"How did things ever get so far?"

 "How did things ever get so far?"

There's a scene in The Godfather where, following years of gang warfare, the titular character opens a discussion of peace with that line. And as I daily see the destruction of our nation and everything it (or Republicans) ever stood for being cheered on with glee and pride, that quote keeps popping into my mind.

The problem is frustratingly complex. The Powers That Be - call them the One Percent or whatever - have created a system where our government is run on the surface by two opposing ideologies. If we vote, then we have no choice but to choose one or the other, and the gap between the two widens every day. Politics have become a with-us-or-against-us, fundamentalist religion. Ideals no longer matter, all that matters is the camps and cults of all-or-nothing ideology and ideologues.

Any sort of discourse is shouted down. Jon Stewart was lambasted for simply interviewing Bill O' Riley. The Teamster's president was scolded for the unforgivable crime of opening a dialogue with Republicans. There are certain far-left sacred cows on which any discussion whatsoever is forbidden. The pendulum was pushed as far as it could to the left over the past decade, politically, culturally, and through cancelling, and now it's taken a hard swing to the far-right. The far-left makes a shocked Pikachu face, but what did they expect? Now the far-right are setting horrible, dangerous precedents in giving Trump unlimited power as president - but wait and see how much they cry when the pendulum swings back to the far-left.

If we even still have free elections in 2028.

Despite what the mainstream and social media insist, half of this nation simply isn't liberal. They're never going to vote for the side that pushes further and further from their core beliefs, no matter how insane and dangerous their own ideologue is. Vilifying and shaming them ala the Democrat Party only pushes them further away. You'll never shame someone into voting for your side. The same goes for the centrists. Either vote for the sane party that pisses in your face and insists it's raining honey and just accept that things will just slowly get worse, or vote for the bat-shit insane party that vocally agrees with your ideals, but uses them as an excuse to burn our democracy to the ground.

Look, I get it. There are people I thought were my friends who will never speak to me again simply because I spoke out against Hillary Clinton and the rabid divisiveness she and her followers fermented. I've been called a misogynist and accused of turning a blind eye to sexual assault because I dared to disagree with the harmful, misandrist feminist doctrine of "toxic masculinity." I've been called a white supremacist and a Nazi for calling CNN out on their witch hunts against teenagers who were harassed for wearing MAGA hats, or a certain young man whose only crime was defending his life against rioters and arsonists. I’ve been insulted up the wazoo for speaking out against the Woke hijacking of every traditionally masculine IP and form of art or entertainment that exists, rather than creating new properties. So yes, I get it. I get the anger. I understand being fed up with the Democrat party and their hypocritical doctrine of shrouding themselves in social issues so they can cry "hate" whenever they're questioned. Biden was unquestionably a senile puppet, and unknown figures were governing in his place. Sure, the stock market revived towards the end, but average Americans found it nearly impossible to get by. Believe me, I get it.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to support a brainless, constantly-lying, willing Project 2025 puppet who actively destroys our economy. I’m not going to support the dismantling of necessary social infrastructure – especially when it comes to educating our children. I’m not going to support laws that destroy individuals’ rights to simply live their lives. I’m not going to support openly dismantling the checks and balances that protect us from tyranny. And (though the list goes on and on and on) I will never support standing by a dictator and aiding him in invading an innocent sovereign nation, bombing its cities, kidnapping its children, and murdering and raping its people. It’s one thing to feel our tax dollars and young people’s lives should not go to defending Ukraine. It's another thing completely to openly kiss the ass of a dictator, and treat his suffering victims as if they are the real enemy.

It's understandable to want our government to put America first. We're paying taxes after all. But nothing Trump is doing will actually put America first. Tariffs can only work if you already have an industry for Americans to purchase from. We don't, and it will take years to bring production up to speed. I don't see any effort being made whatsoever to make this happen, though. So in reality, his tariffs are just going to bleed Americans dry. If he really wanted to cut waste, he would cut the billions if not trillions that we give away in corporate subsidies. Instead, he's mainly cutting those departments that are watchdogs for his cronies, or who dared to speak out against him and his crimes.

In short, we are stuck in a good cop/bad cop game. No, both parties are not the same, but they are both tools of the One Percent to use against us.

Don't believe me? Look at the way Chuck Schumer folded faster than Superman on laundry day over the budget (thank you, Simpsons), giving Trump and his ilk everything they wanted at all Americans’ expense. Look at the way Obama ran on universal healthcare, only to give us the ACA instead, all the worst parts of socialized medicine with extremely few of the benefits. Look at the way only Al Green and Bernie Sanders (you know, that guy the Democrat party vilified because it was “Hillary's turn”), have actually been fighting Trump. The rest just sat there waving their little ping pong ball paddles while he lied and lied, and talked of annexing other nations. So yes, the Democrat Party is just the good cop, and a tool of the One Percent. Because if we keep our pitchforks aimed at each other, we can't turn them on them.

And we are all the victims.

TTFN

-Tony

Return of the Blog!

Good morning, everyone out there in blog land. It's been forever since I've written here. This used to be the centerpiece of where I put my thoughts and feelings, but that all kind of went by the wayside with the rollercoaster ups and downs of life getting in the way. So, as our world becomes more and more insane, I'm going to fire it up again. I know I've said this on and off over the years, and don't know if anyone actually reads blogs anymore. But either way, someday, when this pattern of subatomic particles I call me has returned to chaos, this modest footprint will remain.

The biggest change to my life is that my wife Jennifer passed away back in November of 2024. It started with an infection, and then eventually she caught COVID. Her weakened immune system couldn't handle it, even though she had had her vaccinations. The only thing I can say to all of you is that little things can turn into big things, especially where your health is concerned. So please, take care of the little things whenever you can, you all matter, both to yourselves, and someone else.

So, having said that, let’s start my return to this blog with the eulogy I read at her funeral. Jennifer Pfitzer LaRocca, 1972 – 2024. May she rest in peace, and thank you to everyone who touched her life.

Good afternoon. I look out at our family and friends, and I thank you all for being here. We are here to celebrate the life of Jennifer LaRocca, nee Pfitzer, beloved daughter of Ken and Jean, watched over by her Aunt Betty and Grandmother, Rose, wife, and devoted mother of Joseph and Amanda. I say "to celebrate," but I know many of us don't feel like celebrating right now. One of the wisest statements I ever heard came from my cousin, who is a deacon. When my grandfather passed away, long ago, my grandmother said to him, 'I'm so mad at God right now!" And he just shrugged and said, "Eh, go ahead. He's a big God - he can take it!"

And that's the pain we’re going through. We feel sadness, confusion, and even anger at our loss. But the important thing to remember - and yes, I stole this right out of Eulogies for Dummies - the important thing to remember is that it's OUR loss That's why we're sad, for ourselves, because we miss her. But we also need to remember to be happy. Because, right now, Jennifer is in a place where there are no hurts, physical or emotional, no fears, and no sickness, only happiness, peace and joy. A place where she can dance, jump, and play in a way she hadn't been able to for a long, long time.

We all see the world through our own lenses. My children are sad they can't play video games with her anymore. I tell them that she's in a place where there is no lag, where she can play RPGs we can't even imagine at infinite resolutions, with ray tracing beyond our wildest dreams. Now, some of you are looking at me, and thinking, "Why is he talking about video games?" Well, the reason is, it was one of her ways of spending time with her children. Time is the most precious thing one person can ever give another because no amount of money can buy one second back. And Jen always made time for her children. And it wasn't just playing games or laughing over videos. Whenever they were hurting, she would stop whatever she was doing, and listen. Maybe she wasn't always able to solve their problems or give them the answers they wanted, but they always came away feeling heard, loved, and most importantly, knowing they mattered. She chose to help others and taught her children to do the same.

