The Band Plays On

     Over and over, through various web searches, channel surfing, or other circumstance, I have seen ghosts from the past up there on stage still performing. Bands that I saw or listened to on the radio(!) as a teen are still out there singing those old songs and, while many or even all of the original members might be long gone, the band's name- it's 'brand'- survives to milk any audience that still cares to listen because.....
  .....a good song (or set of songs) just never dies, does it? The hallmark of a good song is that you never get so tired of it that you never want to hear it again. Good songs and the bands that created them get shadowed by all the upcoming bands and singers but they never really go away.
     But- is this still going to hold true for the generations beneath mine? Will there be Classic Rap? Will the songs of Taylor Swift, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Rihanna, and Beyonce be sung in the shower by the ones currently listening to those artists? Probably and of course. Or, will services such as Pandora and Spotify bury them under tons of new content?
     Last night on TV I saw the most amazing thing. Foreigner (remember them?) was playing- with an ORCHESTRA. PBS tends to run this sort of content. Crooners from the 60's were on awhile back, playing for an audience that wanted to hear the old standards, but those original singers weren't belting it out like they used to. They had trouble hitting and holding the crisp notes. Still, that's not bad, for somebody pushing 70 or more!
   What is sad to see, in my view, is when any band, proud and peaking, starts to age. Other bands eclipse them, their audience starts dwindling, they can't fill arenas anymore, key members leave, the band changes direction (Styx made a radical shift on the cusp of the 80's), key members die (The Doors, Skynyrd, The Who) the artist or band gets hobbled by contractural obligations (Neil Young, Prince), gets weird (Michael Jackson), or gets drugged out (Elvis). 

Right on, brother!

Wesley Tingey- Unsplash.com

   Singular stars can't ever be replicated but bands can try and get away with acting as though playing without original member(s) in the lineup doesn't matter (Crosby, Stills, & Nash, minus Young) and sometimes that shift can be made, but most times (Pink Floyd, Allman Brothers) it's not the same. The leader or a critical creative spark in the mix is gone. Plus there seems to be a time limit for each particular band's ability to create their 'sound'. When that's gone they've said what they were feeling they needed to say and then after that they're just a group of writers in search of a song (or a plot for a screenplay, like me) with nothing juicy coming to mind (latter career Aerosmith).
     But despite this apparent lack of ability to churn out fresh stuff, with many bands the decision is made that the band just HAS to play on and on and on. They go from filling arenas to signing up with the state or county fair's booking agent, agreeing to gigs at casinos, or showing up at specialty events (ZZ Top, at Sturgis). 
     I think of all the artists, Bowie did it best. He knew that fame was fleeting so he kept reinventing himself. If any audience begged him to sing an oldie, he would do so oh so reluctantly, and only in an abbreviated fashion, because his mind was elsewhere. But rest assured, when it comes to reluctance to give it all we've got one more time, he's an anomaly. Money and fame is what drives bands, and once you've established a brand it's hard to walk away from The Life. Hell, it hands down beats holding a job. That's why the band was started in the first place!
    So, if the weirdness of seeing Foreigner playing with an orchestra is any indication, it just might be possible that 'Creedence' is playing in Croatia right now, at some World Cup finals after-party. 

Get Ready For The Drone Tourists

     In my crystal ball, I can see this. Those little drones that are flying all over the place capturing unique perspective shots are going to be replaced by drone platforms big enough to carry people, and companies are going to spring up all over the world offering drone tours.
     Like George Jetson's backpack flying device, people will be able to not only fly but hover at altitude, and no place will be safe from these things just showing up. You could be sitting in your penthouse fifty stories up enjoying the view and..... 
     "#$&%!! Damn tourists!"
     National parks, serene lakes, bucolic countrysides...... ...brace yourselves.
     Chittering families will be flying overhead during school break periods, couples will be plying the globe and then afterwards in places that you can't help but overhear they'll be blathering to others about their adventures, and what about that WEIRD guy? Ziplines, helicopter tours, hang gliding, skydiving, paragliding, hot air balloon rides, all of that will be eclipsed by this new technology. 

      Imagine flying over the Serengeti, hovering over the Grand Canyon, making an ascent alongside Half Dome in Yosemite, flying over a glacier... the possibilites are endless. 

     Seeing that they no longer have to be confined to the ground, many humans will feel it is their right to take to the skies and demand to have access to this technology, which the developers will make safe enough so the average person can confidently climb into these things and go, like people nowadays simply get into their cars and drive. 
    Congestion in urban areas and at popular tourist sites will be an issue, and flying permits and limits on air time will be necessary to placate demand. 

     What could be better than having your own personal drone machine? 

Yikes they're everywhere

Jaromir Kavan- Unsplash.com

    Already there are startup companies testing out drone air taxis in less stringently controlled airspace regions of the world, and I'm sure the military is keenly at work on developing craft big enough to transport soldiers and their cargo. Knowing how these things tend to play out, the cost of a drone conveyance capable of transporting one or two people, when they appear on the public market, wouldn't be too high, so most people would be able to afford them, and I'm sure there will be drone machines available for rent. 
     How this plays out is going to be interesting to watch. I see it happening soon and once the first one appears in the neighborhood everybody is going to want one, which I saw happen when I was a kid and the first guy with a snowmobile showed up on the block. Within a year or two they were commonplace. 
      But, as usual, at first only the rich will have them, which will spur demand, make production increase, and in time drop the price. Many different models with different capabilities will be available.
    When that happens, and everybody has one, or has access to one, we'll be able to have bird's eye views of literally everything but I don't think a lot of people (or governments) are ready for that. Airspace over one's house and certain installations is currently considered private. Very private, almost as if there was a fence around it that you can't see. 
     What is the government going to do about that? Is it a rights issue? And if it's your house, can you do anything about it? What if you're a RENTER? 
     Plus, since drones can land anywhere, remote physical locations will have people walking around in them, places that you couldn't get to because no roads existed or the roads didn't allow easy access. People will have the run of the earth! The highest, mistiest, mountaintops, the deepest regions of inhospitable deserts, the Amazon river delta......
     Forget about driving! The new road trip is coming.

Space

     As in outer space. I watched a show on TV last night that had to do with people working in the asteroid belt, mining ice and other such precious cargo there ('The Expanse') and what struck me about the show, and most others I have seen like it, was that despite the physical hardships and challenges of simply existing in such dangerous conditions, what is more difficult to deal with seems to be the psychological side of things. Space is a harsh and eerie environment, and it wears on you.
     There is no sound in space and, unless you're very near to any planet, asteroid, or moon, there is no 'view'. Nothing outside the windows reminds you of home, or life, only of death. 
    Look at the surface of earth's moon. Any welcome signs out there? No! Ditto everywhere else in our solar system but Mars. Mars is the only neighboring world offering a barely tolerable place for humans to live. With some structures built, people would most likely be able to survive and actually grow green things but it's not like you're going to find any of that outside the compound. 
   Then, far as living on any spaceships is concerned, no matter how big they are they all seem rather sterile, don't they? Plus, they have that 'ark' feel to them, that you're not safe until you get off or out of the thing and are once again walking around on dry land. 
     Social interactions when everybody on the crew is in some way affected/afflicted, bent in some weird psychological manner, would be volatile. Seems factions of the crew are ready to mutiny at any moment on some shows. 
     On the plus side, you'd see up close things that nobody on earth ever would and there would either be things that you couldn't describe to earthlings when you got back from your mission, or there would be things that you could not talk to them about, things that you felt or experienced while 'out there'. I've read that every astronaut on the Apollo missions that left the earth's orbit was affected, in a profound way, by what they experienced outside of the earth's magnetic field (though most of them never talked or will talk about it). 

OMG we're goin' there?!

Nate Rayfield- Unsplash.com

     So what would space travel actually be like, assuming that? Writers of these shows can put all the drama that is readily available on earth into their characters but if what is said to have happened to the Apollo astronauts is any indication maybe it wouldn't be that way. Maybe humans wouldn't be human anymore, in that 'human' has everything to do with earth and nothing whatsoever to do with space. We're not from space, we're from earth. Or is it actually the other way around? Hmm.....

      Being outside of the earth's field would undoubtedly change us. It has to. We probably couldn't export our disfunctions outside of earth's orbit- or could we? It's the million dollar question. We've been quarrantined so far on this isolated ball in the vastness of space, so vast it can't in any way be described. 
     Having warp engine technology could change that but it's only conjecture as to what we'll find and how we will interact with each other and the other beings we may find once we're 'out there'. Warp engines would reduce our time in the can, that's for sure, make any journey less lengthy, but those engines better fire when we need 'em to and there better be back up craft to rescue us if we break down and... ... whew! It's too much.
     For me, space travel/life the way it's currently imagined is too fraught with stress and unknowns. Until proven technology and solid social constructs exist I'll be TOTALLY content to watch things play out on TV!

