did something wrong during their silence and I was getting really nervous so I asked our professor, sitting next to me if I did something wrong? He reclaimed himself from being deep in thought and shook his head and said "No. I’m just surprised. You know researchers seek through their entire careers for a seminal piece of work like this and here you found something, even before even graduating." I have to say I walked out of class that day feeling pretty good. I had put a LOT of work into that. In fact the night before I was up until 1AM literally cutting pieces of the paper up and they were scattered all over my entire living room. My girlfriend had gone to bed going on midnight, empathetic. She asked if I needed help, but I looked around and said, "Thanks, no, I wouldn't have a clue how you could help." So she went to bed. I've written about this night elsewhere. About how I remembered Dr. Rees saying a cluttered mind has a cluttered environment and vice versa. One leads to the other and you can affect one by ordering up the other. So I did that and it worked very well. That was also the night I wrote my short-short single page story, "Perception", which eventually evolved along with another story, "Andrew" (novella end of "Anthology of Evil" which I've written about elsewhere and had a similar effect on my university intro to fiction class which they loved and voted me to write another story with a woman also chosen for that honor for our finals day class as we had no finals to take) into my book, "Death of heaven". There was very little research on synesthesia back in the early 1980s while there’s been much more research done by now. Last time I researched the studies done since 1984 I was pleasantly surprised. But I didn’t know how to get that paper out into the world back in the 1980s. And so in 2012, or 2014(?), having some published books on Amazon by then, I put out an ebook for this paper and also on Smashwords as an ebook. By the way, my (half)brother, Marvin Hayes, did an amazing cover for it! I have got to say though that one person, a female reviewer on audible, said she felt like she was being spoken down to. Which certainly wasn’t ever my intention, or my orientation. But it's an academic journal type piece, and if you don’t understand psychological journals, it might come off that way. But she was the only one who had that assessment. Was it my writing, or my speaking the words? I did the best I could.
at
Dammit! I just did it again. I got down to the end block on the end of my walk, by my home, turned around and started heading back away from my house for the next half mile...I went to write down what mile I was starting and saw that I had done 3 miles and was unsure if before I rounded the end of the bloc a few minutes ago, if I had already written the number "3" down... to save time. And then after I turned around headed back out onto the next half mile and went to add that mile and saw it said mile "3"... I was confused if I'd already added it, or if I actually just did 3 and should now be at mile four. Sorry. If you see what I'm saying. So I’m thinking about it and it feels like I'm beginning mile "4". So I put down the number "4" and promised myself, no more adding the number before you’re around that corner!

By the way, this memory issue of what mile am I on? Is the reason I write it down to keep track of it. This is not an old people memory issue. This is not a long Covid memory issue. This could be 40 years ago and I would have had the same issue perhaps because of ADHD, or perhaps because each half mile begins to blur into each half mile and it’s just hard to remember what mile you’re on. Tracking things is good. I also use an exercise app so when I’m done I can look at that. If it doesn’t add up to close to the 5 miles I did two days ago, or two days before that, then I know I probably have one more mile to go. So what that points out is... redundancy is always good.

That’s something that always bugged me about commercial flying. When I was in the Air Force packing parachute, I was talking to a pilot one day who said that I need to understand that all pilots around the world appreciate their riggers. Because the airplane is a pilots primary mode of takeoff, and of landing, and when it fails to safely land them, parachutes are their secondary mode. I had asked him about they're having an emergency chute, because as a civilian skydiver, we had to have one. Which is why he pointed out that while civilian divers have a primary chute for landing, pilots have an airplane for that. Our emergency chute is our secondary option. "So please do pack carefully", he said good naturedly. To which I responded that we’re all very serious about packing. Our chutes have all our names on those you pack. And failed chutes have gotten rigors tossed into federal prison at Leavenworth. I was involved in that once when we got chutes from another base and they were so poorly packed, someone went to prison. We had to repack them when we attached them, which you always do with new chutes coming to a base, see who previously packed it, and write down all we found wrong. One chute was not even attached to its harness! So anyway, my point about commercial flying is nobody on those planes have a secondary option to land if the primary (the plane) fails. To have a chute for everybody would be excessively heavy. But I will forever think that commercial airlines as with ships on the sea that need enough lifeboats for everybody, so too should an airplane have an option for each passenger and crew member. But nope. No redundancy.
?
On the above about my adding miles in my notes as to which mile I’m walking. Currently, you might ask and I’d considered this, why don’t I walk a mile and write down "1", then walk the 2nd mile and write down "2" when it’s finished? The reason for that is, I write down "1" and I begin. Then at the end of five miles, it already says "5" as I finish since writing down "5" at that point is a non sequitur and rather a moot point. Because as soon as I get home, I dump these notes on my laptop to edit for this blog. Then I delete all miles back down to "1", so the next day I walk that "1" is ready to go.

