P.S. [I haven’t felt much like blogging last year, cuz I came to the conclusion it did no good and I actually made it private for a while.
And of course I didn’t want the Dictator-in-Chief to send his ICE goons after me because I criticized him in a blog (which is totally UN-American).
However, as we embark upon this new year here of 2026, I’m coming back out in words, and you know that, if you can’t take it, don’t read it!
This is America, I was born here, raised in the greatest city in the world and in our real world, we can write; and writers like me rightly criticize eloquently, in order to teach those who we reach and achieve positive change.]
Yet often the apparent words to compare are scarce.
This year have de-cluttered the noise forever;
No longer wasting the moments to care.
“Screech!!” No, brain, I don’t want to opine about politics today.
Tried to fork my road briefly, “Minolta”!
I’d rather pen regarding an Asian persuasion,
Who can be sought naturally wrought daily.
Decade equals ten lost in my life;
Don’t mistake though,
I am not necessarily looking for a wife.
Unless maybe she has inky black long hair,
Almond-shaped eyes full of life!
Yes, I am the choosey lover,
Which should be no surprise.
It can’t be about those with no home training,
How about companionship,
Mutually occasional intimate sex?
Otherwise do not bother with the OMG texts.
Those ethnicity,
Value up-bring a-plenty.
And it should be required!
To run for President of the USA!
(Witness the current occupant is all I’ll say)
There, I did it again…Oh wow, I got off the original track!
I’d call that a mature distract.
The only constant is not pocket change,
It is that value of the dollar.
Anchored yet accepting against the rearrange.
I tend not to do “political”posts on this blog, which began in 2009, as a way to possibly attract paying clients via my composition skills and university English degree.
For those of our longevity, it is time to relive the magic of potential and achievement of mankind, ever since President Kennedy’s proclamation regarding the moon , updated with today’s reality check, to relieve the stress of recent negativity, since January 20, 2025. I preferred the #nasa feed to the networks (unless they could bring back the voice of Jack King!) in “Mission Control”. Check the link to understand how I think and what we heard, in a new window:
On a more tart note, please my ladies and germs, remember this: prior to the first tRrump regime, we did not have this talk of “a divided country”.
He is the first propagandist and architect of this line of thinking, and apparently he must be paying the rest of the Republican party, [The GOP], under-the-table to keep silent about it. It’s “Propaganda 101 America”, in the 21st century“. He must be removed, if he doesn’t remove himself sooner than get #impeached (see: Richard Nixon resigns, 1974). It is a very good thing that there are still many sons and daughters of World War II veterans and Baby Boomers still alive, to push-back against his nonsense!
Come on Congressional scholars, find a way to save the day!
Musica: I just looked up at the clear, starlit sky tonight and Roberta Flack winked at me. She was just thanking me for being one of her faithful DJs. I call all of my vinyl my “children”… and thank Atlantic records for keeping me in the loop with copious copies thereof, since [I don’t know] around the late 1970s and s***. Also, thank you thank you “Roberta-mon”!
Ed: Moderately sauced “escapism” is needed regularly these “doge” days. We cannot keep wasting our own duties and chores checking on a madman. His “kingdom come and [he] will be done”.
How in the world could I have forgotten to update you, in this, my musical steez, about my fave jam from 2024? OMG!
Therefore, please let me make it up to you by introducing my favorite tune from 2024!
One reason for my omission I think, is the one recent politico guy who is getting “old” and senile as fuck before our eyes, who distracted my musical mind for a memento (the problem is that he lives at our people’s White House), Uggh!
Well, we are BACK…”Jack”! Crank up the volume!
My first favorite from 2024 is Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder On The Dance Floor”.
And yet, next I share, from one of my favorite bands of all times, Fleetwood Mac, which I discovered at the end of 2024, with my favorite lead singer-lady, Stevie Nicks. It is a timeless track, “[If I Live To See] ‘Seven Wonders'” , which I had never heard before! (Imagine THAT for a veteran radio DJ!) lol Crank it UP!
“So long ago Certain place Certain time You touched my hand On the way On the way down to Emmeline
But if our paths never cross Well, you know I’m sorry, but
If I live to see the seven wonders I’ll make a path to the rainbow’s end I’ll never live to match the beauty again The rainbow’s edge
So it’s hard to find Someone with that kind of intensity You touched my hand, I played it cool And you reached out your hand to me
But if our paths never cross Well, no, I’m not sorry, but
If I live to see the seven wonders I’ll make a path to the rainbow’s end I’ll never live to match the beauty again The rainbow’s edge
So long ago It’s a certain time It’s a certain place You touched my hand and you smiled All the way back you held out your hand If I hope and if I pray Ooh it might work out someday
If I live to see the seven wonders I’ll make a path to the rainbow’s end I’ll never live to match the beauty again
If I live to see the seven wonders I’ll make a path to the rainbow’s end (I’ll make a path there) I’ll never live to match the beauty again (You’ll never live to see the beauty, the beauty, that same same beauty)
If I live to see the seven wonders I’ll make a path to the rainbow’s end I’ll never live to match the beauty again (Oh well if I hope and I pray, well, maybe it might work out some day)“
This is much of the kind of music I love, and the ladies of song who I’ve have gravitated to since my days as a Top 40 radio DJ in the early 1980s. Yet, it is kinda “funny”, because these songs don’t always play in my jukebox mind – they appear when it is time.
“If I live to see the seven wonders, I’ll Make A path to the rainbow’s end…”
Timely like today, for me to share, blog about and play for you.
Proportionate civility. Oh wow, what a concept which came to my somnolent brain! And has nil to do with this post, lol A sense of humor – even within your own cranium – is essential to a calm, creative and properly poised life. The local public library recently blessed me with an Author Showcase! What a wonderful evening, even though sparsely attended – somehow we’d agreed to keep punting it from the warmer climes to the dead of winter over the past year – I left the night with a renewed sense of my prosetry wordcaster purpose, vowing to myself, to try again, when the days are longer and weather warmer as attendees were sparse on this very cold, late January evening. The positive vibe is effervescent, “Write ON, Baby!”
Upon the library table above, are all the books you see on the right-hand sidebar of this blog.
It’s amazing how people seem to really like to meet someone who’s written a book. It is a fascinating fascination I’ve noticed at my Author Showcase or when I’m sitting having a beverage at a bar and I take out my book to sort of proof read it and probably, someone is just next to me and asked me what I’m reading. I say something like, “Oh, I’m checking my book or proofreading” and then, the follow-up questions begin…
It is “Such A Feeling”, that most people value the written word, physical books, content creation and libraries against the ripple whine of ignorance.
And ya know what the BEST part of it all is? I have a book, which I wrote, in a public library, which people can borrow, read and return, if they have a library card!! Upon the shoulders of all my English teachers, my Mom and mentors, I represent! Humbly…OMGosh.
It was a year of new acquaintances and friends with current commonalities which, speaks to how our lives are a journey which, with faith and belief in oneself, guides us to our desired realm of destination. Year’s ends are a time when we [should] take an extra dose of self introspection, deprecation and analysis. Upon reviewing my diary from early last year, I discovered this one, “The thing is that now (this year so far) more lubrication seems to be necessary to allow the gears which turn the wheels of life to mesh succinctly.”
The next diary page reminded me of an atrocious attack, when while celebrating my birthday last year, an acquaintance at the pub, who I now call, “Mike The Barber”, took out some small scissors and cut two of my dread locks off! He claimed he was trying to “help” me get my shades untangled from my hair. If I hadn’t left, an altercation would have ensued. Fortunately, my hair lady was able to reattach them in February, but who carries little scissors in their pocket?? It was sacrilegious. As my Rasta classmate used to preach, “No scissor shall touch Dread lock, Mon!!” I haven’t been back to that pub since.
It was The Year of The Dragon on the Chinese calendar, which, in retrospect, did affect me, because the Good Luck “dragon” was breathing its fire breath to keep all silly and negative people at bay – hope you noticed it in your own life!
Maybe…The Dragon compelled me to finally finalize and notarize my Last Will last year and decided that at my funeral Wake – if there is one – I want to be dressed in my New York Jets #12 Joe Namath jersey! Speaking of flirtatious men, I tried (and failed) to meet the lady of my dreams at several dating sites last year. It’s hard for me to justify paying to play when all one has is a picture and some flirty chats to go on; no voice on the phone nor fragrance of a meeting, and yet I’m to pony-up her “gas money” to come over and buy her kid a game card? In this age of “AI-generated” content, whose is to know if the photo ahead of asking you to support them is real, in the first place? What else should a “retired” nightclub and disco DJ, who can’t get a gig/hasn’t really tried to, do anyway?
It was the year of “Spontaneous Miscellaneous” here on this blog. A place where ideas, thoughts and rants which often came to me after I’d doused the light for the night, but ended up scribbling on the bedside pad so my “mind of Minolta” would quiet and me, myself and I could fall asleep! It was “the year of the feather”.
Feather from a special date at the Ocean at Virginia Beach
A year where the phrases, “style is important” and “you never know who is watching you” were reinforced by the copious compliments I received from strangers upon my ‘outfits of the day’ while merely keeping appointments or running my errands. How else should a “retired” guy dress, anyway?
My shredder proved its worth in 2024, as I rid my abode of copious useless incoming and past paper, trying new recipes and challenging myself to pen & publish something other than poetry. Thus, I am writing a “story”; about exactly what, I don’t know (and even if I did, I wouldn’t tip it off here, lol), but as of this writing, have almost fifteen thousand words in the manuscript. What else would a “retired” on-air radio communicator do, anyway? And speaking of that, It was happily a year where I competed anew for voice-over opportunities with a new agent representing me! “Have voice, Will Travel (within reason)”.
Here is an example of one of my favorite spots in which I saw myself as an “extra” actor in during 2024 (agents please take heed, lol). I loved the character facial expressions at the “Book Club”:
A main question I to float into 2025 is, “why isn’t there an inspirational American orator/leader, like the preacher Martin Luther King, Jr, or England’s Winston Churchill and others, whose words, from a bully pulpit, can bring us to tears of inspiration, reach and teach unity of common purpose? Not via American Congress; not a lame-duck President, but a moral and centrist leader to emerge to heal our wounds and condense the so-called “divide”. Part of former U.S. President Barack Obama’s appeal is that he is a great and uplifting orator!
The first answer which comes to mind, is that many educational standards were lowered thirty years after my college class graduated and less are choosing to go to college and therefore, the skills needed naturally to grow into a positive leader of our society are lacking and also, fewer are brave enough to be held up to the “digging into their past” scrutiny which is prevalent with the advent – for better and worse – of the internet. Much to my dismay, American has become more blue-collar just when we need a balance of white and blue-collar perspectives. A false narrative caught on with the attempt to overthrow of January 6, 2020, that having white-collar gigs makes you a snobby “elite” person. So untrue and wrong just as pushing pupils on to the next grade, without them earning it, does a disservice to society; bring back the “left-back”, which sure motivated me and my grade school mates to cut the mustard.
I ask again, why is there no “great voice” which the evening news covers nowadays? Has the discourse become so ignorant? Trump is no great public speaker – far from it. President Biden kind of underutilized his bully pulpit talents where his predecessor was great at it; we never even hear about individuals overseas making great speeches about our times, like JFK (President John F Kennedy), FDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt), Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Reverend Jesse Jackson or even Louis Farrahkhan (who can be very polarizing at times) or Malcolm X! All of the previous have gone silent with age or assassination and nobody has stepped up to fill their vocal leadership voids, which chagrins me greatly (and so should it you, if in or near my historic generation). And yet, I must give Major Props upon this question to Ms. Kamala Harris, who did an outstanding oratorical job during her campaign for the Presidency – and since the election of 2024.
And so, again I am happy to be here, to wish you another “Happy New Year” in song!
P.S. WordPress, please do NOT censor my articles. You never have since 2009 and do not start now in 2025. Thank U.
Hello, fans! This likely my final “spontaneous miscellaneous” for the year 2024 year and to have survived it without world armageddon is a positive. On the other hand, what a disappointing year, if you think about the American political scene of checks and balances, plus what the very tragic Presidential election outcome possibly bodes for our collective together future.
I mean, Biden didn’t do his vice president any favor by suddenly dropping out of the reelection race (although he IS too elderly), nor did the Democratic Party by not holding an open convention to nominate a stronger candidate – I love Kamala Harris’ energy, smile and style – and it’s a scary scenario, given what/who looms ahead, which is a Ghost of Christmas past.
What happened to the Thanksgiving message to the nation, or is Biden snoring his way through the rest of his term? Will there be a prime time Christmas message to the nation or are we a rudderless ship until January 2025? either scenario is nervous, given the bad actors, “unknown” characters cutting undersea cables these days, on the direction of the crazy despot in Moscow whose face looks increasingly pale and disfigured.