A Great And Persistent Danger

     Back in the day, about '88, I was living in San Diego on the po' side of town. Downtown, the locals called it. The warehouse district. 
     Living there was dicey. Homeless people roamed on the sidewalk outside of the newly-built place where I rented out a room by the week for about $90, and I was glad to pay such an exorbitant price, because the place was like a fortress. The front door was always locked and the desk clerk would let you in only if he knew you on sight. If not, a lengthy and sometimes lively discussion took place on the intercom.

     A guy got stabbed right outside my second story window one night, and muggings were common if you didn't look crazier or better armed than your would-be assailant. The night belonged to the people on the streets, and 24/7, guys stood on a particular street corner dealing drugs.
    During the day, produce trucks lined the streets around my place, because the city's produce was delivered to the warehouses near my building and divvied up there for distribution to all points. Most of this produce came from the sweltering, below sea level Imperial Valley area, picked just that morning or in the day previous. It was then trucked over Interstate 8's Tecate Divide and then down into sea level San Diego. 
    A lot of the people picking that produce were probably Mexican, and no doubt many of them were here in the country illegally. 
    A few city blocks to the east from where I lived ran the 405 Freeway, which joined Interstate 5 just before that road terminated at the Mexican border not that many miles away. Tijuana lay there, and I visited once, which made me all the happier to be where I was, even if where I was wasn't much. 

     People from Mexico were always trying to cross into the U.S. and sometimes a group of people at the border would make a break for it and just start running. Some died after being hit by cars on the freeway. 
     Vehicles got stolen on a regular basis on the American side and were driven into Mexico- deep into Mexico, waved on through by the 'border agents' on the take on the other side. One night I think it was six or eight Chevy Suburbans disappeared from the parking lot of Jack Murphy stadium during a baseball game. 

     San Diego was an expensive place to live. Real estate speculation was rampant at the time I lived there, and working class Joe's and Jane's were rapidly being priced out. It was hard to live there- even if you were white! So you made do with what little you had, if you were from the neighborhood I lived in, or worked where I worked, and when it came to food at work every guy on the crew knew where the deals were. 
    Near the shop I worked out of was an old, nondescript white gas station, abandoned. Two Mexican guys, I don't know if they were legal or not, started a restaurant inside there, but that restaurant didn't have a sign. Maybe they would put one up later but for now, business was a couple of big pots on a burner in the back, next to that a deep fryer, over on one side a tiny prep area, and a sliding window area in front for ordering at. There were a few plastic seats outside, and two tiny tables, but most people got what they made to go and what these guys made were mainly taquitos. 
     Now I didn't know what taquitos were until my coworkers turned me onto this place but when I did finally have one it was love at first bite. 
    Taquitos are little rolled up tortillas containing meat and cheese fillings (but minus the typical taco ingredients lettuce and tomato). They're deep fried and once they've cooled you dip them into salsa before eating them. Years later I found out that these things go by another name. 'Flautas', they are also called, which is Spanish for 'flutes'. 

Sabor comes from the soul

Jimmy Salazar- Unsplash.com

   Those two Mexican guys were hard workers. I watched them orchestrate their moves in that little 'kitchen' and never did they get cross with each other or complain. They treated the customers with courtesy but not much more than that. They were businessmen, on the job, and there were always customers waiting. 
     Man, I tell you, I lived for those taquitos. First and best I ever had, 'cuz I've had a lot since then, but if you've ever lived close to the border you know that they do things different down there and that difference is what they bring over from the home country. It can't be duplicated. Those taquitos had soul, man, I swear it. I would daydream about getting off of work and running over to that gas station to get my fix, like any junkie jones'n for a shot of heroin. 
    But one day fate intervened, life happened, and I moved away. When I came back to visit San Diego, only one year later(!), that gas station was still there but it was empty (as was my former business location) so I had nobody to ask to find out what happened to those two guys. Did they expand, move to a different location, or go their separate ways? All sorts of unanswered questions. 
      Maybe, if they were illegal and just might have been careless and not had all their papers in order, they got sent back to Mexico after getting stopped while driving somewhere at some random Border Patrol checkpoint.  If so, the greatest danger those two ever posed to me was that they made food too good. 
      So Buenos Dias, my Mexican amigos, wherever you are. And muchas gracias for turning me onto a food that I savor to this very day.

Satire

      Satire: (from Websters dictionary- 'trenchant (vigorously effective and articulate) wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly'.
       Man oh MAN we have some ripe candidates out there right now just begging for this. One thing I have noticed in my many spins around the sun is that those who hold themselves as being above all others can't stand disrespect. They just can't stand it. They have lost the ability to laugh at themselves and if you're around them you'd better not even THINK that anyone other than God is in your presence. 
      Well, the hell with that. 
      While God may be worthy of the utmost respect, respect of that magnitude is something that has to be earned, and until it is, setting yourself on a pedestal next to him is premature. 
       Maybe in your POMPOSITY ('having or exhibiting self-importance') you believe you have earned that position, were born into it, or whatever, but there are those who just might have a different opinion. And when all avenues of opinion have been sealed, or are thought to have been sealed, pomposity grows and grows and then along comes some character with a pin to pop your balloon. 
       Beware of that one! But, he or she acts as a servant. It's for your own good, you see, because in your blindness you have failed to see that your rhetoric has been falling on what could very well be deaf ears. The many in the crowd have either been too cowered to speak or they have been mesmerized by your incandescent personality to such a degree that they can't see any other source of light but this one can, the one who ain't buying it. And not only ain't he buyin' it, he can pinpoint exactly what's wrong with the picture you've been painting and expose you to the crowd, who might not like you so much when he's finished. 

No respect!

        Take a clue from those who have been taken down a notch- you'll be viewed as much more human if you're willing be be seen as one who makes mistakes and has the ability to laugh about them. But if you never do, that sends a ripple through the pack and all the animals within it sense that something is wrong, so they send a messenger to set things right again. 
        When this 'messenger' (could be more than one) shows up, it's not really a singular entity that comes to rain on the pompous one's parade, it's in actuality more than that, it's an unspoken cry for help from the pack answered, like rain after a drought, where, after withering in the hot sun of 'perfection', and tired from shielding their eyes from the glare of unbroken brilliance, the members of the assemblage are finally able to lower their hands and breathe sighs of relief as well deserved and overdue satire arrives on the scene. 
     Though the words the satirist uses may be charged not in any way should they be perceived of as mean, for they are necessary to the situation. Meanness is unworthy of respect, while satire garners it. Satire simply points out in an elegant way what is already there but hasn't been expressed. It's that 'something' that's been bugging the crowd since who knows when and when it is spoken, written, or heard the continuous remark is "That's it! That's exactly what I've been thinking! THANK you!" because it's not just about breaking the pompous one's bubble, it also releases everyone trapped within it, those that have wandered with the false prophet out into some parched, devoid-of-reason desert and were unable to find their way back. 
     Yeah. We've all been there, off in dreamland, following the latest trend, or caught up in the latest 'craze', oh- I'm not going to bestow such a word on current events! Let's just say that part of the flock has been wandering. They're nearly out of sight over the hill but a ferocious-looking border collie is going to come charging along to catch them right at the ridge. From there they'll be herded back safely to the fold.
       Because, while they still might be sheep, shepherds are around to look after them.

Screenplay

   The thought occurred to me the other day to give writing a screenplay a go. Now this idea has come to me before, and I have researched it, but I dropped it and now here it is again. Should I take on the task?
    I think it would be fun to write a movie script, and if I do this, I'm going to of course do it my way, which is going to be not exactly like those books I researched said was the way to do it. I'll use their pointers as general guidelines, but I'm also listening for inspiration inside my mind, which is where the little promptings come from to do this or that that lead to bigger things, such as Thought Of The Day. That started as an inner urging. 
     Far as plot goes, I haven't a clue, but then I didn't have a plot when I wrote The Book either, and that turned out better than I thought it would. It was the day by day, moment by moment stuff that steered the ship there, and since I don't have any plot currently in mind, maybe that's the way I should go with this screenplay idea. Kinda feels right. 
      However, if a plot should suddenly surface twenty pages or so down the road I could incorporate that and view what I have already put down as background or what I THOUGHT was gonna happen and then something totally different came to pass, which would make what I wrote totally untainted by any foreknowledge of what was about to occur. 

