Those Who Inspire, Forum politics, Disney, and Geezer

Like all of us, I'm sure, I have a tendency to surf all kinds of blogs and forums. I have my favorites bookmarked, and check in either daily or every other day. The list is endless. Some are about politics, some about guns, or survival, or fitness, or philosophy, or literature, or poetry, or writing- you get the idea.

One thing that hit home today was how this new internet medium, these virtual gathering places, is like having a university, or maybe a daily convention, available at your fingertips from the comfort of your own home, and how you can find teachers and mentors almost everywhere you look.

One of these teachers and mentors was an old boy named Bobby Weismann. He was a prolific poster on several of the forums I'm on, and went by the handle Geezer, since he was a 70+ year old man on forums that are usually peopled with young men. He lived in Idaho, and was one of the greatest sources of simple and uncluttered wisdom I've ever come across. He was a modern-day philosopher trying to educate a bunch of young bucks in the ways of the world.

Just an example of something he'd written, something you can actually see working every day-

As time rolls on, and there are fewer and fewer people of my generation (The silent Generation, born 1925-1945, also the smallest generation.) to encounter, I have begun to notice more and more that there are some pretty noticeable differences between some of our thinking patterns and those of many of the folks younger than us.

I’ll go a little further, and restrict the “we” to those born between 1932 and 1940, just half a generation. We were unique in that we were old enough to appreciate the values of our predecessors, but also old enough to understand that they were lying to those younger than us. Generally speaking, those that came after us accepted the lies and integrated them into their world view, whereas we were too old to be manipulated that easily, and grew up with a healthy albeit usually polite disrespect for all authority. This might explain the huge difference in attitude between WWII soldiers and Korean War soldiers.

Funny sidebar...most of the protestors and demonstrators of the 60s were boomers, but most of their mentors and coaches were of my generation. We held their coats while they got teargassed.

Let’s take the birth of Walt Disney movies as a starting point, since Disney movies and the world view I can only call Disneythink encompass almost all of the points I am going to make.

In any case, causes aren’t as interesting as consequences, so let me jot down a few observations. I will apologize beforehand to everyone I offend. These are generalizations, and while they apply quite well to the bulge in the bell curve, obviously there a lot of folks that they simply do not apply to. I also have to acknowledge that what the heck, Disneythink may be correct. Perhaps Disney, rather than Einstein, is the true genius of the 20th century.

Those born AD, After Disney, the Boomers and younger, work basically from parental and Mainstream Media (MSM) influences. My group, those born BD, Before Disney, the last half of the Silent Generation works primarily from observations. MSM did not exist during our early days. Most cities those days had two or three major newspapers which printed wildly disparate views of everything. Our thinking patterns and belief systems were fully formed before the evolution of the monomedia.

Those born AD believe in happy endings as an article of faith. My group knows that they are exceedingly rare.

Those born AD believe that there is some good in everyone. My group believes that there is some evil in everyone.

Those born AD believe that almost all problems can be solved by better management. My group believes that almost all problems are caused by management.

Those born AD clearly believe that happiness, feeling good, is one of the highest values. My group is pretty sure that pursuing happiness, placing a high value on feeling good will get you in a bunch of trouble at best.

Those born AD tend to believe that there is something wrong with being physically uncomfortable. My group is largely indifferent to physical discomfort.

Those born AD tend to anthropomorphize animals to an extraordinary degree, thus for them the actual facts of natural history are irrelevant and unimportant. My group tends to think of animals as creatures whose behaviors are bound by scientific principles and cannot act “out of character” regardless of the plot advancement possibilities.

Those born AD tend to think that feelings are very important. My group tends to think that behaviors are very important.

Those born AD tend to believe that intentions outweigh results. My group tends to believe that results are intentions manifest.

Those born AD tend to romanticize physical labor. My group wanted to get out of blue jeans as rapidly as possible.

Those born AD tend to believe that reality must be changed to meet social expectations. My group tends to believe that social expectations must be changed to conform to reality.

