The Price of a Good Meal

Gobble and Waddle.  Sounds like what people do at a Golden Corral or one of those highway restaurants with the overcooked vegetables that I can't remember the names of.  Or it could be the name of two of my hillbilly relatives.  But. . . do you already know?  These are the names of the White House turkeys.  Not Eric and Donald.  

Trump is going to pardon them.  The turkeys.  

I hate to jump the gun, but Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  I look forward to not cooking.  Nor buying the food.  Last night, I decided to cook steaks.  I used to eat steaks quite often but somehow they fell out of my rotation.  I think it was because my grill didn't seem to get hot enough and they were turning out beige.  But last night, my mother agreed--we needed a steak.  So I bought two boneless NY strip steaks.  Why those?  Have you looked at the price of beef lately?  I couldn't go T-Bone or Delmonico.  Those strips were bad enough.  Asparagus.  A potato.  And a Cab.  

When the cashier rang it all up, I exclaimed, "Two dollars and nine cents for a potato?!"

"Yea, it's crazy," said the man checking me out as he rang up the five dollar and forty cents asparagus. 

Holy shit.  

I'd gotten an o.k. bottle of wine.  The bill for last night's meal came to $45.  BUT--I was excited to use my new credit card which pays me back 2% on all my purchases.  Huh? Pretty cool, right?  

I did the math in my head.  I would get back ninety cents on the price of my meal.  

I was nervous about cooking the steaks, but I had read the proper way to cook them without a grill.  I let them sit as long as I could to come close to room temperature.  I rinsed them and patted them dry, then gave them a good coat of olive oil.  Salt and pepper.  I cooked them in the big cast iron pot into which I drizzled olive oil and put on high heat.  When I dropped the steaks in, boy did the sizzle.  One minute per side.  Then I cut the heat and let them cook for about five minutes turning them once.  

I've already said, "Holy shit," but I'll say it again.  They were perfect.  We ate everything.  We ate it all.  And at the end of dinner, the bottle of good wine was gone, too.  

Was it worth $45?  Or $44.10?  

Whatever.  We were a happy pair, old Gobble and Waddle.  

See?  I kick about my life.  I'm living like a White House turkey.  

I even ordered three more t-shirts yesterday.  Black.  Slimming, you know?  Classic.  I should have gotten ten.  What I should do is go shopping for some grown up clothes.  I haven't worn a pair of dress pants--DRESS PANTS?--in years.  That's what us hillbillies call 'em, I guess.  Dress pants.  I have some very fine Italian tropical wool pants that have a lovely drape, but I doubt I would fit into them now.  I haven't the heart to find out.  All I wear are mumus now.  

I should try to grow up a bit.  

I still have shoes, little crocodile loafers and the like.  Haven't had them on in. . . how long?  

And jackets?  I have a lot of nice linen and silk jackets.  And when was the last time. . . ?

This is my preferred attire now.  You recognize the photo, no?  At least the studio couch.  And again, I think I like the illustration more than the photograph.  Funny that.  

Well. . . there you have it.  Oh. . . I subscribed to Vanity Fair again.  After Carter Gray left as editor, the magazine had an agenda that didn't speak to me, but they have a new editor now who has already, with the first issue, gotten embroiled in all sorts of controversies, and the subscription for both digital and hard copies was only $1/month.  How could I say no?  It's exciting.  Every month, a magazine will show up in my mail just like in the old days when it was exciting to get catalogs like Smith and Hawkins, Pottery Barn, Anthropologie, Banana Republic, etc. . . when they were really works of art.  I'd get into bed at night with a cocktail and a pile of catalogs.  

Yup.  I'm a real girl, I am.  That's what always made me so special.  Those were the days when I would wear a pareo around the house like some suburban primitive.  

So here's a tribute song. . . to me!  You know the song, but you never listen to it.  Now you can.  I'll give you several versions in descending temporal order.  Remember, the only lesson you should learn. . . . 

  

Holiday Cheer

Up at four.  Felt weird.  Went back to bed, but didn't sleep.  Bad thoughts, then a cough and some pressure in my chest.  I got up at five.  Made coffee.  My nose began to run.  After a moment, I realized I really didn't feel well.  Somehow, I'm sick again.  Strange as I haven't been anywhere all weekend.  I've not come in contact with anyone but my mother and her neighbors.  So. . . I'm a bit freaked.  

My college roommate texted me, said he was feeling low.  His wife would make the traditional Thanksgiving meal, but, "it is hard to be positive."

No shit, old chum.  

A bit later, I got a call from a woman who coddled me at the factory.  There were required tasks that were just fucking stupid work.  We had to project budgets and submit them for approval.  It didn't matter what you wrote.  They gave you the same thing or less than you had the year before.  I could never see the point.  So. . . I'd go sit in her office and she would ask me questions and I would give her stupid answers and then she would enter something sensible into the computer.  She did the same for me on other dumbass projects.  And when I got run over, she did everything.  Understand, she didn't have to do any of this.  She wasn't even in the same part of the factory hierarchy as I.  

She got married to her sweetheart, and then she took a job at the Big U across town.  

Then she came back to the factory, but they wouldn't give her the promotion she wanted, so she took a job in another state.  She is a Vice President there now.  

She had texted me a copy of the Pogues "Fairytale of New York" last week, but I wrote back and told her it was too early to start getting Christmas sad and besides I wasn't experiencing the season this year.  

When I answered her call, she said, "You are not the only one who is going to be sad this Christmas."

Uh-oh.  Seems her marriage is falling apart.  She didn't give details, and I didn't press.  She's been with this guy for over ten years, maybe fifteen.  He was a big, good looking guy, an athlete, but he never seemed to do anything for a living.  All I could do was tell her it was a rotten thing.  

"It's o.k."

"No it isn't.  It sucks."

I've known that deal too many times.  

And so, the holidays are off to a bad start for friends and neighbors.  

But I'm sure there is something good somewhere.  As I lay in bed between four and five, I tried to think of something good, and I almost did.  It wasn't world peace or anything grand.  I think I almost remembered the last time I had fun during the holiday season.  

Well, fuck it.  I'm definitely sick this morning.  I'm going back to bed.  I'll have to get up in awhile and take my mother to a doctor's appointment.  I'll take some DayQuil before I go.  

But here's something fun.  Another cartoon video.  Nobody has been going wild for these things, but I like them, so. . . .  

Infants of the Mind

I downloaded the photos I've been taking with my Leica M10R.  I put a 28mm lens on it, set it to range focus, and snapped away on my walks without using the viewfinder.  I didn't like a single image I'd taken.  Just to let you know.  

