Adaptive Curmudgeon

The McDonald’s Girl Story: Joy

I never liked kids, even when I was a kid. Children, in my eyes, were not yet ripe. Especially the young ones. Infants and toddlers weren’t “people”. They were not yet fully formed. They were clueless and pointless sub-adults that stuffed random shit in their mouth and leaked from orifices. They couldn’t talk well. They tended to fall over. They drooled and smelled funky. Not interested.

One day, when I was young enough that I was nowhere near adult, I saw a child. The child was at McDonalds. The child was beaming. She changed my way of thinking.

I glimpsed her as the crowd briefly parted. She was tiny, lost amid the legs of adults bustling to and fro. Orders were being taken, money was changing hands, cash registers were beeping, customers shifted back and forth with their purchases. The whole thing formed a maelstrom of people; a tide of activity… all of it happening on the alternate dimension where the adults were paying attention. In the middle of it all, she stood still and simply beamed with joy. Alone in the crowd.

Someone had given her, a tiny little girl of about toddler age, a grand treasure. A fully filled soda cup; far too large for her diminutive size. She clutched it and watched it with wide eyes as if there had never been any object as wonderful and glorious as the amazing thing that she held in her hands.

You know why she thought it was the most amazing thing she’d ever held in her hands? Because it was.

I got it. What a weighty moment. For whatever reason, I’d never before understood the beatific wonderment of youth. This child, who was clutching a buck’s worth of sugar water, had a direct line to the joy of the universe. It was amazing; in the true sense of the word. I stood there astounded and speechless at the complete, naïve, guileless, joy of a happy child’s smile.

It was then that I started to understand. This is why adults raised children. This is why they tolerated crayons on the walls and dirty diapers and Barney videos… this was a real, unfiltered, direct link to heaven.

She was so happy. And I was too. I was delighted to have noticed such a moment. I saw and truly understood… joy. What I’d formerly thought of as joy was a mere shadow of this more perfect version. I’d already been polluted by the world. I’d had a soda before and knew I’d have them again. They didn’t impress me. I was cynical. I’d skipped homework, lied about cleaning my room, farted in public, and in a thousand ways diverged from the perfect joy of a child. We are all sinners. We are all imperfect. We have had pure joy but it is forgotten and lost. Now we have a less complete if more sophisticated emotion. It was something I didn’t understand until that moment. In that child’s smile I beheld pure joy.

The McDonald’s Girl Story: Loss

We all know what happened next, for we are world weary and time tested. The huge soda cup slipped through the girl’s hands.

If I could do anything in life, if I had the power to change time, to alter the course of events, to change fate… I would go back to that exact moment and catch that cup. There would be no more noble action, nothing more heroic, no purpose so completely good as to have stopped that loss from happening.

But of course, it happened.

It was crushing to witness that look of loss. Still awash in the cathartic realization that no joy is so complete as the joy of a child, I was shocked to see her total unreserved, complete, desolation. None of us can ever feel loss as did that child at that moment. We lack the naïve, innocence of a child’s joy and our reticence is armor against the tragedy of loss. Anything that complete and all-encompassing places too much of the world’s weight on the worn and used shoulders of an adult.

She had none of that. She’d been holding the greatest thing ever to exist in the universe… because to her it was… and then she had nothing but it’s absence.

The cup crashed into the ground sending ice and soda everywhere. Immediately, she bore the loss; its full totality. I’d been basking in the little girl’s complete joy and I saw it transform before my eyes to utter loss. None of us are capable of that level of sorrow that fast. We walk around with half our mind occupied by everything. You may say you are “in the moment” but you are most certainly not. Some part of you is thinking about taxes, or getting laid, or finding a place to take a dump, or the color purple, or that stupid song that keeps playing in your ear. You and I, and everyone else on earth, have too many experiences and thoughts to have the purity of joy that the little girl had. Subsequently we cannot experience loss like she did.

It was heartbreaking.

The McDonald’s Girl Story: Love

Of course, the girl burst into tears. I was too shocked by what I’d witnessed or I might’ve done the same.

Then came the final miracle of that day. Everyone, and I mean everyone, immediately dropped whatever they were doing. Orders ceased, the jostling crowd froze, a mother and a father swooped in from above and gave comfort. Strangers stood aside, interrupting plans which seemed important five minutes ago but were irrelevant now. Everyone made calming reassuring motions. The noise of activity vanished and was replaced by hushing sweet sounds.

Someone snatched the cup. The child was hugged. Lifted from the floor, scene of such devastation, and held tight. A mop appeared, a broom, the area was tidied. Everyone, and I mean everyone, wanted that little girl to be happy. For that brief period of time, absolutely nothing else in the world mattered to anyone there but that the child be right with the world again.