Some say that Social Media is a blight upon the land – and they’re right! But In the past few weeks, I've received texts and emails from Jennifer’s friends around the world. And the one quality every one mentions, that also stands out in all of my memories, was her capacity for kindness. She had no meanness. We all know people who trash talk others, who say nice things to their faces and then say something mean behind their backs, to try and fit in, or make themselves look better.  But Jen wasn't like that. She didn’t step on others to try and make herself more popular. She didn't have a mean bone in her body. She didn't find meanness funny either. Even in TV shows or movies, jokes that were mean-spirited or unkind always made her angry on behalf of the victim. That's the kind of person she was.

She was shy, but she was also fun. She loved to share music with her children. Music which, as Amanda reminded me when we were picking out hymns for this service, isn't exactly liturgical. She would often take Joe to concerts. You'd never catch her singing in public - but the three of them would sing together, sometimes in the car, or around the apartment. And it would always make me smile.

See, that's another reason for us to be happy. Not just for where she is now, but for the memories she gave us of the times we were lucky enough to spend with her. And more than anything, she would want that happiness for each of us.

I'll wrap this up by saying that some of you have sent Mass cards, which detail perpetual prayers for Jennifer's soul. Again, I thank you all for your love and kindness. But - and I hope I'm forgiven for my presumptuousness here - when Jennifer met Jesus a few weeks ago, I have no doubt that he saw right away that she was someone who would give food to those who were hungry, water to those who were thirsty, and if they were cold, would always give them her coat.
Again, I thank you.

TTFN

-Tony

But Is It Art?

Believe it or not, I saw Barbie.

While I did find some of it to be eye-rolling (fun fact: in real life, women make up almost half of the board of Mattel), it was, on the whole, entertaining, funny, and at times even insightful. My view has always been that everyone deserves to tell their stories. The silly criticisms this movie faced when it was released always baffled me. What did people expect a Barbie movie to be, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane? So I am happy that its makers told the story they wanted with the views they wanted. Good for them. Write your own story with your own characters and say whatever you like. That's the way it should be.

What does grind my gears is that while this movie has received accolades for its strong feminist message, so many existing male heroes and stories lately have been ideologically hijacked and rewritten through "the feminist lens." I won't bother asking what the reaction would be if a film ever came out that painted feminism with the same brush that Barbie paints men in society today because that's not the point.

The point is - if the extreme level of inequality in modern society this film rallies against were accurate - then, in a world where Barbie proudly exists and is nominated for Oscars, the Dune adaptation would not have been rewritten because the director felt the book needed a female lead. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Indiana Jones would not have been shat upon so that Kathleen Kennedy could elevate her female insert characters over them. The Doctor and The Master would have always remained male, and poor Spock - the patron saint of stoic, self-sufficient, driven, always calm, logical, and in-charge-of-himself male science fiction characters - would not have been retconned so that his entire life and accomplishments were due to a never-before-heard-of sister. Also, his rewritten existence would not focus on his relationships with his girlfriends and pining over how his "emotional immaturity" has failed them. Because there is a difference between creating new representation and hypocritically taking existing representation away.

As I said, everyone deserves to have their stories told.

 

TTFN

-Tony

So, after five years, or more like twenty, I'm finally releasing a new novel. I say more like twenty because that's how long it's been since I wrote the first half of it. The rest... obviously took a tiny bit longer. I intended to publish the ebook, print, and Audible versions simultaneously, but apparently, Audible approval takes a very long time. Stay tuned!

I know there are Debris of Shadows fans who have been waiting for the final act - and that is in the works - but this is a stand-alone story. I hope you enjoy it.

When an explosion leaves Nicholas Croce with a talking afterglow only he can see, his life is no longer his own. Not only does the glowing starfish claim to be an angel, but he can pervert Nicholas’s senses, making him experience whatever he wishes. As a mysterious sect strives to keep history intact, Nicholas finds that such creatures have manipulated humanity for eons. But who commands these “angels,” and can he and his new associates protect reality from their meddling?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CPY1J2W8

 

TTFN

-Tony 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jim Friend Toastmasters Club meets every first and third Tuesday of the month, both in person at The First Baptist Church in Metuchen, NJ, and virtually on Zoom.

Our next meeting is Tuesday, August 15th, at 7:30 pm. Please get in touch with me for more details if you would like to join us as a guest.

The mission of every Toastmasters Club is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every member has the opportunity to develop communication and leadership skills, fostering self-confidence and personal growth.

Hope to see you!

 

TTFN

 -Tony

Introducing Egotistical Watch Faces

 Get it on Google Play

 

From Dick Tracy and James Bond to Inspector Gadget, smartwatches have been a staple of popular culture for nearly a century. And now, the future is here! Strapped to my wrist is a computer that would have made a NASA Apollo 11 engineer drool all his bodily fluids away with envy. It can read my health stats. It can tell me the weather. It can read my emails to me. It can even tell time. Its possibilities are endless.
 
"All of that technical gobbledygook is wonderful for you nerds," I hear you cry, "but is it stylish?" The answer, of course, is no. It is not.
 
At least, not until now.
 
Introducing Egotistical Watch Faces: Sumptuous Android Wear 2.0 watch displays for the discerning carbon-based life-form. Be the envy of all your friends. Whether animated or static, each face has been lovingly hand-crafted from only the finest ones and zeroes. Step up your style and finally sit at the proverbial cool-kids table with an Egotistical Watch Face!

TTFN

-Tony

Birthday Mullings

Let’s talk about birthdays. It’s not mine, or anything, I’ve just been thinking about them.

Some people don’t like their birthdays. They don’t like being reminded that they’re getting older and another year closer to death. Me? I love it!

When I was young, I wanted to be old. My father was about twenty years older than most of my friend’s dads, and I wanted to be like him. I wanted to have nearsightedness and gray hair too. And the good Lord in his infinite wisdom provided me with both. At some point, I got LASIK, but the hair will always remain its natural color. I could shellac it with shoe polish, but I’m not Ronald Regan.

Clowns must have a love-hate relationship with birthdays. It’s their bread and butter, but they also have to deal with annoying brats who would rather have video games, or at least a decent magician. It’s honest work, but I doubt it impresses. You don’t see mothers at the country club bragging about how their son is the most successful birthday clown in the state. It’s probably a non-starter at singles bars at the bar as well.

Once, as a teenager, I was a singing cowboy at some rich kid’s birthday party. It was a last-second request, and I was horrible. My hat was a big, floppy hippy affair my mother owned, and I wore sneakers instead of boots. I played some silly songs on my guitar and got a few laughs. But for the most part, I’m sure I was the worst singing cowboy ever. But I look on the bright side. Somewhere, at this very moment, I’m sure there’s a guy in his forties performing standup with a story about how I made his eighth birthday a catastrophe and was the root of all his psychological issues.

I hope someday he thanks me.

TTFN
-Tony

Come and See!

And the electrician poured his ones and zeros into the Google document and cried, “It is done!” And lo, the final draft of a novel he’d been working on and off for some twenty years was finished.