Those born AD tend to believe that strong beliefs have the power to change reality and very strong beliefs can complete rewrite reality. My group tends to believe that reality is objective, external and independent of our belief systems.

Like most folks, I believe that my belief system is correct, and those systems that differ in significant degree are flawed or kind of weird. That’s just the way people are, nothing personal in it. After spending some 55 years out of my 70 plus observing it and trying to understand it, I still think Disneythink is weird. I don’t understand it and sometimes I am quite frightened of it. Even though most of the folks on this forum present very little Disneythink, there are a few points that are almost always present in anyone born AD, such as the belief in happy endings, and the belief that problems can be solved by better management.

In a relatively few years all of my bunch will have died out. We are the last witnesses to a time that will never be seen again. I don’t know if y’all should be relieved or sad about that.

I do know that some of your peers will rewrite history so that all those things that I witnessed will disappear from the record, just as the record of WWII is now being rewritten by people who believe that it is more important that you feel a certain way about things than that you know what actually happened.

“It is best to win without fighting.” Sun Tzu


Smart man. Sadly, Geezer died last year of cancer, and left almost 13,000 guys on a single forum mourning his passing. It's amazing to see how, even a year and a half after he passed, he's still quoted and talked about on that forum.

Think about that. An old man sitting at home managed to influence the minds and hearts of thousands and tens of thousands of younger men, and made their lives somehow better. So much so that they still talk about him like a favored grandpa who's passed on.

That would have never happened even a short fifteen years ago. No one would have ever heard his words, been inspired, or even known he existed, but now he is immortal in the words he put down on a computer.

Amazing.

Irlandes

So there is another man of this type on different blogs and forums who goes by either Irlandes or Anonymous Age 66, who's also one of those older guys with a lifetime of wisdom who's willing to share what he's learned so others don't make the same mistakes he did. The man has stories and advice and an attitude that, were you to see him in person, would make you want to sit down crosslegged in front of his chair like a kid and demand that he regale you with tales and anecdotes. And then you'd sit there entranced the whole time. That's how this man writes.

I honestly wish I had the power to write like that.

Mostly Irlandes has posted on one particular forum I'm on, DGM, but back in April he suddenly stopped posting there. For months there was nary a word and quite frankly, everyone on the forum thought he had died, since he was 66 years old and living in a remote mountain town in rural Mexico and had stopped posting so suddenly, which seemed out of character. Every once in a while there were "Where's Irlandes?!" posts that nobody knew the answer to.

Well, after he'd left, DGM changed. It's weird, but close-knit forums can suffer when there's a shift in who's posting, when old members leave or new members join, and even a single forum thread can completely shut down a forum altogether. I've seen it happen. On one occasion on a different forum, a single member who joined late in the game utterly changed the whole feel of the forum to the point that nearly every senior member, including me, left for good. We just didn't like the place anymore.

Well, with Irlandes gone, DGM got kind of aimless. It was like the heart of the forum had stopped beating. Nobody posting much, attitudes started shifting, less enthusiasm, more negativity. It was getting kind of bad.

Then yesterday, Irlandes just suddenly started posting again! Without a single word of explanation, either. Just started up posting again as though he had never stopped.

And it was amazing. Suddenly, the forum has lit up again. Members who had quit posting stopped lurking and started contributing again, there is a more festive and positive atmosphere, and the forum feels, well, alive again. The heart of the forum has returned.

It's bizarre, how one person can change the mood of a group, just by their presence. How anger and negativity can be dispelled in an instant, or how things can go from happy and fun to fatiguing and disheartening just by a particular person walking into the room, or their name being mentioned. I think this kind of goes hand in hand with the Psychic Vampire thing I once talked about.

There's some kind of great lesson in there, some kind of blue collar trailer-park philosophy that I can't quite get my mind wrapped around. Some sort of unification theory about old teachers and group dynamics and deep wisdom being passed along and Disneythink and the world just feeling wrong, and a need for some sort of undefined liberty to be freed from it's shackles, but I find it difficult to put the pieces all together to make the big picture.

