Black Friday, Cindy Crawford in a Swimsuit, and Karen

“We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it.” – Marge Simpson

Okay, I used this last year. But, really, fizzy toots is a holiday classic.

(repost today, family time, etc.)

Thanksgiving morning I was in bed, in that half-slumber that I slip into when there’s no danger that I have to go to work.  The Mrs. stirred next to me.

When’s the turkey going to be done?”

John Wilder:  “Yeah, babe, when is the turkey going to be done?”

The Mrs.:  No, I mean it.  I have some other things I need to cook. When will the turkey be done?”

John Wilder:  “Ohhhhh, I haven’t put it in the oven yet.  I thought, as much as you were making six other dishes, that you were gonna do the turkey, too.”

This was, of course, a stupid idea.  I have cooked the turkey every year, ever, since we’ve been married.  Everything else (except pumpkin pies) has been The Mrs.   Why would I assume that The Mrs. was going to cook the turkey?

I have no idea.  But I did.

We Wilders are night owls, when allowed to go feral unconstrained by the tyranny of work, so having a dinner at supper time (or a supper at dinner time) would just be fine.   Since we bought everything we’d need for dinner yesterday, I knew we’d be fine:   no last-minute trips to stores for us, and that was good.

Reprinted with permission, now 50% off!

Because I hate going to the store, especially anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I hate it so much, that when I was (much) younger, I’d do all of my shopping for presents during a two-hour period on Christmas Eve.  But yet, there are people who look forward to Black Friday, which to me is the sort of hell I imagine that H.P. Lovecraft reserved for Beto O’Rourke, except Beto’s hair would be on fire and he would have surgically attached flippers instead of arms.

Black Friday is a day that some people look forward to.  While I don’t share in their enthusiasm, I can understand it.  There is something about shopping that makes people feel good, unlike the turkey tartare I tried to serve the family on Thanksgiving.  Who knew you had to thaw the turkey before sticking it in the oven?

Shopping is of vital importance to businesses they want to capture as much of your money as possible.  They study ways to arrange merchandise so it is most attractive, to create advertisements that engage with your psychology to drive you to purchase, and purchase from them.  If you look at shopping as a science, shopping has been studied by economists, business majors, and psychologists more thoroughly than I studied Cindy Crawford’s, umm, charm, in my younger days.

Remember, actresses are different than models – actresses can read.  Also, I don’t know if I can fit an actress in the basement freezer.

Again, I don’t begrudge people who are on a tight or fixed budget that are attempting to get a good deal – that would be heartless.  But yet, isn’t Black Friday based at least in part in . . . greed?

The idea of getting a 65-inch 4K Philips ® television for $78 when it normally retails for $448 is the essence of Black Friday.  $10 Crock© pots with a $10 mail-in rebate are Black Friday.

If you buy three Rose Tico figures, you’ll spike worldwide sales by 3000%, and give Disney ® hope that Star Wars:   The Ruse of Soywalker © will be successful!

Why do we get such satisfaction over buying things?

  • It is wired into us – once upon a time, we were hunter/gatherers. This is similar – shopping is gathering.  Hunting is still hunting, which is good.  Work?  Work is where men go to avoid gathering and think about hunting.
  • Shopping distracts us from our problems. If we’re worried or sad? Retail therapy can be cheap if you have inexpensive tastes.  But when the shopping is done – if you have a real problem like having surgically attached flipper arms, they’re still there.
  • In today’s world, there are a lot of people that live lives that are marked by a nearly complete lack of control. They’re controlled by spouses at home, bosses at work, and the number of choices that the own are small.  Shopping gives them a sense of control.

There was a hurricane this year named Karen.  Managers everywhere quaked with fear.

  • Instant satisfaction is built into shopping. Why wait for later, when you can have it now (or in 36 hours with Amazon© Prime?  Rather than wait for what your goal is, you can have some smaller thing now.  And it’s certain.  Who cares if it derails your longer term plans?
  • Shopping for neat things floods your brain with serotonin like an autistic clown with a firehose. Serotonin stabilizes mood, so if you’re depressed, shopping can make you feel better, and you don’t need a prescription for Xanax ®.
  • Shopping resolves boredom. Kids doing well in school, job going well, no financial problems and relationship with spouse is fine?  So boring.  Hey, let’s spice life up by shopping for things we don’t need!
  • When we lived in Alaska, we would go to auctions because it was fun. Every so often some family would say, “that’s it!” and decide to move to the Lower 48. Thus?  I bid $70 on a table saw that I could have bought for (drumroll) $70  yes, it was a pretty crappy saw. Why?  Scarcity.  People were bidding, and, well, I won.  And scarcity is the true key to Black Friday.  Only seven fruitcake-toasters at $92 off the retail price of $292?   I must have one!

