Deaths

 I've been thinking about death lately. There's a worldwide pandemic that has killed millions worldwide and over 200,000 in the USA alone. Mainly because of our own stupidity and hubris. Freedom doesn't mean being stupid and killing others because someone chooses not to wear a damn mask. 

So there are 200,000 deaths and counting. It seems like doing the simple thing is too hard for a bunch of whiny babies. So there are a bunch of deaths. These deaths are not good in a way that dying in your sleep is a good death. These are painful, labored breathing, and solitary since the family cannot be at the bedside to say good-bye, 

I've had friends who have died from strokes and heart attacks and cancer, ALS, Parkinsons, demetia, Alzheimers. I know one person who had a stroke and lived to make a full recovery. She was the exception. A friend is currently in hospice because the cancer is no longer treatable. It's a painful, sad, shitty way to die. Facing an end, knowing it's coming, dealing with pain, and there's nothing to be done. 

There's a concept of a Good Life. Someone lived a Good Life. There should be a concept of a Good Death. Not in a Viking or Samurai or Klingon kind of Good Death in battle, but one that is quick, painless. Passing away in your sleep is a good death. You go to sleep and slip the earthly bonds. 

Humans are humane to animals that have cancer and put them to sleep. It's the compassionate thing to do. But we don't have the same compassion to allow the same for humans. The reasoning is muddled in my mind. They will be afraid. It's murder. God wouldn't want it. It's against God's will. God wants me to suffer from cancer and be in excruciating pain? Kind of a cruel god.

What death would I like? I don't want to be in failing health, weak, unable to get around, ruing my fate, unable to do the simplest things I do now without thinking. I'd rather go younger, a bright flash of light and I'm gone. Is it lightening? Death my misadventure? Those are usually quick. An exclamation of "Oh fuck!" and I'm gone.

What the Serious Fuck

That's what I've said almost everyday for the past 18 months. I haven't written a blog post in that long. My heart isn't into making witty observations when the fabric of the nation is being rent every fucking day by the occupier in the white house.

Everyday there is a new outrage or twelve. Regulations keeping food, air, and water safe are eroded to the delight of some corporate entity who can make money by poisoning us.

Trump is a traitor, criminal. But finally he's being held to account for his malfeasance, his criminal actions (extortion, emolument violations, abuses of power.)

The impeachment is going as I expected. The votes will be along party lines. When the trial in the Senate happens he will be acquitted but that's to be expected. The GOP have sold the last vestiges of their souls and now worship at the Cult of 45. When this is over the GOP need to be so thoroughly defeated in 2020 they will know that when you side with monsters the enablers are destroyed too.

So my obersvations about Hollywood or cats or traffic whatever crosses thru my brain have been largely subsumed by worry the nation won't be able to recover. And when I was writing it was Vampire books. (Blood Stakes and Blood Vendetta can be found on Amazon Books.)

I'll try to be funny again soon.

What's up with airline food?

Are You Happy?

I was at a friend's book launch party recently and I was talking to a  total stranger. We were talking about life and all that stuff. A lot of talk about acting business and whatnot. She hit me with:

Are you happy?

I blinked at her a couple times and replied.

I don't know.

Happy. It's something people strive for by many means. Money, sex, love, career.
There are rich people miserable in beautiful houses.There are people who have lots of sex with lots of partners. There are long loving relationships. There are people with careers involving what their heart's desire.

Are they happy?
I don't know ask them. I'm writing about me.
I've never looked at happiness as a place, a destination to arrive at and then you sit on the porch, happy.
I generally have enough money to keep a roof over my head, eat something I don't mind eating. I have the ability to go places and do some cool things some times. I have friends though I do spend a lot of time by myself. I might be a bit lonely at times but I'm not a hermit. If there's a party or a gathering I will most likely go.
I'd like to get laid more than I do.

Am I happy? My Dad's dog was Happy. It was his name and he was a dog in a good household. So he was awesome and Happy.

I'm not depressed. I'm not weeping at home with a gun in my mouth unable to pull the trigger.

I want more.

I want more of everything. More career stuff. More personal stuff. More money stuff.
More. I'm not satisfied with the rut I'm in. I want to break out of it. I want to do more. Be more. Have more adventures.

I want more.

Pallbearings

Bare gnarled trees lined the sloped dirt road. Flat spaces on the sometimes gentle, sometimes steep  hills were marked out by low rectangles and squares of concrete. In those spaces were white marble markers. Gravestones from as early as 1844, possibly earlier. One grave was marked with a marble obelisk topped with a statue of Jesus.