I didn't go to the birthday party last night.  My life is not my own.  Things went off the rails when I came back to my mother's house with dinner--two luscious burgers and some fries from the Boulevard Burger Emporium--at her request.  The neighbors were there, first one, then her husband.  They sat for an hour as our luscious burgers got cold.  Then we ate.  It was dark.  I texted a note explaining I would not make it.  

In truth, I don't mind staying home.  But I mean MY home.  I had spent many weekends in my house without leaving.  But I was with MY stuff.  My leather couch.  My books, music, pictures. . . and stuff.  I'm a homeboy unless something exotic calls.  So it wasn't hard to choose not going to the party.  

But. . . my mother's couch, her colors, her. . . whatever.  

O.K.  But parties make me nervous.  

Rather, I made a grocery run at seven-thirty.  Even that was difficult. . . until I got out.  Away.  But the crowd that grocery shops on Saturday nights can be pretty depressing.  There are not so many.  Just us losers.  And the poor bastards who have to close on a Saturday night.  

When I got back to my mother's, she had CNN on.  And to my surprise, it was Bill Maher.  I couldn't imagine why she was watching it.  Maybe she wasn't.  I poured a drink that I said I wouldn't pour and sat down to watch it. 

I remembered that I don't like Bill Maher.  

Then I watched some CNN show with an Irish guy giving us the lowdown on racism, racists, a white's only community in Arkansas, and South Africa.  The show set up a dichotomy.  Were whites being persecuted?  Was there a White Genocide?  

As I watched the show, I realized that they had set up a false dichotomy, one that always gets perpetrated.  The problems are more complex, more nuanced, than the show presented, but they know their audience, I guess.  People don't want complexities.  They want black and white.  

Pun intended. 

I began to think about audiences and tv shows, and the idea occurred to me that people have become infantilized by television.  The most popular shows are about adults with the minds of children.  They say silly things and are always wondering out loud about the obvious.  They are, by and large, goofy.  

Most of the shows I like don't last, and when they do, it is not because they have huge audiences.  People like comic book movies.  WTF?  Television and radio commercials are delivered in sing-song voices one uses when talking to children. 

Audiences have been infantilized.  

Notable & Quotable: Schools 

Andrew Rice writing for New York magazine, Nov. 18: Last winter, the federal government released the results of its semiannual reading and math tests of fourth- and eighth-graders, assessments that are considered the most authoritative measure of the state of learning in American elementary and middle schools. In nearly every category, the scores had plunged to levels unseen for decades—or ever. On reading tests, 40 percent of fourthgraders and one-third of eighthgraders performed below “ basic,” the lowest threshold. A separate assessment of 12th-graders conducted this past spring—the first since schools were shuttered by the COVID pandemic—yielded similarly crushing results. Many graduated from high school without the ability to decipher this sentence. How can I assume that? The test asked them to define the word decipher, and 24 percent got it wrong.

“You can’t believe how low ‘ below basic’ is,” says Carol Jago, a former public-school teacher who has served on the board that oversees . . . the National Assessment of Educational Progress. “The things that those kids aren’t able to do is frightening.”

Maybe there is a correlation.  I sent this to some educator friends of mine.  

"Sure. . . now's a good time to get rid of the DoE."

I didn't respond to that, but I thought, well, we had the Dept. of Ed the entire time education was being ruined.  

Who is to blame?

It is complex.  It is nuanced.  Let me be CNN, though, for a moment.  It was republican state legislatures insisting that all students must pass.  And it was the exponentially growing number of Ed.D.s.  

"The Ed.D. is the G.E.D. of doctorates," said my old boss.  Anyone with half a brain despises that degree.  I know people who got them for career advancement who totally agree.  But you will find that most educational institutes are packed with them at the admin level.  

I'd say the Ed.D. is the infantilized doctorate.  

Bingo!

Maybe we need more sporting events.  

Joke.  Have you ever listened to a sports talk program?  WTF?

Then. . . it was time for bed.  

"Funny talk from a Peter Pan boy."

It is already Thanksgiving week.  I feel I'm missing everything.  My mother is up and doesn't know if it is morning or night.  She doesn't know what day it is.  She is not "in the season."  Christmas won't be much this year.  I won't be out on the Boulevard on Xmas eve with all the widows and orphans.  I won't be looking into shop windows holding hands with my own true love in pre-Christmas wonder.  The "magic" of the season has just dissipated.  

Still. . . we soldier on.  Wendy's grown up and Tinker Bell has flown the coupe.  I'm left with Hook and his crocodile now.  

Yea. . . I know. . . I'm one to talk.  Well. . . let me make up for that.  Last night, driving to the grocers, I heard these two songs and felt a deep twinge.  

It felt pretty adult.  

Tribute

Yes, yes. . . you are right.  I need to go to rehab.  I'll try it on my own, but. . . not tonight.  I have to make an appearance at a gymroid's birthday party.  He lives across town, on the other side of Gotham, on a big lake.  It should be something.  Fortunately, it starts at 5:30.  Unfortunately, I'll probably be the only one there at that time, and I will have to leave shortly, just as the other guests begin to arrive.  I'll need to get home to mother.  The thing will go on all night long.  

I don't really like driving at night anymore.  I don't really like driving at all anymore.  Maybe I should get a self-driving car.  

Did they make any early in the century?  You know I ain't getting anything new.  

It is another picture perfect day here.  I thought last night that I might get up this morning and go to the big Farmer's Market in a distant town, but I am not feeling it this morning.  Have I picked up another cold?  I read just minutes ago that this year's flu season is going to be the worst.  Even the vaccine will not prevent you from getting it.  It does, however, reduce your chances of being hospitalized by 30%.  

What?!?!?

And Covid is ticking up.  

Maybe I'll just self isolate.  Ha!  That will only cut out about two hours of my day.  The rest of the time, I am an isolate.  All I really need to give up is the gym.  We all know that is a hotbed of disease.  

But. . . it is really my only social life, too.  Yesterday, a nice woman saw me working out in one of the small rooms off the main floor.  She was down the hall when she saw me.  She smiled and waved, and too my great surprise, walked in to say hello.  She is an online personal trainer.  Right?  I don't know, either, but she is very much in shape.  The other day, another woman I am friendly with, came up to tell her she looked amazing.  

"Thank you," she gleamed.  

When the other woman was gone, I said, "WTF?"

"What?"

"You just took the compliment and didn't return it?"

The other woman who gave the compliment is Chinese and is also very fit.  

