Wilder’s Principle of Greatest Amusement – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

27 Thoughts for Friday

“I thought so. You remember our business partner Marsellus Wallace, don’t you Brett?” – Pulp Fiction

I got a CAPTCHA that asked me to select pictures of tractors and farm equipment. That’s really not my field.

I’ve trotted out lists of thoughts from time to time. The lists change based on (hopefully) me getting more wisdom over time. Anyway, here’s this year’s list:

Be on time. Seriously, it’s simple. People notice, and people care. It’s a basic principle of respect for someone not to waste their time waiting for me.
Never be a little late to work or a little early to leave. Especially on a regular basis. Being late an hour once every quarter is much better than being late a minute each day for sixty work days. An hour looks like something happened. A minute looks like I don’t care.
Little changes at the start make big difference in the result. I’ve seen many people start their careers and become experts at the subject of their first assignment. Many of them made a lot of money by knowing a whole lot about a little.

Who knew Cathy was Haitian?

Choosing not to decide is a choice. I love reminding people that “doing nothing” is always an option. But it is a choice. And it has just as many consequences as “doing something”.
For me, opportunities always showed up when I needed them, even if I didn’t understand it at the time. Thankfully in my case the opportunities weren’t subtle.
After college, in a high achieving profession, it becomes rarer and rarer to be the smartest guy in the room, and someone in the room is often an expert at something in which I’m a novice. True humility allows a good leader to understand the capabilities they need, and not have to be “right” all the time.
The biggest fights are over the smallest things. It seems that no one ever snaps over the house being on fire on the day the insurance payment was late – it’s that the trash wasn’t taken out on time and we have to hang on to it for another week.

What does Soylent Green® taste like? It varies from person to person.

People understand $10,000 more than they understand $10,000,000. The difference between $10,000 and $11,000 means more to most people than the difference between $10 million and $10 billion. Most people can’t understand more than seven magnitudes of anything.
Outcome is less important than process. When working on life, I try to not care about what the outcome will be. I go in, make the best choices I can, and do the best work that I can. If it works, it works, if it doesn’t, I try to adjust to be better next time.
Outcome is still important. Dead is dead, so sometimes the outcome is final.
The last outcome is always final. How many refunds?
No refunds.

My chute didn’t open once when I was skydiving. I didn’t panic. I figured I had the rest of my life to figure it out.

Nothing breeds success like success, and nothing breeds failure like failure. I’ve been on streaks where I literally could not lose. I’ve been on streaks where I couldn’t win.
Corollary to 13: I’m never as bad or as good as my failures or successes. The streaks where I couldn’t win set me up with the habits I needed to win.
Beating myself up is a loser’s game.
Most people don’t think about me very much and will have a hard time remembering my name after five years. As much as I like to think I’m the center of my story (and I am) I’m only a minor player in the stories of most other people.
Corollary to 16: Except where I’m their personal villain. Then I live on forever and will definitely have someone who will want to be at my funeral, if nothing more than to make sure I’m dead.

What was the name of that Mexican villain in the Bible? Poncho Pilate?

Protect the relationships with the people that genuinely do care about me in a positive way so maybe the sad people at my funeral will outnumber the happy ones.
Listen to people, really listen. They tell me amazing things if I just listen. One time I was interviewing a guy and he mentioned committing a felony at a previous job. Yeah, I kept a straight face. No, he didn’t get the job.
If someone says I’m wrong, I need to have the humility to embrace that and see if they’re right. Especially when my first impulse is to try to defend myself. Even if I’m not wrong, I at least understand why they thought I was wrong.
When I’m wrong, admit it and apologize. It’s amazing how admitting error makes other think I’m more trustworthy. And apologies? Why not apologize, have some sort of problem with that?

Okay, he didn’t say that. But he’s the first person I thought of.

Being good at several things is enough for success, if they’re the right several things. Being an expert at useless things might be fun, but mostly nothin’ times nothin’ is, hmmm, carry the nothin’ . . . nothin’.
If I spend my life waiting for the next thing, I’ll spend my entire life waiting and not living. The journey is the point, and rushing through it just gets me to my grave faster.
Past behaviors are almost always the key to predicting future behaviors. Leopards, spots, etc. When I listen to a person’s story, I realize that often they’re also telling me their future.
Success is based on the last thing I did, not the next. People pay to keep me around because they think I might be able to do it again.

Orphans are often very successful at business – someone told them “Go big or go home” so they didn’t have much choice.

Could I have done better? Could I have done worse? Yes. I did how I did. Success is based on how I change what I’m going to do to be better.
Power and money are not the same thing. Just ask the rich guys after Robespierre or Lenin took over.

Okay, that’s 3³ thoughts for Friday. See you on Monday!

Be Bold. Life Is Too Short For Anything Else.

“That’s a bold statement.” – Pulp Fiction

A lion would never drive drunk. But a tiger would.

One of the problems with life in Modern Mayberry is that it often moves at a fairly slow pace. Especially in the time when an adult is focused on raising kids, the days tend to blur one into the next.

If your life is good, this isn’t really a problem. When I was younger, my life was spent going to weddings. Now that I’m older, more time is spent going to funerals. It is important to not get mixed up as to which you’re at, although sometimes “My condolences,” is appropriate at a wedding and I’d almost be willing to bet $20 that at least one person will say “Congratulations!” after my funeral.

However, in the event that I’m wrong, collecting on that bet might be a problem.

Maybe I’ll add bikini girls. Will that put the “fun” in funeral?

One thing that facilitates this blur is reading stuff on the Internet. One blogger I read (LINK) is giving up doomscrolling (or reading the unending list of negative stories that are available in the news) for Lent. I suppose you could leave him a comment, but you’d have to wait a few weeks to get a response.

But when it comes to doomscrolling, there are huge numbers of these stories available. The business model is simple: scary stuff attracts eyeballs, and eyeballs means revenue. As I look at my own past posts, I’m thinking that, even though I talk about a lot of scary stuff, that I’m mostly relentlessly positive. I can even recall a comment section or two where I’m called a Pollyanna because I’m so positive.

What do we want? Hearing aids. When do we want them? Hearing aids.

I can live with that. Being positive, being for things and knowing that, in the end it’s all going to work out keeps me positive. In most cases (most, not all!) the things I write about don’t make me angry, either.

Again, stress on the “mostly”. And I try not to get worked up about events occurring half-a-world away that I can’t control or even much influence. Things are what they are.

And, for most of us, things are generally pretty good on a day-to-day basis, even when things aren’t perfect. Even on a bad day, most parts of the day are good. The thing that gets us is built into the doomscrolling: spending time worrying about things that simply have not happened.

My friend wrote me a text that said, “What do you get when you mix a gullible person with an optimistic person?” I replied, “I don’t know!” He texted back, “Read it again.”

I write about the coming Civil War 2.0 not in hopes that it comes, rather to make people aware that it’s coming. Do I sit and worry about it daily?

No!

That would take away from the time I spend thinking about the Roman Empire.