Most vices, when kept in check, aren’t a problem.  But Black Friday seems like a drug that’s designed to take advantage of the various satisfactions listed in the bullet points above.  Thankfully, there are other cures.

We live in a society where most of the basic needs are easily met for most people, at least for now.  Yes, you might not have a 65” LED television that doubles as a tanning bed.  But nearly everyone has food.  Nearly everyone has power, heat, and access to a library.  How else could people spend those same hours and minutes that would otherwise be spent in a WWE®-level fight over an inexpensive radium-powered popcorn popper and a coal-powered flashlight?

In breaking news:  Coroners report that Jeff Epstein was injured at a Black Friday sale.

They could write.  They could visit a sick family member.  They could face digestive difficulties because Dad put the frozen turkey in the oven.  They could play cards or board games and have family fun.

Oh, wait:  that describes the Wilder family.  I really should have realized that putting a turkey filled with ice into the oven wasn’t my best idea . . . .

Axis and Allies ®, anyone?  I have Pepto ®.

“Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

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?

Heard It On The X

“Calm down! Hey, look, I read on Twitter that a super-villain’s gonna bomb this loser meet and greet.  So I’m here to save the day, like I do, all the time.” – Movie 43

Before I got Twitter®, I’d just yell what I was thinking on the street.  I did get three followers, but I think two were FBI agents.

Back in the day (a long time ago) a gentleman who was somewhat of a charlatan who used to (I’m not making this up) use goat, um, tissue, surgically inserted in to a man’s, um, location in order to increase sexual potency and fertility.  Even in the 1920s this sounded bonkers.  He lost his FCC® license and decided to build a million Watt transmitter in Mexico to irradiate the United States with his sales-focused radio program.  It was said that you could hear his station in Canada.

These stations operated into the 1980s, and I do recall being able to hear one of them, X-Rock 80 up on Wilder Mountain, at night.  A million Watts is a lot of radio, but it was down to 150,000 by that time (if they weren’t cheating, which they probably were – Mexico, right?).  Since these were in Mexico, they all (there were more than one) had the X prefix.  Thus, ZZ Top’s song, Heard It on the X.

We have a new X in town, now.  Elon Musk is quite colorful, and while I haven’t heard of him thinking about transplanting goat testicle, he has talked about putting electrodes into human brains.

So, there’s that.

Elon drives the Left nuts.  Again, I know Elon is on Elon’s side, but he’s just so amusing to watch.  He makes every Leftist love him by making electric cars, makes every NASA employee envious by making way better rockets than they ever could, along with other things.

The thing that brought the Left to hating him, though, was purchasing Twitter®.  The Leftists had claimed Twitter™ as their own.  It was their property.  Twitter© went from being the Free Speech Wing of the Free Speech Party to being just another, curated Leftist echo chamber.  If there was a story they didn’t like, they could make sure that no one ever heard of it.

When Twitter® had Trump Derangement Syndrome.

My account was detuned to the point where my traffic (I got on Twitter, in part, to advertise this blog) dwindled down to nothing because anyone with a non-Leftist take was either throttled or banned regardless if they broke Twitter’s® rules or not.

When Musk bought it, all bets were off.  In response, the Left (and one of the Left’s biggest mouthpieces, the ADL®) did whatever they could to get advertisers off of Twitter™.

Competing platforms showed up.

  • Truth©, which had greater censorship than Twitter®;
  • Mastodon©, which was so boring that I fell asleep thinking about it;
  • SocialGalactic®, which is behind a paywall;
  • My Fridge, because it has magnets;
  • Gab™, which I’m on but don’t use particularly effectively;
  • and Facebook’s© Threads™ which had every Lefty on X™ claiming that they were going to leave, before slinking back to X© three weeks later.

So, a year and change has passed.

What’s happened?