A child sized cup appeared. It was held tightly by a father. A straw proffered. The girl took a sip and we all stood watching as if the most important thing ever was taking place…. because it was. Her tears faded and she smiled again.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, breathed a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t the same smile. She was a more experienced child now. Aware that the glorious cup could vanish in an instant, she was just a bit guarded. Never to be so naïve again. That is the way of it. We grow. We harden. We must.

Gradually everyone turned back their own business. Some, particularly the older ones, boldly took the initiative to give a little coo or pat on the head to the little girl, who responded pleasantly. Then we all slid back into the isolation which is life.

I got a glimpse behind the veil of the world for that brief moment. Fortunately for me, I was receptive to what the universe was saying. Why that day? I’ve no idea. Why I wasn’t distracted with other thoughts, or unfeeling, or dismissive of the child… I’ll never know. Can you imagine the tragedy if I’d missed it? I’m glad I saw what I did.

I also felt a generalized warmth for my fellow man. Everyone there knew that children are important and why. They knew. Perhaps, I’d been the last on earth to figure it out? Sometimes I wonder about that. Everyone there put her as top priority. It was right and proper, they should. There wasn’t the slightest hesitation. There wasn’t a single person in that whole crowd who lacked empathy. That little girl, now held tight by a mother and father, was orbited by 50 strangers who universally wished her well. She was surrounded by love. How fortunate we are to be like that. How lucky we are to have her to remind us of it.

I wrote a 700-word introduction to the upcoming post. Then I deleted it. Let’s try again:

Today is the 76^th day in the newest year of the serial freak out. Our baseline panic evolved so gradually I can’t pinpoint the date of its inception. It simply is. I once lived with long periods of “nothing new” punctuated by occasional crescendos of “holy shit”. Now I live among, but not of, a society in a constant bout of hyperventilation.

Recent events; the third or ninth or eleventh “end of the world” in the young year, have made us forget the year’s other moments. The ones that failed to engender panic. This one is certainly well fitted. It seems as good an event as any to flesh out “chapter one in the story of how it all burned down”. I’m not overly worried. I’m taking prudent precautions, as I always do. Beyond that, the sky is blue and the sun rises in the east.

Personally, I think we’re seeing monkeys with mildly elevated minds failing to handle a new technology. The herd instinct gets out of control when jacked into the global hive mind. The propaganda treadmill built to agitate us is now self-perpetuating. Who’s at the wheel? Nobody.

But what do I know? If, by August, this hasn’t been replaced by some new and improved reason we’re all doomed, you may mock my complacency.

My problem is scale. I see at the wrong scale. I’m in the 39^th day of a universe where my dog died in my arms. That’s the scale of real life. I wish everyone all over the planet well but I don’t know them personally. Clutching a dead dog in a snowy driveway, that’s real… and it took away my will to fret over toilet paper supplies at some Walmart in Tuscaloosa.

Miracles happen on small scales too. I was motivated (perhaps dragged kicking and screaming by a reawaking soul), to write about the smallest event of four decades ago. Because small events matter. That story will follow shortly.

Twenty nine days. That’s how long it’s been. I don’t know how long it’ll be by the time I post this, or even if I will post this. I only know the calendar says twenty nine days ago my dog died. For the dog, the walk was a short one. For me, it was not.

In the first hour I lurched about in the snow; out among the trees. My heart sank beneath the drifts. There it lay moldering amid the crushed leaves and pine needles. I say this not in some nihilistic fit but as one who loves the forest and seeks renewal there. Death, there, in my forest, is but one of many paths. Neither embraced nor hated but simply one thread in the fabric of being.

Even in the snow I could see time passing. Better things on the horizon. Better things are ALWAYS on the horizon. Spring would come, surely I’d be renewed in the spring. Ever the cycle of life repeats.

But that was future and I was in now. And a goodly part of me was lost in cold communion with death.

Later I posted on my blog; mostly to say “The Curmudgeon Is Going Offline For Now”. It was all I could muster. I glad y’all understood.

Then I stared at the ceiling and mourned. I drifted through the drywall and beyond the rafters and into eternity. To be honest I haven’t yet fully returned, though I sense this time is slowly ending. I shall be my old stupid self… if not soon, then eventually.

I am so very fortunate. My loving wife has been a pillar, as have my children. I’m healthy and well and live in a rich, peaceful, advanced, pleasant, society. I inhabit a lovely world which only a fool would fail to appreciate.

