Archives for July 2021

Monday July 26, 2021

Item 1 – A person confronted Tucker Carlson. They stood right in front of him face to face and called him the worst person in the world.

Item 2 – A person called Rand Paul a fucking asshole at a virtual town hall. (What? You didn’t expect Rand to actually be somewhere that he could be confronted by the riff riff?)

Item 3 – My brother left his bag at the Arrivals sidewalk at an airport in New York City. He gets a call from a guy who works the midnight shift for Jet Blue. He has his bag, at his home, in Queens. He’s from Tibet.

There is hope, boys and girls. There is hope.

Speaking of which, where is Ms Solo these days?

Sunday July 25, 2021

Two unrelated topics – one Olympics, the other politics.

I watched the women’s soccer team play Sweden. They lost. I had heard all this stuff about how they look lackluster and their game was off – blah, blah, blah. They must have been watching a different game. Both teams looked very good. The Americans did not get the breaks and Sweden is very good, plus they got the breaks. One goal was scored off a rebound and a lucky foot, while the USA watched a certain goal bounce off the goal post. That was the kind of game it was. 

There was a great cameo about Simone Biles showing what she did at the last Olympics. In the clip the announcer said, “This is Simone’s party and we are all guests.” Even in slow motion  it is hard to comprehend what that woman is doing. 

I watched some of the rowing. It was helpful for me to have a commentator who knew and understood the sport explain the eight person race. How the last 500 or 250 meters is where all the training comes in. How you have to practice three times a day, six days a week to be able to have the strength and mental toughness for the last bit of the race.

I watched some skate boarding too. Very strange. These are the best in the world? Most of the guys couldn’t land a trick. I mean it’s one thing to miss one, but all four? The cool dudes broke under pressure. Maybe they should take a few classes in pressure from Simone. In her cameo she said that when you are doing one of her things, “don’t bail.” She laughed. “If you bail you are definitely going to break something.”

Men’s gymnastics, I watched the best all around athlete in the world miss a grip on the bar and fall to the floor. I can’t decide if my physique looks more like the men in gymnastics or the guys swimming the butterfly.

Today, Simone. Can’t wait.

In politics we in Virginia are having an election for governor. The republican challenger is a guy who was part of the Carlyle group. He touts his business expertise and says he’ll bring jobs to Virginia and he says terrible things about the democrats. However, what he doesn’t do is say what he will do. There are the high minded phrases, but after that – nothing. Terry Macauliffe the former governor who is running again has a track record and he tells you what he will do. Interestingly, the Republican won’t debate him. The guy backed out of any debate with Macauliffe. Traditional, long standing debates – nope. 

So what does Carlyle Group do exactly? Well, they invest in stuff. Military stuff and oil rigs stuff. They invest in companies making rip-off of popular shoes. They invest in planes that the Saudis buy and use to bomb school buses in Yemen. They put up the money for Big Machine to buy Taylor Swift’s music, pissing off Tay-Tay.  In fact, Carlyle Group was pulled into the controversy when Scooter Braun who owns Big Machine Records was not going to let Taylor sing her own songs at the American Music Awards. 

So if you like what the Republican challenger has done in business: bombing kids and killing them in Yemen, ripping off shoe brands, and telling Taylor she can’t sing her own music – imagine what his “leadership” will do for the state of Virginia? Of course, we really won’t know what he even plans to do because he won’t discuss it. And, let’s not forget he has no political experience. 

Let’s see, how did it work out for the country when a business man with no political experience was elected president? Half his cabinet were referred for criminal indictment and scores resigned in disgrace. And he led an insurrection against the country.

Yeah. Well. No thank you.

Friday July 23, 2021

I continue to be shocked and not by the level of cheating, criminality and unethical behavior.

Wasn’t it the Senator who asked Joe McCarthy, “Have you no shame?”

Well, we know the answer and that is, “No. None. Nadda.”

Let’s give a special shout out today to Mike Parsons, Governor of Missouri. He was in the news last week, and the week before, because there is an innocent man who has been in prison for 42 years for a crime he didn’t commit. All Mike has to do is sign a pardon, but he won’t claiming it would be unfair for him to do so, because this man, Kevin Strickland by name, would be jumping the line. 

The Attorney General has argued that Strickland got a fair trial and that all avenues for appeal have been exhausted so he should stay in jail. He further argues that it is not about whether Strickland is innocent or not, everyone involved knows he is, it’s procedural. 