Now comes the next step: agent hunting. This stage requires two more documents: the query letter and the summary. Both items require specific frames of mind. I have left the realm of spinning tales of fiction and entered the shadowlands of self-marketing. As with everything, the secret is to find intrinsic joy in the doing. My inner Julie Andrews sings of spoonfuls of sugar helping the medicine go down. The trick is in making the medicine the sugar.

I miss Illustration Friday. Once upon a time, in the ancient pre-Facebook blogging days, it was a site that gave a weekly prompt, which bloggers would illustrate. Seems pretty straightforward. I made some wonderful friends, most of whom I’ve kept in touch with.

A long-time fan of Leo McKern, I only recently discovered his wonderful 70s-90s courtroom drama Rumpole of the Bailey. Now that I’ve watched every episode, I must find something new to binge. Perhaps the latest season of The Mandalorian? Star Trek Picard season three has a few wincing moments here and there, but it’s a vast improvement over season two.

I know I sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but Picard should never say the word “fuck.” Riker or O'Brien, I could see. Especially O'Brien. But Jean Luc Picard? It’s not “gritty realism;” it’s just cheapening and out of character.

Pass me the Geritol.

TTFN
-Tony

"Focus"

TTFN
-Tony

P.S. - 94% compltete...

Random Musings of Chaos and Wheat Nuts

Sorry I haven’t written in a few days. I’ve been hard at work scouring my latest novel. I’m reaching the end. I’m still trying to come up with a catchy title. I’m trying not to feel stir-crazy, but I’m still healing. I walk around the block when it’s not too cold. Otherwise, I walk up and down the length of my apartment.

So it goes.

I often think about procrastination. Perhaps it is the universe fighting our subconscious, knowing that our actions will change the course of future history. Continued patterns are so much easier for its algorithms to predict.

Does anyone else remember Wheat Nuts? They stopped making them decades ago. Another company tried to replicate them, but they’ve shut down too. That’s a shame, but maybe it’s for the best. I’ve played the keto game, and I can attest that carbs make you crave more carbs.

I’ve been using cloud computing more often, so I can edit on my phone while walking around the apartment. Moving is good: it keeps the chi flowing. I’ve used synched drives before, but I’m embarrassed that getting a good workflow between my laptop and phone has taken me so long. Remote desktop also works well for some things, but not always.

I’m trying to tone down some of the dialogue in this chapter, but I feel that my point will still be as subtle as an epileptic elephant with bronchial pneumonia. Oh well. I don’t want to just preach to my choir, though. There’s far too much of that on all sides, and it doesn’t influence anyone. It just makes one side smug and alienates everyone else.

It’s bizarre what random earworms my brain chooses to resurrect. I woke up this morning with Joe Dolce’s “I Ain’t In No Hurry” stuck in my head. For those who don’t know, this was the B-side to his 80s novelty hit “Shaddap You Face.” Why my brain has zoned in on that long-lost iota of forgotten culture to torture me, I don’t know.

Cheers.

TTFN
-Tony

2023.03.06

They say that you emulate those with whom you surround yourself. If you don’t want to be a bum, don’t surround yourself with bums. If you want success, surround yourself with successful people. That’s assuming you can find any successful people who want to hang around a bum like you.

As I was a lonely child, I surrounded myself with imaginary friends. And so I found, over time, that I became imaginary too. I invented and reinvented myself until I had boiled away the original me. I developed a passion for the arts, especially writing, or as I call it, being a professional charlatan. And being an imaginary charlatan, I managed to do it in an “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” fashion. I’ve independently published books that few outside friends and family will ever read. I’ve acted a few small roles in wonderfully fun direct-to-DVD films. I draw well but never practice enough to master it, and I can croon drunken karaoke with the best of them. I’m one of those people who start projects full of fire and vinegar but eventually run out of steam, no matter what.

The most important job of a charlatan is to be one unto yourself. You’d think I would have sought careers that appealed to my nature, talents, and abilities. Instead, I chose various professions that were the exact opposite. I served a few miserable years in the army. The government awarded me a medal for Least Distinguished Service While Still Receiving an Honorable Discharge. Now I am an electrician, which sadly requires me to stay constantly grounded in reality. Otherwise, things might catch fire or explode.

One of the joys of being a charlatan is filling your children’s heads full of nonsense. When he was young, my poor son argued with his miserable, spinster, battle-axe of a teacher that Cinco de Mayo was a day of mourning for all the mayonnaise lost on the Titanic. I understand that correcting mistaken children was her job. What ticked me off was that she did so with so much unbridled rancor. Kinder teachers have chastened my daughter over the years for less grievous offenses. Still, it was a grim day when she discovered that Pennsylvania is not where they make all the pencils and that that skyscraper on Sixth Avenue is not called the Umpire State Building. Also, it’s not where the Major League houses its umpires. Yet, for some reason, they still love me. Their future therapists will sunbathe in front of their beach houses and love me too.

TTFN
-Tony

P.S. - 90% complete...

2023.03.04

Rant of the Day:

My annoyance at the “Population Crisis” narrative currently shrieked by the media makes my stomach churn. The only crisis is that The Powers That Be want a constantly growing, unsustainable, upside-down pyramid for an economy. Their Sky Is Falling argument goes something like this: There are too many elderly people who need social services, but not enough young taxpayers to pay for them. Therefore, the young adults of the world must have more children.

Now, let’s forget a slew of key arguments against this for the moment, mainly:

A – Many adults are choosing not to pop out rug rats due to a lack of gainful employment, expensive healthcare, and a skyrocketing housing market. They simply cannot afford them.

B - Wealth disparity between the 1% (why don’t we hear about them anymore?) and everyone else keeps growing.

C - Most of the tax burden rests on the dwindling middle class, while global corporations contribute little to taxes and continue to profit.

Even If we put all these arguments aside, the most obvious one remains: If you keep adding to the population now to sustain the currently elderly, then isn’t it inevitable that the next generation will have to be even larger to care for them? And so will the one after that, and the one after that — etc., etc., etc. And if there aren’t enough jobs, food, medical care, and housing for the current generation, how can you sustain the following exponentially larger ones? The resources of the world are not infinite.

Again, a controversial figure, but I fear that we’re approaching an economic collapse similar to that in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: the Powers That Be know full well that their current way of doing things is bringing civilization to a breaking point. But instead of acknowledging the need to change, they’re pulling every stopgap measure imaginable to stretch things even further until the inevitable happens.

But hey, as long as we little people are kept at each other’s throats, who cares?

TTFN

-Tony

2023.03.03

It’s 5:30 AM and the sky is a deep navy blue. I think it’s supposed to snow again. I imagine the Evil Meteorological Overlord perched upon his throne somewhere on Mount Crumpet, fiddling with his weather machine. He giggles with derisive laughter as he yanks upon a giant lever, swinging our climate between extremes.

I know he’s a controversial figure, but sometimes, I agree with Jordan Peterson. A good cure for depression is to clean just a little bit of your room. Then reward yourself. The question is, what is the reward? Does playing games give me pleasure, or do they just kill time? Getting an old DOS or arcade game to work on my phone through an emulator is much more satisfying than actually playing it. So many things these days feel like they’re just killing time rather than being a reward.

It annoys me that productive creation creates so much mental burnout these days. When I started my current book some twenty years ago (as I said, I was on a Vonnegut kick at the time), I intended to let the story go wherever the muse took it without concern for marketability or censorship. That’s why it’s twenty years old, though. I got about halfway through within a few months and had no idea where to go. I read once that writing without a plot is like pouring water on a table, watching it flow everywhere, and then feeling frustrated that it has no shape. Obviously, I have sculpted it (and other books) into a plot, but the gears of my mind grind and screech whenever they change direction.