The hearse preceded us up the hill; the only car allowed to travel into the cemetery. Carrying the casket 100 yards to the grave site would have been difficult. The hearse somehow made a turn so the back door opened facing up the hill. Everyone at the grave site had to walk.

We climbed the rise to the family plot and looked in the hole. It wasn't like other graves I'd seen, been a pallbearer to. It was a large gaping hole, torn out of the red earth rather raggedly. The dirt removed was piled next to the long side of the plot. The dirt was rocky and coarse. One section of the wall had collapsed leaving a scallop out of the mostly vertical side. The cemetery workers said there had been rain recently and that made the dirt heavy and unstable. The hole 6 feet or more wide, and it was also deep. About 8-9 feet deep. Because it was on a hill, and there was no machine to lower the casket into the hole, it would need to be done manually with wide straps. By the six pallbearers.

The mortuary men figured out how to get the casket in to the ground. Two 2" x 12" planks about 10-12 feet long were placed across, spanning the top and bottom of the concrete sides which were the borders of the burial plot. Because the boards had some flex, pieces of wood were placed on the family grave marker to shim it up. Would OSHA approve? Hell no. But it should be sturdy enough for the task at hand.

The morticians laid out 3 straps each about 20 feet long. They were rough and wide, like ratchet straps used for securing cargo to truck walls. The mortician told us to take off our dress coats. The best way to lower with straps was to have the excess strap length thrown over your shoulder. As you let it in, the strap would feed over your shoulder easily. Because where the plot was we had to set the casket at 90 degrees to the orientation of the hole. There was dirt on one side of the hole. At the bottom of the hole was a steep hill with scrub brush, going up from the hole was the continuation of the hill and another burial plot higher up the hill.

The top of the gold metallic casket needed to be at the top of the plot. I don't think it would matter to the occupant, but we were told what to do. We brought the heavy casket out of the hearse and set it on the straps. The ends were threaded thru the handles of the casket. I was at the head of the casket. I would have to balance on the low concrete curb surrounding the plot to lower the casket into the ground.

Now this was not all done in a vacuum. There were people from the church service who came to the grave side to watch. There was a group of 4-5 older women sitting on the cement curb of the plot up the hill watching. There were also people standing away from us as we were about to set to work. And what they were about to see was, at the same time, kind of sketchy but also pretty funny.

I have been a pallbearer 4-5 times. I was worried about dropping my friend's mom in San Diego on rolling dewy hills as we walked to the grave site off the 15 freeway. We were wearing white cotton gloves, which made gripping the casket handles difficult, and walking on sloped, wet grass. If we dropped it she would have slid down the hill and burst thru the chain link fence and joined the flow of traffic heading South.

This time was trickier. Behind me as I gripped the strap was a steep hill. We had to lift the weight, carry it forward, then make a 90 degree turn. Three people would have to navigate the boards and the 3 on my side would have to walk the cement beam. We started the turn. As we got the first 3 feet of the casket over the hole I couldn't get a good grip on the strap. The casket was not level. My end was lurching downward. Because it was a wide hole the straps were straining outward. I said I needed a hand. It was heavy and I was being pulled toward the hole. Howard jumped in to help and grabbed the handle end. Someone grabbed onto Howard and kept him from falling into the hole.

We slowly struggled forward, all of us precariously perched on a beam or board. As we got halfway over the hole the strain of my strap bent the handle it was threaded under. I was shocked. I said, "We need to go faster." I had no idea how the casket was constructed, but I imagined the handle breaking loose and the box dropping into the ground, pulled out of the other's hands by the sudden explosion of weight. We got it completely over the hole. I don't recall anyone saying lower away, but we started lowering it down.  Howard also had hands on my side of the strap so it wasn't necessarily smooth, but it was safer.

I was relieved when the casket touched bottom. I looked at the guy across from me and let go of my end of the strap. He pulled it out from the handles.

Nice brief words were said at the graveside. We all joined in to sing amazing grace. Purple flowers were tossed on top of the casket. As we finished up and walked from the plot the main topic of conversation was, "Oh shit, I thought we were going to drop her." One of the morticians or cemetery workers said they had seen coffins get dropped into the grave. That's kind of horrifying, but with the locks on the caskets, nothing more shocking would happen.

The funny thing was, we all agreed Theresa would have gotten a laugh out of the spectacle. Not said at the time but she would comment later with observations about the entire operation.

