I just finished David Mamet’s "Everywhere an Oink, Oink”. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. The man is a genius, he brought us “Glengarry, Glen Ross”, perhaps the greatest play / movie to ever look into the psychology of selling, and the pressure packed field of “sales”. And his depiction of Alphas, and Betas is brilliant.
In this book he spends every page trying to show us just how clever he thinks he is, using a word salad to express his ideas. Which becomes a bit boring by page five.
I wanted a real inside look into Hollywood and instead got a vocabulary lesson dressed up as prose.
And learned that Mamet wishes he was either a cartoonist, or stand-up comedian.
I expected this book to deliver on its promise to expose Hollywood.
His writing is so over-the-top, such a word salad of expressions and ideas to give you the impression he is learned, and has an extensive vocabulary, that the message becomes boring by the third page.
We learn he is a cinephile, and well versed in movie lore and movie history, But he flatters himself in every line, and every florid sentence.
I wish I had waited to see this book in a discount rack so I could have paid about what it was really worth.
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We cannot trust the FBI or Secret Service to look into what really happened in Butler, Pennsylvania.
That is the absolute and unvarnished truth.
Read that again and let it sink in.
Who deserves the blame for that complete lack of current trust?
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I got in the dog house recently, help me out with this one, was I wrong?
A good friend I see once a year, and now living a short three hours away, agreed to meet me half-way to play golf together and catch up. He even gained us a tee time on a private course right in the center between us to make our trips even, and easy.
I figured we’d play from 11-3, then have a drink and dinner together. The wife called as I was driving to meet him, said she was going to have dinner with friends in the neighborhood. Great. I’m happy, she is happy. They were introducing her to a new restaurant she hadn’t tried. Separate ways, but both having fun.
So I play golf, but the friend wants and early jump on traffic home. I leave around 3 to head home, clearly to get home in time for dinner, but on the way a friend texts and says “how about a late night nine holes at 6PM? Since I was playing well, I texted back “absolutely, see you at 6”! 27 holes in one day, what a dream come true!
I get home, start up dinner, finding two beautiful crab cakes I’d made up the previous day still in the fridge, and start making sides to go with them. The wife comes out of the bedroom dressed for dinner, surprised that I’m home, and wondering why I am not joining her for the “couples dinner” she has planned.
“Because I’m going back out golfing. right after I scarf up these crab cakes”.
Well, well, well. She was none too happy.
Apparently I was supposed to go to the “couples dinner”, which wasn’t a couples dinner when it was planned.
So what happened?
I met my buddy to play an emergency nine holes at 6PM, then repaired to the club house for a nice glass of red.
As we finished golf at dusk, and by the time I’d swallowed 1/2 the glass of grape it was dark outside, I got a text that said “what, do they have glow-in-the-dark golf balls there”?
I got home at 10PM to a cold shoulder.
Was I wrong? That was the best day of Summer so far.
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How does Alec Baldwin point a gun at another human, pull the trigger, kill her, and skate on charges completely?
Do you think you or I could avoid manslaughter charges on that one?
Both the weapons person on site, and Baldwin should be facing jail time. On charges of manslaughter. No doubt about it.
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I’m so sick and tired of the argument over whether or not illegals are voting in our elections.
The Democrats are on record now, in a vote, and they want illegals to be able to vote. Of course they do. They think it will benefit Democrats.
Listen up people, if your state has the motor-voter bill, and allows illegals to get drivers licenses, then they have a voter card. And yes, some choose to use it. I would say millions of illegals are voting in California elections at this point.
If you have motor-voter, they are voting in your state. Absolutely. No doubt about it.
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The Democrats are now on record as wanting illegals to vote. For years they said the “replacement theory” was nothing but a Right Wing talking point of conspiracy.
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A regular reader, Mr. Bryan Hyde, has a great podcast show, you should give him a listen. He has referenced this column a few times and in his most recent comments he said I was “brutally honest”.
If my opinions come across as a bit harsh it is not the way they are intended. I just hate when talking head pundits on television sugar coat a subject, and talk around the core point. Say, on Joe Biden’s decline. Think of all those talking heads that said he was fine one day, and had to be removed the next. When we’ve all known since the basement strategy that something was amiss with Joe.