Nor does it escape me that this is a dog. A dog is not, no matter how much I love it, a human. And for that matter the last two years were a gift from on high anyway. I should have nothing but joy over every extra day. How conceited to focus on the negative amid such goodness. Alas, logic does not heal a soul any more than chemistry makes a sunset.

In those twenty nine days I also read with gratitude the dozens of kind posts that y’all added to my blog. Thank you very much. They tapped on the walls and brought a measure of solace. An individual e-mail came my way too: “you OK?” That was an especially well timed kindness. Thank you!

In due time, my mostly ignored e-mail reminded me of my little monthly Patreon nudge and that perhaps greased the skids; prepared me to re-enter the land of the living. I like to write and at least some small audiences wants to read. Time to get back at it? Not yet. I couldn’t quite approach the keyboard. My running joke that the dog was my editor (eventually promoted to chief OPSEC officer) was closer to the mark than intended. I tried, but no way in hell could I write a damn thing.

Recently, according the great database in the sky, someone hit my tip jar with the kind of scratch that should have me dancing on tables with a cutlass in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. If you’re the one who sent it, sorry I haven’t responded earlier… I just found out. Also, well played. Very well timed indeed. That little lottery win did an excellent bit of defibrillation on a brain going mossy.

The windfall distracted me. I toyed with ideas. What could I do with it? Something cool seemed in order. I challenged myself to muster some surprise to blog about in due time. Indeed I routed it toward a future walkabout. The enemy of despair is adventure. (At least for me.) So I ordered “adventure equipment”. Please forgive me as I withhold detailed information until I can focus more clearly. I’m still barely holding onto my stupid little Neo2 and adventures need a different mindset.

Time has passed, as time does, and it did what time does. Today I felt like a signal was received. “What more could you possibly want?”

Whether that was the voice of God, the ghost of my dog, or a burrito I’m still digesting doesn’t matter. What matters is it seemed obvious. I’m in a delightfully target rich environment and I’m failing to notice. The universe is armpit deep in stupid funny things. I’M LETTING DUMB SHIT GO BY WITHOUT SMILING ABOUT IT. That won’t do!

Not all revelations come in divine settings. I didn’t see a new way in the glorious view of a sunrise. Nope. I was sitting in a hotel room, a beer in one hand and a bag of Cheetos in the other. I was watching a “news” show. I don’t usually watch “news” on TV (who does?) but I figured a sad guy with a fried mind can indulge in a little mental junk food. They reported about a run on toilet paper like it was Chernobyl and impending planetary insurrection combined. We’re in the middle of an honest to goodness pandemic and all everyone wants to do is squeeze the Charmin? Amazing! I couldn’t help chuckle. This is the kind of crap that makes me happily bang out stories in a Quixotic desire to capture the utter nonsense of it all.

Now, during the eighth or eleventh or fifteenth end of the world, in the very young year of 2020… is a good time to laugh. Because the guy on TV is alarmed that we may run out of shit tickets.

I fired up my little bit shovel and tried to be nonsensical… which should be easy in such unserious times. It didn’t quite work. But the glimmer was there.

Then came another signal. “Write the little girl at McDonald’s story.” Sorry folks, that particular story is neither funny nor topical… but it’s a thing that happened. More importantly it was an idea that came… unbidden… with force.  Who am I to deny such things? I will write the story (it’s a true story by the way). I might even post it. Or not. Posting it is irrelevant. Having lived the story is key.

There’s no rush. I’ll get to it when I get to it. First, I’ve got a half a bag of Cheetos left. Some bubblehead on CNN is trying to tell me that everything has gone from bad to worse. Apparently it’ll be cheaper to tank up my Dodge soon and I should be scared shitless about all that money I won’t have to spend. Oooh… unintended joke about toilet paper! Yep, my shoulders feel lighter. Very good. God gave us opera and symphonies, but he also gave us fart jokes and faceplants. How cool is that?

Now I’m going to quit typing. I’m going to enjoy freebasing the heady cocktail of Gell-Mann amnesia and Dunning-Kruger confidence people inexplicably call “news”. The world really is trying to make me smile.

It’s going to be OK… thank everyone for their patience. Thanks for the kind words and the e-mail and the little tips I very much appreciate and the big “no way you can ignore this one” tip too. Y’all are great people. Spring is coming. I’ll thaw out rather than freeze over. Bye for now.

A.C.

My dog is dead.

It is snowing. The forest is beautiful. I watch the snow… and mourn.