In this moment, there are things that I could let bother me. However, I realize that letting them bother me gives them power over me when that’s the last thing I want. “Take not counsel of your fears,” is attributed to George S. Patton, Jr. I’m sure other people said the same thing in similar ways in the thousands of years that people have been saying things, but when Patton says it, well, it’s been said.

“Better to fight for something than live for nothing.” – GSP

If I let my fears fill me up, I live a life of fear regardless of if it’s a perfect 63°F, and I have a wonderful cigar, and a great book beside me while sitting in a comfortable chair.

I think fear comes to people as they age. I certainly saw Pa Wilder get more and more cautious as he aged. I could give a few examples, but it doesn’t much matter. I did notice. And when I saw the tendency to do it start to crop up in myself, at least I understood what was going on and I could choose to be cautious or choose to be bold.

I think, however, that as I get older it is precisely the time to be bolder. Life moves in a blur, and days stack up faster, so they should mean something. If I knew I had only a year? What would I do?

Something to make that year worthwhile. If a month? A day?

The shorter the time left, the more that boldness matters and the less caution should. If I only had an hour of my life left, you can damn sure bet I’d do something with it, as much as I could.

Oh, that’s Samuel L. Jackson, not the famous English dude Samuel Johnson. I guess that’s the Netflix® version of the quote.

But life is built on compound interest. The more I try to write, the better I get. The more I lift, the stronger I get. The time to start is now.

The actions should be bold. While my days may pass fast, the more I can do with them, the more I will do.

When I pass, what will be left are the lives I’ve touched, the children that I’ve raised, the ways I’ve made the world better, and the words that I have written. Since the restraining order dictates who I can touch, and the lessons to the children are mainly done, that leaves making the world better and writing.

Even a full human lifetime isn’t enough, because they are so very short. But I’ll make do. With the remaining decades (hopefully) of my life, how big a dent can I kick in the Universe?

I guess I’ll see. And I’ll smile some, every day. And enjoy that cigar, and book, and chair when I’m not being bold.

“L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.”

The Funniest Post You’ll Ever Read About Bank Failures And Yachts

“A major one.” – Fight Club

What did Kim call his yacht? His dictator ship.

Last March, Silicon Valley Bank® failed. In a big way. Because the people who deposited money in the bank own things like yachts and senators, well, they escaped with hardly a haircut. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation® (FDIC™) normally ensures deposits for $250,000 per account holder. In this case, they decided, nah, what the heck, we’ll make sure that Roku® and Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry don’t lose a dime.

Ironically, today the Internal Revenue Service sued the FDIC© for $1.45 billion in back taxes they say that Silicon Valley Bank™ owed when the FDIC© took it over. Sure, it sounds like on part of the government is suing another part of the government for play money made up by the (non-federal) Fed™ but the FDIC™ is supposedly independent and gets its money from the member banks.

Which are members of the Fed™. Which prints the cash.

If this sounds as incestuous as a Hapsburg family stump, well, it is. And of course I’m going to go with a fresh meme about the Hapsburgs, because that’s what all of the cool kids are doing today.

A Hapsburg walks into a bar, the bartender says, “Why the long face?” The prince says, “Generations of inbreeding.”

The root cause of the Silicon Valley Bank™ failure is that they lent money for long periods at low interest rates. When interest rates go up, those loans aren’t worth a lot, at least to the bank. Right now, my mortgage has a lower interest rate than I’m getting in checking.

Silicon Valley Bank™ looked at all the crappy loans they had, and did the math, and found out that they were worth less than zero. Even worse, their bigger depositors heard (because depositors who own senators seem to get advance notice) and started to pull their money out.

Since those folks had friends, they told them. Soon enough, everyone wanted one thing – they wanted their money out of Silicon Valley Bank™. Rational people realized that if this was a problem at Silicon Valley Bank©, it was a problem everywhere.

Silicone and silicon – electrical engineers know the difference – no one trusts them around silicone.

In a thought that gives central bankers and senators cold sweats (after the previous night’s booze wears off) is the idea that people lose faith in the banking system. Oddly, this wouldn’t be a problem if we used money made out of gold and silver, but since ours is just as much a fantasy as thinking that diversity enriches us all.

So, there’s a problem that’s impacting literally every bank. Some big ones have failed, but thankfully Duchess Markle still has her cash so she can get enough publicity to hide from commoners like me. What’s the solution?

First, pay off everyone so no one is scared and Oprah doesn’t have to fly commercial with mere mortals. Second, flood the system with money. If a bank needs cash? Wheelbarrows of it?

Give it to them.

Thankfully Congress took a break from sending your tax dollars to Ukraine to bail out Oprah.

Last year, banks were paying 0.10% or so for crappy checking accounts. This summer, rates started shooting up, so I snuggled into some CDs that paid a lot more than my mortgage cost. Then, last month, I got a call from my bank where I set up the CDs.

“Mr. Wilder? You have money in other banks, right? If you deposit (a few thousand) dollars from accounts outside of your accounts with us into savings, I can give you a 4.5% rate on checking and savings.”

What????

If there’s one thing I know about banking, is that bankers are not generous except to themselves, senators, and Oprah.

I check with him, drove to the nearest branch of Major Bank™ in Mt. Pilot, and tossed a few thousand in. Could I take it out later?

Sure!

I am informed this is funny because horses often live in stables, so this would be a violation of California’s work safety laws.

I started wondering about this, but soon enough came up with the answer: when I make a deposit in the bank, I’m making a loan to the bank. And if they’re offering me nearly 5% for just parking cash at their place, that means . . .

I’m their best alternative for a loan. Me. John Wilder. Enough so they paid a dude to call me and ask.

Yup, it’s just that simple. And they called me to ask me to make a loan, and offered to pay me over four times what I was making on my cash to make that loan. Reading a bit further, it turns out the way that the Fed™ shoved money down the collective throats of the banks was through the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP).

BTFP loaned money to the banks, and the banks deposited the money at the Fed© to make a profit on the difference.

Yes, the Fed© created the BTFP, loaned the money to the banks who then deposited the money . . . at the Fed™. I’m not making this up. As of March 11, 2024, the Fed© will no longer be making more BTFP loans at those sweetheart rates. All new loans would be made at the same rate the bank gets paid by the Fed©. The gravy train, or at least this gravy train, is over.

That’s what the Fed© said in January, 2024.

When did I get the phone call wanting to borrow a few bucks from Major Bank?

January, 2024.

Since when do I believe in coincidences? And it was weird, it wasn’t a lot of money that I needed to deposit, but I think they were looking to get bigger players than tiny John Wilder.

But at least they’re not insufferable idiots . . . oh, too soon.

And that’s the rub. If banks are looking to borrow cash from me, how bad are their balance sheets?

Dang, I’m worried! Will Prince Harry have enough money to travel the world for 45-minute meetings with his father? Will Oprah be able to afford more caviar?