"I don't know. . . I mean. . . she caught me by surprise. . . ."

"You sure have a lot to do to make up for that now," I grinned.  I was kidding her, of course.  

When she walked into the room and said hello, I replied, "Hi.  Boy, you sure look nice today."

"Thank you," she smiled.  

"WTF?  There you go again," I said spreading my arms as if waiting.  

She began to explain that giving the compliment back always seemed disingenuous.

"Of course it is," I said, "but like I used to teach my students, even a disingenuous compliment is usually well-received.   It doesn't take much."

That's me, alright, always a Bright Boy spreading goodness and sunshine wherever I go.  

Then it was back to my mother's house to take her to her 2:45 cardiology appointment.  I was preparing myself for the long wait.  We got there at 2:30 and were called back immediately.  The doc came in shortly.  He is a small man from India.  Very considerate.  Very nice.  He treats my mother wonderfully.  He asked her some questions, which were directed to me, then went over the results of her kidney Dopler scan.  Her kidneys were fine.  He'd see us in three months.  

Back in the car, my mother asked, "What did he say?"  She had explained earlier to the nurse that she hadn't had time to put in her hearing aids.

"She was in a bit of a rush," I said.  "She didn't get up until eight,"  

"The doc said your kidneys are fine.  Your heart is good.  You don't have any problems other than age related things.  So, you know, most people are dead at your age, so you are looking great."

She looked at me with pop-eyes then laughed.

"There's nothing wrong with you so give up on this act."

We were home by 3:30.  It had been quick.  What to do?  

"Do you want to sit outside?" my mother asked, grabbing a Beer Lite.  

"In a minute," I said.  I was trying to stall, but by 3:45. . . I mean what was I going to do. . . Negroni in hand. . . . 

Negronis go fast.  I made a martini.  I was hanging around until dinner.  I was going for Friday "night" sushi.  I left the house at 4:50.  

The doors had just opened at five.  

"Just one?" asked the pretty hostess.

"Sad, isn't it?"

"No, no. . . ."

"I don't know.  Your tone seemed disapproving."

She sat me at the sushi bar.  The sushi chefs were still getting ready.  I was alone at the long bar.  The waitress had nothing else to do, so she took my order.  I'm like the Rain Man.  I never need a menu.  

Dinner for one.  I took my time.  I took a picture.  I sent it to some.  I wanted them to know I knew how to party.  Friday "night."  When I was finished, I looked at the time.  5:45.  I was back to my mother's house by six.  

We watched the BBC news, then that horrible asshole on ABC who tries to make everything urgent and disastrous.  Trumpstein and Mandami were on everybody's lips.  What was up with that?  

I'm sure there is something cooking in that Witch's Brew.  

My mother was out of beer.  She sent me on a run.  At some point she was pissed that there were no potato chips.  I made her popcorn.  I shouldn't eat popcorn, I fear, but I did.  Popcorn and scotch.  WTF?  

My mother left the room for bed at nine.  I turned off the t.v. at nine-thirty.  I ate part of a gummy and was in bed by ten.  

Yes. . . I need to rehab.  

The illustration above was an experiment I did in OpenArt A.I. and ChatGPT.  I was using a painting by Amy Crehore.  I got descriptions of the painting by one and had it produced in the other.  Here is her original.  

I know. . . .  The thing is, Chat is Trumpstein paranoid.  It REALLY doesn't want to make images with young girls, and it AIN'T going to let them smoke cigarettes or joints or whatever that is.  

I'd done another image from Crehore before this one.  

I added some of my own presets.  Q said he liked the original better.  

I tried a Balthus painting.  This is the closest I could get.  I was tiptoeing all over trying to get this much.  

I tried on more Crehore.  

Crazy shit.  I have been a Crehore fan for a couple decades or more.  Her work has changed, too, taking fewer chances, becoming more conservative "to meet the times."  One of her small 12x12 paintings is selling for $4,000 through a gallery right now.  Too much for me, but not a whole lot of money for someone else.  I assume she'll get half of that.  

Nope.  I've decided.  I'm not going to the big Farmer's Market today.  I will take a long walk in my own hometown, then maybe I'll take my camera near Gotham.  Maybe.  

And then, of course. . . just as I did for last night's sushi. . . I'll be the first one in and out of the party.  I'll be back to my mother's house in time for t.v. and her evening meds.  

Selah. 

Let's kick this party off with a little Miles Davis tune adapted by Jamal.  Just breezin' through the weekend.  

What Makes Life Worth Living

I don't know what I will post today other than this illustration.  It's kind of fun.  Nothing else in my life is right now, and I am not happy with myself at all.  I'm getting worse at the whole caregiver thing.  My nerves are shot.  I'm a time bomb ticking away.  The least little thing has me exploding.  And then, of course, I'm pissed at myself.  I don't just explode around my mother.  I've been jumping people in public like I'm fucking Mike Tyson.  I need a week or two somewhere else.  

Still, I do a good job.  My mother will live for years and years and years.  

In constant misery.  

So in the evenings when I try to watch television and my mother is moaning and groaning and banging shit on the table next to me in non-stop motion, when she keeps interrupting the show with questions every couple minutes, I retreat to the living room and sit with a 13" computer.  I put on music and look to see if I have any texts or emails.  Usually I don't, but if I do, they are often disconcerting.  With nothing to do but drink too much as a coping mechanism, I try to make stuff, but this reminds me of all the things I am not making, no photos, no tactile artwork. . . nothing but digital images.  Then I think about what might help me settle down.  Advil PM?  Xanax? NyQuil?  THC?  Tramadol?  Hydrocodone?  Dare I do an Oxy?  Something?  Anything? 

And when I wake in the night and eventually, if I'm lucky, in the morning, I look in the mirror and don't recognize what I see.  

"I'm melting. . . I'm melting. . . . "

When people ask me how I'm doing now, I tell them, "Great!"  I've found that if I tell them anything close to the truth, it makes them too happy.  Nothing picks a person up like someone else's misery.  

"But for the grace of God. . . ."

Cynical?  I don't think so.  

Even now, my mother has gotten out of bed and pushes her walker in slothful slow motion misery, first in one direction, then turning around, back in the other.  She moans and bangs things around in the bathroom.  Everything she does is louder than can be described by science.  It is a hillbilly phenomenon that has never been explained, only experienced.  

Once she gets to the kitchen and sits at the table where she is on a heated vibrating pad most of the time, the banging and shuffling on the wooden drum of a table begins.  She will moan and stand half up, shuffle a few steps to the kitchen counter, hold on near collapse, then make a sudden grab for something, a cup, usually, anything that she can bang on the table top.  