First, Elon bought Twitter™ for $44 billion, but I don’t think he could sell it for anywhere near that number, though it’s certain that’s not his plan.  Musk has talked about lots of different things he’s planning for X©, which includes a lot – he calls it an “everything” app.  So, music, entertainment, banking, inserting wires in your head so you don’t need a psychologist?  Possibly.

It is certain that X© shadow banning is now less, though months after he bought Twitter©, Musk announced that he had found more bans in the software – aimed at moderating Musk’s reach.

The Left has proven to be very “foot-stampy” with Media Matters®, a far-Left organization, going after Musk by, it is alleged, continually refreshing until they had ads for IBM® next to content that IBM™ would find objectionable, especially since they’d sold a lot of equipment to the Germans in the 1930s.  Guess they didn’t want to be associated with certain clients?

Cycle something long enough, and you can create a hit piece.

Anyway, the Left is really after Musk, but it appears that they can’t really do anything to him.  It looks like Musk completely doesn’t care.

I don’t know what total user numbers are doing for Elon, but I think he’s fine.  I think his vision may take years to put together, and he probably has the time to do it.

Regardless, it’s back to being fun on X®.  I’ll have to admit, it does make me smile when I post a meme and get a rabid response from (this weekend) dozens and dozens of Lefties, and then get to live rent-free in their heads for the weekend while they seethe about what I said.  My offense?  This Xeet®:

This actually flew over the heads of several Leftists. 

When they got lippy?  My response:

The funniest thing was that some of them didn’t get it.  Explains a lot.

Where we are now is better than a year ago – there’s an actual location where anyone can go out and trigger all the Lefties they want in a free-range situation fully compliant with vegan standards.

Does it make the world a better place?  Possibly not.  But it’s always nice to be able to send out a message over a million Watts of broadcast power, regardless if goat testicles are involved or not.

Think Movies Suck Now? You’re Right.

“Freedom costs a buck-oh-five.” – Team America:  World Police

I’ve lost to a computer at chess, but never at kickboxing.

I write about movies (and books) sometimes because they are important – very important.  They are a part of the myths and backstory that defines a people and a country.  Part of this entertainment is (often) a reflection of who we think we are, or who we aspire to be – those are the characters and stories that endure and grow over time.

Comedies certainly have their place, as well.  Comedies can be rooted to universal truths that are (more or less) unchanging with time, think greed, yappy women, and farting.  Yes.  The oldest recorded joke in history that we have yet discovered is a (not very good) fart joke.

Why can’t you make fun of Steve Jobs dying?  It’s not PC.

Part of comedy, especially movie comedy, is the unexpected.  For that to happen, most of the time someone is the object of the joke – the person who is being made fun of.  In comedy in the 1970s, that person was almost always a white male, and almost always was the father and was almost always on the Right.

Why?

Feminism.  Comedy of the 1970s and onward was almost always written from the Leftist perspective.  Think Archie Bunker, who ended up being popular in spite of them trying to make him a buffoon.  Who had the first flush of the terlit on television?  Archie.  To make fun of white men who were on the Right.

Another tip:  don’t use the toilet brush as a microphone when you sing in the shower.

Heck, when I was in junior high and wondering why the only funny things were Leftist (I was on the Right, even then).  Then I read P.J. O’Rourke, and understood that it was more than possible, it was far, far funnier than Leftist humor ever imagined it could be.

The Right is funnier because the Right has Truth on its side.

For a long time, movies have been propaganda of one type or another.  Top Gun?  There’s a reason that the Navy spent millions to help make the movie – they approved the script.

There have been wild cards – people who make fun of everyone and everything – think Airplane.  One that really pushed the boundaries was Team America:  World Police.  South Park used to be funny, back when the stories were about the kids.  When the stories started to be about the adults?  Less funny.

But Team America:  World Police was something else.  It made fun of jingoistic movies while at the same time gutting hard-Left, virtue signaling idiot actors like Sean Penn, Janeane Garofalo, Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore, Danny Glover, and Tim Robbins.  They were all part of the Film Actors Guild, or F.A.G.

Yes.  They went there.  They also made fun of AIDS and homosexuals.  And Moslems.  And movies like Top Gun.  The rumors are that the studio approved it because it was so politically incorrect, and might be cheap because it was made with puppets instead of actors.

I’m glad COVID didn’t come from a Chinese bear.  Then we’d have had a pandademic.