At the premier

Photo- Kilyan- Unsplash.com

     Put a book of rules in front of me and I'm liable to fall asleep. Place a tome where those that have gone before show me how to do it and I'll be comatose after briefly scanning through the pages. I have to do my thing organically because if I try to follow any rules I'll just freeze up and find myself turning back to page 56 or something, scrolling down to paragraph 3, and asking, stumped, "Exactly HOW did he say to do this part?"
     I've tried all that. While some people might swear by it, it doesn't work AT ALL for me. 
     There are going to be some definites though. The script is going to have a love interest. Gotta have that. It's going to have a sidekick- for sure. The hero is going to go on a journey somewhere, and where he's going ain't gonna be a cakewalk. There are going to be many, many other characters but they'll probably appear only briefly. But who knows? I'll figure it all out when the time comes. The key for me is just to start. 
     Another thing is, it's not going to be the typical Hollywood fare of the times, where there is so much going on that you can't track it and your brain becomes numb, like you're in a bombardment. There's going to be action aplenty but there is also going to be pacing. 
    And when those credits roll, if they ever do, it's going to say "Written By..." followed by my name up there on that silver screen and being steamed around the world. Yeah. I like that. Big Time. Feels appropriate. Now- what the hell am I going to put down? Today?

Uber Rude

     From the very start I was aghast at Uber's business model/strategy. As an ex-cabbie, I knew how the playing field was structured and Uber came in and refused to play by any rules whatsoever. They swooped in under the radar and stole passengers from the taxi companies while excited investors flooded this start up with money, which enabled them to expand into other taxi companies' territories and do the same. Then they went global. 
     Now I can tell you firsthand that the taxi business ain't no glamor job. It's full of riffraff and drunks, people that can be belligerent and abusive, and those are just your coworkers! The pay is low, and the benefits- WHAT benefits? When I drove cab, cab drivers didn't get vacation time, overtime, health care, or pensions. The only benefits cab drivers got were, if they drove in a company fleet, which most of them did, was they got to drive a newer car and work day shift (If they WANTED to work day shift. The better money was made at night). 

     The pay structure that the companies I worked for was I split the meter with them 50%. They took half of my total book for the day. That was the deal. They purchased and maintained the fleet, ran the dispatch operation, and paid the insurance on the car. My only cost was I paid for the gas, at the company pump. Another deal, at one of the competing companies across town, which was viewed by the drivers as much less attractive, was to lease a car at a daily rate, say $50 a day. You had to pay that amount off your meter FIRST, and whatever you booked after that was yours. Every day you had to face that stress, and most drivers didn't want to.

Winter is coming...

Photo-Dan Calderwood- Unsplash.com

     Behind the wheel, the hours were long, there were extensive waits at times between fares, fares called the dispatcher and cancelled when you were halfway there at least once a shift, every once in a while you had a run out/no pay, and your income went up and down according to what was taking place in town. The taxi companies could put too many drivers on the street and dilute everybody's income but their own, or they could put too few on the streets and have you running like crazy, chasing fares all over town. 
     Robberies were regular occurrances, and verbal and even physical abuse was something on every driver's minds at the start of their shift, which were usually twelve hours. The taxi owners, a powerful cabal, wanted to maximize their income so there were never any idle cars on their lots. If there were, it was because the car had mechanical issues and the mechanics hadn't gotten to it yet, or the driver assigned to that car had called in sick or quit. 
     And then into this existing mess stolls Uber and when I read about their business proposition I about fell off my chair. Here they were recruiting drivers to drive their OWN cars, not theirs, and Uber would see to it that they got fares, which weren't really 'fares' anymore, because there wasn't a taxi meter. You would pay from miles driven off of their app and out of that Uber would take a percentage ("For WHAT?" every cab driver in the land asked).
    Uber effectively saddled the drivers with all of the risk of being out there on the streets, all of the vehicle maintenance, all the driving work, the unpaid wait time, and sold that as an 'opportunity'(!!). 
     And they did this while evading the Public Utilities Commission (or whatever it was locally called), the regulatory agency that the existing taxi companies had to adhere to. One of the regulations I would like to point out is that taxi companies were considered 'public services' and because they were, drivers were not allowed to refuse fares. Obviously if somebody was perceived to be dangerous, you could, but you couldn't refuse taking home the drunk from the bar (three blocks and a headache) or the little old lady that called from the grocery store or the overweight person that wanted to use your cab to go three blocks but didn't feel like walking and many, many other situations.  Of course the taxi company owners cried foul at this but the money was behind Uber (and Lyft) and so the wrecking ball spread across the land, and then the globe, and the bright-eyed newbie customers of Uber and Lyft thought this 'ride sharing' app was the greatest and most sparkly new thing. Millennials were driving these cars, cool people, hip, up on the technology people. Why, they could have been your neighbors from next door in your hipster 'hood. 
    But then the ugly truth about long hours and low pay and lack of benefits came seeping out from under the rug Uber had hastily placed over reality and driving for Uber was seen as just another bad movie, reinvented.

Ready for business- or they were.

Photo- Patricia Jekki- Unsplash.com

    The business world is always looking for new avenues in which to generate income and when I looked into Uber I saw that it wasn't that their initial intention was to totally destroy the taxi business (at the beginning Uber was offered as was a 'black car' service, like a limo service), it was that they saw the possibility of tapping into a revenue stream and that was blood in the water for investors, who flooded Uber with money and made them grow wildly, like an out of control bacteria. 
     Here's how Uber taps into this particular revenue stream: Every time some Joe 'hails' an Uber car, he does so with his smart phone. Uber 'dispatches' a car to Joe, and in it Joe is transported from point A to point B. At the end of the ride, Joe's credit card, usually, is charged, but it can be other forms of payment as well. The Uber driver gets a cut of the proceeds, out of which he pays for the wear and tear on his car, the necessary insurance, and is compensated for his time. Uber gets paid for.....? 
     What that is is not clear. They get paid for 'hosting the app' and that is a HUGE unknown, because I researched that and there is no way to find out how much that costs. But- I suspect that the cost for Uber to do what it does is probably shockingly low, like the profit margin on bottled water and Coke and other such things. So- Uber investors saw that they could make money for doing virtually nothing, and voila! Market valuation in the billions. 
     This is just one example of the unfathomable business world, where ordinary consumers have no idea of the actual cost of anything. We pay whatever the market will bear, or the owners of these businesses deem what the appropriate price should be. Competition is a factor that is said to keep prices down but in the case where there are only four cellphone networks, how is that competition? Anyway, I stray. Back to Uber and Lyft and the rest. 

     A lot of the internet service providers charge a fee for the use of their services, and the staggering number of internet transactions is how they make their money. Uber shaves off a little bit on every transaction, as does Orbitz, Priceline, Air BnB, etc., and this is in perpetuity, apparently. Long after the app has been developed and the web portal has been established, this fee gathering goes on and on. A little overboard, don't you think? Not if you're an investor. 
     In Uber's case, they simply took the available technology, figured out a way to exploit it, and were in business. The taxi business was blindsided by this, and in my opinion unfairly bullied by Uber, but this sort of take no prisoners mentality is common in the business world. The I Phone killed off a lot of existing technologies but didn't get as bad of press as Uber. The I Pod, coupled with I Tunes, killed the CD market. Streaming media killed off video stores. Digital cameras killed off the makers of film. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost when computers came on the scene. Newspapers became casualties. Magazines. Book manufacturers are still surviving, but are under siege. Pay phones are museum pieces. Watchmakers have all but been driven out of business. So many things have been laid to rest by digital technology. 
     The business world can at times be ruthlessly efficient. But in other instances, politics can be involved, which could keep ancient technologies operating for as long as political support for them can be preserved. It's not simple, this business mess. Some old technologies survive without reason, while some new technologies change the landscape like the breaking of a new day. 
     Uber crashed and bashed its way onto the scene because it was allowed to, while companies wanting to start drone home delivery and flood the streets with self driving cars aren't being given permission to- yet. If it's a public safety issue, it matters.
     But if it entails taking down a bunch of taxi driving shlubs, who cares? 

1970 B.C. (Before Cellphones)

      It was a far different world back then, in so many ways. I was pretty young, not yet even a teen, so all the political stuff that was swirling in the air was lost on me. 
     My hometown was a place that in a lot of ways resembled Mayberry R.F.D.. Though the town was bigger in population than Mayberry, the mindset was the same. The local neighborhood cop was named Buster and his workload was as light as sheriff Andy Taylor's was. 
     In the summer, people played league baseball and softball in the park across the street from where we lived. Many evenings during the week large numbers of cars would be parked there and people would sit in bleachers to watch the games. 
     Every car on the block had a V8 engine, and every teen kid had a hot rod of some sort or another. 
     News came through the newspaper, which arrived in the afternoon, thrown onto your doorstep by the newspaper boy. Later, on one of the three TV channels in town, would come the news broadcasts, one at 6 p.m. and the other at 10 p.m. At midnight the TV station would sign off for the night and in the morning (around 6:00 was it?) it would replace the test pattern it was showing during the night and the day's programming would begin. 