Rest in Peace. 

tRump Don't Care

I think the GOP Deathcare plan will pass the senate. I think the GOP are too cowardly and too afraid of losing the easy job of senator to really take a stand against a horrible bill and the dark money players who want the ACA repealed. There is a dark money group already blackmailing  Senator Heller of Nevada. They are spending millions to convey the fact that they will primary him if he votes against Deathcare.


The rich will do excellent no matter which way the vote goes because they are uber rich. Too bad poor people will suffer and die because of this vote.

What a fucked up political system where the people's representatives are held hostage by millionaires and billionaires.

Locally Sourced Hate in a Global Market

I'm not entirely sure, but social media, Facebook, Twitter, and similar platforms may not be a good thing for society. In addition to increased connectivity and speed of information in the world, they have also contributed to a rise of tribalism never before seen. Not just in America as observed everyday on FB, and Twitter comments, but globally.

Before the internet and before the explosion of social media if you lived in a small town and were prejudiced against a skin color or sexual orientation, you didn't have a platform to connect globally with people who believed like you did. You might be able to find local friends who hated like you do, but you weren't able to reach out and re-enforce your beliefs with like minded people. You created local tribes.

And in your local tribes you probably didn't greet new people and expose your bigotry and hatred immediately. You had to suss out how they would receive it before you released your prejudice. There was a knowledge and a certain sense of shame. You knew what you believed was not socially acceptable. So you hid it only to reveal it when you knew you were safe among friends. When you did tell people your hate you bridled at "Political Correctness." What others might call civil society.

With Twitter and Facebook there is no shame. No acknowledgement you should be ashamed of your hate. Your hate is no longer a just  local manifestation which found like minded bigots. You can join groups which share your small minded hate. You can partake in a echo chamber of re-enforcing belief where doubts  you might be wrong never arise. No contrary thought you might be wrong is allowed. Anyone who points out you are _______ is ganged up on and shouted down. Bullies win by sheer numbers and do digital high fives in posts when the oppressed leave the field of battle.

You take great satisfaction from calling dissenters "Snowflakes." But when your world view is challenged you react like the snowflakes you make fun of. You say things digitally you would never dare utter at work. You would never dare bully and threaten someone if they were standing in front of you. Thru a keyboard bullies are invincible.

How many people have been in the news because they lost a job for hateful racists or misogynistic things on social media? It happens often. The people become national or worldwide  pariahs in an instant of "retweets" or "shares." Their deeply held beliefs which they would have never shouted thru a bull horn in a crowd 25 years ago go around the world on a wave of electrons. They whine about their self inflicted plight with the excuse being, they were just exercising Free Speech.

In America you get to be as hateful as you want. If you deign to put it online you risk a backlash and all the repercussions which can happen. Apologies are hollow. "I'm sorry if anyone took offense." That puts the onus of offense on the person who was offended by your hateful speech, not you who said it. Silently you still think it. Salvaging your reputation is the goal.

In the current climate people are emboldened to speak vile things to the detriment of society as a whole. The coarsening of rhetoric diminishes humans and creates walls that stop us from understanding each other.

There are lots of self feeding tribes. Liberals, conservatives, vegans, hunters, all religions fighting over god.  The shouting they do at each other keeps them from understanding each other.

Everyday

Everyday I wake up and turn on the Today show and wonder what fucking outrage this horribly unqualified president will do.
And it happens everyday the first 15-20 minutes are spent on some scandal or bullshit tweet he has typed at 3 am.
Do you remember when the news everyday was not about the president being and idiot or the government doing something to destroy America?

Because everyday the GOP are actively working to destroy America. They are rolling back regulations for clean air and clean water. They are denying the earth is growing hotter and man is a big part of it. Do they have another planet to go to because as far as I know this is the only one we have. If we fuck it up the cockroaches are going to be the only ones left to live on it.That and rats.
Every fucking day I despair and rage that this can't be stopped. I've called my government more in past 5 months than I did in the previous decades.
Why is that? Because I never thought the government even under the horrible G W Bush was actively trying to destroy the country so they can give money to the rich.
Every person *45 has put into a cabinet job is unqualified or has a hatred of the thing they now oversee. Who does such a thing? An arsonist looking to burn the country down.
President Bannon has said he wants to destroy Washington. And he's doing a good job of it.

So everyday I fight. I call. I comment.
Because I love my country and an orange fool who never wanted the job is destroying it.

Black cat update 2017

Yeah. I still haven't had much to say in this blog.
The government is a shitstorm because of the GOP and drumpf. It's 70 odd days into his presidency and the only thing I can really tell is he hates the job. Fucking despises it. Wants to be playing golf. On the campaign trail  he said many times it wasn't fun and he could easily be doing something a lot more fun. Being peed on by Russian hookers maybe.
He should quit.