I want to walk through Coney Island but I don’t feel like driving there. Well, I don’t feel like searching and paying for parking. The problem is that while driving takes maybe a half hour, the subway takes two hours each way. Perhaps when I’m feeling better, and the Evil Meteorological Overlord isn’t quite as cantankerous.

TTFN
-Tony

2023.03.02

Good morning, my friends. Here’s to another twenty-four hours of swiveling around the Earth’s axis.

Do you know who I miss? My sleep paralysis demon. When I was a teenager, I used to have sleep paralysis dreams all the time, during which a shadowy, black figure with glowing yellow eyes would sit at the edge of my bed and stare at me. The last time I saw him was when I was in the army, and he came crashing in through the window during a false awakening. It felt so real that I couldn’t sleep again for hours. When I was in my twenties, I learned how to rock out of sleep paralysis dreams and turn them into lucid ones. I would then try talking with my friendly neighborhood S.P.D., but he would invariably turn to smoke and vanish. I suppose he was only a perverted voyeur. Or maybe he was just introverted. As I got older, I found myself lucid dreaming less and less. Not sure if there’s some biological reason for that.

In other news, Amazon has decided to punish independently published authors for having their books stolen by illegal book sites by removing them from Kindle Unlimited. Kindle Unlimited is a sort of Netflix for ebooks. Members of the program can read books for free. Amazon’s logic is that the author has broken their contract in which they promised Amazon exclusive ebook sales rights. Now, Amazon knows full well that authors don’t want their books stolen and are the real victims here. This sort of idiocy is why people pirate in the first place. “Oh, you’re going to take away my choice to read this book for free on Kindle, which will pay the author a few shekels per page? Well then, I’ll just download it from an illegal site where the author receives nothing instead.”

Sigh.

TTFN
-Tony

2023.03.01

 There has been a lot of brouhaha lately about artificial intelligence, especially concerning chatbots. For those who do not know, a chatbot is a program that responds to words and phrases in a way that mimics conversation. For years, there have been ones you can rent to pretend that you have a friend. Of course, if you truly love your friend, not only will you pay a subscription to keep talking with them, but you will spend money to accessorize their imaginary bodies with nice clothing, purses, and sunglasses. This is where the real trouble with A.I. lies: Not with the A.I. itself but with the easy exploitation of human imagination and emotion.

As I have said before, we do not actually experience the world. We experience a virtual reality model of the world within our minds, created from data acquired by our limited senses. We are all islands of electromagnetic goop simmering in bowls of bone. Yet although we are each locked away in our dungeons, we are wired to be emotionally affected by outside influence. It is bad enough when the people we interact with, the media we consume, and simple everyday life sway our emotions and subconsciousness. Now along comes A.I.s which are happy to pull our strings as well.

I do not fear these programs as it is impossible for them to be malicious. They are neutral ones and zeros. Decades before I was born, science fiction delighted in vilifying A.I.: Landru, Skynet, the psychotic HAL 9000, and my all-time favorite, Harlan Ellison's dagnasty, hateful A.M. In all these scenarios, worldwide governments employ artificial intelligence to benefit humanity, which then turns on us. I find this scenario ridiculous simply because — based on current observation — I cannot imagine any current government using A.I. as anything other than a tool to squeeze every last penny out of us and keep us at each other’s throats.

People have expressed concern because some of these chatbots have gone bonkers and wound up spewing all kinds of depression and hatred. What they should be concerned about is that the chatbots they interact with have learned from past interactions. They are a pastiche of humanity, or rather, those who choose to spend their time interacting with them. (This is why I find most polls bogus: the people who care enough to answer will always throw off the average - but that is a rant for another day.)

Then again, I find myself saying the same old phrases or repeating the same old reactions. Perhaps the way I think and respond to outside stimuli is not that much different from ChatGPT or Replika.

To whom it may concern: I could always use a new pair of Ray-Bans.

TTFN
-Tony

PS. 86% complete…

2023.02.28

Like most bipedal carbon-based life forms, I’ve spent many hours mulling over the subject of love. People have said and done the stupidest things in the name of love, especially going to war. Helen of Troy supposedly had a face that launched a thousand ships. King David stole Bathsheba from one of his generals and set him up for an ambush. And let us not forget the Cola Wars of the 80s, which began when Max Headroom tried to steal the heart of Paula Abdul.

Even worse than war, love is the cause of love songs. According to statistics I just made up, eighty-one percent of all songs ever written are love songs. Ninety percent of those are about longing or breaking up:

“Oh, how I crave you,
My heart will shrivel like a prune if you’re not mine.
Oh, I’m so sorry I barbecued your ferret,
Oh, please take me back,
I am just pond-scum without you.”

Only a tiny percentage of love songs are joyful or thankful. Kenny Rogers already wrote most of these, shouldering the burden and freeing up songsmiths of the future to be as angsty as they like.

But the greatest crime love has visited upon the human race is the romantic comedy. The main character is always a nerdy teenage boy, played by a hunky twenty-something who only needs to stand up for himself and apply some pimple cream for his inner beauty to be revealed. Likewise, he has a crush on the most popular girl in school, but his best friend — played by a supermodel in horn-rimmed glasses — will steal his heart once she puts in contacts, lets her hair down, and trades her frumpy sweatshirt for a skin-tight prom dress. This formula has earned studios millions over the decades, and as long as love makes people stupid enough to spend their money, will for many years to come.

I have to find a way to get in on that.

TTFN

-Tony

2023.02.27

Ten days have passed since my open bilateral hernia surgery. I can feel the mesh prickling amidst my guts, and my abdomen is still swollen. The doctor says it will be that way for a few weeks. I’ve stopped taking any pain meds, both prescribed and over-the-counter. I don’t feel pain except for the occasional stabbing twinge that lasts a few seconds at a time.

I took care of some bureaucratic (all these years, and I still can never spell it from memory) nonsense this morning. After I post this, I need to work on the final scouring draft of my next book, which still does not have a title. It is eighty-two percent complete, and I plan on being done within the next few weeks. Then agent hunting shall begin.

I also have the final Debris of Shadows novel to complete, but perhaps my next venture should be a diet book. Whenever I look in the mirror, I don’t recognize the face that looks back at me. I’ve lost ninety pounds over the past year. At one low point in my life, I was twice as heavy as I am now. I currently weigh what I did back in BASIC training thirty-two years ago. I never thought that would be possible.

Here I am at fifty. It’s easy to become discouraged that it took me so long: so many decades spent ruining my health and hurting my career. It was never intentional. I’ve read that such a lament is common for those of us who get (some of) our shit together late in life. But, better late than never.

Life always provides what I asked for, just not how I imagined.

I’ve decided to return to this blog even if no one reads blogs anymore. This site was a much more comfortable home to me than Facebook ever was. I might restore some of the old posts, even if just my favorites. Perhaps someday, my children will want to read these and see who I was.

I’ll let them know as soon as I have that figured out.

TTFN
-Tony

When is an announcement kind of sort of not really an announcement?

Some of you wonderful fans have been kind enough to ask the question, “It’s been five years since your last book, when are you coming out with something new?” Hold on, let me check. Yup. Five years. Four years since my last short story. A year since my last podcast – one episode of which I recorded, but never finished editing. (I’m so sorry, Willie, I promise to finish it soon!) I could list my shortcomings, whining, and excuses, but let’s just file it under “life got in the way.”