But now Mike Parsons is in the news again. In the last election in the state there was a constitutional change that won overwhelmingly. It would allow 270,000 folks in Missouri to get health insurance. Mike and the Republicans in the state don’t like that and have fought in court to not do it, not give people health insurance. The Supreme Court of Missouri said this week that they have to do it. 

Don’t you wonder what the heck these Republicans are thinking? No? Okay.

Meanwhile, bills designed to deny people access to voting have been passed in state after state that Republicans have control.

Oddly, those are the same states where Covid-19 is having a resurgence. 

And once again, Missouri is in the forefront of stupidity, arrogance, and obstruction. For weeks now, Missouri has been seeing a resurgence in Covid-19 cases. It started in the southwest corner of the state. An area with one of the lowest vaccinations rates in the country, and one of the reddest of Republican strongholds. The hospital systems there are overrun. Covid cases have now risen through the middle of the state like a middle finger heading toward the capital. What was the governor’s response? It’s the hospitals fault for making a big deal about it and going on with all the doom and gloom. 

Yeah, yelling for respirators and more nurses and respiratory therapists and begging people to get vaccinated is doom and gloom. Good job Mike. 

Moving on. I got another email from that crappy row house in London that is trying to pass itself off as a financial institution. They were warning about the coming financial crisis. To make their point they had a picture of Ron Paul and said he said so. Okay. Ron Paul is a person who makes all sorts of economic dire warnings but when confronted by real economists and asked to explain he devolves into “You don’t understand. I have all the evidence. If you’d only look at the facts.” And when asked to present these facts he either can’t or gets trashed for the idiocy he is babbling about. Like his son with Dr. Fauci.

We have a pandemic in this country. It is among the naive, the stupid, the Trump/Republican base, the unvaccinated.

Ask yourself this Trump/Republican base, “Why is it that all those you follow have gotten vaccinated? (Or refuse to tell you?) Huh? Why is that?” The answer is – they ain’t as dumb as you.

And this just in. You know all that money you gave to Trump and his PAC? Yeah. Seventy five million in the first six months of this year. He hasn’t spent one dime on making America great or saving our democracy or doing an audit or recount – not a penny.

He has used it for food, travel, personal expenses, paying the sycophants around him (called “staff”), but actually spend it on any of the things he claims needs to be addressed? Naw.

There’s a word for all you Trump supporting folks. He said it himself – “Suckers and Losers.” Of course, he wasn’t speaking about you he was speaking about people who gave their lives defending our democracy.

In other news, I demonstrated yesterday the field hockey hook shoot fake out shot with a short cart (not full size grocery cart.) It was a down hill lie with two vehicles jutting out just before the cart return. A very difficult shot indeed. But I talked the whole shot strategy out. Laid it out. Then I took the shot. It was fabulous. One of the best. When I got home and looked for the video; it was not there! This I thought was outrageous. Who would have gotten rid of that video. Russian hackers? That new spyware that can circumvent the security on your phone? North Korea? So many possibilities. Then a little voice asked me, “Did you push the ‘RECORD’ button?” 

Yes. Of course. Only an idiot would not push record and end up talking to himself in the middle of a parking lot while hunched over a shopping cart in near 100 degree weather. 

The search continues. I will, of course, keep you informed. Maybe OJ could help me if he’s not too busy.

In other news, I watched a little bit of the Olympics warm up action.

Two things: Brazil Germany soccer. This was a rematch of the gold medal game from last time. Unfortunately, Germany did not field as good a team as last time. Something about the pro teams not letting their good players free or something like that. There was one guy on Brazil who scored three goals in the first 30 minutes. Amazing display. 

I could not get over the amount of grabbing of players and deliberately causing them to fall down or be pushed down, that was not called.

But the crowning bit was a little bit about Simone Biles. They showed her warming up and then did a retrospective on what she did in Rio. I watched it four times. Every time it made me shutter in glee. I remember watching Nadia and I remember the Czechoslovakian woman the Olympics before Nadia. Everyone thought that woman’s dismount from the balance beam was incredible. It was a flip off the beam.

Nadia blew that away. But Simone? She’s on a different level. There were other athletes commenting. One was a gymnast, but the others were athletes from other disciplines. “No one else does what she does.” Was one of the comments. 