But the little black cat has been coming around pretty regularly. Don't know where he was fed, but he's still alive. I went to England for 2 weeks. He was waiting when I got back.
So I'll feed this little freeloader. It's a very casual relationship. He uses me for food and gives no affection in return.
I let him.

Today America Died

What we once knew as a progressive forward thinking nation died.
The lockdown of information and the rolling back of good things government can do have already started.
It's going to be a long 4 years.

Little Black Cat Update

Yes. I've not been posting since July. I've been busy. or not busy or I had nothing to say or I had too much to say.

There has been just so much fucked up shit going on in the country and the world I was too disheartened to post funny or scathing rants about drumpf, or the grabbers of pussy party, or Syrian war or the thought that there could be world war 3 because of a tiny handed baby twittering in the White House.

It's all so horrible.

So I'll give you an update on the feral cat I've been feeding for about a year.

He fucked off.

Granted, I was just the human sap who was feeding him when he would show up at my door, but since about mid September he's only shown up twice. I kept going to the kitchen door many times in about a 3 hour period from 4-7 pm looking to see if he was stoically waiting for me. He never meowed. Feral cats don't do that I guess. But he would stand like a statue and then move away as I came out with a dish of wet cat food.

But it became weeks since I'd seen him. I rarely ever saw him in the neighborhood in the daytime, he was that elusive. After about a month I stopped worrying about him. I'd maybe open the kitchen door a  couple times in that block of time. But since it's now cold I didn't leave the door open and look for him to come to the screen door like a shadow to wait for food.

I gave up. He was either dead or had found another source of food.

Then before thanksgiving the cat shows up at the door. I still had several cans of food, but you ungrateful little fuck, you could have called to tell me you were alive! Sent a text or something. I gave him the food because I'm not a monster, but I gave it to him ironically.  

Then last week I look out my kitchen window and he's laying in the front yard and occassionally looking at the window nonchalantly. Fuck you, cat. You think you can come expect a free meal after you go on a 3 week meth binge?

So I gave him food. Shit! I'm in an abusive relationship with a cat.

Haven't seen him since. 

Fat

I got the chance to hang out with a couple last week for an extended period of time. I was around in those private personal moments where there was seemingly innocent interactions which could really hurt deep down.

The guy was putting on a costume and said, "I'm fat." Now I hadn't seen him in a year or more and he was thicker around the waist as is common in relationships when there's regular sex and good food. People get comfortable. His girlfriend replied, in a sing song reassuring voice, "You're not getting fat."

His statement is something I learned in an acting class a long time ago. You, or a character, will say certain things so there can be a contradictory reply;  a reassuring response to the "I'm Fat." comment. People say things like that so they ARE contradicted with a soothing response. Because if someone agreed with them that, "Yes, you have put on some pounds." Feelings are going to be hurt. Or a reply of, "Go to the gym." is just as mean. You are fishing for, "No, you aren't fat."

These little lies keep society and relationships going.

I was walking down the street and 2 men were walking toward me. I heard one of them say, "Tomorrow I'm going to start going to the gym." This caught my attention. I almost blurted out, "No, you're not." Because how many times has that sentence been uttered? Billions probably. And how many people get their ass to the gym? Like every New Year's Resolution, "I'm going to join a gym and lose weight." A valiant statement, but by the end of February most gyms go back to the normal attendance.

It's easy to be fat. It's hard to actually do something about it.

Move more. Eat less.

Not A Typical Thursday

5 police were murdered in Dallas yesterday. 7 more were wounded. 2 civilians were also wounded by a domestic terrorist. I'm not going to type his name. Because, fuck that guy.

The news was originally saying there were multiple shooters and had a picture of a guy with a rifle attending the rally. They said he was a person of interest. In Dallas, open carry is legal. Which is weird. What does the guy carrying a gun around gain? Safety? Or does he just scare the shit out of everyone who sees him with a rifle? Because If I see a stranger openly brandishing a gun, I'm going to probably get away from them. I don't know them or their intent. I'm not going to assume he's a good guy with a gun. The police found him and questioned him. He said the rifle he was carrying around was unloaded. Really? Then why are you carrying it around? You just like the freaked out looks people give you when you are walking around with a gun? Can't save the day with an empty weapon, Rambo. What's your motivation? Couldn't legally walk around with your cock out so the gun is a substitute?

But I digress.