The banging, the rattling and scraping of the walker, all of it. . . I react to them now as if they were gunshots.  

I am ashamed.  You must believe that.  And the shame adds disproportionately to my misery.  

When I leave my mother's house now, I don't know what to do other than run errands.  I have forgotten how to live outside of the cage.  My social interactions are off.  I say things in groups that make no sense.  I have a tendency to talk that I have never had before.  I used to talk, but things made sense then.  I was learned, had insightful observations.  I was witty.  Now?  

"I do PG-13 things to jars of mayonnaise."

If you don't know the reference. . . I just can't put the clip here.  It is wrong, you know. . . but you can Google it.  It has become what the media calls "viral."  

I hate that phrase.  And many other.  

"Her new album drops tomorrow."

Word.  

See?  That's my point.  I am no good at conversation anymore.   

My mother's life, however, as horrible as it is, is in some ways much better than it has ever been.  Rather than big bags of cheap waxy sugary milk chocolates with minimum flavor, I buy buttery rich bars of dark chocolates that only takes a bite to fill the void.  Instead of snacking on cheap processed foods, we have real food, whole foods.  Dinners are full of beans and grains and vegetables and meats.  There are complex salads and rich homemade soups.  Last night I made a healthy chili full of vegetables and beans and meat.  My mother has become quite enamored with the food.

And all she needs to do is sit and wait for me to get it all and get it all ready.  

And when she needs to go somewhere. . . I'm her Ready Teddy.  I take her to the cardiologist mid-afternoon.  Next week we have appointments with the pain doc very early in the morning and the spine specialist some other day.  I think.  I'm getting more forgetful all the time.  Should I worry?

It is all taking a grand toll on my physical health. . . about which I won't even go into.  I have a reputation to uphold.  

"Tarzan. . . oh, Taaarrrzzzaaan."

But I can't afford to keep believing the lie.  As I've said, overestimating myself gets to be more of a problem every day.  

If I could cash out, I would run away.  I would run fast and far, stopping in only the most intriguing places.  My midwest friend has done just that since her parents died.  She must have come into a real bundle of money because she is never home more than a week or two at a time.  She travels constantly.  She left her job, moved into the 200 year old family mansion, and jets around the globe.  

Yes, that is what I would do, too, with the few moments I have left.  I'd try to outrun the inevitable.  

Which seemed very, very close last night.  I don't own a pistol for very practical reasons.  The obvious one is that I have a very quick temper sometimes.  But there are others.  So no gun.  And my stash of pills was in my own home.  And MAYBE that was a good thing.  I would have been very, very, very tempted to wash them down with the rest of the scotch last night.  

So how do I feel about it this morning?  Really?  Have you not been reading?  Yea.  I'm feeling that this life is not worth living.  The few moments I get away from the constant vibrating humming of my mother's heating pad and the squeaky wheels of the walker scraping along the floors, or the sound of commercials and westerns on t.v. or the questions spoken in low tones from another room or the preparing meals and cleaning counters and dishes and the running around to banks and doctors. . . those few moments are to me what a transfer bus ride is to a prisoner serving life.  For a moment, there is the sky, the sun, the passing of trees and fields, the inrushing of all those memories. . . . 

And, of course, there is the guilt for the way I am, a privileged American boy living with deep chocolates and fresh fruits and vegetables and good meats, clean clothes and cars and computers and music. . . right?  

"What the fuck is wrong with YOU white boy?  That's your mama.  You need a beating, that's what you need.  You'd feel grateful after that."

I'm not stupid.  I know.  But even Richard Corey went home one night and put a bullet through his head.  You don't have to live in a Bombay alley to be sad.  You can be sad in the back of a Mercedes, too.  It's part of the human capacity.  Life ultimately is not about living but about meaning.  And, I think, the dumber you are. . . you know?  I have relatives whose search for meaning goes no further than a Hallmark card.  They are much more content than I.  

"I do PG-13 things to jars of mayonnaise."

 But sometimes, just at the moment of breaking, or maybe just before, I recall Woody Allen in "Manhattan" lying on the couch alone with a tape recorder asking, "What makes life worth living."  One of his answers was a Louis Armstrong tune.  Not for me.  But every time I hear "The Queen's Suite: Sunset and the Mockingbird," I think, yea. . . wait until tomorrow.  This song is one of those things for me.  

That and, of course, "Tracy's face" (link).  

I hope I can take it all with me when I go.  

Spiritual Journalism

O.K., kids. . . here's a little puzzle I got for you from Highlights magazine.  It isn't quite "Find the Face in the Forest," but fun nonetheless.  Can you name this figure from "The Greatest Show on Earth"?  

How long do you think it will be before CNN, The NY Times, or WaPo starts using "Trumpstein"?  You know they watch this site carefully.  Just a day after I wrote that Trump won't release "all the files," all three were filled with just such stories.  

You'll usually read it here first.  

I wonder if A.I. would let me make a two headed, three breasted woman on purpose?  I'm afraid to find out.  

I haven't a narrative nor anything, really, in mind to write today.  Thinking about Hemingway's dictum that 90% of a narrative should be below the psychological surface, I am ashamed of writing about caring for my mother.  All I should have said is: 

"Things were not the same.  They would never be the same again.  He saw the world in fragments before him.  He would need to gather the fragments, he thought, and make it over again.  As his one time friend had told him, he would need to make it new!"  

Something like that.  It needs work.  

And that is why I don't write fiction.  It would need work.  I would have to spend many more hours a day to produce anything at all.  Rather--bang! bang! bang!--hammer it out like Bukowski and Thompson.  

"He's not a writer; he's a typewriter."

No, man. . . I'm just a spiritual journalist--with an unknown mission.  

Here's a statistic some may not want to hear--violent crime in America is WAY down since Trump got elected.  

Hmm.  

I guess that's because they are not counting any of the illegal things ICE and its "affiliates" are doing as crimes.

But trust me, I desire a safer world.  

I'm out of ideas, kids, so let's wrap today's show up and set it on its way.  

Oh. . . did you solve the puzzle?  Yea. . . the top of the frame is futzed up.  

Ho!

Trumpstein

I printed and gave my mother a copy of an A.I. illustration I made from a phone photo I took in the hospital.  I wasn't sure about it, though.  It showed an old woman at a vulnerable time.  She, however, was fascinated.  She kept staring at it.  

"You're getting good at this.  How long did it take you to make it?"