I had a post planned. It was based around Trump’s tweets following the Superbowl (which I hear was damn near soft porn at halftime?). Mocking Kansas/Missouri geography with a backdrop of public twerking seemed a sound comedic device. But this is 2020 and life is weirder than my imagination.

The following is true:

In the pre-dawn, as I happily sip coffee and scan the news, it is Tuesday February 4th. It is 35 days into the year of stupid. We’ve already survived WWIII and seven other versions of Armageddon. Regardless, today is going to be exceptionally dumb.

This post will go live a bit later in the day, but as I type it underpaid (volunteer?) and unqualified (as shown by performance) people are desperately trying to count primary votes in Iowa. I assume they’re in an absolute panic to to get the job done 24 hours later than the appropriate time to report a Monday vote. I’m a guy who talks to trees but even I have standards. I read news of the count and know deep in my heart I would be mortified to fuck up that completely.

If I was the opposition party and Trump got to give a State of the Union Address before I could sort out 49 of  3,979 primary delegates. I’d fake my own death and move to Botswana where I’d live in a mud hut and herd sheep. I’ve made mistakes…. many. But this one is a classic.

By my count they’ve only had to handle 1.2% of the overall tally. Talk about a faceplant right out of the gate! This is funnier than the Obamacare Website roll out. (Remember that? Good times!) A spreadsheet, three FAX machines, a staff of half a dozen sentient beings who’ve mastered algebra, and a pot of coffee could’ve handled the situation… but only for people who want to find out the true answer to a vote count.

I’m just sayin’.

Meanwhile, Trump, who is Orange and ridiculous but wouldn’t fuck up something as lame as an Iowa primary vote tally, will make his address.

The audience will include Representatives, half of whom, voted to impeach him as an urgent danger that must be addressed before Christmas. Largely predicated on the fact that he was unserious and rude. Notwithstanding that the driving force were in a party who’s having trouble counting 1.2% of their own member’s wishes in one state. Meanwhile the other party is just as reprehensible. Collectively their popularity among Americans is lower than whaleshit.

The president, who was elected by the American people or it never happened because Russian space alien mind control bots colluded with vast armies of invisible Nazi racists, depending on who you ask, will also be addressing the Senate. This group is as popular as whaleshit that’s been to finishing school.

Trump will say, as all presidents do, all the good news about America he can possibly squeeze into available time. It will all be about how good things are and how great he is and how someone heroically saved a kitten from a tree. The good news will piss off at least half of those attended. I love this part. If I won the lottery and Stalin announced it, I’d still take the money. Not so with the opposition party. They’ll sit there like they’re simultaneously getting a root canal, proctology exam, IRS audit, and whacked with a lead pipe. I learned to smile even when I got socks at Christmas. They will seethe that we’re at peace and not under zombie attack.

Trump will say something innocuous and stupid like; “The sky is blue, hamburgers are yummy, and unemployment is the lowest since 1967. This is because I’m super awesome and my wife is hot.” Snopes will immediately kick into high gear to report that the sky is cloudy in Bismark North Dakota and therefore Trump is a doody-head. Activists in Portland will be triggered at the thought of non-vegan human beings who haven’t yet been sent to gulags. They will quit the jobs they don’t have and take huge hits from legal bongs while bitching on 5G wireless about their immiserated life. Some human nullity will spam all of Facebook that unemployment is only lowest since January 3rd, at 3:00 pm in 1968 and therefore Trump is a jerk and lying bastard. Others will point out that unemployment is higher for one specific hermaphroditic furry with face tattoos of genitalia in Miami as compared to a dull, hard working, tie wearing, Mormon valedictorian in Salt Lake City who’s never had a beer. Therefore the entire system should be burned to the ground so Bill Gates won’t piss us off by owning a solid gold house. Nancy Pelosi will have that weird look on her face that’s either barely contained rage or bad dental work. Lunatics in her district will continue shitting on the streets while the last few adults will think “I wonder if that Mormon dude is hiring”?

Nobody from England will respond because Brexit happened and everyone died.

Roughly twelve hours later, the Senate will vote against impeachment, following voter totals that everyone knew in 2018. And the press will have another of the 230,938,384  consecutive aneurysms that they’ve had since 2016.

If I watch it, which I doubt, I’ll be trying to catch a glimpse of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. That’s the whole show for me. At this point I’m kinda’ rooting for RBG to live forever. I have bets against her but man I know tough when I see it and she’s been kicking the grim reaper in the balls! If she walks in under her own power I’m going to salute the damn TV. I start wondering if RBG and Betty White are alchemists who have the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone. Did they get it from Dick Clark and Gerorge Burns? Did Epstein know about this?