Needless to say, making a movie that makes fun of any protected group is no longer allowed.  Why are comedies dead?  Because it gets really old, really fast, when the only person you can make fun of is the same person who buys all the movie tickets:  heterosexual white Christian men who have XY chromosomes.  You know, “literally Hitler”.

Comedy is now unfunny, mostly.  Please feel free to leave exceptions in the comments.  And movies as a whole are borderline unwatchable.  Part of the collapse of the box office (and small theaters) was COVID.  The other part is that movies suck.

The reason that movies suck is that they’re now just blatant propaganda, start to finish.  The latest Marvel® movie, The Marvels™ is a commercial failure, and a box office flop.  The studio is blaming the usual suspects:  the actor’s strike, superhero fatigue, white supremacy, anti-feminism.

That’s easy.

Harder to face is that their stupid movie sucks.

This was even in his speeches . . . remember him saying, “Let me be clear”?

Why does it suck?  It’s about women that don’t need no man.  Oh, and couples who have kids don’t want to spend money to have their kids watch Gay Buzz Lightyear™ and ask questions about why Buzz© has two mommies.  That’s it.

Who is the primary consumer of superhero movies?  White men.  Who is the primary consumer of movies for children?  People capable of making children, which, for every year in the history of mankind before 2020, were known as “men” and “women”.

Yes, white men like to look at attractive women in skintight costumes, but only the most Leftist is willing to sit and watch a movie that makes fun of them and marginalizes them.

Why does Marvel© (and Disney™) lose money?  Because they forgot who buys the tickets.

Men.

I’ve gotten to the point that, unless I’ve heard about a movie, if it was made in the last four years, it’s a hard pass, even if it looks interesting.  The movies started going south in, say, 2018.  My take is that was a reaction to Trump.  It so triggered nearly everyone who writes or acts in a movie that all they wanted to do was attack a relatively Centrist guy who just happened to be President.

What do your get if you take an entire human digestive tract and lay it out on a football field?  Arrested.

The reaction led to . . . crap.  Every Leftist simply had to get their message out that trans was the new normal and white men were awful and stupid and that NASA stuff on the Moon was a fluke.  Oh, they tried to take credit for that, too.  Because white guys, you know, can’t do math.

I also noticed it with books.  I was a lifelong reader of science fiction – I loved the ideas.  Then, around 2010, I started to notice that the books in Barnes and Noble® mainly . . . sucked.  I thought it was me.  I thought I was old and jaded.  But, nope, I read some of the old stuff and it was still great.

Science fiction was destroyed by The Narrative, too.  The people who picked the books that made it to the shelves only picked Leftist crap filled with weak people who hated themselves and hated everything True, Beautiful, and Good.  In this breakup, it wasn’t me, it was them.

They came for comics and killed them.  They came for books and killed them.  Lastly, they came for movies, and killed them.  Every book and every movie has a message, and most are propaganda of some sort or another, for good or bad.  Propaganda to get kids to brush their teeth?  That’s good.

But propaganda to turn them into self-loathing transexuals?  That’s 100% against the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.

This was the 2022 “woman” of the year.  Guess guys do everything better.

Watch what goes into your mind.  Watch what goes into the minds of your children.  Help them to aspire to be noble and virtuous and strong.  Help them to understand that jokes about yappy, farting women have been funny for 4,000 years, and will be funny for as long as women fart.

There are still good books out there.  There are still good movies, though they are uncommon, since the rot is very, very deep.  But freedom?

It still costs a buck-o-five.

Two Types Of Society. There Is Proof We Have A Choice.

“There are two types of people in this world:  people who like Neil Diamond, and people who don’t.” – What About Bob

A man threatened me with a coffee cup and stole my wallet.  I guess I got mugged.

There are two types of cultures.  One of them looks a bit like this:

I was walking in Silver Dollar City® more than a decade ago.  It was spring, and Silver Dollar City™ was an amusement park where we could take the kids and visit attractions, and even though they weren’t even teenagers, there were plenty of rides for them.

As we were walking through the park, a young blonde man of 18 or so ran up behind me.  It wasn’t a sprint, but the easy strides of a high school football player in top shape – like Michelle Obama, the kid looked like a linebacker.  “Sir, sir!”

I turned around.  “Yeah, how can I help you?”

“You dropped this.”

What did Mike Tyson say to Vincent van Gogh?  “Are you gonna eat that?” (meme as found)

The kid handed me two $20 bills.  This is unusual, since normally I have to at least pull up my shirt for anyone to give me $40 so I’ll put the shirt back down.