"That's hard to say.  I've spent many, many, many hours trying to develop some styles on the platform, trying to train the system to store concepts and techniques from different sources, painters, mostly, so that I can have quick access to certain things.  That took and is still taking a long time.  Now I have a bunch of presets that I can work with, so it doesn't take me so long to get a result I want.  It is still tricky sometimes, though."

I really couldn't say.  I'm still working with the platform, but the platform keeps changing.  If I want something stable, I'd have to build my own, and I don't have the technical skills to do that.  I know a couple people, however, business men and women, who have hired coders to help them build specialized platforms so they can sell their services to different business groups.  I was married to the daughter of the president of the largest educational book publisher in the world, and his wife was working for just that sort of company when digital publishing had just come out.  They were selling to doctors and medical groups.  New research and findings didn't have to wait three months to be published any longer.  Of a sudden, you could get that information in real time.  

A.I. ain't going away.  

I read an article today that said for old people's brains, screen time is a good thing--if it is the right kind.  I think my trying to dig into A.I. is probably "the right kind."

A.I. is Trumpstein paranoid, though, as is the country, I guess.  Or Trumpstein curious.  You know how I feel about the whole Trumpstein outrage.  Epstein was a horrible person, but those "victims" are far from being "heroes" any more than the prostitutes in your own hometown.  Now, some of them have their mothers standing behind them talking about the "terrible tragedy."  Why aren't they being charged?  If you had a fifteen year old daughter who was spending their time on Lolita Island, what would you do?  Plead ignorance?  These were not mother heroes.  Nobody speaks of the fathers.  I wonder why.  

Did you ever have to make a moral decision about what to do when you were fifteen?  How did you choose?  What did you decide?  I'm sure your decision was shaped by your environment, your familial values that you either accepted or denied.  Yes?  No?  

I had many.  

Now people are putting up memes about Trump blowing Bill Clinton.  Is that what they want to know?  Who is blowing whom?  Of course it is.  Just like the Diddy case.  Who was taking it up the butt was the real intrigue.  

"You know Obama was going to those parties.  Oprah was there, too." 

It's all fun and games until somebody gets their eye poked out.  

And still. . . how parents let their teenage daughters dress. . . what is the point of that?  

I'm just saying that our multiculture is pretty fucked up.  

Y'all voted for an admitted sexual predator who buddies up with dictators and tells the press that a lot of people didn't like the assassinated journalist and that shit happens.  So what's your take?  

I think I might have given the wrong impression about my "wealth" yesterday.  Let me give you a brief summary of my financial life.  If I were living at home, I could illustrate it pretty well with photos, but since I'm not, I'll have to stick with a summary narrative.  

I just wrote a long summary of my financial life that I then found too revealing and deleted.  Let me make it brief.  I was a "broke ass bitch" my entire life until the last few years of working at the factory.  I had lived a high life, but it was only by "charm" and not through finances.  When you are young, money isn't as important.  Fortunately, near the end of my life at the factory, I was making enough money to live as if I were making more without having ever built a reserve.  Still, I learned the relief one finds in never having to rely on living by credit.  When I retired, I was given money to leave the factory.  The house I bought appreciated greatly.  But I am still a hillbilly driving cheap cars and now, without nearly as much "charm," watching my kopeks with greater scrutiny than ever before.  I am still, however, one of the poorest people in town.  

But I have learned the difference between having something and having nothing.  I get the free cup of coffee sometimes now, if they don't look too hard at me.  

It was more fun living on my "charm." 

I slept late again this morning and my mother is frenetic, banging around, making a whole lotta noise, so I need to stop this and pay her attention.  I made a wonderful chicken, broccoli, and pasta in vodka sauce last night.  I cleaned the kitchen, but I still have a lot to put away before I make breakfast.  I didn't get to do much of anything yesterday as I had to take my mother around town to do some banking.  I learned much, however, mostly how very, very stupid I have been with my money.  I've been an unconscious idiot.  Lazy, I guess. 

O.K.  In the time of Trumpstein, I think this is an appropriate 1950's feminist tune.  What is the mystery now about why young white men are feeling so blue? 

Reason to Believe

There you go.  One second of nudity.  But then again, who wants to watch a PG-13 rated film?  What are the Marvel Comic films rated?  Those are very popular, but Johansson never gets naked in them.  

I just looked it up: 

Most Marvel studio films are rated PG-13, which indicates that parental guidance is advised due to intense sequences of violence, action, language, and thematic elements

There you go.  

I was going to post the gif, but it didn't last long enough.  Old Scarlett the Harlot.  

And for a second, one wonders why Anderson did it.  

Moving on, nobody wonders why Trump caved on the Epstein thing.  He still holds the cards.  He could release them, as everyone points out, so even with congressional approval, he'll still be able to edit what is released.  Boy oh boy, though. . . how about that Clinton, huh?  

What would you do if you were a billionaire?  Would you indulge your pleasures and fantasies or would you live the Boy Scout life of Bill Gates?

Oh. . . wait. . . . 

I don't blame Musk.  I blame the rest of you.  Y'all let him have that much money.  It's ridiculous.  

What else?  Oh!  I went to the bank yesterday.  I needed to get a roofing permit notarized.  But I also "did some banking."  I don't know what that means, but I ended up making some money and will be making some more money in the future.  Is this what people do?  The fellow helping me with the notary thing kept asking questions about my finances.  He took me in to see a woman in the big office.  She would help me set up a money-making credit card.  She asked about my finances, too, and my mother's.  She said she would like to talk to me about what I planned to do.  

"Everybody wants to talk to you if you have a little money.  If you don't, they don't even offer you the free cup of coffee."

Even she had to laugh.  But she had a good one of her own.  

"Who are you going to leave everything to when you die?  Have you thought about that?"

"Yes, I do.  But I don't like anyone enough to leave them my stuff.  Everyone sooner or later does something to piss me off."

I told my mother about it later when I got back to her house.  

"What are you going to do?" she asked.  

"Who cares?  I'll be dead."

I will say, though, making money gave me a bit of a chubby.  I understand a bit more how the Greedheads feel most of the time.  

"Daddy's financially fit."

It is like being professional athlete in a way.  Sort of a superpower.  

I might do some more.  And that's the sure way I'll go broke.  Trust me.  

"Everybody's got money now," I told the bank lady.  

"Not everybody.  Just here in this town."

That's what I meant.  I drive out of my little town's city limits from time to time.  But how do all those boys afford those muscle cars with the loud assed pipes and those god awful loud car stereos?  

