Random Commentary

Not Enough for a Column

At this point I am thoroughly convinced that the only thing that is going to save our nation economically at this point is that the Baby Boomer generation that is about to die off in America will leave an estimated one hundred trillion dollars in inheritance to their offspring.

That incredibly large flow of money into the hands of the next generation will maintain this over-inflated cost structure within which we all live.

What am I talking about, I’m technically a Baby Boomer, born in the late 1950’s.

My wife and I will contribute part of those funds.

My only concern is that “free” money never spends the same as earned income. People don’t treat it the same. Money you sweat to earn, money you have to work hard to earn, you value. Money handed to you for “free”, tends to be treated as less valuable.

Were I a “numbers guy”, someone working with actuarial tables, current investments by age, investment in the stock market, and other metrics, I’d figure out when all these Baby Boomers are going to die off, and just before the peak date invest in luxury good stocks, and travel stocks. And second homes.

Those will be the targeted spending areas for the next generation. Daughters will finally get that handbag they could never afford, men will get their jet skis. And both will vacation as never before on free found inheritance money. You know, even the moribund mobile home market might thrive once this next generation gets all that inheritance. “Free” windfalls tend to be spent poorly.

Grab up second homes now. A big percentage of that hundred trillion is heading to beach homes everywhere.

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I saw a great line on “X” yesterday referring to Washington, DC insiders who do the bidding of the Deep State willingly, and serve their needs as if best for our nation, and themselves. “They live their whole lives so close to the peg they don’t realize they are even on a leash”.

Damn. Wish I had come up with that line, it so perfectly expresses how a Peter Strozk can subvert Democracy and undermine the Trump candidacy absent the thought that he might be subverting our Constitution and the election process in general. He, as an insider, thinks himself on the correct side of policy, absent the understanding that the same forces would undermine his own standing and freedoms if he became a threat to the system he serves.

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As a golf fan the way the PGA is going about the demise of LIV is infuriating to me. Placing penalties on those who left to play in the new league, making Reed wait a year, and putting Koepka on the “play-in” bench.

All fans want to see is the best play against the best each week. Every week.

Making some of the “best” sit goes against that grain.

And the two biggest LIV hold-outs, DeChambeau and Rahm, it appears plans are to penalize them the most. And poor Phil Michelson, some are talking lifetime ban as he was a progenitor of the new fledgling league.

The fans want to see DeChambeau and Rahm play Scottie, and all the other big names. Absent wait. And Phil would be a huge boost to the Senior tour.

All this talk of penalty is self-serving for the PGA. Gives no consideration to the fans.

But then again isn’t that why we needed a new league to begin with, because the PGA was stodgy and stagnant, and overly controlling the game?

They’ve learned nothing from the advent of LIV. Nothing. And as usual, the fans are considered last.

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Why is it the American People cannot view the laptop contents of either the Biden kid or Weiner, that contains many of the lost Hillary e-mails? By what right does the FBI withhold such information?

As a kid we revered the FBI. I had an acquaintance, his dad was in the FBI, all the parents had a reverence for that man that was palpable. As if he walked alone amongst them, a man of elevated principles.

This FBI today, the men serving today? Toadies and fools, I give them no respect at all, none. In fact I despise them, as cogs in a fetid swamp of filth, liars, part of a corrupt system that is criminal in nature and act.

Odd how far that institution has fallen. From revered to scorned. There is a lesson in there on America itself somewhere.

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Did any of you catch the brief twitter by a high school student, handing a small paragraph to fellow students to read, graduating twelfth grade students, and his fellow students couldn’t read the paragraph at all, they stumbled and fumbled over words, and were basically illiterate?

Word has leaked that he is being investigated and potentially punished and may not be able to “walk” for graduation. As opposed to some question about how these students on camera who are graduating with a high school degree cannot read a simple paragraph. With the inclusion of a few “difficult” dictionary words.

What has happened to education? What has happened to self-development?

Whenever I read an article by the literary scholars of the day, a Buckley, a Gore Vidal, a Peggy Noonan, or George Will, if I came across a word I didn’t understand I’d grab up a dictionary so that I could understand the meaning of the word. I’d familiarize myself with the language. I can recall the last time I got tripped up, misunderstanding the word “Penultimate” as the final group, and not the correct second-to-final. Being embarrassed I did not fully understand the meaning.

As a kid in Catholic school we were just grilled on vocabulary. Daily.

With “Google” at hand, why wouldn’t kids today see a word they don’t understand and immediately just “Google” the definition?

Funny thing today is, I find myself “Googling” using “Urban Dictionary” to learn slang much more than I find myself “Googling” real words. I hate to see new terms from the “kids” in use and be in the dark as to meaning and intent.

If you’ve seen the video on “X”, of these school kids just butchering a simple paragraph, it is one sad commentary on our schooling system, the students themselves, and in particular the parents who didn’t demand more of their children.