Funny, how this whole post started just because I was happy to see Irlandes posting again.

My Brain Has Dried Up

I've failed.

I can not come up with a single subject to blog about that isn't boring, derivative, or something that will make me rant and scream and cuss in a NSFW manner. Usually I have something to say about something, but not right now. So until the writer's block goes away, there will be nothing of merit here.

I've come to the conclusion that blogs are usually used to either vent anger at all the stupid crap a blogger encounters in his or her's day-to-day, or to show off all the cool things a blogger encounters out there. And since I haven't had alot of aggravations or any interesting things happen to me in the last several weeks, I am now boring.

Personally, I wish I'd had a fraction of the imagination this guy did on his blog. This is one of the kewlest blog ideas ever. Start from the bottom up.

http://micksjarvisislandjob.blogspot.com/2008/04/
happy-april-fools-day-from-jarvis.html


Week Three

So this week starts week three of my No Soda quest. I'm doing just great, with no problems since the headaches went away. Odd thing though, today I actually found myself wanting a Vanilla Coke just for a tasty treat, rather than as a need that had to be satisfied. I, however, remained strong. At the end of this week, I might go ahead and have that Vanilla Coke, but it'll just be one, and that'll be it for a week.

What a Racket

Last week I made the mistake of turning in my library books late. The time flew too quickly, and I guess they've raised the daily fines, because today I logged into my library account to see what the damage was.

Fifty-three, count 'em FIFTY FREAKIN' THREE DOLLARS!!!! F-I-F-T-Y. T-H-R-E-E. 5. 3.

For just a few days overdue.

Now, in all honesty, I did have twenty three books out, but c'mon, there's got to be an upper limit of this silliness.

Garsh! If I'd of only known.

In a Field of Clover

So I re-watched the movie Cloverfield for about the fifth time, and I'm still loving it. As a modern day Godzilla-type flick, the Point of View-style works better than if they had tried to make a straight horror film. The characters seem like real folks, they are all sympathetic, and in way over their heads, and are basically herded to the end of the movie by circumstance and not by their own decisions, a plot device which I like. It feels like real life, where the world does what it wants to and you're just along for the ride. The movie's short, too. Only and hour and ten minutes or so.

In this Youtube generation, the idea of a film entirely shot Blair Witch-style is becoming popular, and for good reason. Seems like more and more, our way of communicating and keeping in contact with others comes from footage and pics shot on home cameras and posted on Youtube vids and email and blogs, so I see Hollywood wanting to cash out on that paticular kind of societal meme (any thought or behavior that can be passed from one person to another by means of imitation, just in case you don't know what a meme is).

And it's entertaining when it's done right.

Of course, it can be done badly. George Romero of Night of the Living Dead fame resurrected his of the Dead franchise yet again with the Cloverfield/Blair Witch-style Diary of the Dead. Although I had high hopes for it, Romero let me down yet again, and DOTD was so full of Fail I will never watch it a second time. And that's saying something, as I'll watch zombie movies over and over, even the bad ones. Crappy acting, corny dialog, unbelievable scenarios (aside from the zombies), Romero's usual overdone preachy-ness, and poorly done camera work make it unwatchable more than once.

You ever see a Youtube vid that was supposed to be real, but was obviously scripted, and acted out badly? So badly you cringe in embarrasment for the people performing 'cause it's Just. That. Bad? That was Diary of the Dead. Avoid at all costs.

Hey, look at that. I had something to blog about after all.

And to all a good night.

No Soda!!!!

So today is the day. Day 1 of my journey to end my relationship with the Devil's Juice.

No more soda for me. No more caffeinated beverages. No more fizzy drinks. No mas. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Bupkiss. Cold turkey for the next three weeks. They say it takes three weeks to make something a habit, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make not drinking soda a habit.