There are all kinds of wealth, I guess.  

I have cousins who are hillbilly rich.  You know what I mean.  

"My family and I are emotionally rich.  I wouldn't trade that for Trump money."

Reminds me of that song. 

Still at the end of every hard day
People find some reason to believe

 Me?  I just overestimate myself, but that keeps getting harder every day.  

"Hey boy, what're you doing?"

"Carving a wooden duck."

What can I say?  

 

What More?

I've been experimenting with the gel plate transfers.  I finally got an image, but not much of one.  This is a magazine transfer that I took a photo of with my phone and futzed with until you could see it.  The actual transfer is not nearly so visible.  

I left my mother on a Sunday afternoon thinking I would take another walk down the Boulevard.  When I got to my house, though, I thought I'd hook up my old color laser printer.  I need laser prints for transfers.  I got it hooked up after a lot of moving things and running the cabling, and later that same day, I fired it up.  Oh, yea.  Lines running through the prints.  I'd forgotten.  So I Googled "how to get rid of lines in my laser prints" or something like that.  There were lots of videos.  So I did that, taking the thing apart and cleaning the parts for a couple hours.  I was blowing laser toner all around the room and breathing it, and I think it fucked me up.  I was kind of worried that I had done some serious permanent damage.  But when I put the laser printer back together. . . it had only gotten worse.  

I had some old laser prints lying around "from the day," so to see if they were still good for transfers, I tried one on bad paper with a transfer pen.  

The toner did transfer.  The transfer could have been better on good paper, but I wasn't willing to go that deep not knowing if the prints would still work.  So now I was ready to try a gel plate transfer.  I lay down the black acrylic paint, then put down the laser print and rolled it out with a brayer and the knuckles of my hand.  I waited ten seconds and pulled the laser print off, and I could see an image left behind.  Ooooo.  So I let that dry.  Well, I helped it dry by using my hair dryer.  I wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not.  When it was dry, I lay down a layer of white acrylic paint and pressed down a piece of paper on top.  I let that sit for twenty minutes, then, feeling anxious, I pulled the paper off the gel plate.  

Again, the actual print was not as visible as this is.  

Next I tried the "Vanities" print at top from a page out of an old Vanity Fair magazine.  

And the day had gotten away from me.  I had gone to the grocers earlier and was making small red beans and pork in the InstaPot for dinner.  My mother always loves that one.  My mother called.  I forget why.  It put me on notice, though, so I put away my art toys, jumped in the shower, and loaded the car for the trip back to my mother's.  

It was a beautiful day, and I was making all my transfers outside on the deck atop the glass topped table.  People stopped by.  First a neighbor who was walking her dog.  

"How's your mother doing?"

So I went through the litany--short version.  Her own mother had died at the age of 95 this year.  She told me all about it.  They had her in a facility and had hospice taking care of her.  It was hard.  

Ho!  

But the thing I took from the conversation is that Hospice isn't just for killing people at the end of their lives.  Not right away.  They will come and provide care and assistance the neighbor said, and Medicare covers the cost.  She sent me a link.  I'm skeptical about this, but if someone can give me some relief. . . oh, my. . . I'll take it.  

Then a little Vespa pulled into the driveway.  It was Tennessee and his wife.  I asked them how Cows and Cabs went.  

"It wasn't worth the money," T's wife exclaimed.  

T told me who he saw there, a crooks gallery of middle-aged pretenders.  

"Who bought THEIR tickets," I laughed.  

"Right?" 

He spoke of the VIP section.  

"I sure as hell wouldn't go if I wasn't VIP.  I wouldn't want to pay to be little people."

I could tell they agreed.  

And so, though I didn't get around to taking a walk, the day was a pretty good one nonetheless, that little part of the afternoon I was able to steal.  

I was up part of the night.  Something was wrong with the HVAC.  The inside fan was not turning off when the compressor did.  I got up a couple times to futz with it.  Then I'd lie in bed waiting for it to come on and turn off.  I fell asleep at some point, and when I woke up, the inside fan was off.  Had it healed itself?  Ha!  You know that doesn't happen.  But the sun was up.  It was eight o'clock.  I woke just in time to put together my mother's meds.  I had things to do.  Her house cleaner is coming today.  I needed to get sheets into the washer.  I stumbled around all muzzy headed.  

And now?  Oh, I have much to do today.  I have to get something notarized for the roofing company.  I have to get to two banks.  I am going to try the gym for the first time in a week.  Maybe.  I am still feeling a bit off.  

And I want to interview strangers.  With photos.  What?  

Oh. . . I have a new crush.  

Nuzzi, 32, lives in a tiny house in the heart of Malibu where lizards crawl into her kitchen and the King James Bible and “The Divine Comedy” — two books she was reading while she was writing “American Canto” — sit on her dining room table. She drives around in a white Mustang convertible, like a Lana Del Rey song come to life.

Olivia Nuzzi (link).   

Shithouse rat crazy, probably.  Yea. . . I can't help myself.  A femme fatale if there ever was one.  But, this one sold me:

Over the past year, she found herself interviewing strangers, and missed, she said, “relating to the world and everyone in it that way.” 

Life lessons there. . 

The article ends with this:

I made a joke about how [Eric] Adams had seemingly thrown away his life just to fly business class.

Nuzzi shrugged.

“I destroyed mine for less,” she said. 

Classic!  Another Joan Didion, maybe.  I will read her book.  

So. . . that's a lot for a guy who doesn't get out, right?  And now there is season 2 of "Land Man."  

What more can a fellow ask for?  

Man on a Wire

And of course, before anything else, you want the health report. A partly cloudy morning gave way to a bright and sunny afternoon followed by dangerous evening storms. I could explain, but should I? A writer has to make decisions. I learned that from watching "Wonder Boys."  

I was feeling better but not great in the morning.  I'd gotten up early, and after I'd made breakfast for my mother and myself, I went back to bed.  Sometime before noon, I told my mother I needed to go see if my house was still there.  When I got there, I put on some walking clothes, grabbed a camera, and headed out the door.  

It hurt.  Everything did, so I went slowly.  My health and wellbeing have declined over the past months as I spend most of my time with my mother and other patients in medical buildings.  I've always known that if you spend all your time with hillbillies, that is what you will look like.  That is why, as soon as I could once I came back to live in this town, I moved to the Boulevard.  I still look like a hillbilly, but less so.  More so now, maybe.  But that is not my point.  You can't be truly well if you spend all your time with sick people.  Now you might query, "What about doctors?  What about nurses?"  My answer can only be an astonished, "I don't know how they do it."  I don't know about nurses, but statistically, doctors don't live as long as the general public.  Maybe I'll research nurses later.  But. . .. and here's the difference. . . they don't spend ALL their time with sick people.  They do it in shifts.  And doctors spend very little time with patients anymore.  At least not specialists.  They have PAs to do all that work.  