I stuttered, “Th-thank you!”  I felt in my pocket, and, sure enough there were two twenties that must have followed my hand out of the pocket like a structured thought sneaking out of Joe Biden’s head.

The blonde kid smiled, waved, and ran off before I could even offer him a fiver for his honesty.  And, thinking about it, he might have been offended if I offered him money.  I know I’ve turned cash down before for similar acts of honesty or help.

You don’t do it for the reward.  You don’t do it for the glory.  You don’t do it for the free shrimp and talcum powder.  You do it because it’s the right thing to do.  Period.

That’s one type of society.

This type of society functions pretty well.  The prices (back then) at Silver Dollar City™ were much lower than at other attractions of a similar nature that I’d been to.  The park itself was clean and tidy, and every local business was polite.  Did they want our dollars?  Sure they did, but they were great about wanting to come by them honestly.  They wanted to earn my money.

That’s the way that Modern Mayberry is, mostly.

Sheriff Taylor retired to a farm, so he could see Barn every day.

But San Francisco?  Wow.

I haven’t been there in almost a decade, but the pictures I’ve seen recently show a city that’s not in decline.  It’s in free-fall.  In Modern Mayberry I always lock my car doors because it’s a habit from living in big cities.  In San Francisco?  People don’t lock their cars.

People don’t lock their car doors (and many leave their trunks open) so prospective thieves can see that there’s nothing to steal without breaking the windows of the cars to rummage around themselves.  The people have surrendered to the criminals.

Porch pirates are everywhere in SF, and steal whatever they can.  People live on the streets in tents, and often defecate and do drugs in public, because, why not?

San Francisco is also leading the nation in stores disappearing or locking up all of their items.  Why?  Because mobs loot the stores, in broad daylight.  If the thief is caught, they’re immediately released.  The only solution for a store that wants to be in business is to sell you the item, go get it from a locked room, and then give it to you after you’ve already paid.

Want to watch Mad Max:  Fury Road in the most realistic way possible?  Go to San Francisco.

Lefties, I’m sure, have plenty of theories for why San Francisco is like this.  White privilege.  Institutional racism.  Failure to provide mental health services.  Lack of reparations.  It’s Wednesday.  Spin a wheel and pick an excuse.  But every one of them is a lie.  And I can prove it.

How?

Go look at the streets today where President Xi of China will be when he travels San Francisco.  The homeless are gone.  Crime is gone.  The streets aren’t covered in poop and needles and Disney™ products.

If the city of San Francisco can do that for Xi, it means that they can do it.  Even Governor Gavin “Plastic Man” Newsom said the quiet part out loud:

“I know folks say, ‘Oh, they’re just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town.’  That’s because it’s true.”

A poll was taken by California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office which asked whether people who live in California think Illegal immigration is a serious problem.  29% of respondents answered: “Yes, It is a serious problem.  71% of respondents answered: “No es una problema seriosa.”

Guess he wants to impress people that don’t live there.

San Francisco doesn’t have to be like it is.

The only reason that San Francisco is a horrifying dump is because people want it to be a horrifying dump.  As I’ve said before, the solution is obvious (We Already Know The Solutions).  Criminals need to value the gain they make from a crime less than they fear the penalty for when they get caught.  That’s it.  The equation is simple.

We know exactly what we need to do to solve almost any problem.  And, as is on display right now, the Powers in San Francisco know exactly what solution is required to solve this problem.  But they don’t, or at least limit the solution to times when world dignitaries visit – the effort for just common people is too much.

I wouldn’t worry about it.  It was a he said/Xi said situation.

Why, exactly do they allow a kleptocracy to fester in California?

  • They don’t like guns. Guns have been the great equalizer
  • They will ruthlessly target and destroy common citizens who defend themselves or their property because in their minds only the State should be able to wield force to protect itself.
  • There is no punishment of the criminals, because they’re a favored voting group.

Probably the biggest reason is this:

  • They want the people to be scared. They want the people to feel helpless, as if there’s nothing they can do and they don’t care how much money it costs you.  They want to use this to get just a little more power.

That’s it.  The reason for the kleptonomics on the street is because it serves those who could fix the problem.

Me?  I’ll take Silver Dollar City© and Modern Mayberry any day.

Does It Seem Like Everything Is Falling Apart? It Is.