It has been a year of fewer friendly telephone calls and or, even text messages, down to a minor couple of few females thereof, but even my decades-long “best friend” had a ballistic meltdown when I asked him if he’d be willing to be my colonoscopy chaperone (because I still am single and alone)! What the fuck? Friends no more, I guess, smh. I’ve heard that this happens, as Herman Hupfeld wrote in the oft recorded song, “As Time Goes By”. Meanwhile, I still have renewed interest in trying to find the complete female companion from the rising tide to walk with up to the sun, hand-in-hand, with.
The good thing is it’s past December 1st, which technically is astronomical winter, and there is at least forecast a hint of snow some soon overnight (I pray it comes true; we had none in this area last year!) and we are only in the 30s by day. All outdoor plants are overwintering inside now finally, with night time lows in the twenties – that’s refreshing at least. On a silent early December night, all may be too calm to really sleep tight and alas, it’s the first time in my life that I’ve seen a president get too old to function while in office.
[expect more of my musings, as shit keeps happening – like the assassination of my health care company’s CEO by yet another individual with limited social skills, who resorted to cowardly gun violence – before the clock strikes twelve midnight at month’s end and we toast to reprieve and renewal in a peaceful New Year, 2025]
She tended to him so much throughout their marriage and after his assassination. Then went on to have an incredible, worldly life.
I still weep, sixty-one years later, as if it happened yesterday, when I was in fourth grade, watching our French lessons in class on PBS Channel 13 in my public school, New York City class, when this tragic event intervened.
Still shocking to remember this. See (above) the Secret Service agent trying to get to Jackie, as she was trying to save a piece of his scull so he would survive (as told in the book).
I recently finished reading this flirtatious biography, and must say, it has been stunning, tragic, enlightening, curious and marvelously insightful into a class of our society few are privy to and which I am not envious of (but admire) at all. The author provides an entertaining insight into an era of American history my generation of “baby boomers” lived through and teaching moments for those who have lived since those days.
Yes, it took me one year to finish it; I always marvel at those who I read about finishing a book like this in “in one night”. I’m like “wow” do they have a life?” lol. Kudos to you who can do that. My method was one chapter per night before I turned off the bedside light.
Author J. Randy Taraborrelli touches all of the bases and even some I never knew about, of the brave and historic wife of our thirty-fifth American President. In my opinion, if you are a teacher, this must be part of the syllabus. It you are just a patriotic American citizen, you should want to know about this legendary lady!
Everybody I know and communicate with regularly is now really fucked-up, depressed and chagrined.
Bullshit creates apathy, and if you are not old enough to remember the Vietnam War days, then please ask your local public librarian for some educational readings on it, so you will see some parallels between that era and that upon which we are (sadly) about to embark upon again with Clowny as “President”.
I woke up this afternoon to the memory of Tim Leary’s “Turn on, Tune in and Drop out”.
Hey you! You who are just reading me for the first time; you are maybe a Caucasian tRumper guy who doesn’t get “why?” we are upset. Read on, if you dare to be educated, coached-up and not embrace the lowly blue collar existence anymore. I feel like I’m walking around with a grudge; people are even driving more aggressively and less courteously on the roads!
If everybody doesn’t do positive things to correct their own situation instead of just being slaves to stupid video on TV and nonsense from the idiot box; unless you who are reading this as a believer in the true spirit of “we the people”, who do concrete stuff to improve your own situation and then help others to improve theirs, we’re impossible. And speaking of “slaves”, I had this nightmare last night in which tRump reinsituted human chattel!
You can affect change on the larger picture of the world, whether you write letters to congresspeople and legislators and let your feelings be heard, whether you actively volunteer, whether you get involved when there’s not an election for President, whether you know about and vote every time that there’s time to vote! (or has only one side of the opinions been doing so?)
I admit that last year, when I went to vote, and there were only Republicans apparently running for s*** around here right, I didn’t know anything about them, but I was there and I picked the best name I liked. At least I picked somebody!! Were YOU there? I’m not considering myself a Republican; I consider myself an Independent, so that gives me the mental flexibility to see both sides and you know, if there’s only the Republicans, at least I went to the voting booth. I said, “Oh okay, which one of these guys have I heard from, or have I heard of ? Then I picked that one; you know I didn’t even know what they were about much, I just knew that I hadn’t heard nothing bad about them like they weren’t trying to re-institute slavery or they and they didn’t have any Hitler like qualities or irrational stuff quotes. They were not talking about “eating children in Springfield” and s*** and and demeaning cities they knew nothing about. You know, nothing for nothing people, like, the moron who’s now potentially back in in the driver’s seat? As like I said, he can unravel at any time. The guy is not trustworthy and yet some of you people have voted for this clown again…again? You voted your prejudices, in my opinion.
I’m never voting again. I made as of right now I’m going to go back to the apathy where I was on the sidelines, like back during the Vietnam days. I knew back then that my “vote” wouldn’t change anything and it didn’t change anything really this time. I also sadly believe that a lot of people must not have voted and a lot of black men among them. Ignorance! You guys could have made a difference! What? You didn’t vote for Vice-President Harris because she is a woman? Shame on you! You had no mother? I loved her smile, energy and charisma. Biden didn’t give her enough time, though.
I’ve been around for a lot of elections, since Kennedy beat Nixon! It was a tight race, but at least the right guy won back in 1960.
As I heard DJ Enzo say this afternoon on WRIR 97.3 FM radio, “when a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a King; the palace becomes a circus.” Well stated.
These “United” States of America had a chance to make the kind of history England did with Margret Thatcher. instead “The Colonies” could not step up to the similar plate by elevating Vice-President Harris; apparently the masses-who-are-asses chose to regress. I hope (not praying anymore because it didn’t work) that something happens soon that will return we, who believe, optimistic, are honest and sane, with common sense, to again want to be engaged in the polity game.
For now, as Stevie Wonder sang back in 1970, “Heaven Help Us All”.
So, how now do you feel on the scale of optimism? Comment below, please.
Knowing that it’s time for new words, just missing a nearby feather from a bird which she – my companion for the day – hipped me to, I immediately wanted to make it into a pen, so I can write with it again and again! Alas, when I researched how to do such an implement, I learned that it is a herculean task that I’d rather find someone else to DO, if at all! lol
I found this long feather on the beach, a quill pen like John Hancock would have used to sign The Declaration of Independence, as I watched the waves.
Big and within reach, I gathered it to take home with me and then wondering if it might have a disease, I put it in the freezer, in a plastic zip-lock bag.
Three weeks later, I look at this feather, pretty much looking the same. I took it out of the freezer bag and put it (point down) in one of my potted plants outside, as we move towards late September… I don’t know what will happen to it. I researched that.
It is that “September sadness”. Here we are again and whenever I see September on the calendar, a little melancholy tinges my heart, knowing that we’re now turning the corner for the final stretch on another year with the end of summer, my favorite season. It’s a lonely month for me, with fewer in-person opportunities apparently, yet we push on, plodding through the minutes, hours, days and weeks until the brilliant colors of October return and after that…cold temperatures on the year’s end horizon.
If that cooties thing becomes reality with the feather, there it will sit over the winter in the pot, where plants and peppers grew, and when spring comes and if it’s still there…. if no other bird clips it or tried to mate with it, who knows?
Meanwhile…whenever you start a week in late August (the “Dog Days”) or probably anytime during the summer, but whenever you start a week on a Monday by going to the ocean – I mean the real ocean, not some inlet – the feeling (and lovely sand) lasts the rest of the week and it doesn’t get much better than that! I’m telling you, it lasts on your skin, in your mind and in the back of your eyes with laughs and especially if you can bring home some ocean water in the spray bottle.“Hello Dolly!” The therapeutic effect lasts and you can see it on your skin and how any stubborn wound or pimple has suddenly healed!
The sea is “the nectar of the gods”, truly
Therefore this Autumn:
Tether Heather better;
Gather together leather,
Measure rather nether whether,
Scatter feathers,
For heavy weather.
Meanwhile my beach friend got personal body issues
Therefore I seek another found;
And by-the-way, if you see her similar,
Ask her me to please send me an introductory text or letter! (Maybe her name is “Heather”! lol)
Due to a “contractor” drilling, “a little too deep and too close” to the Midtown Tunnel under the East River, one of three that connect Manhattan Island in New York City to outer boroughs, water began to seep down into it. Traffic had to be halted for a time, but is it really over? Mother Nature’s fluid, once introduced into man-made structures, can be insipidly relentless and now that we’ve seen a scenario where so-called contractors (maybe they were “terrorists” probing) who drilled in the bed of the East River too deep and have compromised the roof of the one of the tunnels in New York City, that 37th Street tunnel, now we have another political sci-fi scenario!
IMO, they’ll never be able to totally “repair” it. Why? Due to the above and they may not be able to pour enough cement to dive into the hole fast enough to keep the river from encroaching, especially since natural ocean water has motion (current), which will possibly keep undermining the structure – or undermining/over-mining attempted repairs, to the point that water backs up so much that it comes up near the toll booths on the Queens and Manhattan sides, and in a short time that tunnel becomes unusable.
Then what happens? Does that start to undermine the whole island of Manhattan even though it’s based on solid solid granite bedrock?
At that point, life imitates art. The engineers, politicians (where is Mayor Adams on this event?) and social advocates could end up with a scenario like, remember “The Planet of the Apes” movie series? I think the last scene of the movie, with Charlton Heston, where all you see left of Manhattan Island is the top of the torch of the Statue of Liberty and Heston on a horse coming from wherever, wherever the story brought him to, and that’s all that’s left – the top of the torch of the Statue of Liberty. We could now be seeing that scenario unfold! Forget “global warming”! How about “Global Flooding”?!
Who is to say the drip will stop, because they’ll never be able to absolutely repair it and as the classic commercial tag line says. “Its not nice to fool Mother Nature!”
Remember when Hollywood produced, “Earthquake (in Sensurround)”
and “The Towering Inferno”.
There may have been a feeble motion picture attempt at this scenario back in the ’80s, but now that we have the real life initiating scenario, could “The Tunnel” be the next and not that far off sequel scenario?
It’s myNew Blog Times! September 2024, Update “All of My Musings Fit to Post” lol
At a time in the not-too-distant future, “D.I.A.N.E.”, the acronym for “Divine Intervention Almighty Never Ending” is created, when The United Nations and The World Court have merged and are granted sweeping tribunal prosecutorial powers to pursue sentencing and executions of warrants against unfit, mean or otherwise compromised “leaders” of countries, by an unanimous vote by all of the nations on earth, on every continent, in order to save the earth from unbridled despots.
The decisions most often coming forth, are that those convicted be shot out into deepest interstellar space.
The tribunal’s first major act is the Five-Man Despot Deep Space Shot. Here is what they proposed, upon the verdict of and by The World Court, of crimes against society and international law: a specially designed space capsule mounted atop the last available Saturn V rocket and shot on a one-way ticket to oblivion, never to trouble earthlings again.
Five of the current worst “leaders” are sentenced to be launched into deep space, to enable a better chance for long-lasting peace on Earth. The Convictranauts are Russia’s Vladimir Putin, wild card and perpetual annoyance to America, Donald Trump, China’s leader, Xi Jin Ping, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un…
and Israel’s butcher, Benjamin Netanyahu.
They are strapped-in separately, sedated and blasted off atop the last available Saturn V rocket booster, whose telemetry pointed them past the Milky Way.
But which of the five, now desperate, desperate leaders will the other four consolidate their trust under as their leader, as they awaken in their pods and find themselves moving past “The Red Planet”, Mars, into deep space and beyond The Milky Way?
Gradually China’s Xi, becomes the leader because, even though Putin’s country is bigger by land mass, he speaks all of their languages fluently. Mr. Trump is the first to panic upon awakening, cursing their fate and repeating, “They stole my election!” over and over again. He is soon subdued by Putin’s uppercut to his right ear and knocked-out cold for a while, so the others can try to come to terms.
They will endlessly end up fighting with each other after awakening in their pods, from a chemically- induced slumber, as panic sets in, for control of their hopelessly endless situation.
It is China’s Xi’s peeled skin off of his face, which reveals he was hiding the lizard-like visage of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh!
In this scenario, they are replaced by much more moderate and less combative personalities.
a road to death through the Pawhuska Osage prairie
Hello Fans!
This review was inspired by the February/March 2024 issue of AARP Magazine, which featured the legendary actor, Robert De Niro, interviewed about his latest movie, which chronicles the mistreatment of the Oklahoma native American tribe, known as the Osage Indians and the specific evil greed that aimed to eliminate the Osage people just because their land sat atop oil was downright appalling, even for that period of history – the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Simultaneously, it is the profile of Mr. DeNiro – who I’ve enjoyed ever since I first saw his role in the first “Godfather” movie – which caught my attention and piqued my curiosity! Then, after reading that it was his next movie, I just had to research it, and once I found that there is a corresponding book about it, I visited my local public library, lickity-split, to order the next available copy to borrow!
