Dystopia Now

I'm 52 and I'm hoping an asteroid hits us ASAP.

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"Yo, I been slingin' mad volumes and packin' FAT benjis!"

Pinned Post: Please read.

I recently changed this blog's tone from a hard R to a hard PG. Still, some folks out there may not like what I post, which I admit can be a bit suggestive. That's groovy. Just don't read my blog. I'm a retired educator, 52 y.o. I usually don't put explicit politics into this blog, but if you read it, you'll figure out my opinions.

If I see ANY use of artificial intelligence or if I suspect you use AI in any way on your blog, I'm blocking you. In fact, if you rub me the wrong way in ANY way I'm blocking you. It irritates me already that tumblr thinks it has to make me more open minded by deliberately inserting blogs that are contrary to my interests on my feed. Ergo, I block rather generously.

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I hope that someone canned because of AI invents an easily downloaded and effective AI blocker. I'm positive it'll be miraculously made illegal, so it must be done soon. Many, many thanks.

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Not a Very Fine Mess

I was a latchkey kid. My dad worked and mom did also, and later went back to school. Hence I was largely brought up by The Little Rascals/Our Gang, The Three Stooges, and the animators at Hanna-Barbera. I must add, that I was also brought up by the multiple PSAs from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, before health and education were separated into their own cabinet departments.

In Chicago, these PSA were provided by the TV shorts The Most Important Person, Could Be You, Time for Timer, Snipets, and probably others that I don't remember because I'm 60 and I'm too lazy to start an exhaustive search. They would air during the commercial breaks between shows.

The themes varied. Sometimes they were about having glasses and being called "4-Eyes." Sometimes they were about snacking on cheese and bread rather than cookies and candy. Sometimes they gave career advice. Sometimes they discussed self confidence. Invariably, at some point, the shorts would echo a constant theme of the 60s and 70s: Be yourself.

Thinking about this now, I realize that this was TERRIBLE advice. Sure, it might have helped my self confidence a bit to always have faith in my judgement (despite it being so wrong so frequently). It might have made me a more honest person. It took a long time to realize it, but people don't need to know everything about me. I constantly overshared when I was a kid.

What I didn't understand at that time is that who I really am is a weird person, whom not everybody likes. That's okay, I'm fine with that. But if I had kept my thoughts to myself I would have been much happier and had more friends. A helpful PSA would have had the message, "Be yourself, but only to those who deserve to see the real you."

Oh well. These PSAs were discontinued when funding was shut off by Reagan. I guess by 1981, kids were feeling too bloody good about themselves. If you want to amuse yourself with 1970s feel-good rhetoric, search for these videos on Youtube.

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Fuck me. I just realized that I'm no longer middle aged.

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I was just rewatching the third season of The Wire and I became intrigued by the practical partnership of Omar and Brother Mouzone. BTW, this post has lots of Wire spoilers, but tough titty. The show's twenty years old! Get with the times.

Omar (the late, great Michael K. Williams) is a somewhat hedonistic, shamelessly gay armed robber of drug dealers. He concentrated on taking the Barksdales' stashes because they had been responsible for torturing and killing his lover Brandon, pictured above with Omar.

Mouzone (Michael Potts, whom you may recognize from the first season of True Detective) is a bookish, bow-tie wearing member of The Nation who earns his living as a hitman. Clearly they have little in common aside from being impressively fearless.

They had already had a near-fatal meeting in the second season, after Stringer had framed Brother Mouzone for Brandon's brutal killing. Omar gut- shot Mouzone and was about to finish him off when he correctly concluded that Mouzone was not the killer, and called him an ambulance. "All in the Game", as the show frequently intones.

In the third season, they meet again. Mouzone received information from Avon on when Stringer would be exposed and vulnerable. He decided to approach Omar for help in putting Stringer and his crimes to rest. Anyhow, they do so, and satisfied we all were at Stringer finally getting what he deserved.

After watching that episode (season three, episode 11), I thought of what a hoot it would be if their relationship continued and they continued to work together. Of course, it couldn't go on for very long because Omar dies in the fifth season. Still, it would be so incredible if a good comic book artist could illustrate this idea. (SIGH). Just an idea.

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I think I could fall in love

with anyone who made it absolutely clear she was listening to me. Why else would I have a blog?

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Time for another spinal tapping chapter of "Obsolete History." Above is a pair of slip-on roller skates. When I was in forth grade or so I skated with these. The skate key at the bottom was a wrench for adjusting the skates so they would fit my shoes. It also had a wrench for removing the wheels. The metal wheels limited speed and maneuverability and hitting even the tiniest rock would send me to the ground. I was among the last of the kids to use this type of skate. Clearly, they were intended for outside use.

A couple of year later, urethane wheels were invented. They were applied to regular boot roller skates and they became fabulously popular. Roller rinks had already existed. With the news wheels, couples began to skate and dance. This took off when someone thought of combining roller skating and disco music. Yes, roller-disco existed for a few years. Around me, there was a rink called Axel Roller Rink, which had a huge rink and one of those disco floors that would be an absolute nightmare for anyone with flashing light issues.