I’d prefer to cut to the chase and just call it all out.
If I am attempting any kind of writing style at all, it isn’t “brutally honest”. It is conversational writing. As if we were sitting together and you feel we are talking to each other. My biggest hope is that you can “see” what I write, that I create some pictures in the mind as you read along.
“Brutally honest” sounds like I am too over-the-top raw in my assessments.
Perhaps I will attempt to couch my points in a more reasonable way. I don’t want to be seen as a gadfly, or radical. I’m just trying to create discussion and thought.
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I have a set of friends who enjoy sending each other nastygram throughout the day. Text messages that are unkind to say the least. Since I’ve gone off the diet, and began to consume alcohol after a long layoff, I’ve ballooned up in pounds a bit and I’m not in the best of either weight, or appearance, but I’m very happy and enjoying life.
A friend happened to send a text pointing out my current physical shortcomings.
So to “get him back” I googled him, to find some photos. And I was aghast. In his work photo, on his work website, he is pictured wearing a pastel green quarter zip.
Good God, man.
In my day the only acceptable photo would be a suit and tie.
There he is, on his company website, in a green, pastel, quarter zip. How unprofessional. If I were the CEO I’d have fired him for that photo for sure.
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Don’t look now but everywhere you turn, from the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games, to any random twitter, to any Netflix movie or special, the back end of the San Francisco Pride Parade has broken out into the open.
Fetish behavior, leather fetish gear, dog collars on humans, it is all now front-and-center.
Rush Limbaugh used to play an audio clip where an activist yelled “we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re in your face”, and he used to stretch out the “faaaaace” part to be funny, and make fun of the activists.
Unfortunately that activist was correct. They are here, they are queer, and man, they are in our face. Bringing the very worst of their deviancy from the rear end of the San Francisco Pride Parade into the mainstream. If an alien landed this week they’d think we were a world of gimps on chains in a leather dog faced mask. How did polite society allow the backside of the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade take center stage?
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Have you seen any “children’s programming” recently?
We are a long way from “Sky King” and “Lassie”, I can tell you that.
Back then every program had a lesson. Parents taught moral lessons through the storylines to the children audience, as well as the child onscreen.
Today?
Today all the parents on these shows are idiots, the kids are the smart ones, and it is the parents who are taught all the lessons.
Somewhere in that little story you can find reasons for how we got as screwed up as a society as we’ve become
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When was the last time you had a banana split?
Does anyone out there remember “Friendly’s Ice Cream”, are they still around?
Back in the day they had a version of the banana split, called a “Jim Dandy”. I could house one of those things. Just tear one up.
In this small town I’m visiting they have what is called a “Dumser’s Dairyland”, a real throwback style ice cream parlor.
One night soon, after dinner, I’m going to grab the wife and go there and try to consume a banana split.
How great does that sound? Admit it, you’d love to have one right now.
I know, I’m fat minded. When I get back to Florida it’ll be walking twice a day, and salads a meal a day. But for now, lookout, I might order the banana split with a chocolate malted milkshake side. Oh, yeah. XL Henley’s, here I come.
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What happened to the term, referring to a Presidential candidate, that they had to have “gravitas”, meaning strength, experience, a foundation.
One thing I know for sure, Kamala has no “gravitas”. None. Zip, zero, zilch.
She needs to ask the DNC what her opinion is on every subject. And they are happy to tell her.
She is an empty suit cackling hen.
If you vote for her, you are a full blown idiot.
I don’t care if you hate Trump, fine, don’t vote. Write in your favorite candidate.
But you can’t, in good conscience, vote for Kamala. She is completely worthless.
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Everyone needs to pause, take a moment to think, and consider what our world would be like today if they hadn’t missed. If Trump had not survived the vile attack on his life.
We’d be in a completely different world.
I thank God for the incompetence of the shooter. And I loathe the Secret Service who failed so miserably.
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So I’m in one of those “Catch 22” situations.
I get gas, can’t pull out on the major 4 lane highway because traffic is heavy. The red light puts a stop to all that, a truck pulls up to the light, I bounce out of the gas station and behind the truck, since the next vehicle is far behind, and there is space for me to edge out of the gas station, and to curl behind the truck. My car is 3/4 into the slow lane behind the truck. My back end is sticking slightly out into the bus and bike lane.