I had no idea about the Osage tribe or “Reign of Terror” aspect, even though we all (should) know about how badly the western expansion of the United States treated its Native American people tribes until the February/March issue of the AARP magazine! The AARP magazine is da bomb, because it always has something interesting to learn and share. Even if you aren’t over fifty, you should check it out.
Little did I know or connect that the movie was very tightly connected to the book and it’s pretty well-done, from the trailers I’ve watched; I still haven’t seen the motion picture, but I just wanted to do this book report for you, just in case you still have not seen this 2023 movie nor read the 2017 book!
All I can say is that this is an example of horrifically historic, necessary and often unbelievably sad mistreatment – when viewed from the lens of 2024 versus the early 20th century – which anyone who is into American History, Native American history, World history, or the beginnings of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover, needs to read. These were some serious, scary redneck crackas!!
I couldn’t help from simultaneously sad thinking about the mistreatment of black American slaves, who were probably just beginning to be released from human bondage at about the same time Osage was happening and the 1921 Oklahoma riot! It must have been a hot-spot for injustice back then!
What a nightmarish ordeal for that tribe, who due to no fault of their own, was sitting upon “black gold” and an expose` of the greed of the European Caucasians who had only recently arrived in North America, to push west and rape the land and its native dwellers.
At times a mystery “who dun it” and at other moments, deep and darkly emotional, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is a book that I never imagined I would read, and yet, with my mom telling me years ago, that her side of the family has Cherokee Indian blood, I made it a point to read a chapter every night from my bedside, before I doused the light for the night.
There aren’t enough as a reviewer stars above which can bestow upon this tome! The research itself, had to have been daunting.
As an “independent” voter, I say that if you’re a Democrat, you do need a new nominee! First-of-all, President Biden is too old; and so is Trump, by the way! They both should drop out of the race! Even Independent candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is seventy (70) years of age. OMG, How did we get here?
You mean to tell me, that in this country of a million-billion people, many of us with great education, brains, creativity and talent, that there is no Congressman, Congresswoman, Mayor, Governor, Assemblyman, Assemblywoman, Councilperson, Representative, or other enthusiastic person, who has being elected to an office experience, who is between 45 and 65 years of age, who wants to challenge the current, two worn-out “senior citizens”, who most people are tired of hearing about, for President of the United States? I just cannot believe that! I would run, and friends have even encouraged me to do so (because i do not “look” nor act my age – it is the music; I digress) but then I would be a hypocrite now that the septuagenarians have brought me into their fold! (lol)
I remember when I first discovered presidential politics. The contest was between Richard Nixon and the fresh new face, John F. Kennedy and their debate (in black and white TV) captured the family dinner table. I even campaigned for the “Humphrey/Muskie” ticket once upon an election! Then, as I grew through college and thereafter, I became jaded and apathetic to the process that many of my generation predicted “would never change” – part of that was America’s involvement in the Vietnam War – and to some degree we were correct. Yet as we mature via the time passages and our elders ascending, a peculiar feeling of wanting to carry their torch responsibly, because so many died for the right to vote overcame many of us, which leads the electorate to the quandaries of today.
Madame Kamala Harris is the Vice-President of the USA! Why then, isn’t she the “heir to the throne” or presumptive Democratic nominee? Is it because she does not want to be, or is it because the USA – or news media – still hasn’t gotten over its “white men only” prerogative? If the aforementioned is true, then we are in sadder shape still, since the “George Floyd” incident and our so-called “racial awakening”. I wrote her a letter two years ago – yes, a letter on paper with an envelope and a stamp – congratulating her on being the first female VP and she actually replied to it (it wasn’t a ‘form letter’ either)! I have it framed in my “Wall of Fame” room. It is disrespectful and maddening when I read disparaging comments against her on the few social media upon which is seldom peek, which call her “unqualified”! If that were true, she wouldn’t have gotten this far and all women should rail against that kind of outdated chauvinism. Our Creator only knows how fate may smile upon us via her fate.
If you are a newbie to my blog or have read here previously, you know that I am as diverse a black American man as you will find. I hang with more non-blacks than most who look similar to me, and because of that, I want to mention that not all “black” Americans” or “African-Americans” are in-line with Biden staying the course, only to lose, as the nightly news shows try to report. We all desire a better choice, IMO. Maybe Joe is “biden his time”!
How about some crisp candidates, enlivened debates, and brand new visionaries culled from the outcome from this summer’s Democratic, and indeed the GOP, conventions? I (and probably the world, who is watching our world-leading democracy) would see that as refreshing.
By the way, every President I can remember, once they took their two (2) terms or were voted out-of-office, always went, with class, back into private life or civil service to preserve their legacies or start their libraries. So why is it that Mr. Trump, who also had his turn in-office, keeps trying to torment us by coming back ad-nauseam? The near-miss on Saturday, July 13th 2024 would convince any candidate with common sense to leave the madness, because he has not the “ear” of the people! This clown’s ego prevents that normal rational thinking, however. A major problem.
With the least dignity of any elected official in American history, for the good of the USA, I implore you to Please, GO AWAY! Circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat by yourself or something, Mr. Trump, the salt H2O will help your #ear, and grow a beard like Hemingway, while you’re out there! Geezus.
I’ve penned many blogs in this space since I began it in 2009 and have tried to avoid waxing political as much as possible. At my family’s nightly dinner table, the vibe was that there are three (3) things you don’t discuss outside of familiar polite company (etiquette): salary, religion and politics. I bend that rule here, because I do not hear similar voices these days, reminding the electorate similarly during this super-important election cycle, which has only four (4) months to go until Election Day. Please watch this video, by Re. Dr. Otis Moss til the end, where he specifically challenges and dissects tRump’s “MAGA” slogan masterfully. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fupZ_8SPtO8
Let’s freshen things UP this election, people! **PICK Hit: Thank goodness President Biden had the good sense to shrewdly seize the moment and step aside. Unfortunately, the other “old man” has an ego too large to allow him to do the same, smartly. SMH
Well, faithful readers, it seems that I cannot stop finding moments where people are monkeying around! The latest being an encounter with an attractive lady and her (apparently) pet monkey in a cage at a bar! Here’s how it went down…
Life turns my pages from not being on the radio into a journalist-blogger and a journalist seeking to educate sparse education, through the proof-of current events, of the rampant lack of home training preparation for and in many a situation these days.
So where are they? Those educated like we “baby boomers”? Somewhere in like a mural or something? Inside the dying malls, the cavernous one where a Macy’s is connected to at one end, full of empty shop displays in-between over to the far end where a dying JC Penney lies. All I was looking for was the watch repair shop advertised online. Even overheard a conversation between a mother and a son/elder and a young boy who’s with a friend and says this f****** s*** is boring! To which she admonishes them to “stop that God damn cussing!” The boy looks up at the journalist incredulously. Did she know or does she know? Doesn’t she know how she just sounded?
This all comes to mind following my mission and stopping-off to enjoy a relaxing cocktail at one of my favorite watering holes. I look for an open seat without being next to anyone or crowded, so that I do not have to endure distracting conversations, maybe from someone out just looking to get away from their nagging wife and noisy children, as I settle the world of the day. Immediately, I see a pretty lady, with long brownish-blond hair (like I like), sitting alone at my favorite far-end corner of the bar and I approach her saying, in my best Sean Connery as 007 James Bond impression, “Hey pretty lady, is anybody sitting here?” She replies, “No.” as there she sits and I am about to take that chair.
“What’s you name?” I ask. She says “Kayla” and then announces, “This is my monkey.” And I turned and I looked at her, questioning what I thought I heard. She said, “My monkey in a box.”
And then I told her, “It’s looking lonely…”, still not getting what she was talking about.
Now I’m thinking Peter Gabriel’s “Shock the Monkey“, or maybe she is hitting on me; it’s a come-on line, like “wanna spank my monkey?” Just then, my gaze turns slightly past her and to the left, and there she has a live monkey in a box cage! Shocked, I’m like, “WTF?” Are you kidding me? GTFOOH!”
Antique photo: Organ grinder
You can’t make this stuff up; this is an intelligent-looking, very attractive woman with beautiful, long, brownish-blond hair sitting at the bar of a public bar/grill/pool room with [apparently], her pet…monkey!
I’m wondering, why is this chick running-around with a monkey-in-a-box and where is the organ grinder? And, it took me back to my youthful days in New York City, where, at the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, we would be entertained by the organ grinder, or even see them on the Manhattan street corners, entertaining for pocket money of passers-by!
It also briefly brought to mind, the around-the-way burger joint of my youth in, “Jack in The Box”, which I quickly dismissed, when “monkey burgers” came to mind. Ouch! And yes, “The Monkey” was a dance step we used to do if we were “cool” back in the sixties and seventies!
“To each his own”, comes to mind, as my Mum would say, while shaking her head traditionally misunderstanding new things of the day. Me too. Keep on dancing!
If you look down the sidebar of this blog, you will see a red widget that I posted, circa 2017, about a “Red Alert” to restoring “Net Neutrality”, also copied below.
I begin this post with a hearty, “Yay!” and Congratulations! Maybe the FCC saw my blog post and sidebar about New Neutrality; ya think? Probably not. Oh well…but this is a great development.
All of this wouldn’t have been necessary, in the first place if the professional representatives, politicians and a wannabe dictator asked the experts about this stuff before they legislate? I mean, ask people like me who have lived in the radio/TV broadcasting world since the 1970s, when the FCC was not a politicized entity!? Here is a list of all the FCC Commissioners since its inception in the mid-1930s https://www.fcc.gov/commissioners-1934-present
Well, they voted to restore it yesterday! As a broadcaster who came of age and got my first FCC Third Class license – sadly no longer required to be on the air – when Benjamin Hooks was the commissioner of a (then) non-partisan Federal Communications Commission, I’ve watched this rather closely and was particularly disappointed when the illegitimate “President”, tRump repealed this neutrality – a business he had no business getting into – primarily because it came unto being during President Obama’s administration.
What this means is that, for one thing, now we can be united in resuming the growth of togetherness online that was happening just before the Corona Virus hit the world. This also makes the inet providers more accountable to The People (consumers like you and me) for sudden outages and thereby making a must, stronger network security which in-turn safeguards the fastest download speeds possible and requires more security for our data out in cyberspace!
Pop a champagne bottle and hoist a toast to celebrate please, while you simultaneously write a “Thank You” note to the current FCC Chairman, your local legislators and (maybe) President Biden! Beware yee who are younger than me, but addicted to the internet versus the telephone, do not agree to a “contract” from a monopoly [an entity which has few or NO competitors for your dollars] company!
You’ve heard it previously: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” I apply it to the recent happenings in the middle-eastern countries, where there are too many, too close together, who speak derivatives of the same language and are fighting biblical “wars” over and over again. It will never stop. As witness to my point of logic, I present this NYT article by renowned columnist and political analyst, David Brooks, which I recently discovered while de-cluttering papers into a new metal file cabinet.
To this day, Mr. Brooks’ headline, sadly still rings true. As for how I found this January, 2006 article? Due to doing a de-cluttering thing this year, because as single, no family to speak of, and at an age where “legacy” is important, you don’t want things lying around which could misconstrue mine. That is another blog post.
Now, look at the map of the “middle east” and all of it’s countries sandwiched together. See that little red dot? That is Israel, I think! How in the hell can they survive amongst hostile neighbors and (without getting into the biblicalities) how did they end up there? IMO, the USA should stay out of it; stop sending money for Israel to buy weapons of war – but of course, that is a political gambit, do to the many here with relations there.
Pick Hit: I’ve been complimented, “JimiB, you’ve done some great things in your life!
Humbly taking that to heart and marinating upon it, I decided that I want whoever finds my eventual remains be able to easily celebrate and share my legacy positively and educationally. Maybe it is high-time that the Middle-Eastern countries de-clutter!
Yeah, I don’t always think about the music of the early 1960s either. However, it is always prone to polish our subliminal sensitivities. Such was it this last night, when out of deep slumber, came this chart-topping musical wonder! This was the latest to invade jukebox musical mind while I tried to sleep.
I reluctantly rose to sip some bedside water.
From within and without of the same night’s sleepy and dream, came this classic contemporary musical stream.
To the point that to arise from slumber to activate the now convenient bedside android; for to search a hazy “Rebel”? Then for she immediately came, “The Crystals” from the the black and white television cave and haze of my captive family youth television view and decades prior to the beloved DJ booth!
Now satisfied soonest to lay again and unfortunately lurch alone. It was worth exorcising this subliminal serpent of spirituality. Which, I surmise, is always active naturally.
Don’t ask me why this tune woke me up. WTFK ? and STILL, I Love, and always will associate with my comeuppance, the first drum-roll and tinkled piano notes of and this entire this song… even in 2024, Baby! Can you still do the “Shindig”?? I hope you look at all that was going ON in this video. Those ladies – patterned after Diana Ross & The Supremes – must have had a lotta of off-camera pressure on them. “Troopers”.
Check out (listen for) the boss baritone sax during the bridge! Thanks for reading and please comment.
