How is your sanity?
Has your own brain gone numb yet?
Has the mainstream media and new media fed you enough information at full bore on a continuous loop that the real, important, prime, and serious information that you absorb gets mixed in with the inane, odd, useless, and worthless information so that your brain becomes a gelatinous mess, incapable of determining what matters and what doesn’t?
Every now and then in scrolling news sites, and online information I get a glimpse of our President, and realize two salient facts. First, that we currently have in the office of the Presidency a dementia patient. Full blow dementia, senile, incapable of rational thought beyond a minute or two. And second, somehow the powers-that-be, the leaders of the Democratic Party, and half the country are going to ignore that fact and are in fact running this dementia patient again for the next four years. As incredible as that sounds it is happening. For real.
And here is the incredible part, at least forty percent of the public says in polling they are going to vote for the dementia patient. I hope I can make it through this column, my brain is beginning to numb a bit again. This happens when reality intrudes. This happens when I see through the fog of illusion and delusion that is now mainstream media, in conjunction with even popular online sites.
Oh hey look, on X, or Twitter, a donkey has joined a pack of elk and is traveling in the herd with them!
Where was I?
Sorry, I was talking about our senile President when the video of a lost donkey roaming the California countryside with elk jumped onto the screen. I have a soft spot for donkeys, sometimes I feel like the donkey of the human world, unaccepted, alone, seeing the world in a way no other animal sees the world, and shunned by all because I look and smell a bit different. I didn’t ask to be born five-foot-six. I didn’t want to hate all of humanity, but there it is, isn’t it?
And where does one seek any real news these days. Since they canned Tucker Carlson I rarely if ever view Fox News, although I do enjoy “The Five”. But frankly tuning into Fox News these days is as if you are watching a 24/7 Israeli Defense Force channel, the propaganda in support of Israel is pervasive and invades every single story they show on the channel.
Watching Fox News at all, at any time, feels as if you are on a Birthright tour of the homeland, sponsored by Netanyahu. Doesn’t matter which talking head comes onto the screen, if Israel is mentioned they are praised, and praised, and praised again. The mere mention of Hamas brings a look to every face as if they just smelled shit. The slaughter of innocents, even hundreds of innocents, is justified for the rescue of a single hostage. No mention that pre-October 7TH Israel held, and still holds literally thousands of Palestinians, some children, in captivity. I try to pay attention, from what I can see Israel is enjoying a sixty-to-one kill advantage. I can’t tell if that sounds about right, I’ve become distracted by this video of a golf ball rolling off of the very fast greens at Pinehurst # 2, where they will play the US Open this weekend.
Hey, I’ve been to Pinehurst! I rocked in those porch chairs. Didn’t play golf though, that was back when the kids were little and I had to give the game up to be a full-time dad.
Where was I?
Hunter Biden something. Not sure what the story is, I just went passed it, the guy sickens me. I’ve been around, I’ve seen things, I’ve hung with some hard core frat boys and seen some pretty disgusting frat boy behavior. Drunk or drug addicted men can and do go far beyond the bounds of propriety, it is never pretty. Hunter Biden is the worst of that behavior, at this point I just skip the articles. Don’t you? I mean, who wants to read about a Nepo-Pig?
I honestly do try to stay informed but they’ve made a jumble out of the news. And you simply cannot trust any source. You could give me a hundred subjects and ask me to write the slant The NY Times is going to put on the subject in advance and I’d score a perfect 100. We already know what they’ll write, why bother to actually read what they say?
At this point I’ve whittled down the people I can “trust” in news to Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Jimmy Dore, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Rogan. I should add Sasha Stone but she worries me of late.
Everyone else is suspect as they have an agenda. One way, or another, they are predisposed to have an agenda, a slant, a hard-core position that never changes no matter the circumstances, new revelations, new information, or new stories.
I’ve got to ask you, are you living right now, I mean really living, as in “living your best life”, or are you just coping? Or are you on some journey toward living your “best life” and it is a process, so you aren’t quite there yet, but trying?
Because between inflation, the complete disinformation to be found in the mainstream media and beyond, the severe lack of entertainment to be found despite the fact I grew up with three-and-a-half channels and always had something to watch, and now have entire film libraries of movies and series and have nothing to watch.
I know, I know, you are asking yourself, how do you get a half-a-channel? Well the Washington, DC UHF channel was visible, barely, on some good days in Baltimore, from all the way down in Washington, DC, owned by a Mr. Kluge I believe, and so on good days that channel could be seen. On bad days it was all gray screen static no matter how much you moved the rabbit ears. Which was sad since that channel had the Bowery Boys, Our Gang comedies, and The Three Stooges, legends all. For an eight year old boy that half-channel was gold, Jerry, gold. If memory serves me correct old man Kluge was one of our countries first Billionaires. I wonder how many politicians he owned?
See?
My mind wanders, can’t keep track of thoughts. The current speed of media, and availability of the internet and all those sites are just running at the speed of light and my tiny brain can’t keep up. Stories blur.