And, maybe I should take up loan sharking. Maybe I can buy my own yacht, bigger than Prince Harry’s and I’ll sail past him, and look down on him, and try to give Harry that condescending look that appears to be his Resting Prince Face.

And I’ll write a rock song about it.

I’ll call it Smirk on the Water.

Ye Olde Wilder’s Almanack of Things That Won’t In Thine Yeare of Our Lord 2024 Happen

“Since when can weathermen predict the weather, let alone the future?” – Back to the Future

I think Lady Macbeth wanted to walk her dog the other night. She kept yelling, “Out, damned Spot!”

Notes: No podcast tomorrow. Or the next week. I’m not going to push The Mrs. this week, and next week she has to go get measured for one of those plastic bubbles so she can live in one (just kidding, follow up visit and we probably won’t be home from Modern Mount Pilot by then, she’s getting better every day).

Second: if you’ve emailed me and I didn’t respond, please email me again. I enjoy and respond to every email sent to me (if I’m cc’d or bcc’d, no, but I read most of those). I found several in a spam filter today, and I apologize for not checking that since roughly 2007. I’ll check every week now.

Now, on to the show!

Last year I swapped out my idea of predicting the future. It appears to be harder. Now, I predict what won’t happen. It’s more fun, and I can pretty much bat 1.000 by doing that while making a few humorous points along the way. So, with that, here are my Wilder Predictions for What Won’t Happen in 2024™.

First: Ukraine won’t “win”. So far, the war in the Ukraine has been a disaster for everyone involved. Had Donald Trump been in office, this never would have happened. Donald is all about the deal, and had he been president at the time, Putin and Zelensky would probably have come together over a deal that would have been mutually beneficial, and trade would have probably been increased between the two, and there would have been hugs all around.

Really. That’s what would have happened. Biden could have shut this down with one phone call. Of course, the Left would have gone nuts, since a large part of their strategy is to pump the wealth out of the Ukraine directly into either their pockets or their campaigns. Ukraine is a country that makes the money laundering on Better Call Saul look like amateur hour, so I guess peace was never an option.

Still more credible than the official story.

Second, Israel and Palestine won’t be joining each other for dinner. Ever. Note: I don’t have a dog in this hunt. The following is an analysis, not a wish list. No matter what I feel, the writing is on the wall.

This is an existential crisis for both sides, and both are already in a diaspora so they can continue this fight wherever Jews and Palestinians (or Leftists) are in the same city. In the long term, nobody wants the Palestinians, even (and especially) the neighboring Arab states, so Israel wants to export them to Europe and the United States. I’m betting they all end up in Canada, or what future historians will call, “Gaza with Grizzlies.”

The Romans couldn’t invent algebra because X was always 10.

Long term for Israel, well, Israel is doomed, too. They’re surrounded by Islamist populations that will soon outnumber them 50 to 1. I anticipate another diaspora there, too. Maybe to Ukraine? Not sure anyone will be living there, but there will be plenty to mine. Or de-mine.

I think eventually the merged Facebook®/Al-Jazeera© will probably end up running Jerusalem.

Third, and I’m going out on a limb with this one: The US Debt won’t come down. Even though Congress and both presidential candidates will jaw about it incessantly, they won’t do anything, and I do mean anything to even slightly slow it down. Nope. It’ll increase faster than Taylor Swift can ruin a football franchise. Side note: I took my car to the mechanic because it was making a horrible noise. Turns out it was Taylor Swift on the radio.

Fourth, the 2024 Election won’t be free and fair. I know, I know, I’m playing with fire on this one. It’s clear that the Left mobilized every single trick they read on that Buzzfeed® article, Ten Crazy Things You Can Do to Steal An Election And They Won’t Stop You (You Won’t Believe Number Seven!). They even bragged about it in a Time® magazine article about how they conspired to do everything they could possibly think of to Make America Democratic Again, since it was clear that Joe Biden created as much enthusiasm with the American people as passing a kidney stone.

They stole the election.

I wish our elections were less corrupt, like China or Russia.

The biggest factor was in creating slop in the system. Early voting, that ensured that dead people would vote. Yeah, dead people. Some percentage of people who voted died after their ballots were cast, and not all of them were Friends of Hillary. So, dead people voted, and their ballots were just as good as yours.

Ballots were harvested, this is clear, we’ve seen people dropping off dozens and hundreds of ballots. Exactly as designed. Mail in voting? Why not? And early voting resulted in numerous cases (especially in Michigan) where the early vote was counted, even though the actual voter showed up at the poll and claimed they never requested an early ballot. They were given a provisional ballot. In a leaked recording of a Michigan training session, the provisional ballots were given out so people wouldn’t throw a fit. The provisional ballots of people who showed up in person whose votes were stolen were . . . discarded.

Making an election free and fair is easy:

Paper ballots only. California just outlawed paper ballots, so you know this is a good idea. The idea isn’t that we make the system so that votes are easy to count – the idea is that we make the system so only valid votes get counted. If you need more people and it’s important, hire them.
Same day voting, in person, only. Exception for the military – they vote where they are. If overseas, they vote on election day and the votes are counted right there and results transmitted to the precincts by 11:30pm precinct time. That day. All votes are counted by midnight. If not counted by midnight, they are discarded. If Detroit can’t figure out how to do that? Pound sand.
All votes, all voting boxes are counted and are on video every second and broadcast.
All vote counting takes place on video in full view.
Every voter sticks their hand in that blue stuff they cover bank robbers in. It’ll wash off. If you have a Smurf® hand? You can’t vote again. Oh, and you need I.D., even though the Left thinks that blacks aren’t smart enough to get one.

As I said, this won’t happen. Leftists want every vote counted so that they can just manufacture votes as needed. People on the Right want only valid votes counted.

Thanks to Biden, soon every American will be a billionaire! Of course, that’s what it costs for a Snickers®…

Fifth, suppression of viewpoints on the Right won’t stop. One of the key elements of control is the control of the ability to share ideas. That’s why the Left was the “Free Speech” party right until they felt they could spike the ball and start sending us to the GULAG. Blog views are down over most of the Right blogs, and that’s due in part to suppression of search engine traffic, which is a primary way that new readers find us – they stumble upon us while searching for a topic. If I were Vox Day I’d suggest we create a news and commentary search engine for the Right.

If only someone like Ricky would make one…

A bikini covers only 5 to 10 percent of a woman’s body, yet men are so polite they only look at the covered parts.

Sixth, Elon will not hit peak amusement in 2024. Good heavens, that man cracks me up. It’s really fun to watch him change positions over time, but not unusual. Why? They have to suppress our ideas because the Truth is inherently Right.

Seventh, no alien contact will happen this year, but it will be trotted out again and again – my bet is that in March and July or August or whenever Biden needs a distraction it’ll show back up in the news. It’s the ultimate shiny object to distract with. I mean, besides COVID.

Eighth: The RINO congress won’t suddenly become effective. This is a repeat for the last 27 years. Gingrich did a good job.