And that is why I didn’t bother to write a funny post today.

In the run up to the 2016 election, the press was unanimous. There was lockstep, unwavering, complete, unrelenting, unquestioned, utter, total, belief that Hillary Clinton wasn’t just going to win but win hard. Trump, we were assured, was an ignorant troglodyte incapable of doing anything but demonstrating how stupid the non-elite had gotten. Hillary, they insisted, was pure walking genius; simply incapable of losing.

The fish could not see the water in which they swam. I could. I wondered why I was different. I still wonder. I found it unnerving; like being a non-believer in a city run by a cult. It’s the sort of thing you have to experience to understand.

Nothing the press said matched what I saw in real life America. Not even close. Notably, on a road trip right before the scheduled coronation of Mrs. Clinton, I kept a clipboard within reach while I drove. I marked how many Trump signs I saw versus how many Clinton signs. At the end of that trip I had a plethora of check marks in the Trump column and a scant few in the Hillary column. Meanwhile, my truck’s radio had never let up on a constant barrage of “it is pre-ordained that Hillary will win”. It was a long drive.

That evening, after I checked into a hotel for the night, I had a stiff drink at the hotel bar. I nursed my liquor and thought “we are being lied to”.

The next day I shrugged and got back to work… because that’s what regular people do; we go about the business of living. These are politicians after all, not Gods.

A few weeks later there was a national (and to some degree planetary) eruption of cognitive dissonance as fish discovered there was water. They encountered, however reluctantly, creatures who are not fish, and recoiled to learn that these aberrations breathe air. The caterwauling has not ceased. I thought folks would eventually calm down but now I wonder. Can one engage a religion (and that’s what it was) so deeply that they never return? How dreadful that fate must be!

Fast forward to 2020. The people that believe Trump never won the election are desperately trying to impeach him, lest he win again… which to them, will be the first time… because “shut up”.

Meanwhile, all signs point toward a Trumpslide. Probably not along the lines of Reagan’s crushing second term election (a 49 state win); demographics, social media, and propaganda now preclude such a uniform mandate. But certainly a bit more than the 2016 squeaker. Everyone knows Trump has to win beyond “margin of cheat”; especially Trump. He’s working on it. He doesn’t coast. He’s not counting on party or employees to win for him. From his point of view, nothing is assured but it’s looking good.

What’s interesting is that the wind wasn’t always blowing Trump’s way. As Scott Adams has said (I’m paraphrasing); “All the Democrats have to do to win is not be crazy.” He’s right. Any sane, non-BS candidate at the helm of a calm statesmanlike party could unseat the Orange Menace handily. However, people are what they are and they do what they want to do. From certain angles it looks like they’ve gone full retard. As they say, there’s no coming back from that.

As far as I can tell (and barring a black swan event) there is one and only one competitor that could beat Trump. Basically the only guy people vote “for” instead of “as a calculation against some other asshole“.

Hold on to your seats. It’s Bernie.

Quit laughing. I’m serious.

I don’t want him to win. I’m just saying he’s probably the only one that can beat Trump.

I don’t like Bernie’s policies. I’m happy to dismiss him as a commie bastard but that’s irrelevant. When I try to assess who, among all assembled, can defeat Trump; it’s Bernie. Aside from Bernie, there’s a gaggle of forgettables and a few failures. Who’s not going to win? Hair sniffing squishy DC bred Biden ‘aint going to win. Nor will Elizabeth Warren and her 1/1024th heritage. Nor the exquisitely gay Buttigieg. (Buttigieg’s candidacy is a human joke about identity politics. His experience is from being the mayor of South Bend Indiana. Quick! As fast as you can, name the last mayor of South Bend Indiana! You can’t? That’s because nobody cares about the mayor of South Bend Indiana. Nobody has ever cared about the mayor of South Bend Indiana. We live in a time of unserious people making odd choices in lieu of reason. The party of D is legitimately running a candidate who’s main qualification is how he utilizes his genitalia. You can’t make that up! Perhaps he ought to start a line of scented candles?)

The other tell is that the Democratic party (as differentiated from Democrat voters) is trying to kill Bernie’s candidacy. They’re oddly desperate to get him off the stage. They did it in 2016 and pissed off a lot of people. They’re trying again in 2020. There are three times I’ve seen a political party try to nuke their own serious contender with a lot of popular support; Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders. Perhaps there’s a moment when a party recognizes a person that will do his own thing… and they cannot abide it? Perhaps it’s better to lose than have a winner on your ticket who thinks independently? Ask “never Trumpers”. They might have words on the subject.