You know, sad as it sounds, some are just destined to be McDonalds workers, they have no aspirations or ambition to improve themselves to advance beyond.

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What percent of NY stock exchange stock do the few hedge funds own? Is our stock market now under the full control of maybe three firms?

As someone nearing seventy I remember in my youth this idea that you could both win and lose in the market.

Today it appears there are some that only win. Losing is no longer an option for them.

Have our markets become a rigged game?

Do we even have an SEC?

The last person I recall being arrested for insider trading was Martha Stewart. Is that really the last time someone took advantage of insider knowledge?

Have Blackrock and Vanguard purchased a controlling interest in the Fortune 500 to the extent they have absolute control at this point? Do two companies control our entire commerce?

Why is this not a subject being explored right now in depth?

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Mammoth data centers are being built all over our county. Do you even know what these are for, what their future purpose is, and why we all need them? They are monsters that eat energy and water in such huge demand that they are destined to cause shortages for normal Americans. Exactly what will these centers do, they already have some 300 plus built?

Are we silently witnessing the construction of the nanny-state, the “big brother”, spying on us all to the extent that we will be living in a 24/7 rectal exam of life?

No one is asking why we need these, no one is asking what they produce, no one is asking. what data will flow that is so important that we need to erect these across the nation at great cost in energy and water. Apparently these have such a value that big money is changing hands through real estate and politicians voting to approve these centers, we are losing farmland, existing business centers, these behemoths are bringing real change to rural regions and yet, crickets. As if some subversive tech giant is pulling a fast one on us all, installing data centers that will monitor all of us, our every waking hour and minute, but for what? Some level of control, or profit motive?

It is happening, this is real, but no one is asking what the Hell is happening right under our noses.

Should we begin to fear a Palentir, AI, whoever is in charge of these centers?

I don’t know much, but I know if you were building a “big brother”, this is how it starts. Call me insane, but if you can’t give me some reasonable explanation for building 300 of these right now when we never needed them before this, I’ve got to assign a sinister motive to the entire project.

It starts with a seat belt and helmet law, moves on to a device in your car to monitor speed, braking, and then to tracking all movement. Creating a map of your travels. Then to the ability for someone else to stop your auto whenever they want, impeding your movement. To full time surveillance of your movement at all times, beyond the auto, into your home.

That is where we are. Your privacy rights gone from FISA court approvals.

Please, write me in the comments, give me one good reason for 300 plus data centers that are electricity draining monsters that also feed on our water supply, our potable water supply, in a time when we were all told we have shortages.

This whole thing stinks.

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I’ve never been on a cruise and I don’t think I’d like it. At all. The idea of being trapped at sea unable to remove myself from a forced social situation makes my brain melt. Add in a rocking unstable standing surface, and a tiny cell-like compartment, with a shower not wide enough to spread elbows, and I’m sitting here landlocked and beginning to sweat over just the thought of it all.

The very idea of walking into a dining room, being forced to sit with strangers, and be subject to buffet meals day, after day, oh God, my worst nightmare. One long wedding dinner encounter, being forced to make small talk with strangers while consuming flaccid lettuce, rubber chicken or tasteless fillet, and rail drinks.

Since I gamble just a bit in Vegas and AC, I get these “free cruise” offers regularly, for three and four day cruises. Conveniently leaving from a Florida port nearby.

I won’t even attempt one free. Not even where I could probably call and talk them into a cabin upgrade.

Being forced to socialize with some midwestern dolts, incapable of escape, no car waiting in the lot to ferry me to safety away from these people, having to listen to the weather report in some decrepit town in Illinois where they live, or hear about their lame daughter and her craft business, that would make me jump the side. Far from port. Maybe that is why we keep hearing about people overboard on these cruises, they couldn’t take hearing about Miss Jane’s pie recipe, or how Arnold sold his auto parts business after fifty years in Skokie.

For a salesman I am the most anti-social individual alive. Being a salesman only taught me one immutable truth; I hate people, and for good reason. They will only let you down. They will never surprise you with their generosity and good nature. Ever.

Hell, half the country voted for Kamala. Can you imagine being trapped aboard a ship with people that stupid? Sure the Trump vote was wasted, but his promises were valid reasons for the vote. Kamala, Holy Crap, she offered less than nothing.

Waiting two hundredth in line for the slip N slide on a cruise ship has to be the absolute bottom of despair. The worst place to be in all of life. The horror, the horror.

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Were I in stocks I’d short Carnival Cruise Lines and Six Flags. The potential for “Wildings” is too great for the average middle class family to risk. I wouldn’t take my children to a Six Flags on free tickets. At least the price of Disney prices out the lower class. For the most part. Ratchet behavior of the lower class is going to murder off public facilities that cater to families in entertainment. Hotels can charge a grand a night as we are all buying our way as far from Ratchet as possible.