This is going to suck!

But the soda's going to kill me. It's going to give me the diabetes if I don't cut it out now. So here I go.

I'm keeping a log of my daily progress on my computer, but I figured I'd post the announcement here as well to cement my intentions.

I'm done with you, DR. Pepper. It's over. It's been nice, but I don't love you anymore. Coca Cola, you dark-hued beauty, you've made me happy in the past, but now you are ugly to me. So I say farewell. I'm done with this co-dependent relationship. I need to be free.

Goodbye.

I'm going to do this, because from now on any glass of soda I'll ever drink is nothing less than a Big Cup of Fail, mocking me and reminding me of how weak I am.

But I'm stronger than that. I just know it.

Let the Pain commence!

Amy and Bonnie at the Movies

Upon hearing about Bonnie's experience with Amy during Hellboy 2, I couldn't help but see vividly exactly what happened in the theater.

Amy, realizing that her imagination has only been cultivated on prosaic and languid programming like The Biggest Loser and American Idol and is thus unprepared for the mindblowing awesomeness she's seeing on the screen, decides she needs an expert imaginarian to translate the images she's seeing so she can finally get what's going on, and notices Bonnie down at the end of isle, staring at the screen in rapturous abandon, and decides to go get the skinny on this whole "Hellboy" thing.

She stands, stoops to stay out of the view of those behind her, and charges the irate crowd ahead of her.

"'Scuse me, pardon me, coming through. Oops, a thousand pardons. Sorry, you shouldn't leave that there. Lady, move it or I'm gonna smack you like an Isle-hog at Sam's Club! See if I won't. Pardon me, scuse me. Psst, hey Bon!

"Oh, gosh WHAT?!

"Hey, what's the deal with that guy?"

"Keep your voice down. People are looking! What guy?"

"The big red one. Wearing the overcoat. Why does he have a big stone hand?"

"He's a demon. That's his RIGHT HAND OF DOOM!

"Why is it called the Right Hand of Doom? And why did you pronounce it in all capital letters?"

"Because it's made of stone, and if he hits you with it, you're DOOMED. That's why. Now can I watch the movie already?"

"Wait a minute, Bon. So why does he have designs carved on his skin? That's weird."

"Cause he's a demon. I'm sure ritual scarring goes with the territory."

"Okay, but why is he wearing red goggles on his head?"

"Sheesh, those aren't goggles. They're the stubs of horns. He grinds them down with a sander."

"He has horns?! Why does he file them down?"

"'Cause, it's too hard to get in the car with two-foot horns sticking out of your head. And you can't put on t-shirts either. You have to wear button downs, and that's way too preppy when your name is Hellboy. You lose all your street cred. The other demons laugh at you."

"Oh. Well, what's the deal with him liking cats. I don't get it."

"Amy, cats were the guardians of the Underworld. That's why he likes them. They guard the dead."

"Wait. But Bonnie, he's a demon. Cats were the guardians of the Underworld in the ancient Egyptian Pantheonistic religion. There were no demons in the Old Kingdom mythologies. Demons are based on medieval Judeo-Christian literary mythology. How can both myths be represented here? It makes no sense!"

"Because Amy, when he created Hellboy, Mike Mignola sought to syncretistically reconcile as many of the ancient religious, historical, and mythological ideas as he could to create a single, coherent world within a pulp-horror war-action narrative."

"Uhhhh...What?"

"He wanted to make any myth possible in the action-packed supernatural world of Hellboy."

"No, I got that, but what does "syncretistically" mean?"

"I don't know, Amy. Ask Dan. He began explaining it to me once, but I started listening to some pretty Irish lads singing waily Celtic music while he was talking and I kind of stopped paying attention."

"Great. Now, look. Why is that Elizabeth woman on fire now, and why isn't she burning alive?"

" 'Cause she's got pyrokinesis."

"I think I had pyrokinesis once, but the doctor gave me an ointment to put on it, and it went away."