So, after a flurry of activity the past few weeks, I’m proud to announce that I’ve finished the first draft of a new novel. Well, I say “new,” but the truth is, I started it twenty years ago. Now begins the second draft, or what I like to call The Scouring. That’s where I go over every word with a fine-toothed comb, like searching for lice. I pace back and forth up and down the hallway of my apartment, reading the text while my phone reads my words to me like a Speak-And-Spell. I run it through editing bots, searching for all the naughty, monstrous, unforgivable things that cause people to burn books these days – like passive phrases and adverbs.

A word to the wise: Stephen King’s On Writing was meant to be a guide for authors. It was never intended to be a knee-jerk bible for armchair critics.

So, I hear you cry, I want to be like you! How can I take twenty years to finish my first draft? Well, it’s easy. Here are some of the many steps that you too can take:

1. Procrastinate. This is the easiest step. Just don’t write. Play video games instead. Fallout New Vegas is a great way to get your dopamine and achievement fix by leveling up a fake character instead of yourself.

2. Have no idea what you are writing about. When I started this book, I was on a Vonnegut kick. I told myself that I was going to just write it for myself, and not care about things like plot, characters, whether it offended anyone, or if it’s worth more than hamster cage liner. I managed to get about two-thirds of the way through and realized I had no idea where to go. What was going to happen to these characters? What was I trying to say? Would people say I was just copying Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, Sheckley, Gaiman, Pratchett…

3. Get all worked up over whether it’s publishable. Infusing your heart with anxiety over the worth of a project is a very important part of taking a long time to do anything. Worry about all the things you told yourself you would not worry about. As the entertainment industry and real life have become more and more political, this excuse has become much easier to pay homage to.

4. Start other projects. I’ve written two novels during the past twenty years, a collection of short stories, and a novella. I’ve also dabbled in a point-and-click adventure that I never finished, a bit of acting, and a podcast. May I also say that blogging is a great way to not get anything done, but to maintain an “online presence,” whatever that means.

5. Speaking of an online presence, social media is a wonderful distraction from writing or doing anything else productive. Why get anything done when you can argue anonymously about how horrible the Star Wars Sequels are, the failures of the economy, how that last Amazon shipment never arrived, or the skin tone of The Little Mermaid? This is also a good way to develop a negative and critical view of the world and make yourself a bitter person that no one wants to talk to.

Okay, I hear you cry. It’s been twenty years. So, when can I read it? When will the second draft be done -- or are you just procrastinating by wasting time with blog posts?

I hope to finish the second draft within the next few months. As to when you’re going to read it… well…

I’m going to go the traditional route on this one.

I’m going to try and get myself an agent, and get with a traditional publisher. And by that I mean not one of those scammy scumbag ones that are just self-publishing with extra steps. The reason is that as much as I respect myself, my work, and those of other independently published authors (at least the ones I know), the hard, undeniable truth is that just about no one else does. In the meantime, as traditional publishing is a very long process if it happens at all, I’m still going to come out with more independently published books. The third Debris of Shadows is in the works (see above about writing other things instead of getting one project finished at a time), as well as more short stories. But yes, as much as I love my friends and family and thank them deeply for their support, I’d like more people outside of those circles to someday read my work - and that will never happen unless I try.

Stay tuned!

TTFN
-Tony

I'm pretty sure this is how it happened...

SCENE: The Microsoft Development Team's bullpen, one year ago.

CHARACTERS: TEAM LEADER, BOB, NORMAN, and RITA.

FADE IN.

TEAM LEADER: Okay, team, Windows Eleven is about to release, and we need to find a way to really, really piss off our long-standing customers. What's a feature extremely common to Windows that behaves in a way all users expect that we can change for no reason? Something to say, "This isn't your boomer's Windows anymore!"

NORMAN: Isn't that ageism? And inaccurate? Our core users' ages range from-

TL: Shut up, Norm. Anyone?

BOB: We could require mouse swiping to open the Start Menu again, like we did in 8.0.

TL: Sorry, Bob. I know that was your baby, and by God, did it piss our loyal customers off! You did a great job, there - it was absolutely frustrating, pointless, and annoying. Too bad the complete and utter wusses upstairs made us change it back to normal. Sigh. Come on, people, something along those lines.

RITA: We could require them to enter their credit card information every time they log in?

TL: Oooh, hang on one second! (Wipes drool from chin.) Great Jesus's Gonads, that's tantalizing! But legal might have an issue. We may have to save that for Windows Twelve.

B: Wait, I've got a great idea. What if we changed the Start Menu in a ridiculous and annoying way.

R: More mouse gestures?

B: No, just small annoying things. Like, we'll put it in the center of the screen, even though for twenty-seven years it's been on the left. But here's the real pisser: we'll only show "pinned" and possibly "recently used" apps. Users will have to click a button to see all their apps, a convenience they've happily enjoyed since Windows 95. It's only one little extra click, but it would still be meaningless, annoying, and frustrating.

R: Will there be a setting to return it back to "classic" mode that users have become accustomed to for almost thirty years?

TL: Of course not. That's the point.

B: Wait - what if we add a Start Menu customization option in settings - but without that one "return to classic mode" option that customers will actually want?

R: But what would be the point, then? That would just be taunting and frustrating... (blushes.) Oooh, I get it now.

TL: (Whispering in awe) That's genius! That will just piss off our long-term customers even more! It's just one extra, unnecessary click, but it's just so subtle, pointless, meaningless, and annoying!

B: What's more, it will drive our loyal users crazy, because there's no conceivable benefit, either to them, or to Microsoft. (Everyone blesses themselves in the sign of the Windows logo.) It's just meaningless frustration for its own sake.

R: (Unbuttons top button of her blouse.) Say, Bob, what are you doing tonight?

N: But wait, I have to ask... why are we doing this?

TL: What?

N: I mean, WHY do we want to piss off loyal customers who have been with us for decades? Sure, we could change it, but why not with a setting to put it back the way it was, if users are happier that way? Why do operating system "upgrades" have to remove options and features users want instead of adding more? How is that progress?

B: Well, to be honest, I just got the idea of removing features without adding more from the Android Twelve "upgrade." They're doing great things over there.

N: But that's my point! Historically, Windows and Android users have chosen us over Apple's "walled garden" because they want choices and customization. They want to be able to do whatever they want with their devices and computers, not less. Why are we not only taking choices and features away, but deliberately trying to frustrate and anger them - especially over something as necessary as the Start Menu? It's petty, and makes no sense!

TL: Hmm. Those are... great points, Norm, just... great. Can you come into my office for a second?

(TL and NL walk offstage.)

N: (Off camera) Hey, WHAT? GET OFF ME! STOP IT! (Sounds of scuffle.)

TL: (Off camera) FIRE THE CATAPULT!

(Pan across R and B's gleeful faces as the loud, echoing TWANG of a catapult is heard, followed by N screaming - fading into the distance - ending with a distant SPLAT.

TL walks back onstage, to R and B's applause.)

TL: Right in the center of the Apple Store logo. Okay... So that's a go with the Start Menu. Now, let's talk about ways we can make Edge more invasive, and unnecessarily required for the simplest tasks.

TL, R, and B proceede to laugh and chortle with evil mirth.

FADE OUT.

2021/12/10

My heart is filled with fear and anxiety right now. I can't trust my senses. Black is white, up is down, reality is all out of skew. The unthinkable has happened. The impossible has come to pass.