This picture is kind of ugly but you get the picture

Photo- Pavan Trikutam- Unsplash.com

     Vietnam was raging and there were protests happening at the big college down south that I didn't even know about but found out about later. 
      The telephone was something that hung on the wall or sat on the table at the house. It was either rotary dial or newfangled push button. Outside of the house you had to find and use pay phones and if you called long distance you had to dial the Operator first, who would tell you how much the call would cost and you'd better have plenty of coins in your pocket to pay for it.
     Coffee was made in a contraption called a 'percolator'. Bowls of sugar for sweetening your food sat on the dinner table, next to the salt and pepper. There were no expiration dates on any of the foods you bought at the grocery store. TV dinners were popular.
    Bonanza was on prime time TV, as was the Lawrence Welk Show. 
    Nobody in town had a tattoo unless they had been in the navy or the slammer.
    For guys, bell bottom pants were absolutely essential schoolwear. Long hair as well. Without that, you were viewed as clueless, or a jock.
   Half the population smoked cigarettes, at least. You could smoke in a restaurant, in a bar, on a bus, on a train, on an airplane, in a football stadium, at a baseball game. I still remember going to an NFL game that started in the early evening and watching the flickering of cigarette lighters constantly going off around the stadium for the duration of the entire game.
   I rode my three speed bicycle everywhere and especially liked my other bike, which had a banana seat, a sissy bar, and a fat back tire. I practiced doing wheelies on it and got good enough to ride a wheelie about 200 feet or so. 
   Rock and roll was exploding on the national landscape but not so much in my hometown, which was kind of backwater, due to geographic location, but still, every guy wanted to be in a band. 
   It was that geographic isolation (and very cold winters) that kept my town predominantly white and middle class. I had little concept of race or racism and just assumed that where I lived was like everywhere else. 
    Music came on records, which you played on your Hi Fi Stereo system, which was the size of a dresser. You played 45's or 33.3 albums. Grandpa had some 78's that you could play too. The radio stations in town broadcast on the AM band, and between songs the station's DJ's bantered and ads for local businesses played. 
    Compare all this stuff to what the world is like right now and it's hard to find any similarities at all. But I'm here to say that this kind of reality was as real as the one we're now experiencing. Whippersnappers don't think that a world such as this was probably even possible to live in, or in any way desirable, but it was, and it was a pretty cool time to be alive, even without all the technology we have at our fingertips today, all of the conveniences. 
     But, times change and the year 1970 B.C. was a blip in the continuum, as our present time will eventually be. There was a LOT more to it than what I have been able to put into these few words, it was a total immersion experience, like now is. What is perplexingly hard to capture and describe is the MINDSET that prevaled and how different things are now in that regard. There was a certain degree of ignorance and simplicity in the populace. People weren't so harsh, know-it-all, and blase as they can be these days, but in other ways the people from back then were certainly roughly hewn characters, and that's just the way it was.   
     I have the knowledge of what it was like to live back then and what it's like to live now, that is the benefit of experience. As an elder, I am able to make comparison analysis. Being around for awhile has some perks! So I'm not just spouting off about this and that, all this is coming from seeing how things were, and how they worked, and what worked, compared to what is being called 'normal' now. 
     It's a far cry from what 'normal' used to be, I will say that. So don't let anybody tell you what the new normal is going to be because things will change. I've seen a LOT happen since 1970 B.C. and nobody back then saw any of what is here now coming. So- keep that in mind. 

     Someday it's gonna be 2038 A.C. (After Computers). Where will we be then?

There's A Reason For Civility

    If you think about the English and the snobbery displayed by some of the upper class there, it is an example of what I'm going to illustrate taken a bit too far. I don't think the English were TRYING to be snobs, at first. I think they were just tired of dealing with louts and loutish behavior and were desperately thinking up ways to distance themselves from being in some sort of nonstop frat house environment. 
     Now, while frat house life can be fun, it wears on you after awhile and you yearn for a living environment that is less cluttered, definitely more clean, more quiet, and more your space. We've been through it, most of us, to some degree or another. 
     But if you go back to England say, 16th century or so, and the streets are all muddy and who knows what is going on at the ale house down the lane it was a fair bet that certain parts of town were not safe day or night so the people in those towns devised a way where they could stay safe without armoring themselves, or having the king's lancers at the ready, and that was they developed a code of ethics, sort of like a club, to which they invited you to join. 
     It didn't cost any money to be in the club, but money was preferable. This is probably the way it was at first, the money part came later.  Anyway, back to my story.... 

     No, not yet. Let's go further back. When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai carrying the tablets upon which were written The Ten Commandments, that was God's way of trying to instill a rudimentary code of ethics into the people. It was a start. But it took a loooong time for people to more or less get it by the time we get to England in the 1600's. 

     As societies grew, and travel became more prevalent, strangers started regularly coming to town, which was new. Gypsies stayed on the outskirts but here these travelers were coming right into town, and you didn't know them and that held true for just about everybody else. So a fear factor was introduced. How could you tell if this person was friend or foe? Ethics! He had no weapons, mainly he was by himself, perhaps he had an entourage, but in order to enter your environs to do his business he had to demonstrate goodwill towards his new fellowmen and so......
....the way to bridge this uncomfortable gap was to demonstrate ethical behavior by saying "Please" "Thank You" and "You're Welcome" which is shorthand for
        (May I come in? I'll leave my troops outside the wall)
        (Yes, that would be nice. Thank you for doing that)  
        (You're welcome)
 and so on and so on. 

Beware El Borracho!

Photo- Larry Costales- Unsplash.com

     But- trickery and subterfuge was always suspected or could actually be in the works so you never could tell and so more complicated rules of conduct, rules of behavior, were established, bit by bit, and in these ways strangers could get along, people not of your tribe. Even now this holds true. We are strangers to each other using such rules, many unwritten, in order to get along smoothly in social interactions. Ethics and morals are our guidelines. Or they USED to be, because when we suddenly fast forward again to present times we find ourselves in a time where we are witnessing something akin to All Star Wrestling taking place within our government. 
      In this strange world, some of the audience (the base) takes delight in watching their champion(s) BREAK THE RULES as much as possible and get away with it. How many times can he or she do it? How many times can the other side do it? Is the referee looking? Did the ref see something and let it slide? On and on the match goes until one of the rule breakers exhausts the other and a 'winner' is declared. But is that person really the winner? For now! There is always a rematch, scheduled for next week, or next month, and that has the audience frothing in anticipation (hee hee) because in the next match they're probably gonna pull out ALL the stops. 
     Right now it's the Democrats and the Republicans in the All Star Wrestling ring, and man, those Republicans have been nasty. They've been blindsiding the Democrats, hitting them over the head with ringside chairs, tag teaming them, haystacking them, oh, it's ugly. 
     Their audience loves this. Look at all of the rules they're breaking! The Democrats are so dazed that they're wandering around, scratching their bruised heads, and don't see that they're going to get jumped upon by some gorilla that has climbed up onto the ropes and is going to do a flying body slam on them. 
     This is how far we've devolved. We The People are now the audience in an All Star Wrestling World Federation match. 
     Sad. 
     It's in this ring where 'the rules of the game' now play out, but in this ring, there AREN'T any rules. How did we GET here?
    We were dragged here by a steady decline in civility. But, we can climb out of the pit. We The People, which make up a nation, can refuse to participate in a game played with no rules and, without an audience, there can be no match. To achieve this we demand accountability. We demand logic. We demand factual statements. We can stand our ground until the other side caves, and they will, for without us, there will be no opponent left to bash. Without an opponent acting as the foil, there stands only nakedness, holding its unreasonable and untenable positions. Wrestlers NEED a foe. Without one, they are bereft of accolades, stripped of standing, and nobody is left in the seats to hear them boast into the microphone about how they're going to take their opponent down. 
     These are pitiful souls who are desperate for an audience, any audience that will listen to their bizarre opinions; they are desperate for power and will take whatever they can get while trying to support their power grabs by the flimsiest of reasons (hoping that nobody with a lick of sense is looking) and geez...... it's 2018. Bamboozled? Flummoxed? Befuddled? That's what happens when you dose yourself with All Star Wrestling. To counteract its effect turn off all All Star Wrestling programming on your TVs and radios and put your thinking caps on- for godsakes. Stop reacting to blows that are landing on propagandized issues and caricatures of people. Choose to evolve, not devolve, for by blindly agreeing to this sort of nonsense you choose to place power in hands that can hardly be trusted to play by the rules when it concerns YOU. 

A Time For Healing

    When this nation, the U.S. of A., was founded way back in 1776 upon the signing of the Declaration Of Independence, at around 5:00 p.m. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the die for what is transpiring now was cast. However, a whole lot of stuff had to play out beforehand, which did, and this all has to do with the placement of a particular planet at the time of the U.S.'s birth. 
      On that fateful day the planet Pluto was in Capricorn, at 27 degrees and about 44 minutes. Pluto's placement was in the second house of the chart, which rules personal finance, which in the case of the U.S., could be considered the U.S.'s 'personal finance'. 
     Pluto is known as the god of the underworld. All the sneaky things that go on in the shadows take place in the domain of Pluto and so, with Pluto's influence on the money making activities of this country we can see that every trick in the book has most likely been used, and quite successfully, to undermine our opponents in order that we may gain the upper hand. Capitalism unbridled.  