Ninth: Illegal immigration won’t be stopped, but may be (slightly) slowed. The Wealth Pump from the Elite demands it, and the ideology from the Left demands it.

If you filmed a superhero movie in Detroit, you’d have to use CGI to repair buildings.

Tenth: 2024 is not the year we lose. The spark that is at our core has existed since (at least, and probably before) the dawn of civilization, and started to burn brighter some 2024 years ago. That won’t change. Provided we don’t go full Revelation, we’ll exist until we go full Revelation.

This isn’t over. We’re not done. Take that to the bank.

Christmas 2023 – Looking Back

“It’s like Christmas at the Kennedy Compound.” – The Simpson’s Movie

What happens if you hallucinate and see a psychologist?

I was going to write a story about one of my Christmas experiences, but instead I thought I’d write about more than just one. Since my only boss at this blog is you, dear reader, I thought you wouldn’t mind.

So, for this Christmas, I’ll share some of the Christmas memories I have of my family while growing up. Why? Because those Christmas memories are the strongest in the young, but our understanding of Christmas as well as our experience of Christmas changes as we age.

The very first Christmas memory I recall as a child was of sneaking out of my bedroom, late at night on Christmas Eve. As an adopted child, I might have been looking for firearms or an exit so I could exit if these adoptive parents wanted me to do chores or something. Or not. I was four. Long after everyone had gone to bed, filled with excitement, I got up and headed towards the fireplace where I had been told Santa would be dropping off presents. I recall seeing Santa, putting presents in the stockings, his back to me. Or it might have been an alien. I was four, so it was probably just a dream. Or maybe Ma and Pa Wilder put something extra in my eggnog so I “slept well”.

That would have been an uncomfortable parent-teacher conference for them, “Hey, he’s thirty and in the fourth grade, but he sleeps well.”

Jeff Bezos doesn’t sleep naked – he sleeps with pajamazon.

The next year, when I was five, I recall that there were presents under the tree. Of course, I was drawn to them like the Colorado Supreme Court is drawn to crack cocaine. Being five and having the coordination of Joe Biden biking, I stepped right one of the presents that was meant for me. The result? My foot tore right through the wrapping paper, revealing to me what the gift from Uncle McWilder was. It was awesome: a tool belt, complete with real tools including a flashlight, screwdriver, and metal pliers. Immediately, I imagined putting the belt on and helping Pa Wilder fix things, like the sink.

Our sink had never been broken to my knowledge, but if it ever did break, I had a pair of real metal pliers and all the tools a five-year-old could imagine would be necessary to fix a sink.

We never did fix a sink, though I believe I did an unsanctioned fieldstrip of an Electrolux™ vacuum cleaner. Note: I still have the pliers.

I once bought a three-foot long ruler at a yard sale.

I don’t recall a particular present from first grade, but I do recall sitting at dinner. Being an idiot, I announced to Ma and Pa Wilder (who I think had stopped drugging my food by now) that there was no Santa. My brother, John Wilder, kicked me savagely under the table.

“Ow! Why did you do that???”

“You idiot, now they won’t give us presents for our stockings!”

I’ve written about second grade before, here:

A Wilder Story, or, The BB Gun, The Black Bear, The Soviets, and Me

In third grade, we had moved to Wilder Mountain. We were in a very small place while the rest of Stately Wilder Manor was still being constructed. Ma Wilder decided to make wine, which involved really good, thick balloons.

My brother John and I decided to play a strange version of volleyball using one of the really thick wine balloons over the small pine tree Ma Wilder had made since we were living in a house the size of Hunter Biden’s sense of morality. Good times.

In fourth grade my brother John Wilder was proven wrong, as my parents really went all out filling our socks. In addition to several G.I. Joes®, my brother and I got wind up cars that, when they hit something, all of their body panels flew off. I had no idea that kind of toy existed. What was best? The surprise.

What crayon is in charge of answering the phone? Yellow.

In fifth grade my parents had said we weren’t going to get any presents. It was part of a deal – they were going to buy some new snowmobiles, and because of the expense, those would be our Christmas presents. To be fair I was fine with that – a snowmobile is just awesome. But, my parents lied, and on Christmas Day we found lots and lots of presents under the tree. What were they? Boardgames, galore. Everything from Mousetrap® to Clue™ to giant checkers.

The present I remember most from sixth grade was one from my brother – he got me the cassette version of Alice Cooper’s album, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell. An odd Christmas present? Sure. But I’ll never cry.

Welcome to my lunchline . . .

Seventh grade brought probably one of the most peaceful Christmas Days from my youth. I recall on Christmas Day quietly doing a Star Wars™ jigsaw puzzle. If ever there was a day where there wasn’t a single problem, no strife, nothing but a completely happy time spent with my family growing up, this was the day.

The biggest present I recall for Christmas in my eighth grade year was a Nerf® football, which my brother and I promptly took and threw in the driveway for hours on an unseasonably warm Christmas Day.

As a freshman, my brother and I were out shopping for Christmas presents for Ma and Pa Wilder. One gift I saw was a towel. It wasn’t just any towel, but one that had metal snaps and the Everlast® logo. It looked like boxer’s trunks when you wrapped it around your waist. This was the era of Rocky™, and I told my brother, “Man, that’s cool.”

He said, “Yes, it is. I like it, and I’m buying it, for me.” I was only slightly disappointed, since he had the money, and I didn’t. Imagine my surprise on Christmas morning when I unwrapped his present to me and found . . . the towel.

I named my pet rock “Rocky” – not because it’s a rocky, but because it has trouble speaking.

When I was a sophomore, all the varsity wrestlers shaved our heads. Why? I have no idea. We were in high school. Ma Wilder took great amusement in this, and, for Christmas, she made me a knit hat in my high school colors. The hat was ludicrously long, and perfect in every way.

My junior year was the last year that my brother was with us before he got married, so, in a sense, it was the last, close family Christmas. Pa Wilder could see the nerd in me, and my present that year was an HP-15C programmable calculator that used reverse Polish notation (RPN). Back then, HP™ had no equal.

My senior year, I recall that Pa Wilder gave me a metal puzzle – one that he had given all of his friends that year. Made of brass, it wasn’t a hard puzzle, but I still have it, a memory of the last Christmas before college.

Going through this, it’s interesting (to me, at least) to see the changes over time as I moved from greedy excitement to looking for meaning and peace. This year? Not sure I’m getting a present at all, and I’m certain I don’t need one. I’m also not sure if there’s going to be a Monday post, I’ll give myself permission to skip it if we’re having a good time here at Stately Wilder Manor.

I hope your Christmas is a wonderful one, and brings you peace and meaning as well.

2023: The Funniest Year-End Review You’ll Read Today, Probably

“Ten years I’ve been working in this town, that man never gave my food a good review.” – Psych

Why do skydiving companies get great reviews? Only the survivors rate it.

Every year here at Wilder, Wealthy and Wise, I like to end the year with a look back at how ludicrous and pointless that year was. 2023 is, so far, no different, but there’s still 11 days left for it to either get sillier or for them to indict Trump.