“Don’t come apart on me, Frank.” – Scrooged

What makes a good tongue-twister?  That’s not easy to say.

The story of the 20th century was one of things coming together.

Part of it was based on technology – the world shrank as successive technologies made communications, typically mass communications, easier and quicker.  The world went from letters carried over land to telegrams to telephones and then radio and television.  Information that previously took weeks to get out, could now go out to millions nearly immediately so we could all know how tough Meghan Markle had it last weekend.

With this communication, the model was simple:  one to many.  One person could have their ideas spread out to literally everyone.  In the Soviet Union, radio versions of Stalin’s speeches could be broadcast instantaneously to every person with a radio in the Soviet Union, though those radios were powered by large industrial tractors produced in Tractor Collective Number 323 that weighed 17 metric tons.

With the advent of this communication, it became feasible to run an actual empire, in real time.  Things started clumping together because the span of control allowed it, and the size of empire was useful.  The Soviets started collecting satellite states like they were Hallmark© Christmas ornaments, and so did the NATO nations.

What does the blue in a communist flag stand for?  Food.

Europe itself clumped together into the EU, which, oddly, was exactly the plan of an Austrian art-school reject.  Up until the 1990s, clumping together was all the rage.  There was strength in being together, and it was also strength in the titanic war without weapons between two competing ideologies:  Western Capitalism versus Eastern European and Asian Collectivist Communism.

Some have said (and I would have argued, incorrectly, in the past) that technology is neutral.  It is not.  Technology absolutely changes the equation between the types of governments that can exist.  Take, for example, weapons:

To be really good with a sword takes a lot of practice.  I assume this because I watched a lot of movies where people learn to be good swordsmen and people always seem to get older in the montage.  Beyond that, the suit of armor that a knight had to have was really, really expensive?  How expensive?  More than “hot dog at an NFL® game” expensive, it was completely unaffordable unless you had a manor and a bunch of dudes growing stuff for you.  And, if you had it, those dudes couldn’t really do anything to you when you were out and about.

Which Knight was chosen to build the Round Table?  Sir Cumference.

Freedom, in this case, belonged to those who had armor.  That equation changed over time, and it’s a real reason I like firearms.  I can go in a store and buy a close copy (or in some cases much better stuff) than the United States Army gives to the rank-and-file soldier.  Remember, “military grade” is the code word for the cheapest stuff that they could buy that might do the job.

Anyway, as long as millions of Americans are as well armed as the average infantry soldier in our army, we are free.  Round us up and try to put us in concentration camps like they did in Australia during the recent pandemic?  Not going to happen because, well, all the guns.  It doesn’t even take a montage to learn how to use a firearm.

Mao may have been ugly and smelled bad, but he knew something very true:  “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”  Why does the Left want to take away guns?  Because they want power, and as long as you have weapons that equal theirs, they cannot make you do whatever it is that they want.

Robespierre, Trotsky, and Mao walk into a bar.  There are no survivors.

But that’s a digression.  Technology allowed the flourishing of really large empires, mainly due to information management and that “one to many” communication model.  Being together in these combinations allowed two sides to fight each other.

Until they didn’t.

The biggest failure of Soviet-style communism wasn’t the socialist part, but the collectivist part.  Capitalism in the West simply out produced them, but the collectivist mindset wasn’t really “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”  That sounds spiffy, but in reality it became, “From each according to how little work they could get away with, to each according to how much they could milk the system for.”

I asked A.I. to make the workers lazy.  Boom, the cell phones show up.

This collapsed.  I think it was a coincidence that it was just as the Internet began to flourish, but the Internet has changed the entire way that communication can flow.  The old model was “from one to many” while the new model is “from many to many”.  Not everyone has an equal voice, but ideas now flow freely.

This is what puts the panties of Those Who Are In Power into a wad – they have lost control of the Narrative.  It’s also going to be the story of the 21st century:  the time when things dissolve.

We’ve seen it start with Brexit.  Brexit would never have happened under the previous mode where the only options were the options from TPTB.  In this case, the people rose up, and said no.  Of course, in the case of Great Britain, TPTB decided to keep the unending flow of illegals headed there, because the last thing they want to reward were people from Great Britain deciding their own destiny.

I wonder if Departugul will be next?  Or will it be Polend?