These went out of style by the mid 1980s. Disco music went out after that idiot Steve Dahl hosted a "I hate disco festival" at the old Comiskey park in Chicago in 1979. Roller skating became roller blading, because frankly, it was much faster and more fun. Of course skateboarding also grew exponentially after the invention of urethane wheels.

What made me think of this? I heard the Melanie song, "Brand New Key." I read all about her today so maybe I'll post about her tomorrow.

This has been another Oscar winning episode of Obsolete History.

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Michael B. Jordan pictured with his first major role as Wallace, the ill-fated hopper in the first season of The Wire. He was fifteen when they shot that season. I found this on the net, but I believe the original art was by ＠justralphy .

It's a couple of weeks later since I posted the above paragraph. I've been re-watching the first season of The Wire. I couldn't stop thinking about the four kids Wallace was taking care of when his best friends murdered him.

Sometimes I think of Pooh, who was on the corner when Snoop stopped by on the back of a motorcycle, let loose with a clip full of 9mm bullets. He survived, but that was enough for him. Sometime later we see him and he's wearing a referee shirt and working at Foot Locker. That's awesome that he got out when he was still alive.....but he'll still have to live with having killed Wallace and forcing his little siblings into foster care.

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It's taken 60 years, but I finally understand. At some point, just about everybody has had enough of me.

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"We get the world we deserve."

--Rust Cohle

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Has anyone ever seen the movie Harold and Maude? This was a touching movie about a wealthy young man fixated on death, who fell in love with an eighty-five year old woman who loved life. I became fascinated with it at about the same time that my father died, so it's stayed with me over the years.

Maude was played by Ruth Gordon, a seasoned actor. Harold was played by a rookie named Bud Cort. He played the part beautifully, although I'm not sure if it was his great acting or Hal Ashby's great directing, or perhaps both. Maude and Harold are pictured above in the first two photos.

Prior to Harold and Maude, he played Boon in the movie MASH which was his first film. Boon's above in the third picture. The only other film I remember him from was Heat, when he was middle aged,. He played an asshole manager extorting a parolee who worked for him.

I need to research him some more, but I posted this because Bud died today! Another loss.

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A closeup of Saturn's rings. They're comprised mostly of water ice, begging the very reasonable question, why did a gigantic amount of ice form rings around a gigantic planet?! This and many other questions will be answered tomorrow.

It's a few weeks later and I read that many astronomers believe that Saturn once had an ice moon. They think that the moon had somehow moved past the gas planet's Roche Limit (remember the Roche Limit from my post about Jupiter?), and its incredible gravity broke it apart like a stale cookie. The planets rotation did the rest and SHAZAM Saturn has rings. Science is bloody cool.

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I turned 60 today. (don't talk to me about my profile-everyone lies about their age). The people I expected to wish me a happy day have done so, and I've spent the better part of the day drinking coffee, fucking off on the internet, and reading The Body.

My sister, with whom I can barely share a room, hasn't called or texted. I'm okay with that. She's always treated me as if I were an embarrassment, a burden, or simply not there. I've never said this out loud but I know she has never loved me. Yet, for some fucked up reason, I've always craved her approval.

Our government has become the overreaching dystopia that The Right claimed it was against. Instead of it being "Us against the Military Industrial Complex," it's now "Us against the Military, Corporate, Financial, & Digital Industrial Complexes," AND the most corrupt government that is clearly using the Iran war to engage in insider trading. Boss Tweed, you would be proud.

Fuck the Ruling Class.

I had a stroke back in 2017 that left me in a coma for over a month. I had to relearn how to walk, how to dress myself, wash, etc. It was a humiliating nightmare. It messed up my life but it obviously didn't kill me. But now my brain works a lot more slowly. I still know a lot; it just takes longer to find it in my head.

The best friend I had since 1985 hasn't been my friend since that stroke. My current best friend is a great guy but is an inconsistent friend to me. And I'm not HIS best friend.

My daughter is by far the best thing in my life. But she's indifferent about or wholly unaware of everything I did with her when she was little. I worked incessantly to do all the work of teaching and administration while NOT sitting her in front of the T.V. on Saturdays. I took her on outings around and in the city, taught her to ride a bike, took her skating, drove her everywhere, etc. Now she acts like I'm this useless old guy.

(Sigh). The light that kept my marriage from being a complete bore was turned off when our daughter went to college last year.

I don't know where I'm going with this, except that I have an inescapable fear that this is all there is to life. This is all there is. I'm not going to kill myself, but what is the point of all this mostly insipid bullshit and incessant work? What was all the effort for?

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Trout's headstone

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What life feels like to me.

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My personal, private frustration...

...Just keeps growing.

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Vern Tessio: "You guys want to go see a dead body?"

Everybody stopped

--The Body, Stephen King