All of the sudden the truck at the light in front of me decides to back up. And he does, right into my bumper cracking it and a few pieces of trim. I wave him around the corner, and back into the gas station when the light changes.
My luck he refuses to share driver info, is a mouthy little shit of a thirty year old, and tells me that even though he backed his truck into me, the accident is my fault because “no one pulls out of a gas station that way”.
I get the cops involved so I can get insurance information. Even in front of the cop the kid keeps mouthing me, I had to, ahem, tell him politely not to address me at all, and to talk to the policeman and not to talk to me.
Next day I call his insurance firm. And a day later, they call and tell me they won’t honor the claim. That driver wasn’t listed as “approved” on the company policy that held the truck insurance. So he is an “uninsured motorist” for that vehicle. I try to get my own insurance company to assist, they tell me they can do nothing, not even cover the repairs as I was not at fault.
I’ve learned from a recent past accident that if you think it will cost $ 800 in twisted trim and a small paint job, no, it will cost $ 8,000. New car parts and repair are very expensive these days.
So now I have to attempt to get my lawyer son involved. Yeah, that’ll help. He is trying to grow his own business with real customers, and doesn’t need dad’s problems working pro bono. All I need him to do is call the company, threaten to sue them if they don’t cover the repairs. Send a letter on letterhead. Good luck to me with that.
This is fun. And worse, it’s the wife’s vehicle. Oh yeah, isn’t she already happy with me.
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The same people that say it is ridiculous to even consider the Trump assassination a pre-planned coordinated effort involving governmental agencies, and perhaps even the Secret Service, are the same exact people who told us that Russia blew up their own Nordstream Pipeline. And that we, the USA, didn’t do it.
They clearly lied about the pipeline. What are they lying about in this inept, ridiculous, Keystone Cops performance in Butler, PA?
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I read a great line on Twitter, I wish I could give attribution but I can no longer find it, so I’ll paraphrase the quote. It went something like this, “Democratic Operatives would pull the plug on your sick loved one in the hospital to charge their cell phones”.
Now that is apt. So close to the truth as to be hilarious.
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Bank on it, when Adam Schiff called for Biden to drop out it had nothing to do with Joe Biden. And everything to do with down ticket balloting. It became clear to Adam that Trump was gaining such a sizable lead, even gaining in California, to the extent that down ballot Republican voting was going to put Garvey into office ahead of Schiff.
So Schiff panicked and called out Biden to drop out.
Once the damage hit home for Schiff, Biden had to go.
If you can’t just see Schiff speak, sit and speak, and not see a craven, snooty, self-absorbed, sniveling little idiot, then you have no people skills in determining what people might be like. I wouldn’t trust Schiff to walk across the street and bring me back a Starbucks. He’d abscond with my money, and the drink itself.
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I just realized something after reading an article online that rang true. J. Edgar Hoover had a dossier of “dirt” on every politician in the country. He used this to blackmail official Washington, DC into allowing him free rein at the FBI.
Hillary understood this, the first thing she did was go for the FBI files and her little minion Chris Livingstone to gain “dirt” on opponents.
And this article I read said that the FBI set up a trap or sting operation against Hillary with a bribe so as to be able to control her when she gained the Presidency. The article intimated that Obama was involved, he wanted to ensure that he had full control over Hillary, and that she wouldn’t go rogue on his commands.
And then I realized that the 17 lies to the FISA Court to gain wiretaps throughout the entire Trump campaign were not about the campaign, and figuring out how to beat him. They were seeking “dirt” they could use so if by some incredible mistake he won, they could control Trump in the same way they intended to control Hillary.
Only get this, Trump is so squeaky clean where breaking actual laws is concerned, they could find nothing. Trump was smart enough to always stay on the right side of the law, and make sure his behavior never crossed the line into a jail offense.
I know, I know, they held four trials, he is facing jail now. Come on, man, those are the most trumped up charges and phoned up charges, none of these Democratic AG led trials are going to withstand appeal.
The wiretaps were not predicated on figuring out the Trump Campaign ideas and knowing how to beat him in advance. They were to dig “dirt” to use for control by the “Deep State”.