In the video they showed Simone doing a back flip. Her arms were straight out. Her body fully extended – crucifixion pose. She did this fully extended back flip, and then did it again before landing. Then there are those crazy flips with twists she does on floor exercises or on a dismount. What? Three flips and two twists? I’m not sure. It’s like trying to figure out what Shawn White just did on the half pipe. Crazy.

And you know what she said? “I’m scared. But I like to be scared.” And then she said, “Don’t bail.” She laughed. She said, “If you bail, you are going to break something.” She laughed again.

Me? I remember seeing a photo of her when she was just coming up. She was still in school. She was doing her homework while stretching. She was stretching on a staircase. One leg up the stairs the other down. She seemed to be sitting on the stairs. Claude Van Damme would be proud. I can get one leg up to the fourth or possibly fifth step. I’ve got a ways to go.

Thursday July 22, 2021

Man oh man. There is so much to get to and yet none of it is new, in the sense of “we’ve seen this before.”

I got a “Your memories on Facebook” announcement yesterday. It was my calling Rand Paul and his father Ron idiots. I used the same language I did yesterday. However, the past call-out was about economics. Now it’s about Rand’s lack of understanding, or caring, or caring to understand about Dr. Fauci and Fauci’s role in trying to save the country and the world from infectious disease. Last time I was referencing Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman who said of Rand and Ron and “the Austrian School of Economics” that whenever he, Krugman, tried to pin them down as to what were they actually talking about he got this “you don’t understand” argument, coupled with some nonsense about “deep state” or some such similar. (Same argument used by Mike Lindell, see below.) 

It’s kind of like when Jordan Klepper formerly of The Daily Show interviewed Mike Lindell at a rally. Mike had all the evidence! If only people like Klepper would look at it! Klepper fed back to Lindell his same lines and Lindell went off in a huff of “You don’t get it.”

Damn straight. There’s nothing to get.

Let’s review the Pauls’ (plural) record. Ron and Rand have shown they are idiots on economics. Rand, it was pointed out to me by someone who knows a little sumptin’ about the medical community and how it operates, formed his own board to certify himself as an ophthalmologist because he probably couldn’t have passed the real board certification. ( Let me ask you, “Would you want that guy anywhere near your eyes with a laser?” ) Now Rand has managed to show he knows little about infectious diseases, or at least doesn’t care to display it in public. But now, after being slapped down by Fauci, he wants the DOJ to investigate Fauci! OMG! Let me think this out. I’m not a lawyer or a prosecuting attorney, but I kinda think you have to have a case, ie a reason, to bring charges. The fact that Rand doesn’t like being given a medical depantsing in public is not grounds for charges. If anything, Paul should be investigated for fraud: medical, moral, economic, political – fraud. But most of those things aren’t against the law.

Moving on. Jim Jordan has been refused by Speaker Pelosi admission onto the committee investigating Jan 6th. Kevin McCarthy has pulled all the nominees. Aw. Let’s see, Jordan seems to have no understanding of how elections work. He thinks because the guy he wanted to win got more votes than last time he ran he should win. That’s not how it works. The person with the most votes should win, but that’s not how it works either. The person with the most Electoral College votes wins, and that person was not Jordan’s guy.

This bring me to vampires. The fellow who did Flight of the Concords, Germaine, did another show called, “What We Do in the Shadows.” It was a parody on vampires. In it there were these enablers of the vampires called “Familiars.” They were regular people but could run around in day light doing things for the vampires. That’s what Jordan is – a Familiar. Except, he’s a Familiar for a psychopath named Donald Trump.

This brings me to the cases against Satan. Let’s review:

He and his company are being investigated for fraud in New York. This is not a complex case legally. This is referred to “as simple fraud” by any prosecutor who has looked at it. The case is only complex because there is so much of it, but the basics are straight forward. If you keep two sets of books you are committing fraud.

Donnie is being investigated in Georgia for election fraud. If you call up local politicians and tell them to find votes, change the counts, and stuff like that – it is fraud.

Now there is an investigation into January 6th and what happened. If you incite a mob to storm the Capitol you are committing (treason?), (a violent overthrow of the Republic?) something like that.