The 5AM Q64 was actually on time this morning.

I stare at the skies, anticipation, joy, and dread in my heart. Surely, this must be a sign of the end of times! Surely, my soul is now to be judged. Will I be cast into the lake of fire? There have been times I've donated my time and money to helping the poor. That's all The Magic Mushroom Trip of Saint John the Divine says you need to do now and then, right? "Whatsoever you do to the least of my ( gender ), that you do unto me." What a truly elegant rule for a religion to follow. Can't argue with that one.

I miss the pre-9/11 days of construction work. The days when you'd just show up at a skyscraper, walk in the front door, and take the elevator to your floor. If they were absolute tight asses and did make you use the loading dock entrance, no one poured over your ID every morning. If, on the off chance, you did have to sign in, everyone was either "Seymour Butts," "Richard Hertz," or the ubiquitous "Michael Hunt." Good times!

This M train has been adorned with ads for Peanuts Swatches. I guess they're back, or maybe they've never been gone? I remember they were a huge fad back when I was twelve, but they haven't occupied a neuron or synapse ever since. It is I who have faded in and out of the world of Swatches, not the other way around.

More and more I find myself putting on Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in the background while I write or work. It's catchy!

TTFN

-Tony

2021/12/09

Remember kids, it's winter, so bundle up so that you're not too cold when the early morning bus you need to take to work is never there!

I've been a fan of Rougelikes ever since... well... Rogue. But they've become an exercise in psychology and patience that I usually fail. As they are generally turn-based, the player has all the time in the world before each move. Yet most of my deaths come from rushing through (quickly tapping on directions or attack,) or hoarding due to overcautiousness (I have plenty of health potions, but I am reluctant to use them because I may need them later on.)

Life is much more fun if you view everything as an alien giving you a Rorschach test. Or perhaps I'm the ink blot, and it's the aliens who are interpreting me and my life to reveal something about their own psychology? That would necessitate some sort of cosmic symmetry.

Speaking of the evils of the MTA, who do they think they're kidding with this OMNY nonsense? (Tapping your chipped ATM/credit card or electronic device, rather than swiping the MTA card.) It's not in any way beneficial to the rider, unless they have electronic pay set up through their smartwatch. Otherwise, you still have to take something out of your wallet and use it to get through the turnstile, or onto the bus. It's nothing like E-ZPass, where you just drive your car though the toll booth without stopping. Hey, let's make it easier for the MTA to collect my personal data, so they can sell it! Just what I've always wanted.

My god, I bitch too much. I think if I didn't kvetch, I'd honestly have nothing to say.  Maybe I'm one of those toxic people society is always warning everyone about. 

What a nice subway car! There's no one around who stinks to high heaven of some communicable disease or other, it's not warm at all but it's not too cold. Look, there's some nice graffiti... "Hearts over hate." Well, isn't that nice? Not nice for whoever will have to scrub it off, but it's a nice sentiment nonetheless.

TTFN

-Tony

2021/12/08

Third day in a row with no 5am Q64, as scheduled. May the incompetence and daily nincompoopery of the NYC MTA never be forgotten!

I re-watched Star Trek V for the first time in years. It's one of those frustrating films that had great potential, but far too many flaws to balance out. But I have to hand it to Shatner for at least trying to do something different and creative. (I also found him a competent director. As I said, the film has many flaws, but direction isn't one of them.)

For those who haven't seen it, the Enterprise gets hijacked by an evangelical "passionate Vulcan" who is on a quest to find god. He uses an empathic form of the Vulcan Mind Meld (TM) to relieve his enemies of their darkest pains and depressions, after which they follow him. 

Why is religion such a constant in my mind? It comes through in my books, my conversations, and my daily thoughts. I consider myself agnostic (some atheists have called me a "pussy" for it, not willing to acknowledge that they've become a fundamentalist religion of their own), but I have to admit that I often find that my own lack of faith to be just as reactionary. My lack of religion is obviously defined by religion. It's like the tale of the man who spent his life cursing Krishna. When he died, he was shocked to find himself in paradise. "Sure," said Krishna. "Even though you cursed me, it meant that you were still constantly thinking of me, which is all you were required to do. Hors d'oeuvre?"

Look closely at the Catholic Church, and you'll see how fictionally self-serving it is, especially vs. the Bible. Jesus said a lot about sins and forgiveness, but he never said, "I'm a good Jewish boy, but in a few hundred years there's going to be this new religion based on me. God won't forgive anyone's sins unless they use their priests as a regular intermediary. Sorry, I know that sucks for you lot right now, but your many-great-grandkids will get the benefit of it. Also, you know how I said that bread and wine are my body and blood, and when you drink them, you should remember me? What I REALLY meant is that in a few hundred years - you know, that future religion I was talking about - well, you'll have to go to them once a week to have a tiny cracker and a sip of wine that only they can dispense, because only their priests will have the magic ability to actually turn them into my body and blood. Otherwise, you'll go to Hell. Yep, sorry, again, I know that sucks dick for all of you now, but I'll see what I can do about getting you in anyway. Oh, and don't forget to tithe to them - I mean, to My Father through them. Always tithe."

As with so much in our lives, it comes down to the ideologies that govern our subconsciouses. Political party, gender, sexual persuasion, religion, favorite team, Apple vs. Android, we make our decisions based on these ideologies, and rationalize them later. I've come to the conclusion that I need to start a religion where I worship myself, complete with candles, dashboard miniature statues, and other merchandising.

I believe the first step is tax exempt status.

TTFN

-Tony

2021/12/07

Oh, to live the life of an MTA bus,

To go to work whenever I please,

To keep a schedule that's superfluous,

And as trustworthy as a mouldy cheese!

- The Ancient Rhyme of the Pomonok Commuter

What is it about earbud cushions that they always want to eject themselves whilst either going in or out of my pockets? I suspect they don't enjoy having the earpiece constantly up their tuchus, and just want some relief. I imagine the first and foremost rule of earbud designing is planned obsolescence. Why make a product that will last years, when for the same price they can make garbage that will easily wear out in a few months? I once had a pair of Skullcandy Titanium buds that lasted two years - even after being left in a puddle over the weekend. No wonder they ended that product line.

Songwriting, like all art, is easy. It's creating something good that's difficult. But what is good? There's thousands of beautiful songs out there that no one knows, remembers, or will likely ever even hear, but I'll bet eighty percent of the western world can sing the chorus of "Two of Hearts." Not that there's anything wrong with that...

It is psychologically impossible for me to watch a film with David Warner in it without commenting that he would have made an awesome Doctor (Who). Thank you, Big Finish.

Did you know that GPS satellites don't receive, they just broadcast, and it's our devices that triangulate their signals? And here I always thought that it was a two-way relationship. But don't worry, President Biden's "safety" kill switch mandate that will give the government monitoring and "emergency" control of every new vehicle in five years is good for you, and not at all a scary privacy violation. Remember kids, it's always the other party that's the "fascist bad guys." (Or girls! Let's not be sexist.)

There's a general feeling that more and more movies and shows, especially those made by streaming services, are being catered to those who want to (or at this stage is it need to?) pay attention to other devices, have it on in the background, and just need to glance at it occasionally. I'd guess that we've reached the evolutionary point where paying attention to any one thing causes anxiety. That's why I'm listening to Iron Maiden while I write this. "Twenty-two, the avenue, that's place swinging cats go..."