Yippie Kai Yea!

Photo- Vinny O'Hare- Unsplash.com

     The reach of the United States has been far, spanning the globe; it's impact on the world incalculable. Truly this has been a great nation but we may have got there by nefarious means and so we have a lot of skeletons in the closet. 
      Soooo.....
      ....picture an astrological chart's operation like that of a clock. Some of the gears turn quickly, some slowly. The moon is quick in its movement. It makes its way around the entirety of the 360 degree circle of the zodiac in one month. There is a full moon every 28 days. The moon spends about two and a half days in each sign of the zodiac as it makes its way around the chart. It's influence is felt, but only briefly. 
      Mercury and Venus, quick movers too, never stray far from the sun, which transits about one degree of the zodiac each day. At present, Mercury and Venus are ahead of the sun which means that soon both planets will go retrograde for awhile, until from our perspective, they appear to be behind the sun. (If you don't understand retrograde motion, there are animations on the internet). 
       Mars, somewhat slower in motion, is currently retrograde, and will be so until late August of this year. A retrograde motion diminishes a planets influence, so the qualities of the planet Mars are muted during this time. 
       Further out lie the very slow movers Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and then Pluto. All of these planets spend a good portion of the year in retrograde motion. These are the 'major planets' of the zodiac, the 'grinders'. Their influence is felt over longer periods of time. 
      Jupiter spends a year in each sign of the zodiac and takes twelve years to go completely around. Saturn spends two and a half years in each sign, and takes 29 years to go around. Two or three times in the average human's lifetime comes an event called a 'Saturn Return', which is when Saturn, known as the serious taskmaster of the zodiac, returns to the point where it was when a person was born. Let's say that when Saturn returns, which happens at roughly 29, 58, and 87 years of age, it's review time. Have you completely mastered the curriculum you were working on before? If so, good. If not, this can be a painful time, because review lessons will be brought home to you whether you like it or not. 
   Skipping Uranus and Neptune, which have their own return periods (I think you get the picture) we'll join up with icy Pluto. Pluto takes the longest to go completely around the zodiac, many, many generations, and guess what? We happen to be the members of the generation of the United States when it has its Pluto Return! It has taken that long for Pluto to make its way around, and in that length of time Pluto has managed to amass a heavy load of...  ...karma is a good word. Baggage. Things under the rug. 
     It was in 2008 that Pluto got within ten degrees of its position when the United States's astrological chart was cast. This is when its return influence began to be felt, and it has been moving slowly and inexorably closer to its exact original position since then. 
     This means that all of those secrets and lies and who knows what else that exists under the rug are being brought to the surface and, like the full moon's effects, the energy of this is the strongest BEFORE the moment of exactness is reached, because on the moment it is reached the cycle can be said to be completed and then, like a waning moon, the influence steadily lessens. 
       Pluto will become exact in February 2021, and then again in December of that year, due to retrograde motion. So we've got a ways to go. Adding to this, Saturn is already in Capricorn at about five degrees and moving towards Pluto's position, and Jupiter will be joining this duo in 2020 so a whole LOT of housecleaning is going to be going on. 
     The outer planets, as said before, are slow movers. They're heavies. They grind through astrological signs like stones grind grain into flour in mills and not a kernel will lie untouched. Pluto's positive traits are sprituality and rebirth, it's negative ones are lust for power and control. Could this be said to be a lot of what is going on in the United States right now?

Don't Bring Me Down

   Actually, nothing can or could, for long. To be down is a choice, a reaction to things. And I have been exposed to a lot that could bring me down. So what gives, with this weird statement this morning? I have no immediate, pressing issues as of this writing yet, come to think about it, I do- I have a distant one, which was referenced earlier in 'Expiration Date'. 
     Knowing that your job has a definite ending is ..... well, I wouldn't wish it on anybody. It's like waiting to go to the dentist, or in for an operation, for a YEAR. There's this low level anxiety rumbling like a subsonic hum through my being, just below hearing level, that I can sense. Yuk. 
     Given a choice to stay or go would be better but here there is no choice. When my present job ends the position will no longer exist, and I'm not yet able to retire, so there is this gap. I have to bridge that gap. 
     Can't really commit to a career when the distance between 'here' and 'there' is about five years so what is an elder worker to do? Start over and build? Ain't no reason to build. 
     There is a town in California called Dun Movin. I'm like that. I'm Dun Buildin'. What's the point, what's the use? But I might as well be shouting that on a mountaintop into a bitter cold uncaring wind for all the good that does me. 
     Life is odd. Despite all of your efforts to the contrary, you end up where you're supposed to end up, and that only makes sense to somebody whose life has been filled with frustration and illogic because if you have an easy life you take it for granted. You assume that the red carpet is always out for you and only question things if it is not. Oh, you might briefly wonder at times why things seem to go so well for you with so little effort because you read about or see people that are stuggling with stuff, but those thoughts dissipate as if they were puffy clouds viewed from under a shady tree in a dreamy meadow. However, when you get seriously rained on over and over, that's when you look for answers to the deeper questions because being constantly wet and cold is an ISSUE.

Frickin' frackin' rain! Again!

Photo- Jack Finnigan- Unsplash.com

      While temporary discomforts will drive you to seek immediate shelter, anxiety will drive you to seek answers to the longer term questions. But in seeking answers and thinking that you find them sometimes you discover that you were wrong, or only partially right, and your quest might continue until you get to be my age and find yourself (again) facing an end to the road you're on with no recourse in sight and you get so g..damned frustrated that you start to laugh. Nothing is going to happen the way you want it to or in the time frame that you want and so you sit on a park bench or on the sofa and just be. You've done all the prep work and you are at the end of your action chain- you know, those steps that you think you have to make beforehand- and that's it. There's nothing more to do and nothing more that can be done. I call this 'being in the parking lot', because that is exactly what it feels like. While the rest of the world is off doing things somewhere, you're sitting in a parking lot waiting. Not that you couldn't drive somewhere, but there is no impetus to drive and you've learned by this point that without synchronicity, all your efforts are premature. Wasted. 
     It's synchronicity that I depend on now and that comes when it comes, and when it comes, I act. Never before but only in that or those exact moments. I operate by feel coupled with logic but the system I've developed is such a (when viewed from outside of this understanding) frightening, unstable, and uncertain one that 95% or more (perhaps I'm exaggerating here, but I think not) of the rest of the world's population wouldn't apply synchronicity as their operating system, no way. 
     If you're part of the 5%, welcome to my world. If you're not, you've probably stopped reading this a few paragraphs back anyway, thinking it was gibberish. 
     Whatever. Point is, I'm Dun Movin', Dun Thinkin', and Just Bein'.

The Stage Is Set

   For real change to occur. Not fake change, where people in positions of authority announce that they are 'working towards a solution', but actual, physical evidence of change. Policy matters are asides. Real change happens organically and quickly, upsetting the status quo and causing ripples in the overall fabric of reality, which, in our case, has been static for too long. 
     What say you to this? People on the earth have been longing for change, for development of technologies that improve their lives, and I'm not talking about cell phones here. I'm talking about changes in infrastructure that for too long have been tied up in political gridlock because one side fears loss of control, loss of profits, and the other side, the people, are hesitant to adopt the technology due to cost factors or they can't act due to lack of availability and/or support. This will change, is changing, and as these new technological developments sweep the world the upsetting of the power structure will be evident. 
     Take one example here, and that is self driving cars. These are not control devices, as some have feared. They could be seen as actually freeing up a lot of resources and making driving a far less expensive undertaking than it is today. When self driving cars are available, everybody can get to anywhere they want to go cheaply and quickly. This will add to nightlife, this will add to bar culture, restaurant culture, to the arts, to music, because a lot of what keeps people home at night is the DUTY of driving, and not a lot of people want to have to perform that duty, obey the laws, take the risks associated with driving, because they can't be bothered to focus for one reason or another. Night will be like day, in some regions, towns, even in the countryside. Amazing this will be, the ability to command a car to take you ANYWHERE, and it will. Safely, reliably, cheaply. Who wouldn't take advantage of this opportunity? It will prove to add to personal satisfaction because far too many people sit at home and watch tv at night only because far too many of them want to stay off the roads. It can be crazy out there at night, and dangerous, because stoked citizens wanting to get somewhere fast ride other citizens' bumpers, or are wacked out in some way, through drugs, overwork, alcohol, fighting with their spouses, etc. so when self drivng cars come all that is eliminated. The playing field is leveled, for the first time ever. Safety, as much as the technology permits, is assured. Think about that! 