January 3

After 754 days of voting, a bloodletting, and an oath to the grim god Gorto the Nasal, Kevin McCarthy is elected Speaker of the House.

January 9

Joe Biden’s lawyer confirms that Joe had classified documents in his office, garage, closet, and several nuclear codes were stuffed in his Depends™. Biden’s lawyer contends, “It’s okay because he’s not Trump and we couldn’t read the nuclear codes because the ink was urine-soluble.”

January 24

Former VP Mike Pence notes that in a search, he found several classified documents, too, although his were wrapped around 30 pieces of silver. In related news, Pence announced the forming of his new heavy metal group, Judas Pence.

I guess Tom Brady and Robert Kraft both went to Florida for happy endings.

February 1

Tom Brady announces he will stop playing pro football and attempt to become Taylor Swift’s boyfriend or immortal, whichever is easier.

February 3

A train carrying hazardous chemicals derails in East Palestine, Ohio, causing mass evacuations and still not quantified environmental damage. As no Palestinians or Israelis were involved, it was quickly forgotten. Biden quickly uses the event to request more aid for Ukraine. BUT DON’T WORRY ABOUT OHIO – LOOK! – THERE’S A CHINESE SPY BALLOON!!!!!!

February 20

President Biden makes a surprised visit to Kiev. What makes it a surprise is that Biden thought he was just going out to get ice cream, Jack.

February 22

The “Three-Day Special Military Operation” in Ukraine enters day 730. Putin has since renamed it to “Special Military Operation Anniversary Tour.”

March 10

The FDIC announces that Silicon Valley Bank has been closed. Thousands of starlets awaiting surgery sigh in relief when they find out that Silicone Valley Bank is still open.

You didn’t think I’d pass that one up, did you?

March 10

Xi Jinping is re-elected president in China with a vote declared “fair and free” by the Democratic Party of the United States. “No evidence of anything wrong here, it looks like China has successfully defended their democracy, especially since Donald Trump wasn’t elected.”

March 15

The French raise the retirement age from 31 to 32 years of age. There are riots. The French surrender.

March 30

Trump Indicted on charges of “being Donald Trump”. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

April 4

Finland joins NATO, adding a +5 to the autism level of NATO.

April 24

Tucker Carlson is fired from Fox News™, since firing your most popular host and one of the most popular people on television for no particular reason is what networks do all the time.

Mayonnaise may be trying to kill me. At least that’s what Tucker’s sauces say.

April 25

Joe Biden formally announces he is Joe Biden, and will win the presidency in 2024 so he can “take over and build from the wreckage that the current president created, Jack.”

May 2

The Writers’ Guild of America goes on strike against Hollywood. They are nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize™ for stopping their crusade against good movies and humanity.

May 6

King Charles crowned. Meghan Markle immediately rushes the camera and notes that she’s not king because she’s black and that’s why people don’t like her.

Meghan Markle – the first woman to turn a prince into a frog.

May 9

Trump is found liable for sexually abusing a really unattractive female in the very plausible and not at all made up story about him pulling her into a dressing room in a crowded luxury department store because that’s where billionaires commit sexual assault against homely women. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

June 8

Trump again indicted on charges that he is, indeed, still Donald J. Trump despite Leftists wanting him to not be Donald J. Trump. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

June 18

The search begins for the submarine that had been taking people to go to see the wreckage of the H.M.S. Titanic in person. Critics say the submarine name, “U.S.S. Turning Millionaires Into Something With The Consistency of Library Paste” was probably not to blame.

June 23

The Wagner Group begins a march on Moscow, despite it being June and Prigozhin not having reservations. The march ends when Prigozhin is given several gift cards and a Happy Meal™ with a Transformers© toy.

June 29

The Supreme Court rules that colleges and universities can no longer discriminate against people based on their skin color. Harvard™ and Yale© announce an immediate initiative to bring in hair texture and tendency not to sunburn as a specific reason for admission.

I guess a guy in a wheelchair could be a sit-down comedian?

July 27

Hunter Biden’s plea deal sentencing the United States government to give Hunter Biden an apology and $23,000,000 for inconveniencing Hunter by stopping him from snorting coke off of hookers while taking naked pictures of himself falls through when OMIGOSH! ALIEN HEARING IN CONGRESS! IGNORE HUNTER! ALIENS! IT’S REAL I TELL YOU!

August 1

Trump again indicted on charges that, despite being warned, he is still Donald J. Trump. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

August 8

Hawaii wildfires break out, and Joe Biden immediately announces more funding for Ukraine to the tune of “a gazillion trillion”. For residents of Hawaii, Biden promises a “buy one get one free” coupon to Subway™.

August 14

Trump again indicted on charges that, he is “still breathing and stuff.” Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

August 23

Wagner Group leader Prigozhin is killed in a totally accidental and coincidental plane crash. Shards of shrapnel from a Transformers™ Happy Meals© toy are suspected to have caused the malfunction.

Is Prigozhin really the only one who didn’t see this coming?

September 14

Queen Elizabeth II is still dead. Meghan Markle announces that she has assumed a new form, Mega Markle, and will eventually usurp the throne after her dragons are full grown and that, “Those meanies are gonna be sorry!”

September 28

Dianne Feinstein passes away at the age of 1371 years old. She is survived by her great grandson, Count Chocula®.

October 3

Kevin McCarthy sacrificed to Gorto and removed as Speaker of the House in a mostly peaceful ceremony. Three weeks later, Mike Johnson of Louisiana is elected Speaker, after promising “gumbo, elephant rides, pantyhose, and hot sauce” for everyone.

November 8

The Vatican decides that the new basis of Canon Law is that “anything goes, and if it feels good, do it.” It is also announced that Holy Water is a dated concept, and will be replaced by “Holy Lube”.

I used to take dead raccoons with me when I traveled by air. It was my carrion luggage.

November 14

Xi Jinping visits the United States and San Francisco shows they can clean up crime and the streets, but only for a foreign communist ruler. I mean, you have to look good for him, right?

December 3

Venezuela decides, “What the heck, let’s go get some oil” and decides to invade Guyana. Venezuela’s sixteen-man army with six working helicopters quickly crashed after not being able to find Guyana, which was unaware that they had neighbors, since the Internet has yet to reach there and their number one television show is Seinfeld.

December 16

Senate aide allegedly has sex in the Senate. Senate Democrats say it’s okay and perfectly legal, since at least one participant is an illegal alien, and, besides, Democrats are used to screwing everyone.

Most years, I have to make up some silly stories. 2023? Every time I’m showing Donald Trump being indicted in the above list? He was indicted. Can you imagine the excited Lefty flop-sweat each morning at Stephen King’s and Rob Reiner’s house when they hear that Trump was indicted, again?

Here’s to the world being absurd – it makes The World’s Foremost Hugo™-Nominated Humorist writer’s job easier.