The shooter was pissed off about the police shootings this week of 2 black men. So he went to kill cops. When he was confronted in a parking garage the Dallas Police Department talked to him for hours and hours. He said he wanted to kill white cops and white people in general. They could tell he wasn't going to surrender. Rather than having a SWAT team put in harms way storming this guy, they had a robot roll in with a bomb. The bomb exploded and killed him.

This was the appropriate action. No one in the news has said it was the wrong thing to do. But also no one, not one person in the news, has said they were bothered by a robot delivering a bomb to blow some asshole up. I'm totally fine with the police blowing him up. He deserved it. He was evil. But I've never heard of police blowing someone up because it was the safest option. Merry Christmas, the robot has something for you. BOOM!!!

I'm glad he died, but I'm a bit vexed by the cops with bombs thing.  Which would be an interesting movie title.  
Cops with Bombs.  
or maybe
Robot Cops with Bombs.

What a strange world we live in. 

Discourse

I pay attention to politics. Probably too much. On my FB feed I get news updates. And I comment on the stories sometimes. I usually comment in ways that are snarky but also along the lines of the truth. Or the truth from my perspective. Because, isn't that we have? Our truth or view of it?

People reply or like the comments. I don't really care what they say. They have their own opinion and I was foolish enough to put out my opinion in an online forum. The replies to my comments show more about who they are than any in person meeting probably ever would.

I left a comment on a CNN story. I don't even remember what it was. I got a number of replies. Some disagreed with my postulation. But then there was one, "You look like a HOMO!!" That puzzled me. If the reply you put out to a comment is a homophobic bullying rant, then you really have no way to win. You have just revealed more about yourself to every person reading the comment section than you normally would riding around with a anti-gay bumper sticker on the back of your beat up Chevy truck.

I followed that thread a bit to see if someone would take him to task for the comment. No one did, but the comment also disappeared in a few hours. He had a fit of decency? Thought better about the hateful comment? Got bored because I didn't engage and protest, "Nuh unh!!" So his trollish behavior was to get a rise out of someone and have a flame war because you have nothing better to do with your day while you pine away at your shitty job in a tiny cubicle? Cool.

I read the comments of some stories without commenting on the story and I'm horrified by the screaming lunacy that abounds in the populace. You can tell what news channel people watch by their views, arguments, and language. It's really kind of sad to see the closed minded people in our country. We have all this freedom to think whatever we want, worship or not worship any way we want, and the hateful shit which comes across in the comment section shows we are one meteor strike away from cannibalism.

Their comments don't refute someone's argument point by point, it is name calling and foul language. Personal attacks on people they will never meet. It is reflected in the presidential candidates. Though one is the uneducated name calling 5th grade bully. I don't mean to disparage 5th graders, but he reflects their rather rudimentary language choices.

I do hope after the election people lighten the fuck up and put away the flame throwers. But I kind of doubt it. The internet is a great place to anonymously savage people who disagree with you.

When aliens find the remnants of our civilization, sometime in the near or far future, I hope they don't find the really ugly hateful part.

Cosplay

I costume. I have won costume masquerades at World Cons. The costumes are good, strong, competent costumes, but the presentations rock. I've been costuming a long time.

Sometime in the 90's someone came up with the term COSPLAY. I don't recall who. I've heard the name, but I don't know if it is true even if I could remember the name. I have to admit I hate the term "Cosplay." I very reluctantly use it, rarely in fact.

The reason is simple. Cosplay, in my mind, has a sexual connotation. Similar to the one I have in my head when I hear "furry." Like cosplayers are dressing up like Spider-man and a cross played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle are in a hotel room somewhere fucking in costumes.

Costumer is a better term for the job I do and the amount of time involved. I mainly make recreations of costumes from comics, TV,  and movies. The problem with costuming comic books is that they are drawings. Artists can draw anything they like, but much of the time never think about how the costumes really work. How do you take them on and off? How do you go to the bathroom? Why do I have so many ankle pouches? Things like that.

With superhero costumes you can put seams to get the costume on and off along the lines of the costume designs. With costumes that are variations of normal clothes it is usually easier to get them on and off. Also with the comic book costume it's a challenge to get the color right. I've shopped for fabric while carrying an issue to two with me to get the color matched. Is the color shiny or matte? Is it lycra or some other fabric? Or leather or metal? Is there a texture drawn into the image? These are all very important when trying to get a character correct.