Sorry this has a race connotation, but it is all true. I’m amazed at the growth of Great Wolf Lodge. Maybe there is some truth to the old canard “blacks don’t swim”. I don’t believe that to be true, I’ve been to Disney waterparks in mixed race company.

Attendance at Six Flags is a roll of the dice. Dropping your kids off there for the day is the equivalent of allowing them to hitch hike across Baltimore City. Good luck with all that.

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In California the combination of federal tax, state tax, state income tax, and various state charges that are taxes such as on gasoline purchases, any license transaction, leaves about 38% of actual income left over after taxes to the earner.

Almost two-thirds of your effort as a worker in California is taken in taxation.

At what point do you revolt?

How can you allow a confiscation of your earnings to the degree that after they subtract their deductions you only receive about 38 cents on the dollar earned?

For what?

NGO’s that steal and fund politicians, scams such as the railroad to nowhere, allowing the entirety of LA to burn down absent water in the basins? Taking forever to permit home construction to re-start? Not to mention ignoring clear fraud in medicaid, medicare, healthcare, and daycare?

Insanity is working all day and only getting thirty-eight cents of your total effort. Yielding a majority to thieves.

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Saw something on line about Switzerland recently. I’ve been there once, I remember it being beautiful, pristine, but expensive.

If I could earn an extra dollar in old age I’d like to take the wife to Switzerland, and just travel town to town for two weeks or so. Leisurely, absent schedule. Take in the culture. Meet the people.

Switzerland isn’t talked about as a travel destination in the same way as Paris, or London, or Rome. But it should be up there with those destinations.

Over this next year if extra dollars spit out, we are heading to Switzerland. I want to get back and see the place again, introduce the wife to the place. See what she thinks.

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Sports fans everywhere across America should rejoice. Boston is experiencing pain. Their basketball Celtics just dumped out of the playoffs, Buffalo put their hockey team out of the playoffs, the baseball team is in the basement and going nowhere but to a rebuild, and coach Vrabel has brought a dark cloud over their football team.

Those smug idiots deserve to suffer. No team fans have been as obnoxious in victory as Boston fans. None. Just to see a Boston fan of the past twenty years interviewed is to see the most punchable face one could imagine.

I’ve told this story dozens of times, but it bears repeating, and it is one hundred percent true, I’ve been to Boston maybe twenty times, and every time, and I mean every God damned single time I got into a cab leaving Logan airport on the way to the city center, the cab driver said to me, “We have the greatest sports fans in the country”. Not just once, not just a few times, every-single-time-I-got-a-cab there.

The arrogance of those fans knows no bounds. Even after suffering under the curse of the Bambino for almost a hundred years. And Oh God, do they love telling you about that freaking parquet floor. And Carl Yastrzemski. And that lying idiot Ted Williams who claimed he could see the seam rotation on a baseball as it left the pitching hand. What a crock of shit. If they really cryogenically froze his head it would be the worst idea in human history to regenerate that fool.

Boston fans in the dumps over all of their sports teams, man, that tastes sweet. Bobby freaking Orr is long, long gone. So is Esposito. Long live Boston sports mediocrity!

A dirty town, full of arrogant liberals, who all think their grandmother made it over on the Mayflower, or even the Nina, the Pinta, or the Santa Maria. God I love when they lose. In everything. And when they lose and New York teams lose the same day, as the greatest announcer in baseball history, Chuck Thompson, used to say, “ain’t the beer cold”!

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Based on this past paragraph, clearly I practice Schadenfreude, the idea that to be truly happy, you have to be experiencing joy at the same time your enemy is experience the depths of sadness to really achieve ultimate personal happiness. Taking joy in the pain of others. Oh, and it is a great vocabulary word. Had I not defined it, you should have been reaching for “Google”.

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Saw Carroll Shelby interviewed on Youtube recently. Why aren’t there more people out there buying up a chassis, and building a car for sale with style in the way he tried to do with Shelby Cobra?

With today’s technology there has to be more opportunity to just shape a body over an electric chassis, a body style that has cache. And there is more than ample opportunity in today’s car market, with every brand indistinguishable from each other. Every SUV looks the same, and every sedan looks like an egg that has been rectangled a tweak.

It is clear in viewing the interview that Shelby stole from the Mercedes Gull Wing, the Aston Martin, and the Italian cars in his designs. But you have to give it to him, Shelby made cars of real distinction and style.

Where is any of that today? Other than perhaps the Musk truck.

With all the extreme wealth at the top, where is the entrepreneur who buys the Tesla chassis system, and can just marry a new body style with custom seats, and display to create art on wheels? The rich would eat that up.