Dear Uncle Sam: (at least that is how I was taught to address you), What happened to you, man? It seems that no news broadcast, nor mail to my postal mailbox ever recognizes you anymore! Are you still our “uncle” or have you died and passed your legacy on to your nieces and nephews? If so, who are they and how can we keep supporting your vision, in your legacy’s name?
I’ve been following our Presidential elections since Kennedy v Nixon, remembering Eisenhower fading back into his private life with class. Why doesn’t his kind of gracious pugnaciousness happen nowadays?
Is this how shallow our public servant talent pool is now that there is NO class nor opportunities for the electorate to see men of dignity and choose class over sass? Who is going to put a stop to this freakish generation who cannot solve a minor disagreement without displaying a weapon of death instead of discussing and resolving? These are numbskulls with no Home Training who have access to guns with runaway stupidity! This mental illness must be stopped and not with the laissez-faire treatment which became vogue in the 1980s and till recent times. When we have a nut-case, they must be removed from the general population! Not coddled and released to terrorize the normal populace again! I know from whence I speak by dint of my mom being a Special Education teacher and manager at New York City’s Creedmore Mental Institution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creedmoor_Psychiatric_Center and similar psycho places during her career and the stories shoe told at our nightly dinner table.
We deserve much better choices for President. Why do we currently only have these two retread options for President in 2024? One is too old for the job and the other is too criminally indicted, egotistical and corrupt, who never had the CLASS to, like every other Presidential candidate who fell short has done in this country, to concede to his opponent when he lost the last time four years ago. That right there should disqualify him in most American minds, from another try! His giant ego will not stop tormenting him!
It’s enough to make me want to vote like we did back in the 1970s: by not voting! Yet, too many have suffered too much to get the right to vote in America, for us to hand them that kind of victory. What happened to the Nominating Conventions which ultimately decided who would be the standard-bearer for all of the parties; I mean the two “major” parties and even the Independent, Libertarian, Socialist, Communist, et al parties? There was no “presumptive nominee” – the dust had to settle after the Conventions – until around Labor Day. So, News Directors, stop rushing s*** please!
Are the “MAGA” conspiracy theorists correct, when they imply that who is going to run is already “fixed” or preordained, and that there is no such thing as “We The People” choosing candidates anymore? We know otherwise than the cult.
*PickHitt: Another help for the republic, IMO, would to re-institute the military conscription or ‘the draft’, because that one act alone would encourage young men of all stripes to either enroll into higher education communities (get smarter and get the “gun thing” out of their systems) or fight for our country overseas with real live fire coming back at them!
“Hitchcock’s Blonds, The Unforgettable Women Behind The Legendary Director’s Dark Obsession” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $29.00, 9780593542972) was an “I can’t wait for the next chapter book” for me. Kept it on my bedside night table, so as to tuck me in with more amazement.
Whether you have been around long enough to have watched his suspenseful, thrilling movies the first time they came out, watched his weekly TV show, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, or are totally new to the above, this book is a fun, must-read!
What man doesn’t admire a beautiful blond-haired woman? Mr. Hitchcock surely did and according to this book, he subliminally acted upon that semi-dark obsession.
Beginning with the silent movie era, this book is as much a tales of the history of cinema book, as it is the tales of his “blonds”!
I also found Mr. Leamer’s read a vocabulary-building dream! School English majors and seasoned readers (like me) will go to their dictionary book or app early and often.
A fascinating human interest read as much as it showcases eight Hollywood stars, from Ingrid Bergman to “Tippi” Hedren (“The Birds” & “Marnie”) – who by-the-way, I learned is one of my favorite sexy movie stars, Melanie Griffith’s, mom, it is not only a collection of actress biographies, as much as it is a twentieth century history book because of the geopolitical events occurring simultaneously as they came to shine on the silver screen (or “scream”!).
I was also very struck by the promiscuousness of these actresses, as described in the book. Its difficult to for me, a single bachelor here in the twenty-first century, to imagine such women exist! These days, it seems that ladies do not like to have “casual” just for fun sex anymore, (much to my chagrin, lol).
Even with my university degrees in English and Communications, I’d never heard of many words the author uses in this book, such as “Valkyries”. Which speaks to why it is so important to always keep reading! We truly can never have too much formal, traditional education and vocabulary expansion.
And how cool coincidental is THIS? I just noticed that this year’s “Oscars” are only a few weeks away, as I finish this book and report!! Major props to “timing is everything“!
Now that we are at the middle of another February/”Black History Month” and approaching the sixtieth (60) anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X in Harlem, I am moved to share this update.
I remember when I was a boy of less than ten years, coming along at the tail-end of the times of “Colored Only” entrances in American public buildings. It is hard to believe that was once the rule of the day.
Riding with my parents as they drove up to New England, and seeing them wait to (not) get served at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant; the waitress walking by us as if we were not there, and mom and dad leaving after a while in silent frustration. This was in Massachusetts, not Alabama!!
Nowadays, I watch black Americans, much younger than I, re-segregate themselves, choosing to only go to the places where other African Americans congregate, instead of enjoying what we overcame in the 1960s as a result of the efforts and sacrifices of Martin Luther King, Jr, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Roy Innes, Angela Davis and other civil rights trailblazers. They able to go wherever pleases them, while not embracing integration.
I came across this article among my newspaper clippings:
Many of these of the generation I speak of have the wrong mentality, in my opinion.
We integrated American society which tried to keep us on the margins! Do not backslide into that painfully negative era! Many of you don’t or were not taught at the dinner table to “keep on pushin”, as the late singer/songwriter Curtis Mayfield once crooned, but know that as you re-segregate yourselves, we incrementally all lose the gains of unity fought four with true tears, blood, sweat and abuse.
Where I live, I am happy and blessed to be able to go anywhere I choose to, without being questioned or stopped; this wasn’t always the case for our race. Now, granted, I carry myself via principle, word and deed with class and dignity, mixing via conversation with all manner of peoples, as longs as I don’t sense negativity or danger. It is incumbent upon all of us to continue to socialize across racial lines because whether you realize it or not, we opened the doors for women’s rights, Latin American rights and other so-called “minorities within the “melting pot”!
Just be a person and not a color as much as possible. Enjoy all genres of music, not just Hip Hop with its overuse of street curse word commonness – I almost can’t believe that I just wrote that, lol You see I was an on-air radio disc jockey for over forty years and thereby hung-out with everyone “from freaks to famous” as the saying goes. I wouldn’t want to live in a predominately black neighborhood – because may of “us” still haven’t had the kind of home training and educational embracing necessary to truly represent positivity, from the boardroom to the bedroom, without drugs and violence.
Don’t get it twisted, I am no Uncle Tom. In-fact, I was one o f the most militant Brothers of my group during my university days of the early 1970s. We grow mentally and physically, respecting Mother Nature and whatever other deity you desire and must maintain the integration advances that we gained, being ever-cognizant of individuals such as Donald Trump and his disciples, who don’t give a damn about us, getting into the President’s chair.
I have gleaned that some of you might, but please Do NOT, vote for tRrump and his “MAGA” disciples! It would be criminal to do so. Do vote, though; third party RFK, Jr. is also an option. That’s enuff “politikin'” for now.
In-honor of Super Bowl LVIII, I’m jazzing the blog up with a couple of classic “Touchdown” songs from two of the genre’s giants, Bob James and Freddie Hubbard.
You may see my choices for best cutz below in red, which I wrote at the time in 1981 on the jacket! I still remember the Fantasy Promotion rep who I got my records from, up at the Columbus Circle tower, in Manhattan.
From inside the open-up jacket you can see Bob James’ musical mates on this superb super soundtrack bowl album!
The late, great trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who I had the honor of interviewing back in 1994 for my radio show (still have the cassette!), from his 1979 “Splash” vinyl on Columbia Records, and keyboardist, arranger and producer, Bob James, from his 1978 aptly-named Columbia/Tappan Zee Records vinyl, “Touchdown”. Thanks to YouTube, I can timely share them with you.
And…
Th-th-th-th-th-thatz all folks!! Enjoy the game! Cheers!
So…Right now…because of the way a cell phone failure can submerge and sabotage communications of well-wishers, I don’t think I am going to encourage the celebration of this birthday thing virtually anymore. Just call me up or better yet, send me a card in the USPS mail!
I’ve returned from the latest possible pub congratulations, one which was awesome and featured friends with exceptional comradery at the local lively Irish pub, with a live background saxophone sound! Now back to my cake…
However, my special day began first with the damned two month old Consumer Cellular android phone quitting on my cusp. This was slightly anticipated, but the timing could not have been worse worse, Consumer Cellular! You, as my telecommunications device provider, will be replaced in 2024. Since another of Consumer Cellular’ androids failed me – this time, just in-time for people NOT to be able to hit me up for my birthday – maybe tomorrow’s morning brain will reveal a solution.
Not that I don’t so totally appreciate my acquaintances and local friends who showed me love tonight, including this especially lovely lady whose name had only three letters, (EBA) and I hope I got it correct. Hope to see her again. Eba and I sort of lost touch during the din of those who wanted to help me have a great and happy birthday! lol I never got back to her convo.
But the thing is… I am again back home alone! I had a great convos at the Irish bub…yet, somehow, I kick my brain that I left without scoring a contact number (I think, bcs I’m birthday buzzed as I write this) and as a usual single guy, music playing, memories in my crib studio fading, alone on my birthday night – AGAIN – would have been nice to have a companion back to the hacienda, into the dawn for a change. This makes me not want to celebrate anymore of these personal “Congratulations”. As Al Green famously sang, “I’m So Tired of Being Alone.”
I flash back to what what used to happen ALL the time in the ’80s, ’90’s, 2000s! What happened to the days when women who used to want to come back to the crib to party and hang with me all…night…LONG? (remember that song by Rick James’s Mary Jane Girls?)
Oh, well, with me there is always a satisfying related song.
I have come to “hate” the (not so) smart android telephone devices! The “convenience is not worth the trouble when things go south with the “device”. Thinking about using that landline plug I see in one of the rooms in my house, even though they were recommended by AARP, which is generally a “senior-friendly” advocacy organization. In this case, they might want to redress, I guess.
I now hate the “smart” phone and am old enuff, seasoned enough to remember when we didn’t have to rely on these damned devices. So, this night culminated in many weeks of the latest Android sent to me by Consumer Cellular, an “IRIS Connect”, which was supposed to solve my problems. NOT. From day one, the “apps” would shut off immediately after I tried to open them. The phone…would also shut down immediately after I tapped or pressed the side things to “open” it – and many, many times did I endure this since the Fall when they sent it to me. Frustration unbounded! So, Consumer Cellular is sending me a replacement after sending me a “Galaxy” device, which I did not want? OMG…we made a “deal” I am to send it back and when they get it, they will send me another IRIS Connect that, supposedly is NOT another lemon.
Meanwhile…and I kept my part of the bargain, repackaging the “Galaxy” and they did send me a Priority label to return the damned Galaxy. You know what intervened, though? The IRIS Connect android I had complained about further deteriorated to the point that I threw it on the floor tonight in disgust and frustration tonight.
Now, on my birthday, I have NO communication device, except my laptops and my music. Who knows when hideous Consumer Cellular ‘s “replacement” dumb phone device will arrive, going forward in 2024. They, as my telecommunications provider, are soon to be replaced.
Any suggestions for better a and more reliable telephonic communications company platform in “the future”, which are more friendly to we “seniors” who are not “slow” yet and keeping on, Keeping ON? (in other words, if and when I tell someone my true age, they almost drop-dead in disbelief).
On one more crazy-kwayzee note, for the first time since I’ve owned my property did I come out in the back yard and see friggin’ deer in my yard! They didn’t have antlers and I quickly chased them off and went into my moth ball stash, to dissuade any future encroachments by them thangs. WTF? Its friggin twenty degrees out? If I was a gun guy hunter, it would have been a field day, I think! lol “No animals allowed”! Can’t they READ?
Happy New Year 2024 to all of my faithful readers! You know, I only read over the Holidays that there are really people like you who have read my musings regularly, lo these many years. For that, I apologize for being so saliently silent in recent months and humbly Thank youz. Sometimes, a “writer” gets tired of posting his or her writings, I think. Juxtapose that with the original encouragement to “blog” was that I would “make money” doing so (not a damned penny since 2009, which I may repeat again in this one) and you have the answer to my words of silence.
First I want to address this: let’s get rid of uneducated conspiracy theory-based nonsense posts on #socialmedia early in this year 2024. If unsure, we encourage those not “in the know” to go back to school and take some classes, or to the library and check out some books to read or/and if you are illiterate, take a reading course so you can coach yourself UP educationally on the facts of our past, present and possible futures.
Secondly, IMO, if so-many babies hadn’t made babies for the past three or four decades and more families had both and at least an high school diploma educated father AND mother under the same roof, then #misinformation of the kind prevalent online these days wouldn’t have had a chance to take a foothold among intelligent popular culture! There is still time to reverse that trend and the time has come in this leap year, 2024.