"No, you enormous tard! Pyrokinesis means she can start fires with her mind."

"Why would she want to do that?"

"She doesn't want to do that. That's the point. She can't always control the fire, and it sometimes kills people. That's why she's always depressed and annoyed."

"Oh, I thought she was like that cause she's PMSing."

"That too. Now can I please watch the movie. You're driving me crazy."

"Fine. Oh my heck, why is there a fish-guy now?!"

"Amy, for Heavens sakes, why didn't you watch the first movie ahead of time?!"

*Blink Blink* "There was a first movie? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I did tell you, you ninnyhammer. On the phone last week, remember?"

"Uhhh, I remember something about a Golden Army, and an immortal Russian sorcerer, but then Lily started doing something just adorable and I had to get a picture of it for her scrapbook. When I got back on the phone you were still talking, and I didn't want to seem rude, so I just said, 'okay,cool' and left it at that. Why didn't we watch the first movie this morning so I could know what's going on? Don't you have it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"'Cause if mom saw a movie called Hellboy in my collection she'd have a heart attack and say it was the Devil."

"It is the Devil! Look, he's got a tail and everything."

"He's a demon, not the devil, and he's a good guy."

"How come he's a good guy demon?

"'Cause he was raised by the Army after WWII to fight evil, and then he ate the pancakes and was lost to Hell forever."

"Uhh, okay, but how com-"

"Dude. Seriously. Amy, you have got to stop talking. I'm watching a movie here. Ask Dan after the movie. He'll tell you what's up."

"Yeah, Dan's a nerd. He'll know all about this weird crap."

"Amy, go!!!"

"Fine!"

"Whatever!"

"Whatever!"

"Fine!"

"Scuse me, pardon me, coming through. Seriously, Isle-Hog, move those canoe-sized feet or I'm gonna stomp on 'em! Twice! 'Scuse me, ouch, forgive me. Uhhh, lo ciento, cabrona. Vaya pa la Mexico, ahora mismo! Jeez, freakin' illegals, sputter, mumble grumble. Comin' through, sorry, excuse me."

Amy looks around, noticing for the first time all the angry people she's alienated with her moving around and her incessant chatter. With a warm inner glow, she thinks about how much fun being rude actually is, and goes back to watching the movie.

The End. :P

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

From Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, comes Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, 'cause the world is in desperately short supply of supervillian musicals.

Watch it now. Acts I, II, and III. It's awesome!

http://www.drhorrible.com/act_I.html

In The Dark and Rain

When I was a kid, Dad took great delight in sending me out of the house to get something or take out the trash, alone, at night. He’d always say, “Watch out for the Boogieman!” and then proceed to sneak up on me in the dark and scare the crap out of me. It happened enough that my childhood fear of the dark was pretty much gone by the time I was seven or eight, so my dad’s amateur immersion therapy seemed to have worked as intended.

By the time I was twelve, I began to take walks at night through our Phoenix neighborhood, something you could still do at the time. Our neighborhood had a series of alleyways where the dumpsters were kept, and I began walking them in the dark since I could walk forever without running into anyone or anything.

Thus began my tradition of night walking.

To this day I love the darkness. I hate walking during the day. The night is a safe place for me to walk hidden and secure, even though nearly all of the bad things and armed encounters that have ever happened to me happened while I was out for a walk. But still, I refuse to stop taking walks at night.

My walks are always therapeutic. It’s my own personal meditation. If something is bothering me or stressing me out, all I have to do is take a night walk for a few hours and by the end I’ve usually figured out what to do about whatever is bothering me, or at least figured out how to accept what is bothering me and stop dwelling on it. It’s a formula for peace and contentment. Well, that and swinging kettlebells. Nothing like a KB for wearing you out to the point you just don’t care anymore.