Then again, such ideas are maybe why I’m a broke ass bitch at near seventy, still struggling mightily in the middle class. I’d still like to take an old Fiat 500, chop it up and make a beach car in the style of the old 1950’s Jolly, as a substitute for buying a golf cart. How cool would that look, an open trunk with a wicker basket, a soft top roof, and no doors? With matching wicker seats. Before I exit this mortal coil I’m going to buy an old, used Fiat 500, have a chop-shop reinforce the frame so I can drive it on-road with no doors, take off the trunk lid and add a wicker basket. And maybe even take out the engine and put in a lithium battery system. For twenty grand I’d have the coolest “beach golf cart” going. Road worthy too.

What I really am as a human is a visionary wasted, don’t you think?

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Back to bashing Boston sports, as it is a full time fun sport all by itself, word has it that Vrabel and Rossini rented a boat together for themselves to share when she was months pregnant. Giving pause to wonder, why would two married individuals, one pregnant with her “husband’s child”, go out boating together?

As a betting man, I’d say the odds of that pregnancy being Vrabel’s, and not the husband just went from 50/50, to odds on Vrabel is the real “daddy”.

And hey, this is a minor scandal when compared to the fact they used to have a tight end that was a full time professional football player, and a murderer by night. During the day he’d play football for the New England Patriots. At night he’d become a gang member and go out and murder people. And this went on during his playing days and nights. Not after he retired.

A murderer. Working for the team. Murdering and dealing drugs as a “sideline venture”. You know, the way your neighbor’s wife sells Mary Kay cosmetics.

Somehow this went on for over a year. Star tight end by day, murder by night.

Quite a team they field up there in New England.

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These kids today are insane. Totally. Even my own.

Daughter visited, the youngest of our three daughters, with husband and kid in tow. Rainy weekend.

Hungry, she begins to complain there is no food in the house here.

I look, see fresh chicken breasts, and panko bread crumbs, I offer to make her a fresh made chicken breast sandwich on the new light rye we just got from Publix. I’ll even mix up some honey and chili flakes, a little chili powder, make a hot honey chicken sandwich.

She makes “that face” and says it sounds awful. No thanks.

I ask her if she’d like me to go to Chik Fil A and get her a sandwich, she says that sounds wonderful.

So a fresh home made chicken sandwich is awful, but some store bought chain concoction is wonderful. Whaaa?

These kids. Today. Their minds have been warped by teachers and the mainstream media. And talking food, they are all insane with their gluten-free bullshit, and desire for any milk but cows milk. Even fake milk. Insane, purely insane.

Not to mention that when I was a kid the only sandwich offer was either a PB&J, or a bologna sandwich, on processed white bread that was tasteless. I cannot recall even a single instance of being offered a freshly coated panko breaded chicken sandwich on light rye with pickles, and other condiments as an option. Ever. Not once.

And I was going to bake the thing, not fry it in oil adding fats.

Even my own have been fouled in the mind by outside societal influence.

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Democrats have a super-majority in California, and have had that control for years now. And all of their major cities have declined into shit-holes, and corruption is rampant.

And yet.

And yet they will vote in a Democrat once again in the next election. In LA. In SF. Everywhere.

What can one say? The place needs a decline to rock bottom before they can recover. Last week I saw a “Zombie Apocalypse” of drug addicts bent over into a stupor in San Francisco similar to what we’ve all seen in the Kensington section of Philadelphia now for years. Just drugged out youth on a fentanyl binge, bent half at the waist in a stupor.

This is America. This is our current USA under Democratic control. This is it.

Tents lining a once great city, retail shuttering doors, filth and degradation expanding, and yet they will still vote the party into power responsible.

At what point do liberals tie their policies to the extreme decline?

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“Entertainment” has not only fractured into a million tiny pieces, it is now available for personal cultivation. To view the choice today as measured against the 3 1/2 channels of my youth makes for an absurdity. The splintering of content is complete, and what used to be now competes in areas unknown just a few years past.

The very idea of scrolling “X” throughout the primetime hour, as opposed to viewing network fare, wasn’t even a consideration twenty years ago.

There are a pair of young Brits who do food videos on Youtube, under the label “Jolly”, and for some reason I find their little “show” to be irresistible. They travel American and marvel at our cuisine and culture, and the vast disparity with their own.

As well as create videos sharing with their old high school or British equivalent to a high school, the foods they’ve enjoyed. Seeing their old principal consume their recommended American meals, along with the young students, is just pure enjoyment. I’d rather sit and watch their content than view anything on network television where they are spending millions to attract my interest.

If you had told my young self at forty I’d prefer to watch two young Brits eat food, over turning on the evening prime time television fare, I’d have thought you were nuts.

But here we are. One can curate their own entertainment experience these days from a multitude of options. Beats watching that mindless stuff they shoved down our throats in the 1960’s. Petticoat Junction and Green Acres indeed.