Getting the character to look right is hard. When recreating a movie or TV character I get every video and image I can find. I freeze frame movies or TV shows on Blu Ray, then I take pictures of the costume or the equipment they might have. I will sketch things and count how many ribbons are adorning a coat to get it right. I've made costumes before and after seeing a new angle or photo or the actual piece in person, notice something I missed. Some stitching or the pattern I created or used is wrong. It's crazy how anal retentive I will get about minutiae. For one costume we made muscle suits for the costume to then go over because our skinny physiques were not at all like the superhero size required.  To see us as Wolverine and Sabertooth weighing 155 pounds would have been silly.

So when I hear the word "Cosplay" it makes the serious way I recreate a fictional character's costume seem frivolous. As good as I am, I'm not as good or creative as some of the costumers I know. They are world class craftspeople and do finish work on a costume that would make an Italian tailor jealous.

This play is not frivolous.

Collectors

I've been selling some comic books lately. I have titles I bought because I thought they might be valuable in the future but didn't necessarily like the character. Some of the books are valuable. most are not. I collected comics because I like the characters or the stories or the universe they were in. It was bought to be read and enjoyed and I would talk about what I read with my other comic geek friends.

Now some of what I collected are valuable. But like anything of "value," to sell it you have to find someone else who also thinks its valuable. For example, the Hope diamond is purported to be worth $350,000,000. But you'd have to find someone willing to shell out that ridiculous amount for a hunk of carbon.

Back to comics. The comics I collected for decades are in bags in long comic boxes. They were all carefully read when I bought them. In fact I held them with a folded piece of typing paper so the oil from my hands didn't damage the cover. It wasn't a thing where I planned to sell them and put my kids thru college, but I didn't want to leave finger prints on the covers. Comics now are sold at comic shops with bags and boards to protect them. It keeps the spines of the comics from getting damaged and the pages from getting creased.

I was working a job and talking to a guy I know who goes to comic conventions. I said I had some books to sell. He asked for titles and I gave him a list I had made for a comic dealer I met at wonder con. (Dude, if you had ever called or emailed me back we could have made a deal.) The lists took a long time and encompass the 2100-2300 comics I have in 7 boxes.

The guy at work looked at the list and wanted to see about 20 books. Specific issues of certain titles. I went to the Overstreet's comic buyers guide and looked up these books. They were first appearances of a few character which have become popular. Lobo. Doomsday. Things like that. I looked on eBay to see what the going rates are for the issues he wanted.

When I'm at SDCC I look at the vendors with comic books. They have big walls of books in plastic bags or better yet graded by a company called CGC. And I look at the prices. I have a lot of books which are pretty valuable; if I were able to get the prices they have on their walls.

So I haggled with him about prices. He is a collector of toys and comics and lots of pop culture things apparently. He kept coming back to the condition. Granted he's trying to get the best deal he can, but I, as a seller, don't want to feel like I'm getting taken advantage of just because I need cash.

Eventually I sold him a number of books. It helped my bank account but not as well as I would've liked. He commented later to me saying he had looked at some of the books with a magnifying glass. And there were creases. I found that odd. A magnifying glass. It's a comic book. One that is anywhere from 10-20-30 years old. It's brightly printed newspaper which no one who originally printed them back in the 1930s thought they'd have any value.

I wanted to ask if he read it. If he enjoyed it. I didn't because he was looking for flaws on his newly acquired investment, not as a book to be read and enjoyed.

Stalled

Whenever I poop I prefer to be at home. It's not a phobia of public bathroom thing but more of a social awkwardness thing. The act of taking a shit next to a person in a multiple stall toilet next to someone who is doing the same thing is weird. You don't know how things are working in their GI tract, but you get an indication from the sounds coming from the stall next to you. Human bodies make embarrassing sounds...

Yes, I know. There's books like, Everyone Poops. Which is meant for children to get used to the idea that they are going to be doing it daily until death. Not reading, pooping. Though reading and pooping are a thing. I'm not the type which reads War and Peace while on the toilet. I'm generally business-like. I do my business and get on with my day. It's quick. I don't have to spend too much time.

That's not the way it is for everyone. I have been in a stall next to someone who sounded like he was forcing a grizzly bear out of his ass. I almost asked if he was okay. But then that starts any number of awkward conversations. How big is the bear? Is it a cub or a fully grown angry 15 foot tall kodiak bear?

I don't know how women's rooms are, since women go to the toilet in pairs. Is that just to get away from silly men and talk? Do they talk in the stalls? I've seen it in movies, but I don't know if it happens like that in real life. So many questions. And I don't really pine for an answer.