NOTE: If you sell something or write something and are a regular commentor, please feel free to link your stuff or site as long as it’s legal and tasteful – my choice there on the tasteful part. If we’re going to build our own future, we should buy stuff from each other (if we like the stuff).

It Came From 1983

“Oh, fishy, fishy, fishy, fish, that went wherever I did go.” – Monty Python’s Meaning of Life

What A.I. thinks 1983 looked like. It’s not entirely wrong.

As we drift farther and farther from movies that have a great plot or are actually funny, I’m enjoying this look back every so often to review what we had in comparison to what we have now. Sadly, the past seems to win, especially in comedies. But here they are, in no particular order except chronologically by release date – movies that came from 1983. Yes, your favorite may not be on this list, because as much as I like the horror, comedy, action, and science fiction from the time, most of the “drama” movies from 1983 were just plain unwatchable. The Big Chill? Tried to watch it twice, nearly died from boredom. If you like that movie, I’m sorry, you’re just wrong.

Like I said, here’s the list:

Videodrome: You could also title this movie, “Everything you want to know about sex but were afraid to ask David Cronenberg”, but that describes all of Cronenberg’s movies. I didn’t see this movie in 1983 (too young) but when I rented it on video, well, wow. This is an interesting take on the way that media is used to reprogram your mind, but very, very creepy.

High Road to China: Tom Selleck tries to be a more realistic Indiana Jones®, and pulls it off. It’s an action movie set in the pre-WWII era, and it’s fun. Fun enough to go back and buy it? No.

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life: It’s absurd, from the beginning insurance-pirate ship documentary to the end scene. If you don’t like Monty Python®, well, you certainly won’t like this. I loved each and every scene. One of the things I really enjoyed was sitting in the seat with my popcorn watching people who really didn’t get the joke hating the movie and walking out. Not a movie that could be made in 2023.

Return of the Jedi: An acquaintance once remarked to me that Return would have been a better movie if, when the Emperor said, “Now, young Jedi®, you die,” and Luke™ did die. And then the rebellion failed. Can you imagine the sequel to that movie? Wow. Maybe he was on to something.

The Man with Two Brains: Steve Martin. Brain surgery. Kathleen Turner before she turned all Wilford Brimley on us. Good times.

WarGames: Mainly included for nostalgia purposes. I was only lukewarm on this movie since I thought it was a lot of Leftist propaganda. Still better than anything in the theater here in Modern Mayberry in the last month.

I want to watch this movie, right meow.

Trading Places: Ackroyd, Murphy, and Curtis all in top form in a hilarious movie that taught me about futures trading and what happens when you put a criminal in a cage in a gorilla suit. The usual stakes, please.

Mr. Mom: Micheal Keaton back when he was making comedies, which is what he was supposed to do. Plot is simple, dude loses job, wife has to work. Yeah, Feminist propaganda. Keaton still makes it work because he’s funny and I was stupid and didn’t catch the propaganda.

I think Mr. Mom would have been a better movie if the characters were sea otters with robot legs.

Krull: This movie was a weird mess of science fiction, fantasy, and maybe documentary of Al Gore’s childhood. It worked for me, since I expected nothing, and the movie was sincere in what it was trying to do. Krull also inspired a really cool pinball machine at the local arcade that Travis and I would go and pour quarters into.

National Lampoon’s Vacation: A great theme song, a funny premise, and understated humor. I’ve actually had a picnic lunch at the table where Chevy ate the urine-soaked sandwich, but with 100% less pee. It is one movie that gets funnier with age. Shout out to Cousin Eddie!

If only Vacation had been set in Rome.

Risky Business: I didn’t know what a Porsche® was before I watched this movie since no one anywhere near Wilder Mountain owned anything more exotic than a GM® or Ford™ pickup – a Toyota© was an exotic car. It’s the classic story: boy meets girl, girl is a prostitute, boy runs bordello, boy gets into college, boy joins Scientology®.

Easy Money: This is one many won’t remember – it was P.J. O’Rourke’s script based on Romeo and Juliet, where Rodney Dangerfield had to lose a bunch of weight and stop smoking to inherit millions of dollars. Still funny on a recent rewatch.

Strange Brew: It’s a movie based on a sketch comedy bit based on Hamlet. Take off, eh!

Scarface: I had no idea what I’d see when I wandered into the theater with this one, but I was not counting on people being dismembered with chainsaws and Al Pacino wanting people to say hello to his little friend.

What if Tony Montana had become the Mattress King of South Miami instead?

Sudden Impact: This movie went ahead and made my day. Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry. Yeah, there was a time when they were new. And glorious. And horribly politically incorrect.

The Keep: The Wehrmacht vs. H.P. Lovecraft. I read the book before I saw this one, and thoroughly enjoyed the movie. An Ancient Evil versus and Ancient Guardian all fighting together in an Ancient Crypt? During World War II? Only thing missing were tanks.

Okay, I liked The Keep, but this poster looks 100% more lit.

What do you see on the list above? Two sequels, and those were earned: Star Wars™ and Dirty Harry®. Just two. The rest was Hollywood rolling the dice and failing (Krull) or succeeding wildly, (Trading Places, WarGames, Mr. Mom, Risky Business, Vacation).

While there was propaganda about the Leftist world that the filmmakers wanted to create (WarGames, Mr. Mom, Trading Places, and one not on the list, Tootsie, were especially filled with it), it was a more subtle time – viewers were gently led to a conclusion instead of the 2023 version of being battered over the head with it.

They knew they couldn’t make money if the audience didn’t show up to see the movie, so they focused on making a good movie. Yes, most of the people making films hated Ronald Reagan with a passion, but Reagan Derangement Syndrome wasn’t a thing, unless the person was John Hinkley, Jr. The nation in 1983 was one where there wasn’t this current schism and near ideological war against the Right, since it was just one year later Reagan won one of the most lopsided victories in electoral history.

It was morning in America. And we knew how to make movies.

What are your favorites from 1983?

Thanksgiving 2023: PEZ, Garfield, and Lab-Grown Poodle

“Look, sit down, all right. It ain’t cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving.” – Trading Places

(All memes A.I. today)

Turkeys can be thankful – they never have to worry about buying Christmas presents.

I’ve mentioned before, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Most of the time it’s four or more days off for me, long enough not to be rushed. It’s also a holiday that doesn’t have the desperation of Christmas, nor the somber elation of Easter. Thanksgiving is peaceful for me.

Although I like to do this fairly often, at this time of year, I do like to sit back and think about the things that I’m thankful for. It’s a long list, so, here it goes the Thanksgiving 2023 version:

I’m thankful for Pa and Ma Wilder, who took me in and then didn’t drown me. I was an awful child. How bad? I caused more damage to our house than the First Gulf War. To be fair, the First Gulf War didn’t really do much damage to our house.

If we’re not careful, Iraq may have to invade us to make sure our elections are free of corruption.

I’m thankful to my big brother, John Wilder, who pushed me into things that I needed to do, things that weren’t comfortable to me that helped me face difficulty and learn to overcome it. I also threw up all over his school clothes one year. Not sure how you get vomit out of a leather belt.