As far as I know, virtually nobody agrees with my assessment. The press has lockstep, unwavering, complete, unrelenting, unquestioned, utter, total, belief that Trump would eat Bernie alive if they ever put that doddering old man in a shark tank with Trump. I have my doubts but who am I to disagree?

Interestingly, I’ve found one person with a similar opinion. I found it at Grim’s Hall:

“At this time the Democratic contest has narrowed to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, with the other candidates seeming to be also-rans.  I could hardly agree less with Bernie Sanders on public policy or political philosophy.  Nevertheless, he is the better man.”

Go there and read it.

Also, and in this I will brook no crap, be polite! All comments on my blog will be seemly or deleted. I’m not linking to Grim’s Hall to start a food fight. We can all entertain notions with with we disagree (such as the suitability of Bernie as an American president) and lets try to do so with character. One doesn’t have to like Bernie to recognize he’s cut from different cloth than weak kneed creatures like Biden.

I’m sure Trump knows precisely what I’m talking about. I’m also sure he’s prepared for and fully willing to take on any contender on earth. He certainly has a tendency to win; regardless of and not due to the caliber of his challengers. If it’s Bernie, he might have a tougher fight. And maybe that’s for the best. Competition brings out the best in both sides. I doubt Bernie will survive his own party, but if he does 2020 may shape up to be a hell of a ride.

A.C.

I’ve been very busy this month. I only had a passing bit of time to monitor the press (and the society it supposedly represents). Withdrawal and return gives perspective. I’ve got a note for the press (including on-line):

The world can only end once a week… at most.

Talking heads have been idiots for years but now they’re so shrill it’s gone beyond laughable and becomes sad. Like watching a junkie shoot up and knowing where it leads. The smell of death is upon them. You root for them to pull back and recover. Don’t fall prey to the madness! But you know they’re doomed.

No living being can be as panicked as the press is trying to make America. I say this in all humility and with the best intention:

Tone it down motherfuckers.

Today is the 30th day of the year. So far, while I’ve been otherwise occupied, the world has ended seven times. At least that’s what the press says. The following has happened:

• Hezbollah and associated shitheads attacked the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Trump let our military off the leash. The military fulfilled its purpose. This was reported as the worst thing that could ever happen.

I was confused. This clearly wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.  I’ve seen disaster and it doesn’t look like this. Benghazi on 9/11/2012 and Tehran in 11/4/1979… that’s what disaster looks like.

January 2020 is what it looks like when the Commander in Chief makes the hard decisions required of a Commander in Chief. Captain Orange recognized the situation, handled it, and went back to work; almost like he thinks being president is a job. The press kept trying to resuscitate disaster from what I perceive as success.

• Then the military blew up Qasem Soleimani. This was reported as the worst thing that has ever happened.

Soleimani was an evil mastermind terrorist bastard. He left his home country to loiter in the vicinity of an attacked American embassy and I don’t think he was there to go shopping. Perhaps I’m going to hell for this but I’m glad he’s dead. The press tried to make a dead terrorist out as a bad thing. I wonder what the sky is like on their planet?

• Then there was a missile attack. It more or less missed everyone. This was reported as the worst thing ever AND the beginning of World War III.

They missed. How is that bad news?

• Then there was a jetliner shot down. This was reported as the worst thing ever AND proof of World War III.

Iran shot down an Iranian plane. Not that it’s good news but we didn’t do it. The press needs to get a dictionary. Iran vaporizing box lots of Iranians in Iran isn’t how World Wars work.

Fresh off the “unhappening” of World War III. There was a guns rights demonstration.

• The people assembled to petition for redress of grievances. This was reported as  the long predicted uprising of the racist Nazi deplorable jerkwads that will ruin everything everywhere.

I recommended staying out of the crowd but maybe that’s just me. I’m biased against crowds. In the end, nothing bad happened. I was happy and the press was super sad. Without dead bodies they couldn’t foment mayhem. Peaceful people were peaceful, which is why they’re called peaceful. They even cleaned up their litter on the way out.

Following the “unhappened” World War III and the “not-happened” racists Nazi uprising, it was time for shampeachment.

• Nanci Pelosi, fresh off a month’s doing nothing, signed the impeachment articles using 35 pens. She had a few fist bumps over the somberness of the moment and marched the paperwork over to the Senate like anyone would have done a month ago in a real emergency. The press reported this as the historic defeat of Trump who never really got elected and is worse than Hitler.

Wrong. The Senate promptly set out explaining to Pelosi the difference between her power in the House (a lot) and the Senate (don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out). Everyone got busy bitching about the rules which is how Americans are. (Setting the rules for the game is really just the first part of playing the game.) This was followed by pointless displays for the camera.