My shifts are 20-24 hours long, 7 days a week.  It is almost all I do.  

My walk was a tremendous thing, however.  I walked down the Boulevard.  It was quite lively.  All the sidewalk tables were full, people eating and drinking and laughing.  I stopped in shops to look for new glassware and found some lovely gold rimmed coupe glasses that I will go back and buy this week.  I slipped into the bookstore.  I meandered over to the North Pasture to look at the Cabs and Cows setup.  As I looked through the fencing meant to keep the little people out, I saw a tent with "VIP Lounge" proudly stenciled on.  I knew that I would never go to an event with a VIP section unless I was in it.  To pay $275 for a ticket and still be little people. . . nope.  I'm either in or out.  I'm not going just to swell the crowd.  

Again, I don't know how people do it.  

At one time, I was in.  Now, I'm out.  Hillbilly, full cycle.  

By the time I got home, my hips and back and right knee were killing me, but I was feeling much, much better than I had.  A little sunshine and a little meandering on the Boulevard had put me back into a living frame of mind.  

I decided I felt well enough to try another gel plate transfer.  I got everything ready--gel plate, acrylic paints, transfer paper, and brayers, and took it all out to the deck.  I lay everything out on the big glass table, took a deep breath, and dove in.  

Nope.  WTF?  

I think I now know what I did wrong.  I'll give it another shot today.  

I threw some clothes into the wash and took a long hot shower.  Washed my hair.  Felt squeaky clean.  Used potions and lotions and unguents on my face and neck and arms and legs.  I was beginning to look less cadaverish.  

I needed to drive the Xterra, and I needed new running/walking shoes, and REI, I thought, was having a sale.  When I got there, I reached for my. . . oops.  I'd left my wallet in the other car.  It turned out to be o.k. though.  I didn't like the look of any of the Hokas and they were not on sale at all.  I wasn't tempted to pay $175 for a pair of ugly shoes.  

I wandered around the store.  The place was full of healthy, pretty people, outdoor people.  They were hikers, runners, kayakers, bikers.  They looked fit.  

I was getting depressed limping around the store.  I had been one of them my whole life.  I could barely walk the Boulevard any longer.  I was going to have to get a new knee.  Maybe more.  

But the day was lovely and I was happyish nonetheless.  I drove slowly home in my fixed up Xterra, power steering, a.c., battery and starter, and oil, too.  It was purring.  I only wished it had a bluetooth stereo.  

"We can't have everything we want, now, can we?"

Back home, shoeless, I switched the clothes from the washer to the dryer and sat down at the big computer.  The phone rang.  It was in the kitchen.  I couldn't jump up and run to get it.  It was a slow, torturous rise and limp, but I made it just in time.  

"Hello."

"Where are you?  I'm just sitting here.  I can't get the t.v. to work.  I don't have anything to do."

"What do you want for dinner?"

"I don't want anything.  I just ate some cottage cheese and pineapple.  When are you coming back?"

I didn't want to go to the grocers and then cook for myself.  I wanted to get something from the Italian restaurant, but that would take too long.  Shit, piss, fuck, sonofabitch, goddamn. 

I ended up buying some "healthy" frozen meals.  They tasted like lightly seasoned cardboard.  Only the Negroni was good.  Before I had dinner, I made one and sat outside.  I had "fixed" my mother's t.v. blues, but she followed me out.  We sat.  She told me about her day.  I could feel myself collapsing internally.  It was a beautiful evening.  My friends would be preparing for a big Saturday night.  Even a little one sounded great.  I was in for another evening of t.v. with my mother under the big fluorescent light.  Dark by six. . . a long night ahead.  

I felt broken completely.  

So. . . there is that.  At nine-thirty I took drugs and went to bed.  

Oh. . . I did take photos on my walk.  Nothing good.  I will walk again today, a gentle comeback.  I don't have a lot left to come back with.  

I wish I had something else to tell you.  I really do.  I wish I could tell you tales of romance and adventure.  Oh, sure, it would be bragging, and I would try to mitigate that with self-deprecation.  We've been down that highway before.  But it would at least be more colorful a tale.  

I really do need to start writing pure fiction here, but there is no way I could crank out a story every day.  

That's me in the illustration above.  No, not the juggler.  That little clown in the background looking on.  

Ho!

Carnival of the Mind

I'm certain you are checking in first thing today to see how I am feeling.  Thank you for your concern.  

Ho!

I guess whatever I have is "going around."  I'm getting reports of other people suffering from the same symptoms.  The difference in most cases, however, was that they had someone to bring them medicine, food, and drink while they rested up and got well.  

Just sayin'.   

The tenant called me to see how I was feeling.  She told me there was a lot of activity on the Boulevard.  There were tents and a stage erected in what is now being called "The North Pasture."  

"You'd think Taylor Swift was coming to perform."

Turns out to be the annual benefit "Cows and Cabs."  It raises a million dollars each year for charities.  The best chefs and restaurants prepare food and drinks, and we have any number of Michelin and James Beard awarded chefs here now.  Celebrities come just to mill about the crowd.  The shindig is tonight.  You must dress up in Western Wear.  It is a real hoot for "private wealth" financiers and old attorneys to dress up and play cowboy like they are on a dude ranch.  

"All hat and no horse," as the saying goes.  

"But I have a Harley and go to Bike Week every year!"

Many of them have pickup trucks to show their connections to the working class, big ass $100,000 dollar things they get detailed every week, trucks without a scratch on them.  Most of them are as useless with tools as I am. . . and that's "real useless."  

But all the buckaroos and. . . what?. . . buckettes?. . . will be in full regalia tonight.  

"It's an expensive ticket," I told the tenant.  "$275/person.  You can't get one now, though.  They sold out a while ago."

"Your ex-wife will be there," she said.  

"A lot of my ex's will be, I'm sure.  It's a Who's Who of the Boulevard.  See and be seen."

I knew that Tennessee and his crowd would all be there.  You have to give "face" if you want to run with the Big Dogs.  

"Listen," said the tenant, "I want to call an electrician.  I keep getting shocked in the apartment."

!!!!!

It is always something.  

"What do you mean you keep getting shocked?  Where?" 