It’s too late to put the genie back into the bottle, however.  We see strains on NATO where vastly divergent incentives have weakened that alliance, and I see similar strains on the EU right now, where countries like Poland and Hungary are being ostracized for not wanting to become minorities in their own lands.

Likewise, we see the pressures of division putting strains on the United States.  Every reader here is a part of that, since you regularly partake in ideas that are not approved by those who would have you live in pods and eat bugs and give up your arms.  For the greater good, you know.

The story of the 20th century was of coming together.  Our story, right now, is of things coming apart.

Friday Movies. Because I said So. 1986 in Review.

“Captain, there be whales here.”  Star Trek:  Search For Whales

Has A.I. even seen these movies?  All art for today’s post is A.I. generated, maybe after it or I (or both of us) had some drinks.

Here are my picks for the best movies of the year 1986 that I remember fondly now.  Why?  Why not.  It’s Friday, and there’s certainly enough heavy stuff going on, and each of the movies on the list below, in its genre, is better than anything made this decade.  In several cases, the movie might not have been great, but it was one I watched that year and felt it was memorable.

They are in alphabetical order, which really implies no particular order since the starting letter of the movie has nothing to do with how good the movie is, with the exception of Zardoz, which features Sean Connery in an orange diaper, rendering your arguments moot.

If Pixar® had done Aliens . . .

Aliens – Aliens starts with A, so James Cameron gets to go first.  The Terminator was really his “can James make movies” tryout so that he could make Aliens.  Aliens took a horror franchise and transformed it into an amazing science fiction action movie.  The great part about all of this is that it all looked so very real in a world without digital effects.  Too bad no one ever made a sequel to this.  It could have been great.  It’s also sad that James Cameron retired.  To think, if he hadn’t retired, he might be making stupid movies about blue aliens.

I guess there’s an admission preference for illegal aliens.

Back to School – Rodney Dangerfield.  Girls in bikinis.  The Triple Lindy.  This movie was set back when you could make fun of everyone.  And Rodney did, including Kurt Vonnegut, to his face.  The plot is simple, millionaire decides to go back to college, has his assistants do his homework.  Bonus points for the line “Bring us a pitcher of beer every seven minutes until somebody passes out.  Then bring one every ten minutes.”

Does that look like Kurt Russell to you?  Stupid A.I.

The Best of Times – Kurt Russell and Robin Williams.  In a movie.  Together.  Yes, this happened.  The result was a great comedy about reliving the past and trying to make up for that mistake you made a decade ago.  A simple movie about simpler times, and very funny.  How could it have been better?  It would have been better if John Carpenter had made it.

I don’t watch anime, but I might watch this.

Big Trouble in Little China – Kurt Russell with John Carpenter directing one of my favorite movies of all time.  Why?  Because this movie is just about the textbook in what to do when your girlfriend and truck have both been kidnapped by an ancient, cursed, Chinese wizard.  It’s got everything: dashing heroes, wimmins to be rescued, magic, kung fu, semi fu, butterfly knife fu, and balls of green flame fu.  Green flame!

Working title:  The Color of Rain

The Color of Money – I’ve only seen this the one time, and probably won’t watch it again, so this is a review based on remembering it from nearly 40 years ago.  I was on the left side of the theater, so I don’t think I got the best stereo so, you know.  This wasn’t a great movie, but it really captured the 1980s, what with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman making an epic road trip . . . what?  This is the billiards movie with Paul Newman and I’m really thinking about Rain Man?  Oh.  Take this one off the list.

I think they might need a drummer.

Crossroads – Before the Internet, the story of Robert Johnson selling his soul on the crossroads for musical success was passed in the school hallways by someone who half heard it.  That’s where I heard it, and, weirdly, most of the details were right.  This movie came out after I’d heard about it, and it was great.  Ralph Macchio, even though I think he was forty or fifty years old (the man does not age, I think he sleeps in Tupperware® so he doesn’t spoil) when he did this movie did a great job as a kid who wanted to learn the blues.  Guitar solos at the end?  Pure 80s.  Sadly, this movie was successful enough that the scriptwriter wrote Young Guns and Young Guns II, proving that he probably had first-hand experience at the crossroads.

Not A.I. generated.  Unless we’re living in a simulation.

From Beyond – If you don’t like horror, just skip ahead.  Bringing H.P. Lovecraft to the screen is hard, because sometimes his writing glossed over the details.  From Beyond brings the horror of Lovecraft to the screen, the thought that there is a universe just next door that wants to get to us, and the things it wants to do . . . aren’t pleasant.  Except for Barbara Crampton in a leather bikini.  That was pleasant.