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From afar, watching the Baltimore football Ravens respond to their recent draft, and new coach, it feels as if a fresh new breeze is running through the old hometown. Getting rid of that midwestern idiot Harbaugh might just be the best thing ever for that football franchise. Moving in a coach who can let the big dog hunt, that would be Lamar Jackson. I just saw the new coach interviewed and he said he wants a defense with a nasty attitude or something to that effect. Oh, yeah. I want a return to that “rip off their heads and shit down their neck” type defensive attitude that I have wished for, for quite a while.

That Ray Lewis attitude of “it is our ball, not yours, and we are going to take it from you, or make you so miserable having it, you’ll want to just give it back to us”.

Imposing your will on others.

I don’t want to wish the Summer away. But Oh, man. Ravens football dawning anew.

I have to stop myself from writing about the upcoming season, I’m starting to foam at the mouth. I was nearing a call for the complete and utter destruction of the city of Pittsburgh there for a moment. All of it. Including the overweight, undereducated, poorly dressed, haven’t had a bath in weeks, missing eight to twelve teeth, hairy, foul smelling fan base. And that is just the females in residence there. The males are damn near Cro Magnon half apes.

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A great world event, the World Cup, comes to America this Summer. But they’ve priced middle America out of the picture. I have an Aussie son-in-law now, and two little Aussie citizen grandchildren. I’d love to get them all together and take them to see the US play Australia this Summer in the World Cup, but ticket prices are just ridiculous.

No wonder the excitement for it all has waned, and we don’t hear much about all the events about to take place, the costs have gone up to the extent you have to be rich to afford to get to even a game.

When the Cup was here in about 1994 or so I took the family to New Jersey to watch a game, spent a nice weekend in New York City. We had the best time. I don’t think those tickets were much more than eighty dollars each or so. They want into the thousand a seat range this time, to see US V Australia. I’d be out three grand plus and still have to buy airline seats and an AirBnB. Five grand to see a game. Ridiculous.

I love soccer. Best thing I ever did was coach little league girls soccer, 11-13 age range. So rewarding, seeing them improve, have so much fun.

I love soccer, but not at these prices.

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Trump has betrayed us all so badly that I no longer want to see him talk at all. I am counting the days until he can be dismissed, and that I can vote for an America first candidate in the primaries.

War with Iran is outrageous. Unnecessary. Stupid. A waste of American resources and manpower.

He better pardon his entire family. I’d love to see that son-in-law up on treason charges and war profiteering in Gaza. He is pure human filth.

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Our “brave new world” should be making college obsolete. The traditional job ladder has broken. The idea of going to college, then going to work in a company for a salary is archaic, a lost cause. While it still may work for engineering, architecture, or other specialty professions, for the average college student it is an exercise in waste.

Four years spent going into debt when you could be earning. As a gambling buddy enjoys saying, “Herman, it’s the swing”. Meaning that you have to take into account the sixty grand you could be making against the forty grand you are spending. That is a hundred grand swing.

Find a niche and fill it. I could sit here and think of a dozen ways to get out of high school, and go make money in a start-up, without ever having to go to college. Trade school might be a better option, HVAC could be the most important industry around in the near future. Comfort will be so in demand that HVAC is a necessity, not a luxury item.

Have you seen housing prices at the high end? The rich have money to burn. Curating product for them that provides an even greater level of comfort and security has to be a booming industry. Entrance gates, building compound walls, safe rooms, adding heated and cooled flooring, building wine cellars, just creating a business appealing to the ultra-rich could propel one into the earning level of the ultra rich.

Go to the local upscale hotel offering butler services to the cabana pool crowd. Offering in cabana massage, and butler services running food and drink for them. I just heard at the Four Seasons Naples, the new resort there, that a weekend cabana by the pool is renting for a grand a day. Over a grand. At that price the couples willing to pay that much would be happy to have a butler at the ready, standing outside, to fetch for them anything they desire and demand for $ 200 for four hours. With tips you could probably make a grand in just a long weekend. For standing in the sunshine and being a gopher boy. And arranging massage service to the cabana. Offer to share a portion of the proceeds with the hotel, add a child watching service. There is no limit to what a couple will pay who can afford fifteen hundred a room, and then not worry about another twelve hundred for a pool cabana for the day.

To a parent at that level of income another three hundred for a “butler” to run at their every beck and call means nothing. Add another few hundred for a full time day babysitter, and this business can scale.

If a rich housewife will spend thirty grand on a handbag, what will she spend to have real comfort full-time at every turn? Chase the money, not a degree. Counsel your own. Forget going to work for ABC Corporation. A job doesn’t love you back.

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Explain to me the justification for Israel wiping out entire villages and neighborhoods in Lebanon right now. I’ll wait. Lebanon? Lebanon is some threat to Israel now, they are going to cleave that nation in half?

The entire world has sat back as Israel has decimated Gaza, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon. They had their little bitch proxy the good Ol’ USofA remove Iraq, and are now insisting that lil’ bitch take out all of Iran.

How are good people across the world allowing this?