Men's rooms are generally quiet. Like a tomb quiet. You don't generally acknowledge another person is there. It's not the place for conversation. That can take place outside. Inside there's work to be done. And then you get out. What women don't know is that at a line of urinals, two men won't stand next to each other if they can help it. We always have an empty urinal between us. If at all possible. But that would be another blog. Or a Funny or Die video.

Once I was working a corporate thing. I was sitting in a stall doing my business when a guy entered the bathroom. I knew he was there because he was talking on his cell phone. In speaker mode. He entered the stall next to mine and continued to talk. Are you shitting me? He didn't tell the person he was in the restroom and I guess his call was soooo important he couldn't hang up. It would be easy. Say, "Can I call you back in 5 minutes?" Most people would respond affirmatively.

So I sat there being especially quiet. Uncomfortably listening to both sides of this business call. At some point I was fed up and decided to fuck with him. His call was invading the serenity of my pooping, so why not? I knocked on the wall of the stall to the guy on the phone next to me. "Excuse me." I said loudly. Loud enough for the other person on the call to hear. "Do you have any toilet paper in your stall? This one is about out. Can you please pass me about 3 feet under the wall?"

The phone call stopped. There was a long silence. The person on the other end of the call said rather icily, "I'll call you back. When you aren't busy."

I embarrassed the shit out of the guy, but it was all innocent enough, and his own fault for impolitely carrying on a conversation while pooping.

He rolled out 3 feet of TP and passed it under the wall. I said, "Thank you very much."

I quickly got out of the bathroom and never saw who it was.

2 Black Cats?

Since August of last year I've been feeding a feral cat im my neighborhood. I wrote about it last year in this sparely updated blog.

He or she is jet black and has a clipped right ear. I was told by someone that feral cats are captured and fixed so they can't have kittens, then released back into their own neighborhood. It keeps the feral cat population down and keeps cats which can't be adopted because they are wild from being destroyed.

On a few occasions the cat came to my kitchen door and I fed it. But I looked at it and thought something was odd. The ear didn't seem to be cut. It was a black cat roughly the same size. The ear difference I thought to be because of the angle I was at or some other thing.

Nope. There's another feral cat in my neighborhood that is virtually identical. How do I know? They both came by last Saturday at supper time.

Now the first  black cat doesn't like other cats. It's pretty wary when eating. Constantly looking around waiting for an attack from another cat. Which happens sometimes from a indoor/outdoor cat in my building. But this other black cat he seems to be cool with.

So I was surprised to see 2 cats at the same time. It solved the mystery of the ear. Not a Sherlock Holmes level mystery, but something to be wondered about for a moment after I put down the metal bowl.

When the first cat was done I coaxed the other cat over to have a bite of dinner as well. I don't know where they go, if they go together or not, but they are out there struggling to survive. And in some small way I help them out.

I should set up a go fund me page to offset the $2 a week cost of my altruism! Brilliant!

What the Fuck? Politics!?!

I really don't understand politics this time around.

People seem to have lost their minds. An orange insane narcicist is leading in the GOP polls by being a total asshole. The people going to his rallies say they are angry. Seem to be angry at everything. Including decency and common sense. If they were in a bar and the drunk jackass at the end of the bar insulted their wife, called her a fat ugly dog, the man would go punch the drunk in the face. The drunk would then say he was just being politically incorrect.

That's Trump. He's the drunk asshole at the end of the bar insulting your wife. But for some reason the voting public are embracing his assholishness and saying he tells it like it is. Which is bullshit. He's just an bloviating dickweed with weird hair who is spewing his Id all over America like a porn star at a bukkake. If the angry mob would stop attacking protesters and listen... Who am I kidding? They like the show. They finally get to say all the hateful things out in public. The anti black, anti immigrant, anti other crap that makes them fear. The idea that America in the 1950s was better. Yeah, maybe if you were white and middle class.

But the funny thing about the middle class jobs that went to China and Mexico trump keeps crowing about, saying he's going to bring them back. They were in manufacturing. Cars. Appliances. Clothing. Hard goods. All those good paying union jobs were sent to Mexico and China by the companies. It was because why pay $30 an hour to make a car when it can be done in Mexico for a fraction of the labor cost. More money for the company and it's stockholders. This is the economic bottom line. The corporations are in it to make money and they are going to screw the workers more often than not.

This economic anger and frustration has given rise  to trump. Which I find shocking. If you listen to him he has no plans to do anything. It's all verbal run around. 4th grade verbal run around. His plan to defeat ISIL is a secret. So secret he doesn't even know it. His economic plan helps trump inc. Not the electorate. Throwing people off the ACA and abolishing it is going to kill, literally kill people. Because no matter how big an applause line hating Obamacare is, it actually helps people not die. And none of the GOP has a plan to replace it. Going back to the old system of insurance where a plan gets cancelled when someone gets cancer is a horrible, horrible idea.