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Republicans are just plain stupid. I mean dumb. The DNC controls the mainstream media, we’ve seen it so many times over, and over that claiming they are DNC controlled isn’t in dispute. We have all seen the videos. One person says “weird” and all day, all we see, is “weird” on loop on every channel. The talking points go out, the parrots sing.
But Republicans try to play on an un-level playing field. They try fighting back, are made to look stupid, and cry foul.
Never play on their field. Do what Trump does, call them out immediately. Tell them, you are nothing but a hack, a partisan hack, you have no personal convictions, you have to wait until the DNC tells you what to think and say.
Be more like Marjorie Taylor-Greene, just outright say “fuck off”. They don’t deserve our respect or cooperation, the game is rigged against Republicans.
Stay on principles and message.
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I have no doubt, none, that the giant Department of Education in Washington, DC serves as nothing more than a Democrat re-election campaign office all day, every day.
Now sure there exists Marxist staff that comes up with DEI, CRT, and other ridiculous initiatives in the hope of creating a system of indoctrination of our children toward socialist behavior. And there are cabals of workers eagerly attempting to create a national curriculum of Marxist doctrine and teachings.
But there are hundreds and hundreds of desks occupied by people who, all day, every day, are in service to re-electing Democrats across the land. Think what NPR is to broadcast to assist Democrats, the Department of Education is the paperwork and legislation arm. And when I say legislation I mean sending Marxist program ideas to Congress, while at the same time working overtime to pad voter rolls with new registered Democrats, create mailings in service to Democrats, it’s a full time service shop in service to Democrats.
As I said, the NPR of written communications.
And those stupid ass Republicans fund it with more and more money each year. As those dumb enough to ever send their own to a public school have them well versed in hating America as a colonizer and exploiter, embracing “white guilt and white privilege”, and becoming indoctrinated in a hate America campaign.
Did Obama send his kids to public school?
Did Nancy Pelosi send her kids to public school?
No. No they did not.
That should be instructive, no?
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One more, in response to today's "randoms"....
Yes, the wife likely was a little hard on you about the golf/dinner thing, but you were likely a little hard on the friend with the green pastel work ensemble. As you know, I once made a personal statement of rebellion by donning a purple fishnet tanktop for a sales meeting.
And speaking of "fishnets"... Yes, the Olympic opening ceremonies were a complete travesty and debacle. Mocking the last supper? Drag queens, prancing pixies, dominatrix debauchery... a twisted faggotry frolic that left me (a not overly religious guy who appreciates irreverent satire) disgusted and repulsed. Whatever deranged group of choreographers and perverse morons decided to put on that spectacle of Sodom should face the Alex Baldwin firing squad!
And speaking of Alex Baldwin... Maybe Im naive, but I dont think the man is malicious or evil. He says he "assumed" the gun was loaded with blanks (arent ALL movie set guns loaded with blanks). Perhaps the weapons/prop man should face charges, but unless some definite knowledge of something darker exists, he has to walk free.
I havent had a banana split since childhood. Why? Not only dont I like them, Im highly allergic to bananas... and nuts...and melons. lol.
Lastly... I refuse to even contemplate what things would be like if "they hadnt missed"...Mr. Trump and I are going to save the universe together.
Insightful and thought provoking as always. Your perceptions and accusations regarding the Dems being ruthless cheaters, the Republicans being too stupid to properly counter, Trump being innocent and clean on most all of their "trumped" up charges, and of Hoover having a dossier on everyone were spot on and thought provoking. What they "provoke" is the thought as to WHY things continue as they do. Its more than Republican "stupidity".... its Republican lack of balls and heart. The Dems need to be called out, and no one has enough hair on their ass to properly do it.
Back in the day, when you spotted a cheater, he wasnt allowed 2 years and 100 excuses to worm his way out or cover the facts. He was called to the carpet, repented and atoned, or disappeared into a hole in the desert! If you sat at the poker table with Wild Bill and the boys, and the extra ace fell out of your sleeve, a .45 shell parted your cranium. That's a harsh example for 21st century life, but that and a lot worse take place behind the scenes, and the cheating liberal media hides it all. No more.. the American public needs to see the full scope of the ruse. And to accomplish this its time for some Republicans with guts... Its time for some blatant, in your face, "frontier justice" in order to send the message.