You do realize they are ethnically cleansing the West Bank, removing native Palestinians and Christians and just either seizing their homes, or bulldozing them for settlement expansion. And the settlement is all for new Israelis. Usually from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Sure. A radical Hasidic Jew from Patterson, New Jersey has a greater claim on land in the West Bank than that Palestinian family that has planted date trees there for hundreds of years. Of course. God promised the land to them.

Israel is a scourge on humanity.

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Simple ideas are making bank. A few guys decide to get “experts” together to determine the “Mount Rushmore” in each and every category. From golfer to guitar player through comedian. They debate. They whittle the list. They come up with four of the best in achievement and talent in each category. They film segments.

Dave Portnoy did pizza reviews. Brits came over and tried American cuisine. All leading to Youtube shows, views, and cash flow.

Catering to the niche can be profitable. It is a brave new world out there.

Jerry Seinfeld had coffee with fellow comedians and made millions. Go figure.

Living vicariously through others is a profit center.

Young and hungry just need to expand their worldviews. Think outside the traditional means of earning.

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Is it just me or does the Met Gala have some real French Revolution vibes from about 1789?

As if we are cold, starving, and beaten in the streets, watching through the glass window as the filthy rich party with a decadence and hubris that is unseemly.

At what point does the proletariat rip them from their twisted comfort and prepare the guillotines?

From the outfits, to the masks, to the just over-the-top expense of the entire affair, it just appears to be a debauchery on display that sickens reasonable individuals to the core.

I’ve long wondered how Anna Wintour, a bullies-bully if there ever was one, could be such swine and yet be so revered by the “in crowd” that she was feted with a movie about her in “The Devil Wears Prada”. And this at the same time women across America decried any idea of bullying.

Such behavior in contrast has always made me just marvel. A singular piece of vacuous, material craven piece of human filth who degrades all those around her as inferior, and instead of being shamed from position she was praised, put on a pedestal, fawned over. She is and was a witch who should have been burned at the stake.

If our government remains this unresponsive, and the oligarchy continues to just stick their depraved manners in our face the way of the Met Ball, I can see a day when the average man breeches the security, drags these creatures from their party lair, and begins to enact justice with an immediacy that shocks.

At this point the Epstein list and the Met Ball have matching guest lists.

You’ll find me holding open the doors.

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I hate to admit this but in my more comical days I used to make sock puppets of friends, and phone video them in outrageous circumstances. And then send these friends the videos. Not only would they howl with laughter, but then they’d send them around to friends I didn’t know, and they’d circulate.

I’d get messages from complete strangers saying they were crying laughing.

I might put them at work, their little cut out face on the end of the sock moving up and down split at the mouth. Taped to a long white sock. I’d have one where a good friend was arguing with his boss as Michael Douglas, telling my friend they had to play the Matt Damon role in “Liberace” to keep their job. Using information about their career I knew to create the little sock puppet play.

Yes, I was over 60 when I made these sock puppet videos. Some people never grow up.

Or I’d just have an absent face on one of the puppets, a blank face, and label it a friend who is in real life a complete empty suit. At least in my own opinion. Sure they were accomplished, and sold their firm for twelve million, but me, a complete and utter failure calling this achiever an empty suit, that was the joke. Having other friends as sock puppets wondering why they couldn’t see him, since he was an albino empty suit. Denigrating friends is a personal specialty, and perhaps my best comic lead. The dialogue was gold, Jerry, gold.

I don’t make those videos any more. Seeing that look of disgust on my wife’s face entering the room as I was filming gave me a shame that cut to the core. A grown man. Making sock puppet videos. Speaking in cartoon voices. At over 60 years old. What a sense of arrested development. Mentally I am still a twelve year old. Seriously. I can’t take anything in life serious. The idea of going to work for a corporation and sitting there as if I care about the new features on the X52 model, man, I just can’t.

But I tell you, such videos, made with someone who can do celebrity voices, made just as crude with socks, the tape showing, the face a photo cut up from the internet, with a squeaky cartoon voice, this would be a Youtube sensation. I could offer to do them for people for a fee. Make beer and golf money.

I’ve erased all the videos. I’ve no idea if they are still floating around. The “boss” telling my buddy Allan to get into his office and be Matt Damon for a remake of Liberace may have been a bit homophobic, but it was some of my best work.

I write, but somewhere in here is a frustrated performer. What do you mean I could never be on screen, Danny Kaye had zero talent and they made him a star.

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What can I say about my view on life, “I’ve been warped by the rain, driven by the snow, been drunk and dirty, but don’t you know, I’m still…..willin’.” With attribution for a great set of lyrics to Lowell George may he rest in peace.

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How could any human with a brain vote for Katie Harper in California? How?

Ugly as sin, fat and sloppy, so far left liberal she is off the charts, and with a history of lies, abusing staff, abusing a husband. Who funded her campaign, how is she not working the register at Wal-Mart instead of running for political office.