I’m thankful for Joe Biden, because there’s never been an easier, more corrupt, or more incompetent president to mock. Joe has single-handedly turned more Zoomers to the Right than any living man.

I’m thankful for winter, because no matter how cold it gets I can still put on more clothes. In the summer, there is a limit to how much clothing I can take off, or at least that’s what the police tell me.

I’m thankful for hot coffee on a cold winter morning when it’s silent as the snow keeps falling.

I’m thankful for PEZ®. Because it’s PEZ™.

The Abyss, it speaks through Garfield®. Odie™? Not so much.

I’m thankful for each morning. I hate mornings, but they’re better than the alternative. Oh, wait, I like afternoons. Sadly, everyone gets cross when I sleep into the afternoon.

I’m thankful that I have so few moments in life that are truly awful, and knowing that I can get over them because the world is actually a pretty great place, and I always know that there’s someone I can talk to, if I need to. Thankfully, I don’t have many feelings like you humans er, nevermind.

I’m thankful for firearms. They cause a lot of damage in the wrong hands, I’ll admit. But they cause even more damage when they’re only in the hands of the government. So if the government wants to have a gun-free world, they can disarm first.

I’m thankful for cats and dogs, but sorry cows taste so good. Cows look like they might be good bros and fun to hang with, but, sorry. They’re just too tasty.

I’m sorry, but how else will I create cowlamari?

I’m thankful for my close family, {The Mrs., kids). For whatever reason, most of them seem to put up with me, or at least haven’t filed restraining orders.

I’m thankful that you, reader, come here on a regular basis to share your ideas with me. I’m hopeful you get a chuckle or two.

I’m thankful for the taste of a turkey sandwich the day after Thanksgiving. Toasted bread, mayo, turkey, mustard, some salt and pepper are enough. Add in some lettuce and tomato if you have them, but they’re not required.

I’m very thankful for the time I have, and just wish there were more hours in a day. As I grow older, I know the most precious of all things is our time and attention. Of course, if I hadn’t eaten in a month or so, I’d probably be even more thankful for a gnawed pork chop bone. But sitting here, right now? It’s time.

In the future, will the Chinese be satisfied with lab-grown poodle?

I’m thankful to live in the time and place that I do. I’m sure the past was wonderful, and I’m sure the future will be wonderful. But, you know, there’s a problem with both of those. My stuff is all here, and I’m not even sure how to pack for 1850 or 2432, I mean, what’s the weather like?

Lastly (and firstly), I’m thankful to the Creator. It has been a weird ride so far, but enjoyable. I’m sure I’ll figure out the “why” part in the end. As Soren Kierkegard said, we can only understand the past from the vantage point of the future. But he said it in Danish, so he probably sounded like the Swedish Chef® when he said it.

If the Swedish Chef™ is actually Danish, does that make him an artificial Swedener?

I hope that your Thanksgiving is peaceful, joyful, and that you are surrounded by those that love you, or at least by PEZ™ dispensers from another cosmic realm that may eat your soul. Whichever you prefer.

What did I miss? What are you thankful for?

Après Trump, qui? (Plus? A Picture of a Stripper)

“Hey, is that Donald Trump’s car?” – American Psycho

Biden likes all-mail voting, Trump prefers all-male voting.

The battle of the Left against Trump continues, as it will for every day of his life. There isn’t really an end to how much he’s rustled the collective jimmies of the Left. It’s especially fun to watch it play out in the Twitter™ X® feeds of Leftist celebrities like John Cusack, Ron Perlman, Steven King or Rob Reiner.

It’s actually amazing to watch the chemicals soak their brain as their amygdala gets hijacked by someone not even in the room (great example here: LINK). And I’m glad that I’ve never been in a small room on a hot day with Cusack, Perlman, King and Reiner – imagine the smell.

Why is that? Trump is a focus. If you go back in time, the Left was similarly fixated on Bush I, Bush II, and Reek, er Mittens Romney. As noted by the commentor El B on last Wednesday’s post Leftism Is A Death Cult That May Kill Us All – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise (wilderwealthywise.com),

I imagine the next article will be titled, “There’s no good reason you should have to be alive to vote” so at last Pa Wilder can vote Democrat.

Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient’s soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary. There is no good at all in inflaming his hatred of Germans if, at the same time, a promiscuous habit of charity is growing up between him and his mother, his employer, and the man he meets in the train.

C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters, where the quote above originates. It was written as if from a demon to his nephew, showing how Evil might best subvert society. In 2023, I think it could simply be a text from Soros to his kid. Lewis absolutely nails this concept, and does it in a simple, cogent, readable paragraph. Sadly for humanity, Leftists live this way, and thrive on it.

All of the hate of the Left has a concrete and local focus, and all of their compassion is spread in such a diffuse manner that it becomes meaningless. This is why these monsters pretend that handouts from the government (from money coerced from actually productive people) to those who meet some nearly arbitrary criteria is the same as actual charity.

I just donated $100 to a charity for blind children, but I doubt they’ll ever see the money.

But back to Trump. After he first said “Build the Wall®” the Left went into overdrive with hate towards Trump, pulling out all of the stops. “Europeans won’t think nice things about us!” they said. My response to that one is actually very, very simple, “So what? My ancestors left there for a reason and we have better steak here and don’t have to share a continent with the French.”

Trump’s presidency wasn’t a failure, but it was close, and it showed off his biggest weaknesses: the chose people based on how much the complimented him, and not based on either actual competence or actual loyalty. His personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was a prime example. He hired a corrupt caricature of a sleezy lawyer to do business for him, and was shocked when the guy actually turned out to be sleezy.

Who knew???

Trump didn’t build the wall, didn’t stand up to Congress, and blinked when he had the chance to cross the Rubicon and stand for actual election integrity since, yeah, we know that the Left stole the election, and the receipts to back that statement up are starting to pile up. He did add some okay Supreme Court justices, but I think he should have added the Zodiac Killer, Ted Cruz.

I’m telling you, it would have sucked to have been killed just because I’m a Sagittarius.

Had Trump said, “I’m staying here, not because I demand the power, but I will stay here until a President can be rightfully elected to replace me. I declare that elections will take place in November 2021. I will not be a candidate, and will in no way serve past January 20, 2022 regardless of the circumstances. This is necessary to ensure that the legitimacy of the Presidency of the United States remains unsullied.” Oh, sure, he’d have said, “I, your greatest President, will stay in office because you deserve a system that is excellent in a way only I can give you.”

Then, he could have done that, and retired a hero to the middle and the Right and it would have been talked about for 500 years. The Left would have grumbled, and might have lost their demon and the coming inevitable crisis might (stress, might) have been pushed down the road a decade or more.

After Caesar crossed the Rubicon, I believe his first words were, “Can someone get me some dry socks?”