So how do you inject decency and thoughtfulness back into the politics of today. Fuck. I don't know. I read the comment sections on facebook and various news websiites. It's vitriol and unabashed hatred. Not just for the system, the politicians you don't like, but for people. people who are exercising their right to share an opinion. And they are being attacked on a personal level.

Should we be shocked? Not really. The right wing media, Fox news and the talk radio folks like Rush have made hate fashionable.

What can be done? Hell if I know. Maybe not consider your opinion the only one which matters. Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has got one. But you don't have to be an asshole to express it or attack those who disagree with it.

The opinion, not the rectum. 

A Change In Perspective

I was working a job. It was going to be  a long 10 hour day. I was going to be walking miles and miles in a convention center hall rigging a corporate show It's a space maybe 2 times the size of a football field.

One of my jobs is very physically demanding. In all the time I've done the job I've never seen a guy in a wheel chair do the ground rigging part of it. So I was surprised. And I watched him do the job but struggle with things I've never thought of before. He had to lock the wheels of the chair so he could bend at the waist to write on the floor in chalk as we marked out the points. Otherwise he might roll away or his actions would turn the chair. He had to manage the things in his lap because he couldn't put stuff in his pockets easily.

He was young. Under 30 I think. And I made a point over the entire day I worked with him never to whine about how my feet hurt or my legs were tired from standing. It took 7 hours to mark out over 350 points on the ground. But having the guy in the wheel chair right there made me shut the fuck up.

I didn't ask what happened to him but listening to the banter with him and his co workers I learned a lot.

He was injured in a car accident of some kind. A driver hit him. I don't know if he was in a car or on a motorcycle or walking. When one of his co workers was giving him shit he started his retort with, "When I was laying on the pavement with a broken back..." That was a jarring statement to hear.

He was relatively new to the chair. I think the accident happened in the past year. This job was one of his first gigs back. He also said he can't drive. After an accident like that the state pulls your driver's license. You have to retake the driving test in the new vehicle with hand controls since you can't operate a regular car without using your feet.

Also, he had no feeling below the waist. None. So that means... He had catheters inserted into his urethra. Which means there was a bag of waste somewhere attached to that catheter. I once wore a bag with a tube on me for a play I did where I was a war veteran. It was filled with water but it definitely changes how I moved and felt. I could take it off when the play was done. He's going to be decades in that chair.

But worse than catheters, NO SEX. The equipment no longer works. That is horrifying to me. He has a girlfriend, but I don't know how the whole sex issue is worked out.

He is a good guy  with a good attitude. I could see he was frustrated at times with his situation and inability to do things, but overall he was coping well. And I did wonder what I would do in that situation. To go from able and active to being in a wheel chair.

I wonder if after his accident someone said the platitude, "God has a plan for you." Or "This happened for a reason." If someone said that to me I'd hit them. It's not a plan, it's an accident and deities shouldn't want people to become crippled. I'd be angry in that situation.

If anything, I'm changed. For how long, I don't know. But when I whine about being inconvenienced by some small thing in life, I know it could always be worse.

Donald Trump = Zaphod Beeblebrox

I was reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the other day. As it introduced Zaphod Beeblebrox, I started drawing parallels with Donald Trump

Zaphod has 2 heads. The added one is considered less attractive than the original. Trump only has one head, but his hair is weird and is brought up in derisive ways by people slamming Trump.

Zaphod became Galactic President as a scam. Trump doesn't really want to be president. Not really. It's an ego driven scam being played out on America.

Zaphod was elected by low information voters. Trump's base of support is a bunch of low information supporters. Tell them the truth about the man or his businesses and business practices, and they deny it. Say  it's not true.

Zaphod as president is an infuriating and fascinating character. Trump is too.

Zaphod didn't use the prepared remarks before he stole the Heart of Gold spaceship. And the media loved it. Trump doesn't use prepared remarks. He speaks extemporaneously and goes off on tangents as the audience reacts to his speech.

Zaphod is described in the book as a "good-timer, (Crook? Quite possibly.), manic self publicist, terrible at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch.
An internet search of adjectives for Trump: Maniac, narcissist, self-promoter, arrogant, blowhard, idiot, clown, egomaniac, pompous, showman, bombastic.

So.
There you go.
Donald Trump is Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Without the good parts.