Tonight I wanted to hit the road after midnight thanks to my screwed up sleeping habits. I’ve been doing okay lately and getting enough sleep more or less, but I have a killer headache today, and I went to sleep at five o’clock in the afternoon. By the time eleven came around, I was just waking up, dang it all. Figuring I’d get to bed around sun up, I’d decided to head out and see if I could exhaust myself by doing five or six miles.

Well, I got dressed and opened the door, and what do you think greeted me? Yep, it was raining. A lot. I’m not the kind of guy that likes to walk around in the rain, but when the mood hits me, I’ll go ahead and do it, unless it’s too cold. I hate cold rain, like tiny knives slicing through my skin. But warm monsoon rain is all good by comparison.

Rain, rain…

So I went out and faced the monsoon. No lightning, but I was miserable at first. You ever notice how you can face any of the elements as long as it doesn’t get in your face? Wind, Rain, snow, dust storms- it doesn’t matter as long as it stays away from the eyes and mouth. Humanity has spent thousands of years perfecting the technology to keep nature away from the face, yet thus far I’ve been remiss in utilizing any of it.

The rain got on my face, in my eyes, the humidity fogged my glasses. The good point was it was so wet I didn’t feel uncomfortably sweaty or anything. Ahhh…

Hats

As I was saying, mankind has spent thousands of years working on head-covering technology, but our society that is so used to white and pink collar jobs, air conditioning, and staying indoors has basically atrophied in the department of hats.

Back in the day, women wore bonnets or those big, floppy things covered in flowers and fruit and small animals. Men wore tricorns and then beavers, planters, or cowboy hats, and later on porkpies and panamas and fedoras. Men always wore hats up until the ‘60’s. Now, all you can get at a reasonable price are useless baseball caps or boonie hats.

Where are the American versions of the coolie hats they wear in Southeast Asia? You know those big conical straw jobs with the chin strap to lock it down tight? Yeah, something like that without the chin strap. Maybe a modern sombrero is in order. I’m not talking about the garish multi-colored fiesta hats either, but a natural colored straw sombrero with a ten-inch brim and a lattice around the crown to let the heat out and shaped to let the water run off the right way. That would be sweet.

I love cowboy hats but dislike the boots and long jeans that they require you wear without looking like an idiot. So they’re out. They don’t make a panama with a wide enough brim, and regular panamas make you look like a grandpa. At least like my grandpa, who wore a panama all the time.

There are custom hats out there, but who wants to pay custom prices for a hat that’s gonna get trashed in short order?

Little Triumphs

So life has a way of kicking you when you're down. Things go wrong, people screw you, fate seems destined to bury you under a sea of crap; you know, the usual.

So I have a Wahl electric shaver I've owned for three years. It gets used alot, since I keep my beard at a four day stubble most of the time, and I've never maintained the thing. Well, today it stopped working. The blades just stopped dead but the motor kept running, so I figured it was a mechanical issue.

Now I'm pretty good at just giving in or giving up when things get difficult, and in times past I would have thrown it in the garbage and gone out to get a new one. But today I'd rather try and fix things and besides, I don't have the dough to replace it. So, since I couldn't break it more, I got out the screwdriver and did what they do down in Mexico; I tore it apart to see if I could fix it.

It was quite an education in mechanics. Two plates with teeth are sandwiched together and connected to a moving arm that slides the plates back and forth that forces the teeth to cut like three dozen tiny scissors. Well after taking it apart, there was hair jammed all over the inside, and the toothed plates had hair, rust, dust, and the original oil it came with all gummed up between them making a sticky mung, keeping the plates from sliding together smoothly. So I rinsed everything off, sprayed Liquid Klean all over to get rid of the mung and scrubbed with steel wool to clean it all up. Since the little tube of oil the shaver came with was lost long ago, I dug out the gun oil, applied some between the plates, and screwed everything back together.

Now it works like a champ. Better than it has for months.

Not a huge victory by any means. Not even a great accomplishment. But hey, sometimes you gotta give props to yourself for the little triumphs, high five the Universe who hates you, and yell out

COUNT IT!!!