One thing Trump did was completely transform the face of politics. Just as the Left didn’t vote for Biden, instead voting against Trump, Trump unmasked the utter weakness and complicity of the Republican politicians (not the Right) in creating the landscape we have today. It was especially instructive watching Trump eviscerate ¡JEB! ¡JEB! had been the consensus candidate for the establishment, but Trump sucked all the air (and ¡JEB!’s soul, it looked like) out the room.

This was also inevitable. The system has stopped serving the interests of the heritage American middle class for decades. Vox Day put it very well the other day when he noted that the Republican debate featured two Indians arguing about who could give more money to Israel.

I think there are a lot of people who would vote GOP for $20. Heck, vote twice and you can afford a Big Mac®

Will Trump survive the trials? I think not. The original charges are (mainly, as far as I can tell – IANAL) to be farcical. Trump’s later attempts at covering crap up? Not so much. There are legitimate charges that could bring him down if Trump did really try to have records or videos erased.

Regardless, the RINOs are doing everything they can to hide the only candidate that they have that has national impact, the only candidate who is leading in the battleground states, the only candidate who stands a chance against the corrupt vote harvesting system set up by the Left.

Then what? Après moi, le deluge (After me, the flood) is attributed to Louis XV, and is said to foreshadow the French Revolution. Since we need more rain here, I’ll adapt the phrase for our current problem:

Après Trump, qui? (After Trump, who?)

The only person on the Right who can even come close to Trump in charisma and poise is Tucker Carlson. Tucker seems to have as much charisma, but can also add in an intelligence and poise lacking in Trump. Could he manage being President? I have no idea, but when compared with the rest of the candidates on the Right, he leaves them all in the dust.

Longer term who will emerge as a leader? Some corporal that fought in Afghanistan and is fed up?

We’ll see. The current crop of mainstream politicians on the Right and Left make ¡JEB!’s charisma vacuum look like Robert Downy, Jr. Most of their policies are, at best, simple replays of politics that are 20 years into the past, with less of a likelihood of solving our problems than using a 4-year-olds fingerpainting to design a passenger jet, though that might be exactly what Boeing® does nowadays.

I’ll vote for Trump in November 2024 if he’s not in the slammer, obviously. It amuses me to watch the Leftists get in a froth-ridden frenzy against Trump. It’s almost like Leftists don’t believe Biden won the election.

Through A Glass, Darkly-or-You Can’t Die Without Scars

“How much can you know yourself if you’ve never been in a fight? I don’t wanna die without any scars.” – Fight Club

Bach used to be a composer. I guess he’s now a decomposer.

I remember listening to the radio . . . you remember the radio, right? That’s where people take a part of the Internet and send it out using big towers and as many watts (ounce-inches per fortnight in non-commie units) of power as is used in the The Mrs.’ hairdryer so that this faint amount of energy can be picked up by a metal strip and then amplified a zillion times so you can rock out while cruising Main.

Sorry for the digression. I remember listening to the radio way back in the before time, and hearing a song that sounded pretty good. The singer mumbled most of it, but the big, brassy chorus of Born in the U.S.A. was pretty strong.

Made me feel good, made me think that in 1985 we were ready to unite as America. Then I finally made out the lyrics. Hmmm. After listening to them, I came to the (correct) conclusion that typical Leftist-Simp Bruce Springsteen was just another Leftist-Simp who made a bunch of money because he had a good chorus and everyone thought he was on America’s side.

I’ll leave you with this, “I’m embarrassed to be an American” – Bruce Springsteen, talking about Trump to Australians in 2016

I have not changed that position. If you like him, fine. You’re wrong. Springsteen is a tool.

Another song like that was All I Wanna Do by Sheryl Crow. When I first heard it, all I heard was they chorus, and figured it was some empty-headed pop song. Meh. I’ll skip it.

Then I listened to it. Wow. Deep. I was shocked. I thought it was vapid pop, but here was a song that had some soul, and talked about people drinking beer at noon on Tuesday in a bar because that’s all they have. The lyrics . . . “And a happy couple enters the bar, dangerously close to one another” is shocking – it jarred me because these people were a contrast to the gloom and despair on display in the bar.

Another one that I just found out about was Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonny Tyler. What’s it about? Vampires that want to share more than blood (wink wink). Honestly, I didn’t really care about this song ever, and still don’t, but like it a bit more now that I know that it’s just a bit weird.

Did she have to book a second ticket on the flight just for the hair?

Don’t even get me started on Squeeze Box by The Who® since when I heard it I was certain that it referred to a particularly musical family and even made the defense of the virtuousness of the song to a friend’s mother with all of the innocence of an entirely ignorant 10 year old who is smarter than he is experienced.

My Friend’s Mom: “That song . . . is that song about . . . sex?”

Young John Wilder: “No! That song is about a family and the mother has a concertina, an instrument played by compressing air and passing it through a series of reeds to make a melody like an accordion. She plays it and the house is filled with glorious music all night.”

My Friend’s Seventeen Year Old Sister, Butting In: “No. The song is totally about sex, Mom.”

Barbie? If you’re reading this? Yup, I got that one really wrong.

And don’t get me started on how badly I misunderstood Lola. I’m ashamed to say that I was over 21 before I got that joke. In my defense, that wasn’t a thing anywhere around Wilder Mountain, and the only burned-out old tranny I was familiar with was the one in my 1976 green GMC® truck.

Good news! It just needed a new clutch. Sometimes young drivers get a awkward and anxious and burn out clutch pads by popping the power too soon to the drive train.

I miss the days when working with a difficult tranny meant it was an automatic transmission.

Life, and experience, changes interpretation of events. Like a song, an experience may have one meaning when young, but yet another experience when older. The very experience of living life changes the message we get from those experiences. All through life “we see through a glass, darkly”, but as we age, we see the world differently.

That is natural. We age, we learn, we understand. Our innocence is, especially in 2023, horribly brief.

Cell phones and the Internet bring knowledge to children long before they can really come to grips with what they are seeing. In my age, a furtive glimpse at a Playboy® was how we gained forbidden knowledge. In 2023, 10-year-olds know all about Lola and are even taught in class that what once was forbidden is now exalted – there’s even a month for pride, yet not even an afternoon set aside for humility, but I guess if you’re Hunter Biden there’s a 20-minute plea bargain case with the DOJ.

So, I read today Hunter didn’t pay taxes on over six million dollars, and deducted the amount he spent on whores as business expenses. I wonder if he ever paid Lola?

Change is part of growing up. I am certainly not the person I was at 18, nor the person I was at 38. And wisdom has a price – innocence is free, but innocence is also harmless. As we grow and learn, we learn what is worth passing on, and what is worth fighting for.

I also believe this one weird thing, that this knowledge is not without structure. When I look back at the hard things, the difficult things, the things that seemed like a catastrophe at the time, all of those things led to better things as I grew up. I just had to live through them to understand.

My life will probably never go back to the simpler days. Like a character in a spy movie, I now know too much. But I can still, on a summer day, roll down the window and listen to a song and sing too loudly as I drive.

But it certainly won’t be Bruce Springsteen.

He’s a tool.