If only Batman® could have saved the American car industry.

Gung Ho – Michael Keaton is now an “actor” after playing Batman®.  Back in 1986, he was a guy who was great in comedies.  Gung Ho is the story of a car manufacturing plant that was closed, and the fight to get a Japanese company to come and reopen it and the comedic cultural clash that follows.  This was the 1980s, and back then the Japanese scared the heck out of America, since it looked like they could do all of the things we couldn’t do anymore:  build great cars, be Japanese, have discipline, create anime, and have Micheal Keaton in a comedy.

Looks like the kid is trying to decapitate himself.

Highlander – Sean Connery plays a Spaniard with a Scottish accent, while the French actor(who didn’t speak English) Christopher Lambert played a Scottish guy with a French accent.  Whatever.  It worked.  A group of immortals move through time to the time where they have to gather and try to decapitate each other.  Except in churches.  And the movie opens at a professional wrestling match.  It really, really sounds silly, but it’s a powerful movie that, sadly, there was never ever a sequel to.

Looks like the Village People® are here, too.

Iron Eagle – This movie taught me that it’s easy to learn to fly an F-16 in a montage that just lasts a few minutes, and that everyone flies better if they strap a cassette player to their thigh and play rock and roll while you shoot down MiGs.  I believe that this is the current air strategy of Ukraine, since in their latest aid request they wanted Louis Gossett, Jr. to train their pilots, and wanted some Sony Walkman™ cassette players.  Okay, this wasn’t a great movie.  And I haven’t seen it since 1986.  But if I ever need to fly an F-16?  I’m gonna rent this one on VHS.

Has there ever been a more 1980s picture?  I think not.

Maximum Overdrive – This movie makes no real sense.  It was based on a Stephen King short story, and in the 1980s, movies regularly appeared that were based on the shopping lists a cocaine-crazed Stephen King would write before blacking out for the evening.  In this case, a cocaine-crazed Stephen King also directed it, before passing out for the evening.  What happens?  Trucks and cars come to life, and you know what that means.  An AC/DC® soundtrack.  It’s not a horror movie, it’s really a 98 minute music video that doesn’t take itself seriously.  I watched with the kids a few years back, and they laughed, a lot.

Okay, maybe this is more 1980s.

One Crazy Summer – This is an flick about John Cusack (yes, I know now he’s an insufferable tool who blocked me on Twitter®) and Demi Moore (yes, I know now she’s an insufferable tool) in a romantic comedy that’s got a flair for the absurd.  Bobcat Goldthwait stuck in a Godzilla® costume destroying a model of a planned development in front of the investors?  Priceless.

Okay, this one was difficult to get to – the A.I. just hated doing it.

Ruthless People – This was a Zucker brothers movie, so it’s that kind of humor.  Bette Midler is an awful person who gets kidnapped, and Danny DeVito is her awful husband who doesn’t want her back.  It’s the first movie I saw Bill Pullman in before he was elected president after being a hero fighter pilot (he probably watched Iron Eagle to learn how) and killed the aliens on Independence Day.

Probably not far off from the real poster.

Short Circuit – Alley Sheedy gets a sentient robot that won’t shut up, and comic hijinks are the result, rather than it plugging into DARPANET and annihilating the human race.  This one, thankfully, is spared a cocaine-crazed Stephen King.

Well, I have no idea what this hot mess is, but I couldn’t pass it up.

Star Trek IV:  Whales In Space – Yeah, I know that’s not the official title, but when I write that, you know which one I’m talking about.  This wasn’t the high point of the Star Trek movies, that was Wrath of Khan.  But it did involve time travel to 1986 America, and Kirk going on a pizza date with a marine biologist and going home to a stolen Klingon® vessel.  I’m beginning to get the idea that 1986 was a year where people weren’t afraid to be a bit silly.

That’s it.  Are these the best movies, ever?  No.  But how often do you see good comedies since, oh, 2016?  Only three of the movies above were sequels or part of a “cinematic universe”.  A lot of them were experiments that lost money, or made Sean Connery do silly things, like act with French people.

Will we see another year of movies like this?  Probably not in my lifetime.  I’m especially glad they haven’t made any new Star Trek since 2005.