Nobody paid attention because nobody (on either side) buys the premise that it’s a fair and necessary trial.

My take on this? Every president from now on will be subject to impeachment (both parties).

We have evolved into a system of three phase elections. Phase one is the election. The minute the election is over, that very night, the press decides if the people made the “right” decision. Did they elect a democrat? If those deplorable bastards voted for the “wrong” party, it’s time for phase two. Phase two is a series of recounts in hopes of the “correct” result; cue words like “determine voter intent” and “hanging chads”. If it’s mathematically impossible to come up with enough “discovered” ballots in the right districts, it’s time for phase three. Phase three is impeachment. Impeachment starts as soon as recounts are done.

I suspect impeachment (if not recounts) will be standard operating procedure for both parties. Each new president will either be successfully impeached or not successfully impeached. All elections now come with a built in “do-over”.

Also, if you vote “wrong”, you’re racist, sexist, stupid, a Nazi, and also a Russian spy… but you already knew that.

Having witnessed the “unhappening” of WWIII, the “nothappening” of the racist Nazi uprising, and the “nothing-burger” shampeachment… the press generated another reason to panic.

• There’s a new flu in China. So far it’s killed about 100 people… in China. The press reported this as the worst thing ever and proof of looming black plague type decimation of humanity.

Uh huh. As I type this, Coronavirus has killed zero people in America. Ebola’s 2014-2016 outbreak killed 11,000 people (one in America). Meanwhile, the not-reported-because-it’s-a-normal-thing regular old flu has killed 2,900 Americans this season.

I can do math. 0 < 1 < 2,900.

Someday the shit will hit the fan and you never know when that day will happen. It could conceivably happen now. Just as I could conceivably win the lottery. Also, it’s not good news that anyone dies of any illness. Barring new information, this is no more important than the WWIII that didn’t happen two weeks ago.

Wash your hands, avoid crowds, don’t eat bats, don’t hang out with corpses that died of communicable disease, and maybe (just temporarily) cut back on travel to China. No bat soup and staying away from certain Chinese cities; how hard is that? I was planning on doing that anyway… as I do every month. My sympathies to folks who booked a Chinese bat soup plane trip. Bummer for them.

Summary:

By my count, the press has reported the end of the world seven times in 30 days:

I hereby politely request that the press report the end of the world no more than once per week.

Doom-porn panic mongering has gotten out of hand. Someone take the Adderall away from the talking heads. Turn off their wifi. Lead them gently away from their smoking hot keyboards and convince them to take a nap. Crazy people need care, not a soapbox and a mission.

I knew 2020 would be stupid but this is beyond the pale. We’ve got ten more months before the possibility of a Trump re-election. If the press keeps up their January rate that’s 77 consecutive ends of the world before the (potential) Trumslide.

Nobody can panic 77 times a year and then shit purple Twinkies on election day. We’re too busy. We’ve got real lives. We’re going to need pauses between various ends of the world so we can be rested for November. The dwindling sane fraction of society (of both parties) may need a store of energy left to mop up all the (potentially) exploded heads on November 4th. It’s going to be hard to do that if we all die in 77 apocalypse events before some of the people are irredeemable, evil, twatwaffles, because they voted “wrong”.

A.C.

P.S. It occurs to me that there were also forest fires in Australia. The press rolled in a pile of dead koala bears and then explained it proves we’re all going to die of global warming. It, like all the other over-hyped shit, didn’t gain traction. Eight ends of the world in 30 days! Who listens to these fuckin’ psychos?

People say they want to grow; “I’m going to learn French/run a marathon/pay off my debts/hit the gym.” They don’t.

They might think they relish personal growth, but they just like the idea. Hard work is hard. Determination fades (if it ever existed in the first place).

Action is the crossing point. Once you’re in action, intentions seem quaint and childish, bluster is irrelevant, failure is always a possibility, and nobody but you can trod your best path. People melt. Being awesome is hard.

After a few feeble motions, folks get discouraged. They decide “awesome” is a pain in the ass, settle on “mediocre” as just ducky, and let the whole thing slide.

Then, after a few score orbits around the sun… they die. The game of life comes with a time limit.

I’m a contrarian. If I’m gonna’ die, I’m going to make it a stone cold bitch to distill my life down to a 300 word obituary. I set out to do things and truly endeavor. My goals may seem stupid, but they’re right for me. I may summit or faceplant, but I rarely chicken out. Who can say more?