Katie Harper is proof that Democrats have absolute shit for brains.

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I admire comedians who can work “clean”. Brian Regan, Nate Bargatze, Jim Gaffigan, even Seinfeld, can all command an audience absent bawdy humor. Which is perhaps the best ability and gift.

Perhaps the most popular one today is Bargatze, selling out arenas. But Brian Regan is the sleeper. Just a complete talent. Just saw him do a quick bit on buying a refrigerator and it was laugh-out-loud funny. I find I can watch Seinfeld for an hour and barely crack a smile.

Comedy can be audience dependent at times. While in LA I took in comedy shows at the famous “Comedy Store”. I went to the “belly room”, a very small room upstairs where as many as 20 comics did five minute bits, practicing material. Few laughs.

Then we went downstairs to see Bill Burr headline. One female comic who’d just been upstairs in the “belly room” came down and played the main stage as an opening act for Burr. Upstairs her act was “crickets”, downstairs with a juiced audience anticipating Burr, she killed. Same act. Silence in response in one room, huge laughs in the next. Comedy is so damn subjective.

The comedian “Fluffy” is out there selling out arenas too, and mostly works clean. I don’t connect with his hispanic or fat rants, but he is extremely successful and mostly left out of the conversation, which is wrong, the guy is a talent.

I can’t tell if it is sad to see a Kevin Nealon still working clubs at his age, apparently with no ability to retire financially, or if it is a good thing that desire to have the adrenaline let loose when an audience laughs at your act, but I see where Nealon just booked a place I did an open mic down near Boca. Hey, I’ve played where legends play.

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Miami is transforming into the new “Los Angeles”. It does have it all, weather, beaches, youth culture, and all the amenities one could imagine. The shopping is world class, the restaurants are too plentiful to even get to more than a small percentage in dining out, and the lifestyle is just fabulous.

Backyard pools, the flavor of multiple cultures, the vibrance that only the combination of youth and money can produce.

We sent one child to “the U”, that would be the University of Miami, contrary to general public thought it is a small, very private type school. The football team gives it the “big school” cache, but it has the feel of a very small school.

I wish all four of mine had gone there. Board shorts and flip flops, sunshine and clubs.

As “hot” as Miami is, it should only go into overdrive. I’ve driven into few cities that have such a “vibe” that you can feel a tension and excitement just driving in, New York has it as you drive down circling into the Lincoln Tunnel, the skyline off to your left as you head down, down, down and around, corkscrewing in. Los Angeles has it, from the minute you deplane and see those arches across the terminal. And Miami has it in spades, a drive down Collins or A1A in South Beach elevates to the point you feel as if you are floating. Not even Chicago can give you that burst of adrenaline. And certainly not a Dallas or Houston.

I know I love wearing shorts and a Guayabera shirt, with slip on shoes. A few days in Miami, the shoulders sag and you never want to work another day in your life. Except they aren’t giving away meals at Joe’s Stone Crab, or at any restaurant in the new hip Wynwood district.

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The wife has recently stung me to a new and horrible reality. One I had not considered. I’ve been going along as if today will last forever. That tomorrow will be just like today.

She realized earlier than me that one day soon we will both be retired, forced to live on social security, savings, and interest. And there is a real void in that “interest” section.

I’ve been looking at high end, or higher end, used AMG rag top convertible Mercedes that run to a hundred grand used. No problem, earn an extra hundred, get one.

She has indicated the next hundred that spits out extra has to improve our homes to keep them up, and to savings. The days of wanting a hot car to drive are over. I must sate my desires on more of a thirty grand used two seater. More affordable. Yikes.

No more splurging, no more money be damned, savings. For retirement. So at 82 I can afford more than bologna.

I’ve got more health problems now than any 82 year old, I don’t think I’m going to make it. Why the Hell worry about having cash in hand when I’ll be six foot under taking a dirt nap for eternity? I am a strong believer in the concept that “nobody gets out alive”. I embrace my mortality and do not fear death.

I want that God Damned AMG S65. I’ll settle for the AMG S 55, or God forbid the AMG S 45. I’m down to a used one as it is, I’m not driving it new off the lot.

This transition to “retired” is going to be tough. I’m too ADHD to sit around, I have to keep a hand in something. And cash in the bank has never meant a thing to me, cash to me is experience. Have cash, Napa vacation, Swiss vacation. Dining out.

No cash, enjoy home, the pool, the beach, walks, making nice meals at home.

The idea of, gasp, curbing my wants for the safety of a retired future, Holy Shit, I think I just started to realize all the benefits of euthanasia. I want to drive top down in style now, not watch computer numbers increase in the bank account that mean nothing to me if I can’t spend them. I’ve been poor, I’ve tasted affluence. Affluence is much, much, much better. Really there is no comparison.