Another thought about these walkabout thought blogs of mine… I don’t publish these expecting every word to be carefully read, as I might one of my published books. Or my screenplays. But my thought on anyone reading these is as a stream of consciousness journal, only briefly edited once before publishing, That people might quickly scan through these if they have an interest to see what I have to say, and then slow down when they hit a paragraph of interest. Or to see a link they want to check out from somebody more interesting than I am, in my just giving a brief summary of something they said. So for anyone who is annoyed with these blogs because they’re not well written enough, because I didn’t give them enough thought or something, these are just basic streams of consciousness, and the only reason I edit them at all, is because of the "text to speech" software, or my speaking while walking, or sounds in the outdoor environment screwing my words up as often as they do. I had wanted to do a blog straight from my thoughts to yours. Sometimes I’m wrong. Sometimes I’m confusing. But hopefully sometimes I’ll evoke thoughts beyond what I’m saying that will do someone, or anyone, or perhaps someone you told about what I've said, or offered, in my or our offering something beneficial.

Oh boy, this is gonna be a long blog to edit today… I got behind in the past week. I’ve been trying to catch up, and now I am! I have one more blog at home to read through and publish and then do this one. But the one I did yesterday, the final one that I had edited, was thankfully a very short one of only a couple of pages. Yay! And that was a pleasure and a grace! Period.

In case I haven’t previously mentioned, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached and removed from SCOTUS and forced into mental health therapy. I have compassion for the man as far as his being damaged in a poverty stricken, culturally abused childhood. I don’t however have compassion for someone who grows up to a position of power who abuses that illegally and monetizes it for his personal gain, having evolved into an ideology of abuse for all others, because they may have gotten their start in life in a similar way to what he did, in receiving help from others he has apparently grown to resent and hate. Sounds like a self-esteem issue to me. Sometimes in growing  out of a childhood of abuse, one has to embolden one's ego to a point of far "more than", and it can get carried away, even to a point of dysfunction. The man is a ball of emotional and mental pathologies. It’s so obvious, but it’s painful to witness. And it’s more painful when no one is doing anything about it, especially to protect others he has sway over, as in AMERICA, and our Laws. As article after article is coming out about his grift as one of OUR SCOTUS Justices, in his abusive his position, which he seems to think he is owed, and makes him some kind of royal lord. We do not have that in America and we need to knock those types down when we find them, and when they get out of their lane. This is NOT about putting down a Black man, but a friend of the elite and the wealthy and powerful, many of whom have taken their leaves to negatively affect our nation and government, laws and citizens.

It’s pleasing for me to note today that I’m on my almost completed 4 miles so far, but the sun is up, very few scattered clouds out, with a slight cool breeze, a beautiful day. But the sun is beating down and although it’s not too hot, it’s hot to the point that not that long ago, because of long Covid, this would’ve caused me health concerns. I’m used to all my life, as with most people are who exercise and work out in order to get a good workout, to sweat and somewhat exhaust yourself, to push beyond your limit or go a little further than normal, once in a while where it’s not affecting you in anything but positive ways, with the occasional maybe strained or sore muscles. But I’m at a point now that I feel I can push through this and be OK. It’s sad, but at this age, in this point in this illness of long Covid, it is a milestone and a rather great feeling.