Field Of Dreams

Photo- Benjamin Davies- Unsplash.com

     Another thing that is in the works is home power. No more dependence on the electric grid. With home power, through neighborhood power collectives, people can locate to rural areas and set up compounds there, grow their own food, develop their own industries, and use self driving cars and trucks to deliver their goods to market. This will free up people to live AWAY from the cities, something that some of them very much want to do but can't at this present time. 
    A third development is in orbiting the earth in space stations. Shuttling people to orbiting platforms is a whole new industry that could be formed and people could stay in space stations like people nowadays spend time in hotels. What a treat that would be. Is that too far off, expensive, and unlikely a thing to happen? I don't think so. The use of 'space elevators' has been theorized, and materials strong enough to support such structures have not yet been made, but who knows? Workable space elevators could make the whole thing feasable. (Space elevators. They're on the internet). 
    Entertainment could change radically, and in some corners of the techno-geek world it already has, in the form of virtual reality, shared interactive computer simulation environments, holographic stage shows, more realistic three dimensional movies, interactive historical environments, and musical events that place you in the audience no matter where you are.
      'Foodie' tours all over the globe could be available, and all manner of other travel experiences, due to an entirely new network of transportation, for self driving cars will be in other countries too. Borders between countries could be like crossing state lines in a more relaxed and self-sufficient political climate so instead of some stupid, inane, and dreadful apocalyptic vision of the future these bright, enjoyable, fun, and SATISFYING fruits of mankind's evolved way of being are entirely possible- with a lot more yet to come.

Old School Bossman

     I demand loyalty but give none in return. I keep you at arm's length, then draw you near when I need you. But only for a while. 
     I can't be trusted to do what is in your best interest but can be completely trusted to act in mine. 
     If I falter, you will fall. If I gain, you may tag along, but only temporarily. 
     Your advice might be valuable to me, your labor, 'appreciated', your expertise, valued. For a time. 
     I seek to replace you. Always I am on the lookout for something or someone better. I do not have your back. 
     Should a better candidate come along, I'm not one to shy away from making a secret deal. 
     The closer you are to me, the more treacherous I am to you. The farther you are from me, the less I am able to affect you, though my policies may be far reaching and affect you in an indirect manner. 
     I seek to dominate, and will never allow myself to be dominated. I am Alpha. Nothing gets in my way that can't be dismantled, somehow. 
     You'd better watch out, because I'm coming. Always. 
      I'll get into your head, and stay there. I am toxic. I know how to be toxic. 
      I have no friends, only loads of enemies who would love to take me down, but they don't dare. 
      I am unpredictable and dangerous. Word comes to me that you might be plottting against me and I will attack.
      If you go low, I will go lower. I can't be shamed or restrained, my inventiveness is unbounded, my cruelty unbridled. Don't cross my path. 
      My goal is to be on top, and once there, to stay on top by any means necessary. I will not be taken down quietly. Power makes me only more dangerous, and I will wield it with impudence.
      I have no compassion, for compassion is for weaklings, in my estimation. I see the world only in black and white. Either I rule, or I plot to rule. 
     I love it when you think that you are better than me. I can then attack your vanity. 
     I love being me. I stare at myself in the mirrror and think the world of me. I am my greatest friend, yet I deplore myself for what I have become, which is the loneliest person imaginable. No one likes me. They only fear me. 
     I stop at nothing and go after everything, for I must have it all. 
     If you have it, I want it. 
     Whatever I gain is never enough. I must have it all. There I think I will find what I'm looking for, but I don't know what that is. To conquer all is my quest. 

He lives up there

Photo- Giancarlo Greco- Unsplash.com

     I AM the ivory tower. I distance myself from everybody. My way of getting attention is power, for I feel worthless without it. I look with utter contempt upon the powerless. How can those people possibly have any 'friends'? 
     People come to me on their knees, and I like that. Sitting upon my throne, I see nothing but subjects before me. 
     People that criticize me don't bother me in the least. I have no feelings to hurt and my pride won't be shadowed. I will not cower to the opposition, because cowering is for the weak. 
    My cup is always full, yet it is ever empty. I don't understand how that could be. The more power I grab, the less happy I am. I am miserable. 
     Blasphemy to me is when somebody takes MY name in vain. How could they be so misguided? I will set them straight. 
     When someone attacks me, I counterattack, and begin a campaign of relentlessly attacking my opponent, for I will never give in. You engage me, you reap the fullness of my wrath. 
      I am a problem, walking, talking, to everyone I encounter. They might not know it, but they will!
      I study people and wonder "How can I get them to give me more power?". I notice that people like it when the powerful grant them favors. I will place myself in a position where I am able to do that. They will like that, and give me more power, so that I may grant more of their requests. Ultimately, I will have all the power. All will bow before me. 
      I am mob boss, general, CEO, president, prime minister, dictator, and king. 
      I have no lovers, only objects which I desire, then cast aside until I need them again. Some call me cold. I don't know what that is for I have no comprehension of feelings. 
     I am a winner. My loser subjects only live to serve me. 
     I will not be contained, yet loneliness envelops me, and I cannot escape it. Ever tighter wraps the cloak of aloneness around me, distancing me from everything I own and see. This pain will be my undoing, in time. 
     I am ego.

Immigration

     This could easily go much longer and following this lead is going to entail a lot more research, but immigration is in the news a lot and so I looked into it some. 
     Having traveled around the world, I can give a firsthand report on what it was like in many other countries, and I will say right off that most of them weren't very diverse. It would have been tough for me to make a go of it in a country where I didn't speak the language and knew no one so I know what immigrants are facing, to a degree. Best case scenario is they might be either highly educated or hooking up with family or friends, which would make their resettlement much easier. 
      I also know that many of the developed nations in the world are facing an either flat birth rate or a declining birth rate. Futurists point that out to leadership of those countries and bring the point home to them that in X number of years we are going to be losing key demographics here and that can be translated as comparatively saying "Hey, Joe Congressman! We're going to lose our base!" which means that power will be lost. So, it's understandable, facing this threat, that the present day powerful would align themselves strongly with the conservative religious, who decry gay people and abortion, which are two depletions of the base, right? Not a lot of population growth there. Also, they would be upset that dilution, in the form of immigrants, would be changing the balance of power, and that those immigrants would most likely be settling into the neighborhoods where their base tends to live. Oh it all makes sense. 

I wanna go....... .....there!

Photo- Kyle Glenn- Unsplash.com

     I looked into other countries to see if anybody was moving there. Canada is taking in a lot of people from everywhere, as is a lot of Western Europe, but....  ...not very many other countries around the globe are open for resettlement. China, India- they don't want immmigrants because their populations are burgeoning. In war torn countries obviously not, backwater countries with small economies, not much. And that's a lot of the rest of the world! Countries that have economies that are strong, like Japan (I can't think of anywhere else right now)- well, I've been to Japan and I seriously stuck out, let me put it to you that way. 
     Japan and Italy, interestingly enough, have the greatest discrepancy between birth rates and death rates, both populations are projected to decline, yet I don't think- correct this with your own research if I am wrong- that Japan takes in a lot of people. Italy has been innundated with refugees because it's right there on the Mediterranean Sea, sticking out like a giant boat ramp, which is putting pressure on the government, big time. Japan, not so easy to reach. 
     Russia is not a destination resort, nor is South Africa, which has corruption problems. Norway, surprisingly, seems to have the welcome mat out, according to the immigration map I viewed, but....do you really want to live there? It's cold. A lot Australia isn't exactly friendly towards anybody coming in looking to make a home there and nowhere on the globe can the wagon train set out to bring pioneers to the promised land anymore so what is any government to do? Take 'em in, take only a few in and call it a day, close the door altogether, or deport the ones inside already but that's a legal and moral mess and welcome to the world, circa 2018. Can't send 'em back to the blasé or horrific conditions from where they came, the governments there don't want them anyway, and at home you can't please the base, there are not enough jobs, housing is in short supply please government DO something but government says you're costing us too much already (but we have the 1% and star athletes making bank and CEO's making thirty times what the average Joe makes in a year). Geez . How did it get this way? 
     I don't have the answers to any of this and if I did I couldn't implement them much so leaders, lead! That's what you volunteered to do. We'll vote yea or nay when the report card comes out.

Brave New World

     Better than any soapbox, better than the daily newspaper, better than any previous platform, the internet has democratized media. Now anybody can step up to the microphone, video camera, keyboard, or all three, and present their message. The question then becomes: "Will it be received?"
     If it is, you have created an internet 'presence'. Building an internet presence can mean different things to different platforms. For example, if you are on the low key, super secret celebrity dating app Raya, you already are someone because with that app it's invitation only, and getting in means passing through numerous stringent filters, whereas with an app like Facebook you are only asked to join. 