To take it home, let us (pray and) jump right into to some of my recent spontaneity, which has annoyed or at least bothered me a bit on some nights when I am just trying to fall asleep late in 2023 and hereafter…
People are becoming less communicative, in the traditional sense and this is due to the internet, for sure. I loved to still write Christmas cards this season and mail to my select group of “VIP” acquaintances and friends. I do so without any requirement that they respond in-kind – or at all.
It’s a family tradition passed into me by my mother. yes, I did receive some cards in-return.
And speaking of communication…
I’ve also become slightly weary of all the “passwords” I am required to remember, even when I am on a helpful site like that of my attorney, doctor or another friendly one created for romance recently needed. Is it just me, guys, but it makes surmise, because last time I kept track, I only used three passwords for less than ten (10) sites for many years since 2000. Now, it seems that number has exploded!
Sure, I dig typing on the computer, but I still print what I write, so as to professionally proofread (and write corrections on it in red pen like my teachers would) before finalizing my “wordcasts” by pressing “save”.
I am SO pissed off at having to put all these goddam Passwords into everything I do online now.
What I suspect is that now many of the places I used to innocently use as social media (which I am very tired of now) and other innocuous sites I used to promote my books or other creative endeavors, now have caught the paranoia bug, i.e. “protect yourselves from hackers, et al!” and just built in that wall against their initial users, once-again catching dolphins in the shark net. It is very annoyingly sad! I bet many of you, my readers feel similarly! What are we to do about it. Nobody needs more headaches in life, and surely not more of those from the virtual side of our lives. My impression is to strongly maintain the “analog” (traditional) ways of your life, while using the digital (virtual) side as sparingly as you can for as long as you live!
Now for some fun “Sexual Healing” (props to the late Marvin Gaye!).
Often… the term “suck my dick” comes to my mind. Why? Because it is the first sexual term that I ever heard in grade school! Or…maybe I don’t ‘get enough’…
I remember coming home from school that day – Junior High 216, Queens, I think – and asking my parents what it meant, as I was eating my dinner in the dining room and how they looked at one another quizzically. That must have been when, in the days that soon followed, I found a stack of books on the table about puberty, etc when I came home from school, lol I guess Dad wasn’t up to giving me the “birds and bees” talk. Asking my mom why he didn’t, decades later, her reply was “Well, he didn’t know!” To that then I said, “When how did I get here??” Like a reverse Art Linkletter book I’d update to read, “Parents Say The Dardenst Things.” During my Nashville, Tennessee days as a gentleman’s club DJ, working the “day shift”, one of the lovely dancers befriended me and sometimes she would express her frustrations by saying, in her fun and southern twangy way, “Well suck my DICK!” To which I’d reply, “Really? You got one of those??” Of course, she did not, it was a hilarious exchange between co-workers and just another means of appropriate spontaneous expression!
“SMD” is better than “I’ll be damned” IMO, because I don’t want to be damned (or darned) …but I could use a good blow job from time-to time!
Even ladies I meet while socializing, do not hit me back when I give them my biz card. I learned from a female friend of many years that it is “pretentious” to give a woman I meet my card unless we’d been talking business. In my mind, was the business of getting her back to my fabulous house for “the tour of my music library”.
I now believe they (women I meet) are more likely to do so, if you let them offer to/ask them to use the damned smartphone to share numbers, and that is really differently incredible to me! ‘Makes me feel like a oldster for the first time, and it just happened on this past New Year’s Eve night! That is where I messed-up, I guessed-up, with a gorgeous, tall lady in a tight black mini-skirt dress named (I think) Chris or Christine (I challenge you to remember a new name immediately). Its strange with my silly at times, romantic mind, that I cannot come up with more interesting one-liners in the heat of meeting passion, outside of the walls of my home. Yes, still sometimes shy, after all of these years.
*Last Call!” Our stars who we grew up loving are noticeably dying off. Not talking about those who went too soon like Prince or Michael Jackson, but premature deaths of the seemingly healthy in my generation like my beloved Irene Cara or Suzanne Somers, who were not in their eighties or beyond. Yikes! I surmise that, in-reality it is all about our inherited genes regarding longevity. ‘Til next time, take good care and “keep on Keepin’ ON!”
Okay, a midst all the war coverage and having learned that this country has had over five-hundred (560) mass shooting gun incidents this year alone, where innocent people were killed (source The PBS Newshour/Weekend/BBC) and as we head into the heart of Autumn, I figure you may need to read a real, warm feel-good story, and I hope this is one.
I was chillin’ at Buckroe Beach, which is just west of Virginia Beach on an inlet, one late-August day, after a nice (except for the local constructions foiling my GPS through the local neighborhood you have to traverse tot get to the beach)hour-long drive from my home. Its my newest shore point to visit when I need some sand and sun with a few salt water splash baths and did not want to traverse the super-long tunnel-bridge over the Chesapeake [I’ve since learned that there is another route to the ocean and I’ll try that next beach season in 2024].
There was a sparse crowd, with empty wooden high chairs posing as lifeguards; they left red flags behind, however there is no undertow at Buckroe (sounds like a slogan, doesn’t it?) so they went ignored.
After deploying my low-rider beach chair, towels, blanket and special waterproof, thermal beach knapsack where I kept my Canon digital camera (its better than the smartphone cam for my purposes), “special recipe” chicken drumsticks which I’d cooked earlier, beverage and checking out the scene, my first mission is to refill my Zap spray bottle with some new salt H2O!
This is a bottle I keep on the door of my fridge, or off to one-side, away from the food and is for special occasions like like sitting out on “tar beach” and spraying some on me or under the back deck sun, when I can’t make it to the shore. Or…when I get a cut on my hand or elsewhere on my bod, because in-case you didn’t notice, if you go to the beach and have some kind of superficial wound, it miraculously heals within a day or so after you return…its the salt water!!!
Well, there weren’t any real pretty chicks in bikinis that day, so I figured it would be just me, the sun, some olive oil, my notebook, pen and the book I got from the library which I was working my way through – and of course, that soothing sound of the waves undulating nearby with the smell of sea air!
I also noticed that there was an elderly couple nearby whose conversation I could overhear. From time-to-time. The lady smiled at me when once our eyes met and we exchanged pleasantries about the din.
After a while I noticed a couple of fins moving north-to-south through the waves and heard the murmur of others near by about them. We knew they were dolphins and not sharks because of their shape and that they splashed up, forward in an arc every so often! I thought amusingly about the TV show “Flipper”, which I grew up watching. Its amazing the things my mind reminisces about, given a situation, with laughs!
Different people were testing the waters and waves every so-often, including the lady nearby, while her hubby left to swim and her to man the umbrella and all. She told me at one point when I looked over, “I’m deathly afraid of that water!” I replied that I understood; there is only so far I will even go out into the waves – like maybe up to my knees! Her gentleman was really comfortable going out deep where you could only see his head bobbing in the waves, and she, who was afraid of doing so [like I am], until he finally convinced her to join him, and she took the leap of faith and trust in him and joined him out there, side-by-side.
Then… after a while, think that he convinced her and the next moments I saw were these:
I was wowed. They frolicked out there for quite some time!…and I thought, “you see, that’s what I’m missing; that one lady and the relationship of trust that transcends the huggin, lovin’ and kissin’! Maybe I had her and let her go in my past, yet that is not the moral of this story. It is that significant others must learn to trust one-another unequivocally in-order to have a timeless and everlasting love.
This is important! Will get back soon as I fulfill my swoon. Just know that if you are younger than forty (40), a slow jam like this and those of this ilk, may have brought you into this world! LOL Yes, this song is almost fifty years ago, but can you not agree that is is still relevant today? Doesn’t the beat and message still stay with you? “Half a love is better than no love at all, baybay…” C’mon, are you kidding me? Lets not forget the soul music of our recent past and make it last.
Yet, and can calm the current one with love. The Chi-Lites were one of many male soul or rhythm & blues categorized groups who competed for our slow jam, close-to-close dances in the clubs, basement parties and socials to possibly connect with that new object of your desire! Do you remember “Oh Girl” from 1972?
Listen to that signature, whispery Eugene Record sound, which still sends romantic thrills through your lonely body spine.
These words belong on my music-only blog, https://achilliadsmyvinylrecordshoppe.wordpress.com/ but I am at my desk after producing this Chi-Lites educational and therefore I shall not shift it there. Stand by though and please add a comment, whether you are young (never heard it) or song-seasoned (my peeps), Okay?
There was a time when “all your Exes lived in Texas” and do you remember the TV game show, “The Hollywood Squares”? Sometimes, “X” would get the square!
Well guys, the rich MUSKrat got it twisted gain. Instead of renaming my beloved and formerly useful (to promote my books and music), Twitter correctly, or continuing to use the very apt logo bird, he renamed it with incorrect nomenclature.
Maybe in South Africa, where was apparently “educated”, they grade tests upside-down. After all, it is close to the original “down under”, Australia.
Here is the best and simple example from his recent history of Musk’s errant take-overs:
Instead of using a check mark,
which denotes a right or correct answer in all academic circles, he uses the symbol of a wrong answer, the “X” or cross-out! Just another reason that this original Twitter user since 2011 [me] is now a former Twitter user, now that it has become so “musky”. He’s for the birds!
Dictation 2023
I dictate into the Android phone often, especially as a self professed “writer” I cannot put pen to paper – like when I’m almost asleep or awaken in the middle of the night with a bright idea – because its the modern replacement for those hand-held Panasonic recorders we used to use for the same. So, I finally tried this long-awaited “talk-to-text” feature on my laptop! Was excited. Gibberish is the result and I still have to proofread/edit what came out! Back then in August, one of my two laptops suddenly dies and I write a poem about something like that too. It was the HP and I’d had it since 2017, which is about the life of today’s “convenient” devices. Yeah, I’m a two gun gunslinger. I must have two laptops: one for music and the other for content creation. “Words N Musik “, my latest slogan!
Now to address another modern service decline. Yes we do live in the greatest country in the world but services have gotten pretty lax too often, the result, IMO, of internet “convenience” and less home training at the nightly dinner table, for too long. Possibly related: these “big box” (what does that even mean? lol)outlets like Amazon, promise stuff and then its like pulling teeth to get them to deliver your order as-promised! If you want to go the traditional “cash and carry” route, in many instances, suddenly the items you want to buy are “not available” or “not in stock” via that method. They lie and why? Yes, services have become slow or pretty fucked-up!
As the historic pioneers and navigators would say, “X”…marks the spot, and now Mastadon [social] is the place to be for communications similar to pre-Elon meddling and we who still love the former Twitter-Tweeting concept.
Arrrgh!!!
These someplaces like Amazon, which is a big old, don’t care about the little people monopolistic wannabe entity may send you a come-on e-mail to try to assuage your excitement or fears about not getting timely delivered and then, when you’re trying to talk to a human being there, blood pressure rises and it becomes the antipathy of what commerce and buying things should be, here in “the future”,where convenience overrides common sense and traditional human-led accuracy.
Consumer Cellular
This company with the cool customer service adverts for smartphone plans, formerly “senior-friendly”, apparently now have succumbed to corporate greed and are no longerr helpful without a dun, even if your Android (which they sent to you; mine is a ZTE) suddenly has a small crack in the screen which, with every app-tap grew exponentially, until it became frightening spider-web-like, from an Alfred Hitchcock movie screen, due to no fault of the phone’s owner (like mine has)!
“Consumer Cellular Sucx for Seniors” should be their new slogan.
Climate Change
We on the eastern coast of the United States, have been socked-in for a week under low-level cloudy skies. This is unprecedented in my recollections of weather as September turns to October and summer to Autumn. Where are the “cold” fronts that formerly swept these clouds out to sea? This week it took waay too long for the ghost of Ophelia and her long, flowing trains down the USA east coast to drift east over the Atlantic Ocean!
Normally, a front, originating up in Hudson Bay, Canada, would have produced a tail that stretched down almost to Florida, and its northeastern rotation would have produced the energy to move these clouds along days ago! Not this time and this, to my meteorological geek mind, is the real “climate change” – not so much “global warming”, in this scenario. Chaka Khan must be singing “Clouds” up and own the eastern seaboard!!
Shut Down
More posturing and swash-bucking and playing politics with The People’s money by “our” Congress and especially the mean extremists of today’s GOP. The GOP has always been the political party who would legislate upon the backs of those who can least afford it – even my elders said this decades ago! We’ve danced this dance before, so shut-UP about the shut down and GET DOWN to the business of helping every day Americans “make it”! . Come to think of it, maybe it should be the name of a new dance step! C’mon, lets all do “The Shut Down”! I can think of a music track or three to use…
Washington Football Team Misnomer
And finally, it came to me that there was a rush to rename the NFL’s Washington, D.C. franchise recently. A costly fumble, because I’ve felt that somehow, the Washington Redskins were pressured by unknown and hidden forces to change their nickname. I never saw any protesters videoed by the news of Native American Indians carrying signs proclaiming their offense at that iconic moniker. In any event, they got it wrong and shouldn’t have changed the name to the “Commanders”, which to me sounds kind of erotic… They should’ve just changed one consonant and the next three letters, to the Wierdskins! Say it out loud, “The Washington Wierdskins”...You see now that retains the same cadence and flavor of the original nickname, while not offending anybody because I think everybody can relate to some part their skin being weird – especially if you ever had acne, eczema, atopic dermatitis or a rash!