Recently, I completed a challenge. In the interest of privacy, OPSEC, and intended (if incomplete) humility, I’m not going to elaborate. The details would bore you anyway. Please forgive me as I talk in generalities.

This challenge was physical, endurance rather than a sprint. I’m not the 19 year old meathead I once was. Time and mileage is wearing on the chassis, but (being either dumb or determined) I didn’t hold back. Thankfully, I succeeded (whew!).

Having crossed my self defined finish line, I immediately switched to recovery mode. Recovery mode meant (and still means) limited posting. I tried to keep up but the blog takes a back burner sometimes. Y’all understand.

I discussed recovery mode back in 2018. Time to revisit the concept. Have I learned from my mistakes?

The bad way: collapsing in a heap at the finish line. In early 2018 I didn’t plan for the aftermath. Life’s stresses were waiting on the far end of a well earned finish line. Life  pummeled me (Part 1, part 2, part 3). Lesson learned:

If you stretch yourself… I mean really go for it… dispense with the excuses and the bullshit and timid resignation of society… and grit your teeth and push through… you’ll eventually cross a finish line. It’s awesome. And it’s dangerous.

Attaining a hard-won goal is the very moment when you’re weakest. That’s a bit of wisdom I’ll pass on free of charge because I was just reminded of it. One inch across the metaphysical finish line, I was crushed. Take a gentle reminder from my mistake.

If you’re going to push it, prepare an end game.

The better way: stroll across the finish line like a boss. In mid 2018, mindful of my mistakes earlier that year, I did a lot better:

I accomplished what I set out to do. It took well over a year to get to this particular goal. But I handled it properly. I was fully prepared so that I could walk up to my personal goal, take a good look at the metaphysical finish line, and stride across that motherfucker like I own the world. Chalk up a happy moment for the Curmudgeon!

This year’s theme: ghost across like there ‘aint no line at all. That’s what I did to ring in 2020! I happened to be at home (which isn’t always the case) and I was aware of how worn out I’d be. So I shuffled my aching body to the nearest comfy chair… and stayed put. I barely moved for 48 hours. It took 2 days until I was “with it” enough to indulge in a cold beer and focus on a 2 hour movie… and for that particular moment, it was the right thing to do. It’s all I did.

There is much to do around the house. Mundane and necessary chores; I did none of it. It snowed. I didn’t plow it. (Luckily, the accumulation wasn’t deep.) The woodstove ran out of wood. I didn’t replenish it. (All hail fuel oil.) I didn’t do business, run errands, or even check my own blog. Until I was ready, it was “hold all calls” and “Mr. Curmudgeon has left the building”.

Now I’m slowly coming out of it. Bit by bit and day by day. Nice and easy. I don’t wish to repeat the traumatic mistake of two years ago. I think it’s working. Apparently, one is never too old to finally act like they’re wise.

I have to admit to a guilty pleasure. I fuckin’ love Rammstein. I play it loud and don’t worry if people think I ought listen to more cerebral fare. (That said I tend to not crank it while Mrs. Curmudgeon is in the house… I’m not an animal.) As for the band, I don’t give a shit what they’re saying, it sounds great in German and so long as the guitar doesn’t let up I’m happy.

Meanwhile, I’m constantly impressed with the ability of Russians to remind me that crazy rednecks aren’t limited to North America. Thanks to Nourishing Obscurity I have now experienced a Russian redneck kazoo/accordion Rammstein remake complete with the original German lyrics. God bless us, it’s a great time to be alive! (Note, I have no idea how Los Colorados is a Russian band (which sings in German!?!)… they don’t teach that shit in school.)

Of course, I need to link to the original too:

I’ve been busy and off-line but I hear there’s a gathering in Richmond. I won’t be there. I think they’re taking an unwise risk but wish them well. All Americans have the right to assembly; yet press and PC have de-facto crushed that fundamental right. Perhaps folks with greater herd tolerance than me will wrest it back. I hope it works out.

As for me, I think it ill advised. Foolish to let press and government pen you in. Who knows what unfavorable circumstances have been cooked up? Also, fake news of the CNN type is out there right now; trolling thousands looking for the scariest meatheads. I presume false flags, agitators, and old scratch himself are all on site hoping to spark misery. I hope they fail.

As a Curmudgeon I don’t do crowds, but I wish the best for those that do. Good luck for a peaceful day.

Update: So far all I’ve seen in the press is a few images of some derped out taticool nerds. Nothing else. If that’s the best the press can do to paint the event as a disaster, it was probably a peaceful, orderly day. I was wrong and the attendees were right. Nothing could make me happier!

Update 2: The Babylon Bee once again calls it right!