Like that

(Photo Credit Steve Halama Unsplash.com)

     Facebook makes it easy to get on the internet and put out your stuff, which can POTENTIALLY be seen by any of Facebook's crazy numbers of followers, but if you've been on Facebook (who hasn't?) you can easily see that your content ain't got much staying power because Facebook's content scroll is like entering a black hole. It's endless, and down that rabbit hole can you go, along with your life. So why not limit yourself to what interests you and others like you, which is what the social media networks try to accomplish by giving you 'preference' filters, but even those are too broad. 
      Perhaps, to winnow the chaff from the wheat further, content can be evaluated and measured in real time against the current interest level, and that is what 'followers', 'likes', 'shares', and the term called 'influencer' is all about. You can be a superstar on the internet if you are deemed to be an influencer. Lots of traffic will flow your way.
      I don't think that that word used in that way is very old. It used to be just 'influence' or 'influencing' but now it is used in a way that denotes a singular entity that is making a big enough mark on the world that people sit up and take notice. 

      But there have always been 'influencers'. They may or may not have been currently known, or directly in the public eye, but the modern day and very popular internet influencers are very much so. They're here and now and are being followed intently, because what they are 'splaining, demonstrating, working towards, or actually doing is worthy of interest to their numerous followers, who could be anywhere on the globe and so this whole influencer thing is acting as a real time catalyst sparking so many developments that it just HAS to change The World and maybe it is but The World seems to be absorbing all this influencing yet it keeps on plodding along, and in a way not so very much different for the majority of people than things went the day before. 
     So maybe all this 'influencing' is overblown? Who is able to measure the amount of impact it is having? Surely with all the influencing going on we could have, would have, and should have solved all the worlds problems by now, or at least be fervently working on solutions to them, and we are, but it's taking an awfully long (in internet measured time units) to do this.

It's Orchestrated. I was looking for something more casual......

(Photo Credit Jacob Morch Unsplash.com)

     In my estimation, we certainly HAVE sped things up, but what has also become glaringly apparent is that the human race is hobbled by many things as it struggles to find solutions to bigger issues. FORCES keep many of the nascent or proposed socially enlightened breakthroughs in check, but for how long? We don't live in a world of just ideas but also of facts, and fact is, we've a ways to go. I don't forsee the aliens landing anytime soon and blessing us directly with their technology, and if the great orange one that shook hands with the Korean leader is a symbolic start to something, that something is unclear. Perhaps it demonstrates that they have the ability to shake hands? I dunno. 
      Pundits on the internet might, by the sound of them, have the ability to solve thorny issues overnight but we have these forces standing in the way that have to be dealt with and so until then I will do what I can, which is blog about stuff, and influencers will do their thing, which will lead to something else, and maybe over time noticable differences in the quality of life we are experiencing will be real. Until then, we are highly focused and skillfully at work making various renditions of apps for dating, art networks, academic research, photo sharing, up and coming technologies, historic compilations, present videos of whatever from wherever (LOTS of fake stuff included), and are busy creating and playing super realistic games. Now I'm not criticizing any of this, these developments are the utterly amazing results of untold numbers of people's time and effort, so thanks for that, but until influencing gets coupled with real change on a block by city block level it's going to be pretty much the same old thing, only in a different package. 
      Society is complicated. I would like to see more spiritual understanding be coupled with all these innovations but it takes spiritual influencers to do that and following those cats ain't very exciting because they're not so much concerned with making bank, dating a hottie, and living the kind of life where you separate yourself from everything and everyone less desirable. 
      But things will play out as they will, and in my view, that has a lot to do with the hidden spiritual influencers that spur change to happen. These influencers are always here, always HAVE been here, they are the original ones, and although they're never directly on social media they might act through individuals that are on those sites. I believe that they play a big hand in all of this. It's something to think about. That might diminish some egos some, who want to think that they're gonna save the world solo, but to those I say "Chill, dude. It's all for the good that the influencers might be influenced themselves!".

You Can't Shame The Shameless

    Give it up, anybody that thinks that this 'war' can be won with manners. You're dealing with the lowest of the low. If there's a bar, they'll crawl under it. This war, if you want to call it that, is going to be won with honor and integrity. That's what The People want. 
     Slinging mud in the pit at each other doesn't accomplish a damn thing because no matter how much mud you hurl at the shameless, it fits them like a fine suit. You're the one who gets muddy in the process because you have lowered yourself, demeaned yourself, debased yourself, and they know it. Now you can be reckoned with. "You wanna play in MY arena?" You are out of your element. 
     The same holds true for honor and integrity, which is out of the shameless ones' element. They can't go there. So prove that you can, and see who follows you. Stand up for what is right, and by that I mean what's really right and not what some who claim to be right want because what is right for those folks is, when held up to the light of honor and integrity (even though they may claim to espouse that) will be seen as flawed reasoning. And it is reasoning that the shameless fear the most. Sound arguments, logical conclusions, true facts (not alternative ones), consequences to actions that have a long term effect in mind and are not there to satisfy short term personal agendas, and so much more. 

     Those who operate in the dark can't stand to see the light and if it shines on them out comes the mud and the slime and the smears to bring you down into the place where they like to engage and in that place nothing ever comes out clean, which is 'normal' for them, for they can't perceive shame. They don't have the wisdom, though they think they do, but you do and if this applies to you and you understand it you're already there. 
     Battles are messy. Integrity is sparkly clean. If you're in integrity it's who you are, and it's always in real time. There is no future for integrity because integrity is always now. Beating around the bush is a delay tactic. Solutions are now. Progress is now. It's never 'then' or 'when'. It's now. 
     The shameless play follow the leader until he falters, then they scatter lest they become identified with a loser. Integrity is always able to stand alone. 
     Honor is a quality, not an objective. There is no aspiring to honorable action. It, like integrity, is ever present. 
     In the mud-slinging pits confusion reigns, subterfuge oozes, and treachery takes place of trust. There is no big picture view, and even the little one can't be clearly seen. Shameless activity brings sorrow like clouds bring rain. Forever has this been true, and forever will it remain true. 
    Splitting people into factions makes them easy to control, but impossible to rule. This was understood by the true leaders of old, that it is better to unite than to divide. But shameless leaders don't understand that. They never do (and placing God on your side in order to bolster your cause doesn't work either). 
     Look for the shameless ones to double down on any bet you make, then sidestep their gambit with an honorable move of your own. This they cannot tolerate, for it takes you out of their game. Off their playing field you cannot be reached. 
     Standing up to the shameless is a choice, but never a duty.  It's up to us now, as it always has been.

    From Websters:

    Honor- 'good name or public esteem'

    Integrity- 'firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values'

SportsCenter

     After a hard day at work I like to come home and channel surf over a bottle of brew and maybe a shot of nip on the side. "Ahh. What's on the TV?" I ask myself.
      Sooner or later I'll get on SportsCenter and watch the boys and girls play sports. I say 'boys' and 'girls' because all of them are quite young, and peaking, probably in their early 20's up to 'old age'- their mid-thirties. 
     And wow can they perform. I'd hate to face a serve made by those tennis players, or try and hit a curveball thrown by one of those ace pitchers, or defend against any of the highly ranked soccer players in the World Cup competition. They are formidable opponents. 

     Basketball and hockey just concluded their seasons and the playoff battles leading up to the finals were intense. I don't know 'zactly how the hockey finals went but I saw some of the basketball finals highlights. Cleveland, I believe, got swept. Out in four. 
   Golf is ongoing, haven't been watching that as much, but I do know that some guy won back to back U.S. Opens, which is absolutely amazing. 
    But what is most amazing of all about sports is the amount of money these athletes are getting. Numbers are tossed about by the ever-chuckling SportsCenter anchors and those numbers are stratospheric. Salaries in the tens of millions of dollars, for playing ball. 

Coulda Shoulda Woulda....!

Photo- Leio McLaren-Unsplash.com

     I like to think that I perform on an equally high level, sometimes, at my job, but the difference between me and LeBron James is that only ten people are watching me. And if I WAS to play sports, I would prefer that NOBODY be watching, because people watching me makes me nervous but the winner of the U.S. Open said he ENJOYS that. The more challenging and troublesome the course, and the higher and more breathless the drama, the better he likes it. 
    So I guess there is a fundamental difference between me and guys like him right there. They like to pit themselves against the competition and I don't. I like to play sports only because I want to see if I can do it. Make the basket. Hit the pure golf shot. Do it for an audience? No way. 
    So it's no wonder that I'm sitting at home watching the games on TV instead of playing in them, which I couldn't do anymore anyway, because I would have to play in a seniors league and who wants to do that? 
    Furthermore, and back to the green, what do these superstar athletes do with all of that money? Crazy amounts of money, like hitting the lottery every year for ten years. What do they DO with that? 
      It's all a matter of perspective. While I might tip a waitress five bucks at the breakfast joint, a star athlete will casually give $200,000 to charity. 
   We're in the same world, just playing with different denominations of chips. I get a little house, they get a big one. I get a car, they get a car. But not the SAME car. Or maybe they get, like one of the baseball players I read about once, twenty cars and a garage big enough to hold 'em. They like to drive, I like to drive. But around there our few similarites end. The anchors on SportsCenter will clue you in on that because where the athletes lavish lives are examined in minute detail, mine is only self examined. I am also not considered 'talent', would be lucky to get (perhaps) a mediocre signing bonus should I accept a position, and I've NEVER waited for some team to draft me. 
     SportsCenter reminds me of how glorified my life could be, had I continued on past little league to pony league, scored a baseball scholarship, and then while on a free ride through college some scout in the stands could have observed me and next thing I know I could have been playing in the minors, for a short while, before getting called up to the majors and becoming a Professional Athlete. 
      Now I'm not bitter about any of this, 'cuz I probably wouldn't have done it anyway, but damn! I didn't realize at the time that there was not going to be a little difference in paychecks and corresponding lifestyles, but a difference SO big that no other career path compares. Guess I shoulda looked at that. But oh well! I enjoyed my time knocking that ball around.