This song came to me yesterday morning, Labor Day Sunday 2023. Was it because it was a Sunday and I was feeling past church vibes? Probably. Most likely with lyrics like, “let us pray that tomorrow/let the birds in the trees/we gonna sing glory hallelujah so the whole wide world can hear..” will get you up and into that mentality when you have a jukebox brain like I have.
Back in those college days in the early 1970s, we looked at Soul Train as “our” American Bandstand, and that was okay!
To mentally stumble upon The O’Jays’ “Put Your Hands Together” via my jukebox mind in the morning of this 2023 September and then by the same late night again, is to trip into this performance, with full band on Don Cornelius’ “Soul Train”, and truly excite and blows my disc jockey mind. Whatta great performance!! Eddie Lavert and Walter Williams are quite the succinct tandem rockin the house!
But look past the three guys singing, if you will, and you’ll appreciate the many players who put this production together. The guitar and bass guy behind them; the camera pans right so we can see the concert master orchestrating the accents and crescendo!
**This post should REALLY be on my satellite, musik-ONLY blog site, www.https://achilliadsmyvinylrecordshoppe.wordpress.com/ so please patiently indulge me to move it there because blogging has proved time-consuming without any monetary rewards through the years since 2009, when someone I used to know tricked me into thinking I could make lucre doing this. It is nothin’ more than this writer jacking off.
This summer I’ve been waxin’ nostalgic with the waning Gibbous moon. Here my thoughts relive workin’- out musically with the finest ladies in the world. It was was a DJ’s blessing and privilege for me, back then and to this day I chronicle the experience of falling in “love” daily at “work”.
I, once a DJ there, just came across this flier, timely for this month, as I was tidying-up my guest room for an anticipated stop-by, which never materialized, stepping-out into my deck to be hit by the summer sauna which is 2023! Please don’t misunderstand, I am not complaining about the weather, I am among the “some” who like it HOT! Instead, I am celebrating my stint as a part of one of the most musically sexy situations of my life!
Ooh, where are they all now? I ask myself. Twenty-six (26) years later, I hope all of them are well and still beautiful despite the years (and maybe bearing kids, lol).
This time tunnel has seen all those years that have flown by, from when I was your DJ, spelling “Marky Mark” some nights and on my own others. CDs were just coming into their own at that time, but I still brought some vinyl as they also had two Technics turntables for us to use!
Your tips to we DJs were fantastic! During those years I earned more money than I had ever seen. Scores was big time , with big-time players coming in nightly like NBA stars Dennis Rodman and Kendall Gill. From tough guys “connected” to average “Joes” just looking for interludes with some of the world’s most beautiful ladies, Scores, in mid-town Manhattan, New York City (within the sight shadow of the Queensboro/59th Street Bridge if you just looked up from the front door), around the corner on 60th between Second and First Avenues was the jointsky place I found to meet some of the world’s finest like dancer Monica, who found me during one of my solo quiet moments aside the showroom, and said, in her uniquely cute Thailand accent, “We should get together! We could make Tiger Woods! He, hee!” If only.
Scores was called “Club A” prior to their inception; it was there, on a snowy January evening I met Charlie Wilson of GAP Band fame in 1993!
Then, after my career took me away from native New York down to south Jersey radio overnights, I learned this rouge, so-called and the worst “mayor” of my hometown, dictator wannabe, Rudolph Giuliani came along in 1993 and with him, a mis-guided attempt to make The Big Apple an amusement park, he moved Scores, and similar entertainment venues to the (at the time) rather lower west side of Manhattan island, where surely he thought that they would lose business in-exile. They didn’t, but Rudy lost “face”; Donna Hanover made a good choice by divorcing his ass, lol. Many forget that Giuliani “won” the Mayor of New York City race of that year, by inciting racial rhetoric, insinuation and division by maligning incumbent Mayor David Dinkins, especially in the stronghold of Staten Island (Richmond County), which, IMO is more a part of New Jersey, geographically, if not politically, than any of the other four boroughs of The Big Town. It was such a heady time that even a mean, pushy,, ultra right-wing (conjures the man Adolph Hitler) would-be despot man, who would have been better suited as the Principal of a boys boarding school could not even malign! Yet this post isn’t about politics and I digress.
Major props to all of us who provided the party back then and I, as DJ Jimi Bruce, pray and hope that you all are still surviving having built upon the experience of Scores and the many famous celebrities we met, memories with health, creativity and possibilities spawned by the sexy outlet we were allowed to express almost three decades ago! I leave it there, although I may return to tweak if memories return to me during sleep.
WE who are at least Quinquagenarian + YOUNG now, should know better than to fall for the same bullshit which formerly disappointed us…again. Yet it happens frequently.
Whether it be a supposed “love” attraction (romance scams) appearing suddenly on your Facebook thread or private phone number via text.
I know this, because in my lonely yearning for that special female companion, I’ve fallen for the same. Breaking my trusting heart, time and wasting my time, virtually and realistically, time and time-again. All it takes is a couple of photos like this
and kindly words from this virtual love interest who references your Facebook or similar social media account to get your attention and possible trust, to get the balls roiling. I've even "reverse image searched", which in the past has proved fruitful, but this time, came up empty. "Hmmm...maybe she IZ real," I thought. Then, after a few days of texting came what I feared the most, from past experiences, the ask which references some kind of monetary "donation" by me. I don't give money to those who I have not talked to on the phone, seen in-person or on Skype, Duo or similar video conferencing media. When I said "no", they feigned being insulted and within 36 hours stopped replying to my texts.
If you are on the east coast USA, for example, and “she/he” says they are in Cali, save yourself the anguish and reply something to the effect like, “Well, if you’re ever near my Zip Code, hit me up.”
Therefore, I say to you, who are possibly similarly smitten and yearning, keep learning, smart, special, suspiciously intelligent and healthy, in this day of virtual invisibility, my friends.
Late-Breaking BULLETIN! Rest In Musical Peace, Mr. Tony Bennett. You are one of my all-time favorite crooners! Love what Johnny Mathis wrote about him on Facebook yesterday! More on Mr. “I Left My Heart In San Francisco”, from my record library and in my next blog soon to come!
SO sad “they” haven’t discovered a “cure” for death yet.
So far only one firefly (we called them “lightning bugs” growing up) sighting thus far this summer! Where have all the fireflies gone? ‘Scared to learn the “why”…
So many things, so little time, as life unfolds, accelerates and unwinds.
This is my installment of my musings, pre and post the Fourth of July 2023. Hope as you who read this you had a great Independence Day holiday with friends, family, fireworks and grilled burgers and frankfurters, along with your favorite side libations! I…was blessed by The Creator, St. Jude, and Hope, The Guardian Angel to have had a good time with loyal friends at their annual nearby shindig.
Did the Tuesday holiday throw your week off like it did mine? No worries and not complaining, it’s fun for the mind to have to swerve in-time sometimes!
I must transpose much I have upon my phone for this post, as often, the laptop is not handy as I drive, thrive and dictate, not to negate the moments when mental inspirational wordcasts arrive.
Uh-oh, time for my allergy tablets!!
I polished my hardwood floors upon hands and knees. It’s cool! It is exercise against gravity’s kneading upon my back and neck like the cop did to George Floyd – yet not as immediately fatal, thank Goodness! With more cycling regularly, this soon passes.
Money adequacy is the hidden boogie man that I the “we” which shall over come shortly and if only briefly – but I hope better than that – soon!
My beloved Ukraine is still under siege, but I had much hope when I learned of the attempted coup upon paranoid Putin recently, even though it failed. His diminutive ass is now much more afraid, which answers my prayer of many years! Downfall soon.
It is simultaneously surreal for me to think that I visited this land which was at peace, only a decade ago, in search of my beloved Inna, who disappeared, never again to reply to me.
Heey! I finally found my Candi Staton stash of vinyl!! Been looking for it since February, Yo. That is, if you recall, when my “season of DE-cluttering” began, which, of course include my vinyl albums, in a major WAY. All the moving around I’ve done in life, and even when they were stationary in Mum’s basement for a decade, did not impair the fact that they got “tossed” within the milk Krates and now that I’ve finally “settled-down”, they are harder to find than formerly.
Look out for a new Candi inspired music mix any night now!! I can’t wait!! The beauty of it all is I have been successful at keeping my records clean through the years! I think of myself as a curator on some level! LOL
Why is it that some motor vehicle “operators” cannot pause for a beat of “one-thousand-one” to observe the rule of a STOP sign? IMO, this is a step on the road towards anarchy!
So, what happened to “energy autonomy” Mr. Al Gore? Indeed, what happened to AL Gore?? Funny how past vice-presidents become mute after their fifteen seconds in the world spotlight is over. One reason that, as elder he is, I love former President, Jimmy Carter, who is a great example of aging while staying relevant and memorable.
By the way, where is my internet radio station, now that podcasting costs money I don’t have to invest? Another rhetorical slap in the face, lol And speaking of the internet, here’s a phrase that troubles me, “the English Tutor” (adult literacy and college level), “internet dating“. This is something which should be totally impossible because the two words are diametrically opposed to each other; “internet” is by design and in-practice “anonymous”, while “dating” is totally “intimate”. Therefore, one should not be fooled that the two can co-exist and become a real loving relationship between two humans. In-person meeting still rules (although more difficult to achieve in my case lol).
I’m informed that Soundcloud is an alternative for my still smitten with radio desires! Hmmm…seems I have a “Pajama Bar” Soundcloud account which I started back in my WRVU FM, Nashville, Tennessee days; circa 2007 – 2009…Ahh, yes! Here it is! https://soundcloud.com/pajamabar
My Idiom of July’s third Sunday: “like a well-oiled machine”.
Almost busted here, just pa$t mid month, but feelin’ creative with many mid-summer night’s dreams regularly occurring from my “Minolta” overnight mind. SSA “retirement” does not last the whole month. Gotta keep my side-hustles forever, it seems…
“Country Negro DOWN!!”, he yelled in despair… a dialogue from a forth-coming book? My first non-poetic story (with poetic interludes)? It also has a Roitwaller character in it and an interracial married couple thus far…Maybe that will be the title…unless one of you bogies steals it prior, lol Much transposing of dictation into my Android to DO.
Final “Recurring Thought”: I’ve seen too many friends and music industry acquaintances leave, and we hadn’t had “The Talk”, so…I’m looking/Googling people UP… with love.
Alwayze fascinated by submarines, this tragic outcome of the little “Titan” trying to visit The Titanic (again?) in the north Atlantic ocean reminds me of it and the fate of the USS Thresher incident back in 1963.
1963 was a tumultuous year, which to add to the angst of it, was the assassination of one of the most beloved – and favorite in my lifetime – President, John F. Kennedy, even though I was a little boy. Also, I remember so well, and vicariously now, the 1964 – 1968 sci-fi TV show, “Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea”, whic was another favorite, not-to-be-missed.
Therefore, this week came to me strongly again, in my ultra-dream-sleep, as I kept thinking about the “rescue and recovery” drama, playing-out these past five days, hoping-against-hope that these thrill-seeking profligate explorers would be located alive.
So much so, that I dug to find my book of submarines with the 1960 photos from my youth!
All the while, sullenly saddened when thinking of those loved-ones who agreed with support, to allow their men to represent as an exploring submariner stray.
Finally, not to ever take this lightly, I was lucky to be in an event where I briefly talked to the late Jacques Cousteau many years ago, during my on-air radio DJ interview days. He was emphatic that, basically, our oceans are nothing to keep fucking with cavalierly, and that though mysteriously attractive, must be approached with the utmost and deepest respect, lest she swallow us whole; they are responsible for our very existence!
There is something too coincidental about that part of the north Atlantic ocean off of Newfoundland. The ghosts guarding The Titanic remains keep warning mankind of the surface and especially thrill-seekers away from their soggy cemetery or enter at risk of joining them in their own doom. When will those type of humans listen?
Spontaneous Miscellaneous! (Formerly Random Thoughts, etc)
Привіт
After my HP Notebook, which I primarily used for writing and researching online, died and “HP Support” was unsupportive to provide any remedy, my regular writing faltered. You see, I am like the two-gun cowboy in the old western movies; in other words, I need two laptops, one for my words and another for my music. Words and Music are two of my passions.
To borrow the title from Sly and The Family Stone’s eighth studio vinyl album (1976), “Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I’m Back!” and with a new laptop!