Two days ago according to my Accupedo exercise app, I did 11,577 steps. Today starting my fifth mile I’ve done 8,651 steps so far. But I also think I went to Costco two days ago so it should be a little lower at the end of this 5th mile, but still close.

When Pres Bush stopped using the American Bar Association for who to make a judge and started using a greatly suspect The Federalist Society, America began yet another plummet into our current insanity.

The Federalist Society has been exceptionally effective and exceptionally extremist and destructive to American democracy. Just to be clear…

So Xfinity gave me $5.99 off a movie streaming rental. Cool! [I watched "Hypnotic" with Ben Affleck and you go through it wondering or shaking your head, but it's fun, until we realize, it all DOES make sense and oh, that's cooler than I thought! So worth the $6 I didn't spend.]

Our awesome dog

By the way, again, in 2016 I sold my house in the woods in Suquamish, Washington, home of Chief Seattle, where his grave is… I sold my pristine couple of acres in the forest because my kids were moving out or had moved out. So I was there alone with our awesome dog and life was good. But I wanted to retire and I could no longer afford the mortgage. I bought the house in 2000 for $180,000. I sold it in 2015 for $340,000. After it had previously gone down $140,000 but came mostly back up. It’s sold for $600,000 a couple of years ago by the people I sold it to. But there were two other reasons I sold. I was starting to be concerned about climate change and wildfires. And I was tired of being alone after 16 years and the longest I had ever lived anywhere. I wanted to be around people again and retire to get more involved in the independent filmmaking community and to write and so on. While we haven’t seen any local forest fires, it’s not how I want to lose my home and history, and all our things and memories. and media from my children’s past and my own. My heart goes out to all those who have.

Our awesome dog who put up with us for 15 years...

Constitutional originalists or contextualists aren’t fools, but are disingenuous and divisive. They know better. They know that the Constitution is a living document that should be evolving, even though we’ve managed to lock ourselves into a position where we can no longer make amendments that have long been needed. Once the 2nd amendment began to be weaponized against America it needed to be updated. The reason and purpose that was written, when it was, is different than what we have now. People are just locking onto it because they are having "fun" and they know they can get away with it. When that happens, things go badly awry. When things happen about and around a topic such as guns, it inevitably leads to autocracy, and here we are with people who see that and have monetized it and weaponized it, not FOR the nation, but for their own benefit, for the few who have that ideology for real, are rather sick individuals, and if not mentally ill, certainly socially.

The Republican Party needs to be renamed, the Regression Party or the Regressive Party or just cut to the chase and go with the sinking Ship of Fools. Take your pick.

OK, so 10,721 steps for today and I definitely feel like I did 5 miles. If I look above at the 11,000 something from two days ago, I think I definitely did 5 miles today and not 4.

The Black Stone Legal Fellowship is like The Federal Society. Check out Media Matters about them. Or Rewire News. So it's something else we should dissolve.

Remember, when you hear conservatives, especially toxic ones, say the word “freedom“ they're referring to freedom for THEIR ideology, and that alone. What America refers to in that term is freedom for all. Not freedom to abuse others without repercussions. Because what we’ve seen, especially with people like Trump, when "called on the carpet", accurately, factually, they scream to high heaven of abuse and oppression, and to THAT, as our courts ARE, we must all scream bullshit.

I just got home and checked my mail and my Costco package with my new Benadryl showed up. Two bottles of 100 each. I thought something was odd so I looked at the old bottle I have had for so long (still not expired) and it said 600 on it! Well, that’s instructive.

[So I got home, took a shower and weighed myself. I'm down 5 pounds. The work's starting to pay off, finally!]

Cheers! Sláinte!

Happy April Fool's Day (and no, this ain't no joke).

I wanted to come up with an April Fool's kind of story to offer for a free download (I just now thought about this, so I have to choose from what there is).

"Japheth, Ishvi and The Light"

Free download coupon code (expires 4/4/2016): LF98T

The closest thing I have written I can think of that fits today as there is a kind of joke built into the story.

It's a Zombie story, and yet... more.

Sláinte!