I had a Corvette at 28. Couldn’t afford it. But old men look ridiculous in a new hot Corvette. Corvettes are meant for youth. The idea of saving up for a better retirement when you can afford the Corvette, and being 78 sliding down uncomfortably into a Corvette, nope. Wrong-think. Enjoy each year, each decade. The future isn’t promised.

What a time to be alive, 28 with a Corvette. Damn. Still riles the senses, forty years later. 68 and not allowed to have an AMG S65. Sad face.

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I don’t know if you are aware of the concept of “Geofencing”, but as I understand it a tech firm somehow hovered drones over the Charlie Kirk funeral, gathering up all the cell phone data and information, to compile a list of people in attendance at Charlie Kirk’s funeral. And to suck up all the phone information possible related to the individuals to create a profile, to analyze the individuals, and to attempt to categorize, analyze, study, and understand.

The fact that this was an Israeli tech company, well, I don’t know what to do with that added bit of information. TPUSA is a Christian based organization. Why would Israel, or an Israeli firm be at all concerned with what Christians are in attendance at a prominent, murdered in broad daylight popular individual’s funeral?

On the other hand, a different company appears to have been using drones and other computers to track and “Geofence” attendance at the Kirk rally where he was felled.

And they came up with some fascinating connections, being able to separate and group the phone information they captured. Noting that eleven phones were Israeli, and perhaps tied to Mossad operatives. Bringing up the question, why would Israel plant eleven Mossad operatives with Israeli based phone numbers at a rally in Mormon Utah, and by a Christian leader, at a TPUSA Christian based event?

On the one hand I am curious to find out more from this “Geofencing” exercise at the Kirk rally where he was murdered. What were all these Israeli Mossad operatives doing there, given that there is strong conjecture that Kirk was murdered for refusing to support the incursion into Iran, and had turned his back on huge Israeli investment in his organization.

On the other hand that an Israeli tech firm would “Geofence” the funeral, I find that extremely disturbing. Enough that I’d want “Geofencing” to have to go through some kind of approval process in the courts, much like requesting a FISA warrant.

You should have to explain why you need to invade others privacy and steal their phone data surreptitiously, at a public event, and to justify the need for this information. The idea of using it to sell to merchants to exploit a certain segment of our population, say, selling a TPUSA branded votive candle to those Christians, is not justification enough for the violation of privacy. No, it is not.

I am conflicted.

On the one hand I want to know about communications in real world time between Charlie’s body guards and security at that event. And the Mossad angle is intriguing. I see no reason eleven Israelis would be in Mormon Utah on a weekday at a Christian based event, this sounds like a conspiracy that needs to be investigated thoroughly.

On the other hand the idea of going to a football game, or rally of any kind and having all my phone data sucked up absent my knowledge is extremely disturbing. I feel violated in such an instance.

Tech is way, way, ahead of us all. Dangerously so. Which way, humanity?

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I have a serious problem. I have become addicted to my iPhone. We sit and stream a series, and I can’t go three minutes absent picking it up, and scrolling “X” as we watch. Or jumping to ESPN for hockey scores. Or perusing NY Post headlines.

The wife looks over, tells me to put it down for my own mental health. And I do. But it sits less than three minutes on the charging pad and I’m back at it.

Finding instant stimulation in a new Tweet, or jolt over a new goal that changes the game.

I know I have a serious addiction and problem, but I cannot stop. The algorithms are stronger than my brain. The thing is preying on me, on you. On everyone. The dopamine release is narcotic, it soothes and energizes, wanes, and you need more.

I hate being weak. I hate self denial. Did you read about the ragtop Mercedes earlier?

Sure, I can write a stimulating article on politics, or culture, and make you think. I can write a barn burner and both disgust and worry you. I have a smidgen of talent in putting pen to paper.

But at heart I’m a weak man with a twelve year old’s sense of arrested development. Completely immature at 68. Too old to seek help, or truly change. How sad.

Aren’t we all just a bundle of contradictions and quirks? Maybe that is why people read, they say, “hey, I’m damaged, but I’m no Herman”. I’ll take readership any way I can get them.

Thanks so damn much for reading this Substack. A serious thanks.

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Let’s end on a high note. There is a New Jersey band from the olden days that has lived in the shadows of Bruce Springsteen for ages, and lost high quality talent to the “E Street Band”. In fact, Steve Van Zant wrote this one, with help from Bruce himself. A tidy little clique those Asbury Park boys. Poor Southside Johnny, never got his acclaim much outside of the mid-Atlantic.

I’ve always liked “Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes”, saw them just a few years back in Delaware and they’ve played so long together they are tight and clean with their sound. Horns. Brass can really push a song. If you are unfamiliar with their work, add this timeless classic to your play list. This, my friend, is when music was music. I loved being alive in the 1970’s, wouldn’t trade those years for another ten right now for anything. Hope you enjoy this, and thanks for listening to the rant.

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