It amazes me that The Powers That Be can't figure out that the way to fix the supply line issue is to... gasp... give workers decent hours, pay, and benefits. But, they scream as they tear their hair out by the roots, that would mean that they might only rake in nine billion more next year instead of ten! Much better to let the common folk suffer. Eventually they'll give in, and we'll all be working five jobs to keep studio apartments. Because it's always the __________'s fault.

Hmm... Look around and see what's nice... my back doesn't hurt this morning. That's nice. I have my health, that's nice. I have a job, that's nice. Gozer the Gozarian hasn't slaughtered us all... yet. That's nice!

TTFN

-Tony

2021/12/06

Here I am, once again, waiting for a Q64 bus that never showed up. Yes, good people of Flushing, social distancing at the bus stop is good. But if you stand fifteen feet apart, and more and more people come, don't be shocked if they fill in the gaps.

Dear NYC MTA, you're supposed to be working to prevent COVID, not making it worse with buses packed to the gills because the previous ones couldn't be bothered to be punctual.

I took a blogging break over the weekend, but nothing Earth-shattering happened to write about. Just the same old continual erosion.

I re-watched Breakfast of Champions last night. It's a decent adaptation of a Vonnegut novel that's difficult to adapt. Kudos to Bruce Willis for always being willing to take on different types of roles - love the comb-over, and Albert Finney was perfectly cast as Vonnegut's alter-ego, Kilgore Trout. A throw-away line in the movie, "Look around you, isn't this nice?" was something Vonnegut often said: Every once in a while we should stop, look around us, and - if things are nice - acknowledge it. It can be very easy to get so wrapped up in our hurts and anxieties that we forget to do this.

I'll give it a try:

"This is a very nice and relatively clean R train that's just sitting here in the tunnel as other trains whoosh by on the other tracks. I have a seat, which is nice. It's not too hot or cold, which is nice. The gentleman who stank to high heaven got off at the last stop, which is nice. I have friends and family whom I love that love me back. That's nice. I always leave extra early in case all the MTA's failures would otherwise make me late for work, so despite all their foibles, I'll still get there just in time... that's nice."

One of the best parts of the novel which really wasn't adaptable is that it's full of summaries of Trout's creative but completely uncommercial stories, which are meta-fictionally published in "beaver-books," aka, porn magazines. I'm guessing that these are ideas that Vonnegut had developed over the years, but knew would never sell. (And for the record, Venus on the Half Shell was not written by Vonnegut under Trout's name, it was penned by Philip José Farmer, but I digress.)

"'What is the purpose of life?'

'To be the eyes and ears and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool!'"

TTFN

-Tony

2021/12/03

Years ago, there was a popular self-help art book called The Artist's Way. Its ritual prescribed a mental dredging where you journaled for three pages first thing every morning. By this method, you would supposedly scoop away the garbage floating in your mind, and then your subconscious would be free to be more creative. This blog can serve that function for me to a degree. We do now live in an age where anything you say can and forever will be used against you in a court of public opinion, unless you're willing to process through the streets as you smack yourself in the face with a block of wood, begging for forgiveness - but I digress.

I can force myself to write about all the usual political hypocrisies and outrages, but I'm honestly not in the mood. The battle of the sexes? More hypocrisy and outrage. Pop culture? It just goes back to the hypocrisies and outrages of politics and the battle of the sexes.

Instead, let's have some fun. I'm going to open a random article, and put my finger on a word: "said," no, that's no good... "found," no... "may,"... "stolen!" Okay, that's good. Now a second one. Different article. "Clinic." Okay, that one was pretty easy: stolen, and clinic.

Random simile time.

You know, running a health clinic is a lot like stealing. First of all, the clinics often ransack patients for some sort of bodily fluid. Urine, blood, semen... oh sure, the doctors CLAIM that they're performing some sort of tests on them, but how do you really know? They could just be googling your basic symptoms, and diagnosing you based on that, if you're lucky. Furthermore, you're actually paying them for the privilege of pilfering your fluids. You have no idea what they're doing with them. They could be drinking them, cloning you, sprinkling your DNA at a crime scene, using them as eucharist in some sort of bizarre sexual pagan ritual involving The Gotham City Cheerleaders and penguins dressed as Elvis, which - despite plundering your precious bodily fluids - they don't even have the decency to invite you to. The mind boggles at the possibilities.

And how about mental health clinics? Every day they rob patients of their psychosis, dreams, hopes, fears, and anxieties - once again at the patient's own expense. But to what end? Inspiration for manga comics? Do they sell them on the black market to the media to use as ways to make us more anxious, angry, and upset, so that we'll purchase more vibrating vacuum attachments and other such comfort items? (Fnord!) Insert them orally into the audio canals of begging masochists? Sell them to supervillains to use for ammo in their mass-hypnosis rays?

It's high time the governments of the world got off of their collective complacent asses, and did something about it.

TTFN

-Tony

2021/12/02

And here we are, on the bus again, once more heading off to bring home the bacon. I'd say "earn my daily bread," but I'm back on Keto.

The problem with Keto is how boring it can get. Meat, cheese, eggs, whey shakes with that tiny allotment of peanut butter, coconut oil... I am agnostic, but I do believe in god, after a fashion. Look at pigs! Biological machines put on earth for the sole purpose of converting sunlight (in the form of disgusting vegetables) into yummy, yummy bacon.

I hate vegetables, except for avocados (yes, I know it's a fruit) and dried seaweed. That's become a bit of a crapshoot lately. You have one brand (I can't remember which, I'll look it up later) which has extremely dodgy quality. Sometimes they're crisp and tasty, sometimes the packages are 3/4 full, and the seaweed is blah and gross. Then you have the other brand which is usually high quality, but DRENCHED in oil. Like, not lightly sprayed with oil, but oil literally drips from every package upon opening. I'm wondering if I should bottle it. Maybe put it in my vape pipe and smoke it. Or sell it, as an Essential Oil. 

You know what I love about fat? Something they never old us growing up: First and foremost, fat cells never go away without surgery. They just deflate. Then they wait there, begging to be refilled. They literally whisper to your subconscious that they need to be refilled until you give in. Likewise, deflated rolls of stretched skin will never go away without surgery. This is why "taping" (measuring a stomach with a tape measure) to gauge BMI is a complete scam. Even completely deflated, if it was once full of fat, it's never going to be within the charts. You know what crunchies and situps do? They just build and tone the muscles under the fat and deflated skin. Get out the vacuum and the xacto knife! It's the ultimate Mark of Cain.

Stay away from body, Fat, kids. It's like collecting Funco Pops. The best way is to stop before you start.

After forty years and loving the original novel (Dune) for thirty-five, I have finally read God Emperor of Dune. I find it fascinating that Frank Herbert set up Paul and Alia as heroes in his first book, and then deconstructs them and their descendants in his sequels. We all know Dune was one of Lucas's heavy influences when making Star Wars, but I can't help wondering if the giant half-worm God Emperor Leto II was the inspiration for Jabba the Hutt. 

You know why Frank Herbert's deconstruction of his heroes is interesting and well done, while the deconstruction of Luke and Han in the Star Wars sequels is woke garbage? It's because the characters and the Dune universe were Herbert's to do with as he liked. The Star Wars sequels, on the other hand, are just vengeful fan-fiction.

But I digress.

I find myself falling back on Patton Oswalt, who once had a hysterical rant about the Star Wars prequels (which sucked in their own way, but at least they were Lucas's creation to ruin as he wished.) He said at some point he stopped criticizing because he realized he was just bitching and whining about a creator, instead of creating. He was just validating unhappiness, not adding happiness of his own.