Also, it is coming out that Donnie had his hand in the cookie jar, or his associates did. Hum. Well, so far the recent count is three. Three lines of corruption in terms of trying to influence our Foreign Policy. There’s the Tom what’s his name, the manager of the inauguration who was working as a foreign agent. There’s Mike Flynn working as a foreign agent. There was at least one or is it two folks trying to work as foreign agents for the Russians. That doesn’t count what ever in the “F” Jared was doing with MBS and his trying to set up a back channel to Russia. Let’s not forget that while Donnie was campaigning he was trying to build a tower in Moscow, which he denied the whole time he was doing it.

In an interesting about face, or semi-turn, some on the right have said, “Get Vaccinated.” Or at least, “talk to you doctor about it.” M-T-Greene was asked if she was vaccinated and she said it was a violation of her Hippa rights to reveal that information. No, No, it’s not. You can reveal it; others can’t. Sean H. – same for you.

So why are the right wing Fox folks starting to say this? Maybe, reality is getting harder and harder to deny? I don’t know. Maybe.

Maybe, their base is dying because they aren’t vaccinated.

As one doctor being interviewed last night said – even though it was late it was welcome. “Welcome to reality,” were his words.

Fortunately, for you, I have been able to get a hold of a Right Wing Talking Points Confabulator that’s been Trumpized and I’m going to run some of the above through it to see what we get.

Input: Tom Barrack 2017 Inaugural Fund for the President, arrested. Barrack holds Lebanese citizenship. He was paid $1.5B by U.A.E. to influence the president and the U.S. foreign policy.

Output: Lebanon! That’s the Middle East! Lot of bad people over there. Lot of bad people. Can’t trust them. Taliban. Antifa. Socialism. Bad. Barrack bad. Democrats. Pelosi. Schumer. Bad. 

Okay. To review. 

 Rand Paul has proven his stupidity once again, but on a new front. 

 A Trump associate is in trouble.

Oh, and don’t forget:

 We have a resurgence of Covid among the stupid. I mean the unvaccinated, I mean the right wing Republican base. Listen r.w.R.b. you realize all your leaders have gotten jabbed? They aren’t as stupid as you. They know – deep down – that science works. This reminds me of the book “Outside the Palace of the Inflatable Pig,” which many of you may not have read but it is a history of Paraguay. Perhaps, the most screwed up country in the world. In the book a doctor talked about the Indians in that country and cancer. Many of those living in the desert environment got cancer. They went to the witch doctor who prescribed various herbs, incantations, and what-not. “But where did the witch doctors go when they got cancer?” The doctor asked. “They came here.” They aren’t stupid.

Yeah. Wave the flag, call out the Dems, puff out your chest and declare you are a patriot. Freedom! “No vaccinator better come around my door! I got a gun.” Right on.

You are being played for suckers. Soon to be infected dead suckers. And if your mother gets sick and you get sick then you are a mother sucker infected sucker? Something like that.

I better stop.

PS What are you looking at? It’s me and my new friend. Don’t worry. He doesn’t bite.

*** Hey that could be a lyric in a song!

Wednesday July 21, 2021

Okay, another one of Trump’s people has been indicted. I mean he was only a secret agent for a foreign government. Got Satan to say exactly what they wanted him to say and had him piss off one of our allies in the Middle East. An ally that has a huge air base of ours! Good job! Now he’s indicted. But before that he made $1.5B. Betray your country for a buck or a billion. Why not?

Meanwhile, Fox is starting to tell people that maybe they ought to think about getting vaccinated. I guess rising death tolls among the people who give them ratings is having an effect.

And then there’s the new book out telling how screwed up the Satan’s last year in office was. Remember that general whom Lincoln said only that general could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Yeah, well that’s nothing. Here we had a president that could have associated himself with the effort to develop a vaccine and instead has turned against that and somehow managed to associate getting vaccinated with losing the election that he still claims he won. 

But I am not here to talk about any of that today. No. I have a higher calling. I have been finally found what I was put on Earth to do. (Can I get an “Amen”? No? Never mind.) 

It came upon me strangely. This realization. It was Rachel who said, “I don’t have the guts, but I’m a fan.”

Wow, heady words. I felt a strange welling up of – well – pride. That sense that here is something that I can do, that others dare not. 

I had never thought of it in these terms before. I only was sharing with the world my gift. I didn’t even realize it was a gift, and yet, there it was.

In the 60s one would have said they were doing their thing. Imagine how the world would have been different if all them long hair hippies had joined in back then? What a different place the world would be right now.

Ah me.

So Rachel, this is for you. The secret of my success is G.U.T.S.