There are days I swear to you my mind feels a bit numb, jumbled, almost Biden-like. I come to believe at times that if I attempted to say any words they’d come out just like Joe’s, “what he did, what he accomplished, was just incraaadilaliciousdeemable”. I’ve become Biden-esque.
Huh?
Oh, yeah. Living your best life. Sorry, the brain wiggled like Jello and I went off-track. Off track betting, there is a casino over the bridge, I can bet there. . I like Koepka in the US Open.
Wait, your best life. I do wonder. How do you feel right now, do you feel as if you are treading in one place, not necessarily falling behind, but not advancing, not seeing growth in the bank account or accumulated wealth? Existing, not living? Coasting, not accelerating? Has your arc hit peak and begun to turn south?
I’m not sure I feel the ascent any longer. My eyes feel as if they’ve dipped to the horizon and away from the sky. Where is your own gaze?
Have you had to curb normal behaviors? Skip a restaurant visit, make a cheaper meal at home, eat leftovers that normally might have been tossed? What is life like?
Have they “strapped you to a device” yet at work? One of those counters, or God forbid a device that tracks your “mouse”, to see when you are active at the computer, and when you are potentially away from your desk and thieving company time and money? Do you have a company car, and is it tagged with a device that tracks all driving, to ensure that you are making the eighteen sales calls just the way you put into the salesforce program onto your computer, so they can make sure you didn’t just sit home, use the phone, call customers and then say you visited?
In today’s work world employers have gotten a bit strict. I hear worker horror stories, treated like mules, measured, recorded, watched. Hey, mules, aren’t they just donkeys with a different name? Or is it mules are neutered donkeys? What is the difference between a mule and a donkey? Hey, I grew up just over the city line in a county suburb, not on some farm, how am I supposed to know the difference between a mule and a donkey?
I have occasion to listen in on “work calls”, and I must say that in this day and age I personally am unemployable. All that “scaling”, and “deep dives”, and “metrics”, and an introduction with Me, Him, Her pronouns coming from som indigenous lands. I used to be successful and yet today I hear these calls and can only understand about a third of what the Hell they are talking about. Frankly ninety percent or more sounds like pure corporate bullshit, but if they really started to fire everyone that is extra baggage the unemployment rate would jump to seventy-seven percent. And I’m being generous. Didn’t Elon Musk fire eighty percent of Twitter and the band played on?
Seriously, I am forced to hear work calls sometimes and I want to go and click a button to join and say “man, are you a blowhard, you have no clue what the fuck you are talking about, how do you keep your job, I’ve just heard you blather for twenty minutes saying nothing at all”.
Then again maybe that describes half my columns. Let’s proceed.
I’m trying to live my best life. I really am. But the wife keeps dragging me back into reality. Even a simple walk around the neighborhood becomes a huge burden heaped onto the plate.
Hey look, the shutters haven’t been painted on the house since you fell off the ladder, what, ten years ago now? Remember, you damn near broke your back, and still can’t swing a golf club absent pain because of that fall? And the north side of the house, the side without windows has some green moss growing, need to get that power washed. And the porch needs to be power washed, and the hot tub isn’t cleaned and filled yet. And speaking of washed the washer and dryer are old and acting up, we need to update those for around fifteen hundred. And look at this kitchen, same one we installed in 1985 when we built the house, need that updated, and when did we last do this roof?
If I walk with my wife and let her talk long enough I calculate I need a quick hundred-and-fifty grand to make all things right, and that just includes this house.
I ask you, and I do ask you because I really want to know if you are living a parallel life, where is the relief? Exactly when do you get to sit down and feel content?
Are you content, do you feel at peace over your circumstances in the world at large? Are you one of those people who read about tragedies and say “but for the grace of God there go I”, and chalk up your own problems as not being near as bad as others, and therefore “good”?
Sorry, but I’m not built that way. I realize others have it way worse. I do. And I sympathize. But inside this skin I wonder how in this world of misinformation, a world somehow run by liars, thieves, and reprobates, where they’ve screwed up earning a living, screwed up the value of our dollar, and let the infrastructure go to the point we are all driving up each other’s posterior in clogged up traffic, am I all alone, or are you experiencing all this as well?
I’m not sure one can find contentment any longer in this fast-paced, overpriced world. I really am not sure.
Even sitting in the evening, trying to relax with a beer, maybe a nearby bag of pretzels or chips. You take a sip and say “Holy Shit, this beer was over ten bucks for a six pack”, and “look at the sticker on those Utz Chips, seven-ninety-nine!”
And the apoplexy and anxiety rises.
Maybe I need a break from the internet entirely. But then again, who is going to send you a column a day?
Wait, is that a baby pig snuggling with rabbits? Where do I click to make the video work?
Real honest-to-goodness news, or rabbits and a baby pig?
Look, ain’t he cute?
x
A jumbled mess. But I would add Sasha Stone to the list. She gives me hope for those lost to the captured.