Catching up: I just learned that lead singer of the R&B group, Starpoint, Renee Diggs, whose hey-days were in the 1980s, succumbed to the complications of a heart disease and Multiple Sclerosis at age fifty (50) in early 2005 Yet another “gone too soon” musical moment! All of these recent entertainer deaths got personal to me, “the DJ”, when Irene Cara left us last fall. I wish I had gotten her phone number at the end of our all night conversation at a New Jersey bar/nightclub, circa 1994 and had kept in-touch with her! I literally shake my head every time I think about it – like right now as I write these words.
In other make up for lost time news, I miss my strolls under the Jerome Avenue “EL”, walking on the sidewalk, glancing in the shop windows, stopping in the friendly butcher shop and placing an order – often for lamb shanks – when they were open and ultimately visiting the Gun Hill Bar at the top of the hill where the linguine Marinara with big ole shrimps was exceptionally delicious and the Tom Collins’ were magnificent while I waited for mine “to go”!
I belie stereotypes portrayed about people who look similar in skin hue to me; most are nothing like I; talking poor English and portraying negative attitude while still blaming Caucasians for their woes. Stereotypical thinking is lazy-brained, if one is sincere about getting to know another human being.
Now a new, unnamed poem from a forthcoming book’s collection:
Her name was Rone; She was, An alone poem Why you wasted my time Getting us nowhere? All my guy friends told me You were just a bear. Why you never even wanted to fuck? Many women I loved less did. I canceled some upon your invitation; Only to lose precious time Returning alone to my tower apartment. You should’ve told me from the jump “Hey man, I don’t fuck, Okay?” I woulda asked why? Said adieu and never Wasted another night nor day Yes, persistently praying you’d give-in She told me Wet was her pussy Wanting downward With me to lay, But just for play. Who knows what she was really thinking, It all came to a head years later. I called her an idiot for not wanting me intimately, Her reply was, “YOU an idiot!” Yes I was, for even trying.
Belated
So, I’m at the Publix self-check out and one of my items is a bottle of Chianti. The young man clerk approaches to “validate” my age. “Are you sure you’re old enough to buy this?” he asks. I know he has seen me previously and discern he’s messin’ with me, so I play along. “What do you think?” I reply while pulling-down my COVID mask to flash my smile. “Actually, I have a big birthday is next week!” I continue. “Oh well, Happy belated birthday!” the clerk replies. Hmm, am I suddenly in a Star trek time warp? Although I generally do not correct people when I know what they really mean, but I was in my ‘English Tutor’ head, and it was slow in the store, so I said, “No its next week; ‘belated’ is when you’ve missed an event which has passed…” He wasn’t offended and my tone was not condescending towards you; he took it like ‘Oh wow, I didn’t know that…’ and thanked me.
Which brings me to the broader question, because that was not the first time someone has misused the adjective, belated, like that recently. I wonder several things: Are the younger generations really not paying that much attention in English class? Are native English speakers so confused by slang and “Ebonics” that it eclipses their correct teachings and intrinsic conversational skills? Like… “Really?”
“Happy birthday, in-advance!” another person at a store said to me. I can take that one better, linguistically it didn’t rile me up.
(ending) So, a belated Happy New Year! No, wait, a year cannot be “belated”…hmmm…Okay then, well, a belated Happy _ Day to you and yours, once in the rear-view mirror.
Kool Ronnie Beee
The first time of learning a close friend had suddenly died within the past year, without me being advised of it. I…..was absolutely FLOORED by this. OMG I called him “Koool Ronnie Beeeeee” all the time and he would chuckle like he always did. This hits my INNER CIRCLE of good “same tribe (like back in Africa) Brothas. He visited me in Nashville a couple of times and always supported me…”Mr. DJ” on the radio and in clubs from south Jersey to everywhere I gigged. OMGosh…I was writing my Xmas cards and came across his address, so I wanted to reach out to him to make sure his address is still the same…and a little 12 year-old kid (he texted me) replied this was not his number anymore. I knew he’d been kinda silent and going back through my texts, he alluded to having some kind of medical issue, but downplayed it, So I didn’t worry.
Dating Site Blurb II
And finally, the story of a man who cannot catch the kind of companion he seeks, between the sheets” (Isley Brothers smash hit song, btw) He’d never done this before but figured to try it because the traditional way to meet ladies like in a pub or supermarket or just on the sidewalk doesn’t seem to work anymore and he hasn’t been to a party in eons; geez, who’d want to go, with all these amateurs packing pistols these days! He was searching for this female who is beautiful inside and out, with long hair, a shapely figure, trustworthy, open-minded, drama-free and love to enjoy a great meal cooked by your man while listening to great music of all genres? Then wrote, “Do you appreciate a man who is a gentleman in public and knowledgeable between the sheets? Are you between 30 and 45 years, Asian, Caucasian Latina or European? If you answered yes to any of the above and read this far that we might be able to have some chemistry and open to meet you maybe after we email here on the site or text and hear your voice on the phone…very much into TALK over texting/sms. Around 5’5″ – 5’8″ tall and between 30 and 45 years of age; Asian, Caucasian, Latina or European. and fine! Education helps complete the equation” Yes, I saw this and wonder if it worked?!
I am working on a novel; possible mystery where in the end the owner of a dog called a “Roitwaller” (sp) finds its decapitated head in his garbage can, as he is putting the trash out for weekly collection. Dreaming is never out of season, and in my case – to borrow an old advertising tag line – “only from the Mind of “Minolta” (me).
Not bad for a rusty blogger, eh? ALSO, MAJOR props to WordPress Admins for intervening when some dickhead posted racist and insulting comments on two past posts a couple of months ago.
I’d watched her perform on grand stages like the legendary Beacon Theater, on Broadway in Manhattan and introduced her to audiences.
Phyllis Hyman, a celebrity singer who sought me out and introduced herself to me during my “Welcome to WBLS FM” coming-out party at club 70West in 1984. you may remember her biggest hit, “You Know How To Love Me” ? Check out the video below!
I will never forget the time this late Superstar singer, Phyllis Hyman, found me during a moment of quiet reflection, contemplation and stage announcing prep, sitting aside from the main stage on a smaller, raised carpeted area. I was looking down – we didn’t have cell phones back then – when suddenly I spied this large palm of a female hand offering itself towards me, in front of my face.
I raise my gaze to see a broad-shouldered woman, adorned in a purple and black cape, Khufu-like hat in front of me. I must have looked aghast as she said, in a semi-deep female melodious voice, “Hi… I’m Phyllis…” I was going to myself, “Oh shit! That’s Phyllys Hyman herself!, while trying to play it cool. Yes, I was a little slow back then in retrospect.
Oh my gosh, now so many decades later, I am so sorry I failed to realize her admiration towards me vibe! I never knew, until many years later, how much she liked me!
My girl. So sorry I did not understand your admiration for me.
So, it all came to a head to a point that she, by surprise, cursed me out about it one evening when we ran into each-other at the legendary “Possible 20” bar and restaurant on West 55th Street, in midtown Manhattan, New York City, where all who where anybody in the 1980scame to wind-down after their entertainment, music, and media gigs, who used to congregate. I did not think that a woman of her physical stature and voluptuousness, would ever be attracted to a slim guy like “Jimi B”.
Not sure WHY this came to me here in 2023. maybe it the doldrums of between Social Security checks poverty. Why she revealed and talked to me again, except for my senior social insecurity, aging and wanting to share my legacy, creative poverty and mutual unfulfilled love; but knew I had to post this with sentimental love, going with the current flow of chronicling, educating my DJ years, those who I was privileged to meet and/or introduce and entertaining you who found this post because, in my humble opinion (and that of some psychologists) the mode of music melds mental metal.
To put it short and simply, my website was “AWOL” since I can’t remember! It was at least the past year or so, if not more! However, in the true “scouting tradition” I didn’t totally give up, nor let it bum me out – I just ignored those feelings – until the time came for me to dig, sniff and experiment around with the original platform once again, and lo and behold…”Viola!” It was still hiding there, partially due to something called “Square” which apparently merged with Weebly – my original site platform in 2007 – sometime this decade, as a monetization vehicle for “selling”. Not sure what kind of selling, although the images are of pottery and ceramics and household stuff. Hmmmm…
As my site and life is predominantly centered around music, media and wordcasting, the Square model did not fit – and that’s okay! They who do other things do not traverse my online world, we do not counter-judge one another and we still exist harmoniously, and that, as the late Teena Marie sang back in 1981, is “square biz”!
Not to belabor the point, because soon I have some other current common nonsensical events to blogplain about, I’ll just ask that when you have some free time, you to check out the (slightly) new look of I.M.I.J Produckshunz (pronounced “image productions”), 2023 two-point-OH! http://www.imijproduckshunz.com/
The home of Cheetah Media & Freelance Services (CMFS). We are here for your needs, if our lifetime expertise allows.
Many Thanks, Be Well and best wishes in all you (legally and ethically) Do. ~ Cheetah NJB
As a #writer, I am a “pen guy”. I have to hurriedly extract myself from Office Depot/Max and the like, lest I blow my budget on writing implements, like a variety of assorted colored ink pens. I have to remind myself to break the notion to stare and try, on the little sample pad, the assortment of colored stylographs.
So it is with particular trepidation that I, during my continual “#2023 winter of decluttering” came across an envelope, obviously owned by a late relative, inside of which was this peculiar “Sheaffer’s” pen, which turned-out to be a fountain pen!
Yes! And with enough ink still inside for who-knows-how-long and which I could immediately write with! OMGosh, where is my broncho inhaler! lol
I hope this inspires you to correct your “script” signature like your teachers once admonished you to practice! However, beware that I am the luckiest to have FOUND this stylograph, because of today’s prohibitive pricing for same, is like getting ink for your multi-functional copier, I think! (“Oh pleez! When will prices discount instead of increasing, please? in our lifetime? Oh! I just noticed that gasoline is down by a dollar since the beginning of the year!) Thank you, Hope.
Both of my parents lived through the nightmare that was World War II. Maybe yours did too.
And if not, you’ve surely been taught and hopefully learned about it. You’ve heard about how Japan attacked our fifty-first state’s Pearl Harbor in the Pacific for no real reason. Clearly one of the most horrific events in history, which we do not, as humankind, want to repeat.
What may not apply to all of the above are the intricate details which led up to the USA effectively ending the war via the application of the world’s first atomic bomb. This book report is about the hardcover book which I just finished reading, “Black Snow” by James M. Scott [Norton, $35.00, 978-1-324-00299-4].
“Black Snow” is not a book about a race riot during a New England winter (pun intended), but an historical and well-researched factual account of the American response to that surprise Pearl Harbor attack, as well as the effect it had on the Japanese island’s population.
I hadn’t thought much about “the BIG one” recently, except when, upon watching a PBS news show, I see the atrocities going on in Ukraine – where I visited ten years ago before Russia’s invasion – at the hand of a despot who I call “Paranoid Putin”. His all-too-frequent use of the word “nuclear” is, at the very least, reckless and demented. Another in that club is the North Korean guy, who I call “Kim Young (mentally) Ill” who also gave me pause when I perused “Black Snow” at my local public library. I borrowed it with curious enthusiasm of the read which played-out as if watching a movie about the war!
The research that author James M Scott must have done to humanize and connect the people who lived in Tokyo with the people in our US Army Air Force (there was not a separate “Air Force” at the time), and Navy, to describe their intersection towards a common direction to end the war at that juncture is, in and of itself, worth the read!
Black Snow is not meant as a thorough history of what lead up to Pearl Harbor, but instead, it focuses more upon three main American military commander men: General Hayword Hansell,Jr., Brigadier General Emmett “Rosie” O’Donnell, Henry “Hap” Arnold, and General Curtis LeMay and their strategies, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, to punish Japan for their unprovoked, misguided attack in 1941 and the events that led up to, and including the first use of the atom bomb.
However, the central character (protagonist maybe?) in this book, in my opinion, is the B29 “Superfortress” airplane, without which we could have never conducted the successful campaign to bring stubborn Japan to its knees. The surrounding result and vivid descriptions of the effects on the targets is so much worth your reading time! There is a tactic that they used successfully, which I will not mention in this review, fore that would betray part of the plot and insights.
These so-called “leaders” of countries in the current news, who rattle sabers of war, should accept living within their borders, pay attention acutely to the brutal lessons of eighty years ago and also read this book, for the sake of peace on Earth forevermore, “lest we repeat the mistakes of the past” as my father, “The Major”, used to caution at the dinner table while watching Walter Cronkite on CBS’s Evening News.
It is the hope and prayer of this book report’s author; we’ve all been fortunate to have come such a long and successful way. Thank you for reading and please lend your comment. Highly recommended for English language enthusiasts due to the many dictionary reaching words, world history buffs and educators.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, when I met chicks (ladies, females) at parties I spun in clubs or as a famous Disc Jockey on the radio; sometimes after hours, nobody asked for or mentioned money. Hell no! It was and still should be a taboo!