It my new buzz phrase and the name of my soon to be released on YouTube videos and Facebook course that you will be able to download for $9.95 ($20.95 for Premium). 

It will show you all the Tip & Tricks.

The Inner Being you need to succeed.

The Will and Determination that you must display to rise to the level of where I am today. I call it G.U.T.S.

G.U.T.S. is:

Gobsmackedness – be astonished. Always, be astonished.

Unswervedness – You must be true and straight (no, not that kind of straight)

Tenacideness – You must show sticktoitiveness 

SupremeConfidence – You must believe! Believe that every shot is a winner. Because you are a winner!

I am laying plans as we speak for a chain of practice parking lots for those too meek to try it on the real field of battle. I will take over run down driving ranges and/or cook up franchise deals with them. Together we will pave over a section of their range, add shopping carts and a have cart deposit stations strategically placed at predetermined distances.  I will be in talks with Amazon to use part of the parking lots of deserted shopping centers they took over to use as well. Any day now!

In this way you can come in and practice shooting a cart from the same place over and over again until you get it right.

I will train people to be instructors. They will show you how to correct your wayward hook, your fading slice, how to read the lot, and so much more.

Of course you don’t need to get private lessons. My instructional videos will have it all. And you can buy a second video for the cost of shipping and handling, which is a real deal because it comes downloadable off the web.

My alter ego – Bryce Holliwell – will be your instructor on these videos. Or should a say Altar Ego? Get it? OMG, I am, if nothing else, clever.

I gotta go. Time to check if the guys picked up the recycling.

BTW Rachel,

Joe would have loved this discussion. He bought Grandmaster from Mary Joe (I think that was her name.) She was Jim Lambrakis’ girlfriend. Jim died and she inherited the business. I remember her flying the Grandmaster on a hill the year Jim died. I was glad for her that Joe bought the business. It was a good fit for both. Joe would fly that kite in the lobby of the hotels where we had the AKA conventions. He was dedicated to it.

I was in Teitsein at the kite factory where Jim had his kites made. Frames were stacked to the ceiling. The people who ran the factory were eager to sell me kites. I asked about the Grandmaster and was told, “No.” They were making them for someone. They could not sell them. I was more curious than wanting to buy as Jim had sent me many Grandmasters to promote on the east coast.

Jim was a funny guy. He had been a psychotherapist in New York or something like that. He was very overbearing in his conversation. Always asking you questions in a way that you could only answer one way, and he’d box you in. 

Joe was laid back. The exact opposite of Jim.

The most interesting flier of the Indian fighter I ever saw was Vic Heredia of Vic’s Fighter Kites. He could make a kite dance around someone’s head in much the same way Lee Sedgewick can do with a four line Revolution. When I met Vic he was more interested in showing me his grip for a 35mm camera because there are a lot more photographers than kitefliers. Just like there are a lot more golf club shafts to be sold than leading edges for Rev kites. 

Ah me.

I will be working on two new shopping cart skills this summer: one physical, one mental (or should I say for the latter, “I’ll be developing inner mental muscle”? Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket. )

The Down Hill Field Hockey Style Hook Shot* is the physical. This is the shot you need when way up hill in the parking lot where you let the cart go down the slope and it fades to one side and into the slot. The danger here is that you may encounter a car coming up the lane, or the cart may wander off and hit a parked car broadside, or (wait there’s more!) your cart could make it all the way to the bottom of the hill in front of the grocery store where it gets rammed by a car that is driving by the front of the store.

* or TDHFHSHS for short

This is where the mental practice comes in. I call it:

The Plausible Deniability – What Are You Looking at Me?** Mental attitude. You can learn a lot from studying cats for this one. You know when cute little Buttons brings home a half alive mouse or snake and leaves it on the deck as a present and you say, “Buttons what the hell is this?” And cute little Buttons looks at her paw and licks it like “What?” 

** or TPD-WAYLaM? for short

Yes, you need that mental toughness to be able to look around, shake your head, as if to say, “OMG, that is unbelievable.” People will think you are in concert with them and their feelings of shock, surprise and horror when in reality you are Gobsmacked that you missed the cart slot. (But as a friend of mine who captained a boat once told me, “The crew does not need to know they are about to die.” Similar principle.)

So much to do. So little time.

Oh the guys just hooked and dumped the recycling. Noe I really gotta go.

Later. Take Care. I’ll be in the field (or the lot).