"In different rooms.  I got shocked in the bathroom washing my hands."

"Don't call an electrician.  You need to call Ghost Busters."

I don't charge her 1/4 of what I should be getting for the rent, and I keep thinking to ask her to move, that I she is costing me more money than I get from her.  

Later, I got a call from Tennessee.  He's been gone for weeks.  

"What's up, nig?" 

"How are you doing?"

"You know.  Same old shit, except I've had something bad.  Feel like Fido's ass."

"I've been sick, too.  Head and body?"

"Yup." 

He told me he'd been out golfing with the Big Dogs that day at the Four Seasons golf course or some such place where you pay outrageous greens fees so that you don't have to see the little people.  

"After that, we went to a Ferrari car event.  You should have seen that crowd."

"Yea. . . you sound really sick."

"Is it time for my pills yet?"

Make dinner, wash dishes, put together meds, watch t.v., go to bed.  

I'll need to get off the cold meds today.  Maybe take a walk around the block.  

I "made" some carnival pictures yesterday.  They are images that should exist, and now they do.  I will make more of them.  These are images from my dreams, and now I think I should write some stories abut them.  

"Should," not "will."  

The sad clown and the despondent hoochie coochie dancer and a wicker bottle of wine.  Right?  They need names.  They need stories.  Somewhere in the far distance, there needs be music.  I've heard it before, both in movies and in life, but I can't find a recording of such a thing anywhere.  Faint, carried and modulated by the wind.  

If you have been here for a VERY long time, you may remember the videos I made of the miniature carnival I set up for the kid long, long ago.  I am not at home with my hard drives or I would pull one up for you here.  It only just occurred to me.  I've told you ancient stories, too, of my childhood encounters with "little person" clowns.  Hmm.  Pieces of a puzzle?  

Holy smokes!  It just occurred to me that long, long ago, in the early days of the studio, I intended to shoot a circus series, too.  

Maybe I need to delve deeper.  There may be some dark, hidden secret here.  

I should write out sketches, anyway.  If nothing else, I will "make" more images.  

The day is clear and bright and the air is cool and dry.  I'm not quite "there" yet, but I should try to take a walk to get some of it into me.  Maybe I'll go back to my own home for a bit this afternoon and walk the Boulevard.  I need to see something other than this endless beige sea and the inside of my own sickness plagued head.  

AM or FM

I live the life of an isolato.  I know the holiday thing is going on somewhere out there.  I saw evidence yesterday when I took my mother for her renal scan.  There was a huge fake Christmas tree in giant lobby of the medical building.  That is my connection to the outside world now, medical buildings.  It seems the whole world is in wheelchairs or walkers or using canes.  

The night before her scan, I got up to take my four hour dose of NyQuil.  My mother was standing in the kitchen holding onto the edge of the sink with a wild look in her eye.  

"I've lost it," she said.  

"Lost what?"

"I don't know if it is AM or FM."

"What?  AM or FM?"

"Whatever it is--day or night."

And so it goes here.  She was supposed to fast before her scan.  In the morning, I heard her bumping around in the cabinets.  When I went into the kitchen, she was eating.  

"WTF?"

Later, I called the doc's office and told them she had eaten some breakfast biscuits at six.  She was scheduled for one.  After a bit, the woman came back on the line and said it was o.k. just as long as she didn't eat anything more.  

These are my social interactions.  This morning, lying in bed just before rising, I was thinking about college.  My old college roommate isn't doing well and is in a rehab facility right now.  He's not experiencing the holiday season, either.  Lying in bed, though, I could feel the energy we drew from the season then.  It infected the entire campus.  Nothing overt, just a feeling.  We weren't that far from childhood then.  There were still the old stirrings inside us, I guess.  

Even at the factory, such things lingered, and now, living the life I do, I miss that sense of community.  

But culture wars have taken their toll on all that, the whole "melting pot" vs. "diversity" issue.  Multiculturalism hasn't panned out quite like it was supposed to.  

But I would like to be walking on the Boulevard in the brisk autumnal air, watching people, having lunches and drinks, and feeling the vibe.  

This cold has really been kicking my ass.  I'm going to come out the end of this tunnel looking peaked and puny and pale.  

I like alliterations.  

I may need one more day in bed.  I slept all the live long day yesterday but for needing to take my mother to the doctor's office.  I think another day of complete rest is going to be required. 

I feel I'm missing everything.  

I watched a couple documentaries on Edie Sedgwick last night.  They both mentioned a film she made, "Ciao! Manhattan."  I found the movie on YouTube (link).  Wow!  As the old song says, "Those were different times."  I couldn't live that way.  I enjoy my emotions too much.  They say that the coupe glass was shaped after the breasts of Marie Antoinette.  Maybe, but you can see that they sure look a hell of a lot like Sedgwick's breasts, too.  

"She was very proud of them."

And rightfully so, I think.  

I read an article today about a researcher who has done Adolph Hitler's genome sequence and found that he had a disease that would have kept his testicles from descending and would likely have given him a micropenis (link).  Don't you wonder what they might find out about YOU if they sequenced your genes?  

"Well, I guess that explains it."

I sure as shit hope they do Trump's.  Like yesterday.  

I'm still awed by people's fascination with Epstein, and I still think people are motivated by two bad desires.  One is "getting Trump."  Like we need more "proof."  The other is just secret desire.  

"We need to see ALL the evidence."

They are not going to produce the pictures and videos you morons.  Only "special" people will have access to those.  You are just going to have to keep using your dirty little imaginations when you think nobody is around.   

There is a statue outside the offices of the BBC of George Orwell smoking a cigarette.  On it an inscription  reads "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." 

You can tell people what they don't want to hear, but you'll have to suffer the consequences of that.  He forgot to say that part (link).  Megyn Kelly spoke a truth about the Epstein thing and the women of CNN lost their minds.  

"One of the victims even had braces for God's sake!"

Uh. . . I hate to say it, but Kelly is right.  You just hate her because she is another one of those made up doll looking republican cokehead beauties.  And, as a friend of mine wrote to me today, "Kelly knows what she is talking about, I'm certain."  She was very specific.  Fifteen.  

Last night, my mother asked me a curious question.  

"What made you get so interested in these gel plates?"

I'd been watching YouTube videos trying to learn how to use them.  I didn't really have a response.  I had no words.  It was a good question.  All I could come up with was, "I want to make something."

Twenty to twenty-four hours a day, I take care of my mother.  We can't have conversations because she can't hear.  We just exchange essential information.  

"Is it AM or FM?"

Beats me, mom.  Beats me.