If I, she or me had the drugs (mostly pot or blow in those days), we both knew what we brought to the table without even mentioning dollars, unless we thought we would need more and then we would go in together often times. There was no innuendo of paying again for the intimate sexual pleasures to come. Are you kidding me??! If she needed a ride home, I’d give it to her or in the next morning, car fare, whatever worked for the friendship!
We fucked and sucked, laughed, partied and laid because we liked each other and wanted to have it again! If money had been the deal, I probably would not still be their friends to this day! All was consensual, w/o strings, and all was in-person to see, touch, feel, smell and taste each-other.
Nobody asked for money just to come over and see me for the first time or to rendezvous a first time at a neutral site to sniff one another! Who raised you to DO that? It would be embarrassing! If it came into that, it was because one player (and it was me a few times) was unemployed and felt embarrassed to broach the subject. In those instances, one or several involved parties would allay the fears of the impoverished friend, make a reimbursement arrangement or just say, “Fuggetabout it, we’re friends!C’mon, lets party!” The only females who asked for bucks up-front for fun were straight-up prostitutes, and we avoided them because of the STDs they carried. We knew what streets and neighborhoods to find one of them if we were throwing a bachelor party for one of out brothers who was “jumping the broom”, though, lol
I am not sure when this happened or how, but it seems as though there is a linguistic disconnect between we single Baby Boomers and those who are three or four decades younger in the simplest of how to write coherence text messages!
Unfortunately, these days in the 2023, with the possibility of internet texting forever without a phone call voice to attach and progress the relationship to, and all of these dating “apps” have given bullshit a new nefarious low license to trick, hide, scam or squash the in-person human touch that means so much. A recent texter wrote me that she “does meet ups”. At first I thought that rather quaint and shy; until she hinted – no – asked for money to pay for her phone plus gas UP-FRONT! My textd replied, “Oh, that makes you sound like a hooker…” “She” (still don’t know what gender I was dealing with in-reality) just kept calling it a “meet up”.
Ohh, you great pretender. What planet were you born and raised upon, that you come and prey upon the emotions of we Earthlings who are looking for love and trying to keep up with the times while doing so? And it blows my volcano cap, that an handsome man like who wrote this post, cannot find a sincere, hot, diverse, friendly female companion within the choosy specifications he desires, to walk up to the sun with, hand-in-hand.
Wow. Its a damned shame and maybe should be legally legislated to change the practice and protect the virtual parties involved, IMO. As the saying goes, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig!”
This blog post is posted as a Public Service Announcement (PSA) warning to those not yet hip. If you think you saw me on an “APP”, please do not text me on the number you have been doing so…instead, CALL me, so I can know, via your voice that you are real and we can have a human, sexy, planning our dates, conversation.
It can take a few mph off your fastball to find out that those, who you were subliminally thinking or assuming are still along with you on this ride of our similar physical life-journey, have left you without any warning or a note from their wife, mutual friend or significant other or even a clue that they were ill unless one of your hobbies is perusing the obituaries!
I’m not talking about peeps with friends who are blood-related, as in brothers, I mean , in my case, men who have friends culled through the years.. You probably know or have noticed that, in-general, we do not last as long as our female counterparts, due to a variety if factors like they like the telephone more than we do – which are the subject for another post. This is why I now write; to remind you to keep in touch with your buddies, maybe more than you are currently doing. You don’t have to call them and in some cases you many not want to call them, but let them know you are thinking about them and visa-versa. I sometimes send greeting cards around the holidays or if I know their birthday is neigh.
Recently, I have experienced the loss of three friends, singer Irene Cara and two men from within my inner circle, who I felt very close to, and yet we had not broken bread on the phone, texts or in-person in quite some time, only to learn that they are recently deceased…within the past year I’m talking about! I learned of the demise of the guys while writing my Christmas cards and wanting to ascertain that their address was still the same. “Shock!”
Of course my DJ mind always has a musical analogy, even if in only title. So, I implore you to, in the words of the 1982 hit dance music record by Shades Of Love, which comes to mind, “Keep In Touch, (Body To Body)” at all costs. It is a damned sad shame that with the current plethora of communication choices – phone, sms, email, paper letters and cards in the US mails – that people are not keeping touch to the point that one’s friend can die without college mates, classmates, family and neighborhood buddies knowing about it, until l-o-n-g after-the-fact.
What I profess here sounds like what our parents did – and indeed it is one of their best habits from a simpler era. One of the negative aspects of the “information superhighway” is that is has encouraged lazy, lackadaisical traditional communication of the ilk our parents taught us by-example.
As I remember my mom saying late in her years, “We are at the age when we are losing cherished people!” At least she had a circle of friends – church, and professional – always calling each other on the telephone in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.
The advent of texting and the internet has dumbed-down our collective society to the point that we do not reach-out as our predecessors did – and much to our emotional detriment at the end of the day, when you find out via Facebook, that so-and-so, your homie from around the way growing up, has been dead for a year or more, when you finally get around to thinking of them and the timely jokes they used to tell you around NFL playoff time or whenever…
So its so easy to call, leave a voice-mail, or better still, drop a note in the mail with a stamp, to let your friend know you thought of him while you still share the physical world! Who doesn’t like to receive a letter in their mailbox that isn’t a bill!?
Late last year, during my decluttering campaign, I came across a piece of paper written by a great lady I once knew, in her own handwriting. It wasn’t written to anyone in-particular insomuch as I could tell. It read, “Try to live our lives better healthier and stay in closer touch!”
Pick-hit: This post is dedicated as we used to do on the air, with brotherly love to my late colleague at WKCI (“KC101FM”), New Haven, Connecticut, “Smokin’ Willie B. Goode”, circa 1981 – 1983.
Watch the relevant video music I created, related to this song!
Growing up a movie fan, one of the great names I saw and heard mentioned in the same breaths with the likes of Betty Davis, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, Debbie Reynolds and Jayne Mansfield was Jane Russell.
If you’ve visited this blog previously, you know that I have a penchant for biographies and autobiographies, so you won’t be surprised that I just finished reading the bio of “Jane Russell – Mean Moody, Magnificent! And The Marketing of a Hollywood Legend”” by Christina Rice [978-0813181080 University Press of Kentucky].
This was an addicting read from the outset for me. Ms. Rice chronicles Jane from cradle to the grave with details which portray the human story of an at first reluctant superstar actress of the classic “golden” movie years.
The one black mark in the book was at the end, where Jane is quoted as having misused a word which can have racist connotations; you’ll have to judge accordingly for yourself, because I don’t think she meant it that way. Had she been around when I enjoyed my own celebrity as a radio DJ, being a man who always loves “the top” (breasts) of a woman, I’d have surely sought her out for an interview – or maybe more!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her, in-fact, I had to return/renew/take out again the hardcover edition a couple of times at my local public library in order to finish! I surely would buy a copy for my home library, when my writer’s budget allows and recommend that you do so, if you are such a curious fan and book curator as I.
If you’ve ever heard of “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds”, “His Kind Of Woman” (featuring Robert Mitchum), “Born Losers (Billy Jack)” or watched TV commercials for Playtex “Living Bras” back in the days as I have, then you’ll want to read this book because Jane is the girl you were seeing! I couldn’t tell how “mean” she – in the angry sense – was, but in street lingo, her figure sure was “mean” and to be seen!
Long before feminism and women’s lib, Ms. Russell quietly proved that there is more than posing for paparazzi emphasizing her voluptuousness by her activist activities, which championed adoption of orphaned children internationally by forming WAIF (World Adoption International Fund).
This is an educationally entertaining five-star read you should keep on your night table stack, as I did, for soothing bedtime (or any time ) stories!
We went into the 2021 Holidays (last year) feeling the earth was finally at peace. Even with the contrived election challenge in the USA, we, the majority, knew that cooler, more intelligent heads would prevail. It seems long ago, juxtaposed against world events in Eurasia (as I call it).
Every so often, an event, or series of events takes place to remind you of just how fragile our way of life is existence is and you just hope and pray that it isn’t you or yours it happens to next! Today’s world is , unfortunately weird and you never know…until you know and even then, keep your head on the swivel to think twice…
Just when I thought we had reached the “IGY” Donald Fagan (Steely Dan) described in his 1982 often-played on-air song of the same name, here, in early 2022, came a brain-damaged, diminutive despot from Russia named like a bowel movement gas, “Putin”, who has, for the past ten months decided to conduct a cold-war-style invasion of a peaceful neighboring country! A sudden seventy year throwback! What the hell is goin’ on with his mentally-ill brain and how can the rest of the countries of the world stop him immediately? Why is it so one-sided where Russian can disrupt Ukraine infrastructure and they cannot strike back similarly?? “Stop The War, NOW!”
If it means calling Stupin’s “nuclear” threat bluff, them we must DO IT as soon as possible because the longer this drags on in Ukraine, the later more than sooner it will happen anyway! Why are the nations of the world letting him rule the roost via bullshit threats when the only language he understands is a punch in his mouth, military defeat?!
Those of you who’ve read this place for the past decade, must know that I have courted a pen-pal in Ukraine and visited another in Kyiv in 2013. This is what my friend, who I’ll call “T” for protection’s sake and who I’ve communicated with virtually for almost three (3) years, wrote me today, November 25, 2022, the day after our USA Thanksgiving holiday, “Hi!
Happy Thanksgiving day! Great that you have your turkey and can enjoy celebration…for me I am 4 days with no electricity and have no water and no food…life is horrible right now for me…
Very sad…no internet connection most of the places in Odessa. I was lucky to find one, pay for it and write to you and sent you my warmest greetings!
Enjoy baby!
Kisses, T. “
I can hardly believe that she is going through this, here in these “modern” times! In the back of my mind and even prior to knowing her communications, I never took our way of life in the USA for-granted, as so many of my fellow countrymen seem to do; yet even now, this is imperative thinking! I implore our United States government not to turn a blind-eye to these events; to speak to the populace about them and possible ramifications and to unite with Europe and other countries to throttle Putin and his regime as we did Sadaam Hussein for much less, as soon as possible. Why is it so one-sided that only Russian can shoot missiles into Kyiv and Ukraine cannot return fire the same into Putin’s lair – or Moscow; whichever is closer?
And to you, Putin, we now know who Satin is among us it is YOU; and as President Ronald Reagan said to your country’s Mr. Gorbachev, back in 1987, I now say, “Mister Putin, Lay Down Your Inhumane Weapons!”
I welcome your positive ideas or fund-raising to get my friend over here to the USA, out of harm’s way ASAP in the comments, please… Peace.
Classic Live Smokey Robinson (actually after The Miracles when he was solo in 1979)…for your Summer Cruisin’ pleasure …”Hey Nowww!” (the late Hank Spann)….Welcome to summer 2010…Where There’s Smoke…There’s Fire! “Don’t forget to stop by and pick me up!!”
From the lip-sync days, but I always thought that Smokey insisted on having a live mic and singing it – because he is the master writer/singer/composer – still.
Sooo…can you stand one MORE? Ok…See, feel, hear the chemistry grow between Smokey and Kim Karnes; two great singers vibing. Check out the bandmaster in the background keeping the musicians in the pocket! I rest my caske.
and kindly words from this virtual love interest who references your Facebook or similar social media account to get your attention and possible trust, to get the balls roiling. I've even "reverse image searched", which in the past has proved fruitful, but this time, came up empty. "Hmmm...maybe she IZ real," I thought. Then, after a few days of texting came what I feared the most, from past experiences, the ask which references some kind of monetary "donation" by me. I don't give money to those who I have not talked to on the phone, seen in-person or on Skype, Duo or similar video conferencing media. When I said "no", they feigned being insulted and within 36 hours stopped replying to my texts. 
"Achilliad" 
The Return of the Website 2023
Short and simple:
To put it short and simply, my website was “AWOL” since I can’t remember! It was at least the past year or so, if not more! However, in the true “scouting tradition” I didn’t totally give up, nor let it bum me out – I just ignored those feelings – until the time came for me to dig, sniff and experiment around with the original platform once again, and lo and behold…”Viola!” It was still hiding there, partially due to something called “Square” which apparently merged with Weebly – my original site platform in 2007 – sometime this decade, as a monetization vehicle for “selling”. Not sure what kind of selling, although the images are of pottery and ceramics and household stuff. Hmmmm…
As my site and life is predominantly centered around music, media and wordcasting, the Square model did not fit – and that’s okay! They who do other things do not traverse my online world, we do not counter-judge one another and we still exist harmoniously, and that, as the late Teena Marie sang back in 1981, is “square biz”!
Not to belabor the point, because soon I have some other current common nonsensical events to blogplain about, I’ll just ask that when you have some free time, you to check out the (slightly) new look of I.M.I.J Produckshunz (pronounced “image productions”), 2023 two-point-OH! http://www.imijproduckshunz.com/
The home of Cheetah Media & Freelance Services (CMFS). We are here for your needs, if our lifetime expertise allows.
Many Thanks, Be Well and best wishes in all you (legally and ethically) Do. ~ Cheetah NJB
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