      And I still get to watch the Top Ten plays of the day.

Hollister

     What is this word that I see written on gray T-shirts? 'Hollister'. What is this? 
     I started seeing this word a while back, years ago, and I questioned it even back then but never gave it a whole lot of thought but, you know, repetition. I saw it here and there over the years, sometimes more, sometimes less, but over time I noticed that this word had staying power. Why?
     Apparently, delving into the phenomenon, I saw that Hollister had some sort of mystique. Like a mythical land. 

     There is an actual city called Hollister. It is a small farming community just outside of Salinas, California and calls itself the 'Earthquake Capital Of The World' because it sits right on two fault lines. Other than that, there's nothing special about Hollister that I could find, but then again, there IS. 
     Santa Cruz and its surf culture sits just to the west, the San Francisco metro area lies nearby to the north, and to the south runs the jagged California coast, which eventually brings you to Los Angeles. 
     Holister is about California. It's about being born in California and being part of that vibe, which is made up of many things, all of them cool, and all of them cooler than the place where you, wearing your Hollister shirt, were born. James Dean might have been born in a place like Hollister, or he might have hung out there. Kerouac too. American Graffitti could have been shot in a place like Hollister. Surfers might have passed through a town like this on a regular basis, as well as Hollywood actors, beatniks, skateboarders, hip-hop artists, and other counter-culture types. Anyone that exists on the cutting edge fringe. On and on this mythos goes but I can guarantee you one thing- whatever happens in a fabled land like Hollister couldn't possibly happen in Pittsburgh or Pocatello or Muncie or Omaha. If you were born in a place like that, that's unfortunate, and you never mention it. 

There's just something in the air here!

(Photo credit- Ben Weber- Unsplash.com)

      'Hollister'. A nearly perfect city in a blest land, which produces its share of teen angst, I'm sure, but that angst only fuels the fires of creativity, unlike in those other, not even worthy of being put on a shirt, places. 
    Another thing about 'Hollister' is The Culture couldn't be from anywhere other than Hollister. According to legend, it happens IN Hollister, not on the outskirts. Cities around Hollister play a supporting role but Hollister is the star. 
     Funny these amazing things didn't, don't, or can't take place in Hollywood, in greater LA, or in San Francisco. Those places have a entirely different flavor, mixed, like Thousand Island salad dressing, but Hollister is pure. Raw. Black and white. I could see Marilyn Monroe in Hollister. Elvis might have passed through and had a significant encounter. Hollister is like that. It affects people. There's just something about it, it's where all those forces meet and "Bam!"- magic occurs. 
     I would like to think that there's a Hollister for everyone. That there's a place where you can roll into town and meet your destiny and from then on your life unfolds like a damn good movie. 

    "Where'd it happen?" Interviewers would ask you, years later. 
    "In Hollister" I would calmly reply. 
    "Yeah, I can see that" they would say, nodding their heads knowingly. "I could see such a thing happening there. Of course"
     A slight pause would ensue. 
    Then would come the same follow up question, asked more excitedly: "Tell us, what was it LIKE there? When you were in...... 

      ......HOLLISTER?"

Expiration Date

     I found out through the grapevine that the tenative expiration date of my job is going to be May 31, 2019. Eleven months away. This is when a new facility opens up and makes my present job unnecessary. Upon that date, my job will no longer be but I will continue to be, but in a capacity that is unknown at this time. This feels like dying to me in a way, and at the same time the birthing of an untold number of possibilities, and I wonder if I will even be there until The End because I have little to lose in staying other than doing (yet another) favor for The Company, which won't miss me much when I'm gone. Operations will commence in the new facility and to get the thing up and running will take up all of my many harried managers' time so if I was expecting any personal attention I'm afraid their attention will be directed elsewhere. So where does that leave me?
      In some sort of in-between states limbo. Not knowing what comes next, I'm faced with the slowly but steadily approaching end of my present 'career' and in exploring the other options available I'm not too excited at what is being offered. I've been through this before and it's like moving. Once you've gone through the process you never really want to do it again. 

Matt Lamers- Unsplash.com

     Yuk. 
      But then again, you never really know what's coming next and if you think you do, The Universe already has a role for you in mind, I think, and I'm sure it has a role for me because I've been around FAR longer that the nearly three years of service at my present job and I know that that counts for something more than can be comprehended. 
     They call this being an 'old soul'. I've been around considerably longer than just this lifetime, though lifetimes, at times- and this is one of them- can seem pretty real and convincingly singular. What I am facing at present is what a lot of old souls from time to time face, which is having to exert themselves, 'cuz old souls don't really like to do that. Comfortable almost wherever they are, old souls have learned to make wherever they find themselves feel like home. They don't reach for the stars because they've been there, done that, they've had that experience and found out that that, like everything else, passes. What old souls like is the deeper stuff, the richer, more satisfying roles to play and because of that they can get stuck in cozy ruts but The Universe will act to move them along because they're needed somewhere, always needed, because young souls are causing tremors in The Force and old souls need to be around them (but not too close!) to balance things out. 
     So I'm not worried so much about what my next gig is going to be. I know The Universe's Human Resource department is VERY aware of what I'm facing and that they have some opportunities in mind lined up for me to step into, probably even before I'm 'ready' for them, because as an old soul your part is you still have to get you arse up off the couch. 
     Ugh! 
     Stay tuned. 

     I'll be.

Thought Of The Day Returns

     A while back, in consultation with my other half, it was determined that Thought Of The Day was not as good as it could be. So I stopped putting it out there. 
     However, in the succeeding weeks, when grand changes were to be made, nothing really happened. I returned to drawing, spent many hours at 'arte', and while still writing on a daily basis what I wrote was edited and filed away, perhaps never to be seen, to be pondered, for it was not quite right. 
     Words are like arte. They can be assembled in certain ways, and in those ways, a greater meaning can be beheld. The trick is in assembling the durn things and nobody seems to do it the same but some are better than most. 
     I hope to be one of those whose wordsmithing is superb, or at the very least passable, but I have my good days and my not so inspired so.....
     .....you get what you get and I leave it up to the reader to glean from whatever is written that which pertains to them, inspires them, or gets them to think. This I must do. I am the sole editor and it must be that way, for it is laborious indeed to run everything past my other half, who has the best of intentions but with her involvement in the process time runs out. I would love to have her as an additional eyes-on person but we're both busy and our schedules do not permit us the luxury of painstakingly editing each passage and, to be truthful, some of what I feel inspired to write resonates not with her, and thus is doubly hard to edit, if editing is at all possible. 

Heping- Unsplash.com

      So.......today is the day I resume the daily blogging. It is a good day, a master number day, as it was the day I started. I shall try to keep it light, stay away from politics as much as possible, though I may occasionally go there, and if there seems to be no burning topic at the forefront of my mind, as was often the case before, I will just write about anything, which I seem to have no problem at all doing. It was in finding 'interesting' topics that I struggled with before, but it won't be so now. I'm going to write about anything and see where that goes. It seems to me that that approach is closer to the reality of day to day existence than some grandiose, profound, Deep Thought Of The Day, which is what slowed down my process and ultimately contributed to stopping it altogether. 
     There is a lot of stuff out there on the web, reams of stuff (if you know don't know what a 'ream' is, youngun's, it's a stack of paper) and I am not going to try and compete with thousands and thousands of fellow purveyors of content, it pains my brain to even think about that. I see myself adding to the mix, not dominating the current conversation or even trying to. I am just going to be me. 
     So it seems like this little pause was necessary for me to get to where I wanted this thing to go in the first place. I just had to play with it for awhile, like anything else, to find out what works and what doesn't. 
    What I don't want to see is NowChangeable.com turn into some dusty old website, or have it be a platform for ranting, or a forum where I put out stuff where I don't have my facts straight. This I have tried as much as possible not to do. I have tried to be fair, to be relevant, and to be just but not justified, which are two very different things. 
     Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where I'm at and I hope you'll stay with me, drop in now and again, see whassup because.....
.....it's all Changeable, right?