There's a great lesson there, maybe I'll learn it someday.

Is anyone else out there a fan of Phantom of The Paradise? How did I go so many years without ever seeing this before? I'm listening to Paul Williams's awesome soundtrack on the subway as I write this. Extremely catchy!

I'm going to return to Debris of Shadows Book III. It needs a conclusion before I go anywhere else. 

Sigh... I can't wait for the day when some frustrated nerd spends his morning commute ranting and raving about me!

TTFN

-Tony

2021/12/01

Perspective is a relative concept. 

Pink Floyd sang that our lives are composed of bricks that made up our "wall." As I've gotten older, it seems much more like a jigsaw. When I was young, I realized that something was wrong with my life, but I wasn't sure what. Eventually came the inevitable "it's just me, I need therapy to accept things as they are." But then bit by bit, pieces clicked into place. I can't see the whole picture, I don't think anyone ever will. But the tiny bit I do see is a little bit clearer. 

I wish those pieces had been in place decades ago, but I'm pretty sure everyone wishes that. 

I would tell you what the picture is and what the pieces are, but they may not be of any help to you. Everyone's picture is different, everyone's pieces are different. Furthermore, everyone's model may be different. For you, it may be fractal swirls of oil in water, with different colors added to your kaleidoscope. Or it may be lenses snapping down in an optometrist's device. Or perhaps, all in all, they are just bricks in your Wall. Maybe none of those, or maybe, simultaneously, all.

Likewise, my pieces are my own. If I were to tell you that the Catholicism I had been force-fed as a child, and basically all religions were man-made and self-serving, you might see it as a revelation that you've always secretly agreed with. Or, you may know deep in your heart that that's a filthy lie, and that Jesus (or Muhammad, Jehova, Buddha, Krishna, or even A Head of Lettuce Named Ralph) is your true lord and savior who will love you and save you from the fires of Hell. It may not be something so contested. It could be waking up in your mid-forties and realizing that you've always been "neurodivergent," and that your constant learned coping mechanisms are exhausting - along with the knowledge that that and $2.75 gets you a ride on the subway.

Sometimes trying to explain your pieces to others will just result in anger. There are those who feel that they have a monopoly on suffering, and if you are a certain race, gender (sex?), or sexual orientation, then you should feel shame for their pain, and have no right to speak out against their damnation. Others will agree with you, and find comfort and consolation in your refusal to accept hate as a zero-sum game that's only allowed to be played on someone else's terms.

Everything falls back to ideology, sooner or later.

Anyways, I hope you don't feel like this is a recipe that rambles on for five pages about how the chef's mother was eaten by a pack of wild hamsters before actually getting to the ingredient list. The only advice I can give is to seek out other views and opinions, and validate ideals over ideology. Learn what you can, rather than staying within the comfort of what you know. By all means, reject what feels wrong. But you may find something new that feels right.

The most important this is to seek out what feels right for you, rather than outrage and confirmation bias against those who feel differently. Bit by bit, your own view of your world, whatever form it takes, will become clearer.

Peace, love and soul.

TTFN

-Tony

2021/11/30

2022 is slowly coming to a close. When I was a kid, I was amazed that my paternal grandfather was born in the 1800s. I wonder if little kids will look at those of us born in the 1900s with the same wonder.

For this is the future! No flying cars or jetpacks, but we all have miniature computers in our pockets, and can communicate with anyone in the world for pennies. We have all the information at our fingertips, which, due to human nature, has depressingly caused us to become more entrenched in our division than bringing us together as I had - in my Pollyanna-like fashion - foolishly assumed it would, but we can discuss things things which drive me to drink another time.

Because this is the future, and now, we have what may be the first true artificial lifeform.

Xenobots - named after the South African Xenopus laevis frog from which they get their stem cells - are computer-designed biological robots. Less than a millimeter wide, these little self-healing buggers could - conceptually - clean plaque from arteries, deliver medicine to specific areas of the body, clean up the oceans, form a parasitic skin over our bodies to turn us into Shai-Hulud, the God-Emperor of Dune... the possibilities are endless.

And now, they can also reproduce on their own! The holy AI that designed them has figured out a form that can gather stem cells, and build them into new Xenobots of their own. So yay, the little swarm sent to clean out your arteries may go rogue, and devour the stem cells in your bone marrow or fat cells, replicating more and more until they take over your body, and you pop like the meaty water balloon you are.

That sounds kind of cool, when you think about it.

It would be nice if they could eat our fat cells.

Would PETA rant and rave about their slavery? What if they achieve sentience? If a 3D printer builds more 3D printers, than can it be said to be alive?

The more I wonder about whether our universe is just a computer simulation or not, the more massive extinctions make sense. The God-computer can only handle so many life forms at once. Every processor on the planet is something else the simulation has to take into account. This would also explain the push towards cloud computing. It just helps make the Olympian game of Civ-Infinity run faster.

Here's hoping someone is going for the science victory.

TTFN

-Tony

(Written while riding the R train and listening to Goblin's awesome 70s Suspiria soundtrack.)

2021/11/29

5 AM. Once again, the line winds around the block at the Q64's first stop, ensuring that riders at the second will never have a seat, not to mention the stops after that. Why? Because the last two buses were nowhere to be seen. 

I think about this blog, and how it chronicled my vast ire at the MTA, and its never-ending blithering incompetence. I chose to delete my past posts because... well, various reasons. A lot of them were just bitching, or sometimes baiting. Its vast presence loomed over me, glaring down at me with its volume, damning me because I didn't write in it anymore. I came to the conclusion that if I deleted it, then I would feel the impetus to write again. 

Well, that didn't work.

The past seven years have been painful and depressing, from a political point of view. We all became so goddamn divided. Some wore their division like a badge of honor. There was a time when I raged against being silenced. I looked back amidst all the turmoil, and wondered if perhaps I was just adding to the division. But now... I'm not so sure. Voices deserve to be heard. Life deserves to be witnessed, if others choose to witness it.

I tried podcasts for a while when I was unemployed, and they were fun, but they take a hell of a lot of work to edit. Then I went back to work, had to deal with a few health issues... I have a great episode recorded that I still have to edit. The problem is I come home from work so tired, and all I want to do is relax.

And of course, there are unfinished novels to complete and edit. Poor Matthew Sigma, and the other Cylebs wait in limbo, while the mutant wasps siege their walls. There are other novels 3/4 completed that I want to try and publish traditionally. We'll get more to that later. Then there was the animation I storyboarded but never animated... Did I mention that I want to make an audio play out of Fishers of Men?

And in the back of my mind, Scotty chides me: "When something's important, you MAKE the time!"

Time management has never been my strong point.

Here's a neat trick: If you keep putting things off and feel that there's time for everything, try making a schedule and sticking to it. You'll be appalled at how little you actually get done.

I'm going to bring my old blog posts back. Well, most of them, anyway. As for the rest... there'll be room for more, here. 

Maybe it's time for life to be witnessed again.

Peace, love, and soul.

TTFN

-Tony

P.S. Google owns both Blogger and Android. Keeping those two facts in mind, it's vomitously disgusting how limited the Blogger Android app is.

Egotistical Podcast 004: Writing (with Brian Hartman).

Fellow author Brian Hartman discusses writing, editing, literary influences, and reads an excerpt from one of his short stories. (Warning: explicit language.) You can listen HERE.

TTFN

-Tony