'Unapologetic Nonsense'

 

 

 

 

    First off though, an apology. As I am limiting myself to four posts a month, I had to wait to publish this on November 1st, otherwise this post would have appeared on the 28th of October and there would have been five blog posts for the month.

    That said, two days ago (this being as I write, October 30th, the eve of Halloween - would that make it Halloweenween or Halloweenie??) I was watching Aron Ra's latest YouTube video on evolution entitled: 'Triassic Transitions: from Lizards to Crocs'.

    In his post, both on the main thumbnail, and in the video, Aron made reference to producer/director Irwin Allen's 1960 remake of  the 1925, stop-motion, silent film classic: 'The Lost World', itself an adaptation of Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name. There is even a point, with respect to the 1960 CinemaScope production, where Aron points out the coincidental resemblance of an extinct Shringasaurus indicus to the Iguana used in the film. 

    However, "coincidental" is as far as the resemblance went, for instead of employing stop-motion animation to recreate the sauropods and theropods of that bygone era, as was initially planned (Willis O'Brien, the master, special effects master from the 1925 production was actually commissioned for the 1960 version) financial cuts by 20th Century Fox, forced Irwin Allen to settle for the derided, cost-desperate use of prosthetic applications and live reptiles. 

    That the resulting fabrications bore little resemblance to the dinosaurs they were supposedly portraying* was the price alas sadly and literally to be paid. With the budget slashed to a third of its original funding [the direct consequence of 'Cleopatra' (1963) and its projected cost overrun] this was the compromise inflicted on the venture. Tossing in a bright green tarantula to boot, some clinging plant tendrils, a carnivorous flower, a volcano, cave people, revenge, a couple of human skeletons, and an oversized fossil rib cage, would have to suffice, plus hoping as Hell for the best, I guess.

     The disaster did modestly upon release. 

    Somehow I don't think this is the fiasco Irwin had in mind when he proudly bestowed the "Master of Diaster" appellation upon himself.

 *Unlike the excellent makeup used to recreate the more convincing dimetrodons featured in 20th Century Fox's blockbuster 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' from the year before. 

 

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    Amazingly, I manage to find footage of a 20th Century Fox sales promotion being pitched by producer/director Irwin Allen for his upcoming 1974 feature 'The Towering Inferno, complete with him standing before a huge diagram! It was just made to suit (to say nothing of Irwin's all salmon-pink jumpsuit! Yep, white shoes 'n' all!)

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    I kid you not about the jumpsuit! Even by early 1970's fashion sensibility, it was considered gauche. Only the  uncool, the unhip - mainly men and moguls in their midlife crisis - would wear it! The wannabe chic that never were with it!

 

 

 

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ChatGPT (My First Use of It) [This post is under construction.]

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After submitting the following prompt: “Humorously render the image into a simplified cartoon character,” this is the resulting illustration.

 

 

 

To be sure, as I did not ask for a caricature, I was not surprised that the face did not resemble me. I also assumed that ChatGPT would zero in on my furrowed brow and knit eyebrows to produce an all too serious expression, which it did. So I prompted it to remove the stern glare and go a little lighter on the overall expression “Unknit the furrowed brow a smidge and make the face a tad more friendly and welcoming.”

The A.I. came back with this.

 

 

 

Okay, I suppose, but it lost the five-o’clock-shadow and white goatee in the process. On a side note I was intrigued by ChatGPT’s assumption that the sample was wearing a tee, which I was, but I just as easily could have been wearing a long sleeved sweatshirt. The cropping doesn’t permit one to know one way or the other. Ah, machine learning.

I then asked it to return the shadow.

Instead, next went and did this.

 

 

 

 Uh-oh, I didn’t ask for a more realistic depiction. Notice the five fingers, instead of the cartoon’s standard four. Unfortunately, when  I asked ChatGpt to simplify once again, the successive picture (not shown) only got further away from the original concept, that is to say the original intent. So, I ended the session. Maybe I should have prompted the A.I. to keep the style of the of the first two frames, but was already too late. Oh, well., on

 

 

 

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'The Farce of Things Unknown'

    One of the things I like to do, as you can tell from a few of my earlier posts, is to make video birthday cards for my family and dear friends. The artist, cartoonist, Mad Magazine-influenced humorist, and pop culture enthusiast in me simply can't resist. 

    So what can I do with the idea of "it being that time again" as Desiree Staley, her mom Twalla Staley, and Desiree's son, Braden, her mom's grandson are all having their birthdays in the space of less than a week of each other starting today?!

    Then I remembered the following scene from my favorite, television series of all time,'The Outer Limits'. Oh joy, the scene as is, was perfect, without my having to edit or alter a single frame, save for dropping in the appropriate fonts. Complete and concise the clip was, and tailor-made for the topic and humor upon which I chose to expand, to say nothing of being exactly ideal, framing and pacing wise, for the script!

    Voila!

 

 

 

On 'The Outer Limits' background video:

It's the opening tease to the first season's final episode, 'The Forms of Things Unknown' (airdate: May 4, 1964). That's Barbara Rush being led down the hallway by David McCallum. Vera Miles, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke also star.

The cinematography is by future Academy Award winner, Conrad Hall.

There were two versions of this teleplay shot, as one was for a pilot series, 'The Unknown' that never made air.

To that end, fans of composer Dominic Frontiere may instantly recognize the music heard here and slated for the failed pilot, but used, three years later, as the score for 'The Invaders' (1967) 

Lastly, the cake appearing at the end, is from artist Curtis Goldstein' Domestic Blisters series, and titled 'White Cake on Wheels' (2013 )

      Courtesy also to Morgan B's Knit Picks blog for the backdrop.

'Norman to Nueman (Self-Portrait to Parody)' [This post is still requires tags.]

    Just a little humor and a GIF I put together courtesy of Rockwell, Williams, and Mad.

 Images:

'Triple Self-Portrait' (1960) Norman Rockwell [Oil on canvas]

 'Mad Art' (2002) Richard A. Williams [Oil on canvas] Cover illustration for Mad Magazine's 'Mad Art: A Visual Celebration of the Art of Mad Magazine and the Idiots Who Create It.' (2002)

 

 

 

 

My Steel Trap Mind!

 

    I kid you not. It took me nine years to realize the pun underlying 'The Beatles', sixty one years to notice the spelling of 'Jonny Quest', and, until someone recently brought it to my attention, the pun in the following six letter word. 

 

    I tell you, nothing escapes me! I'm fast - not!

 

Perfectly encapsulated!

 

 

    

 

    Thank you Aron Ra.

    See Aron Ra's YouTube post.

 

 

ADDENDUM: On October 7, 2025, I met with my British friend, Trish Keefer for a belated birthday lunch at Bella Siena in Benicia. There, I related my not readily catching on to things, citing the example of "The Beatles" to her dumbfounded amazement! 

 

    "Until you told me, I had no idea whatsoever of the pun!" Trish revealed, sixty three years out! The Fab Four's deliberate English "Beat" music reference had slipped completely past her as well. Trish always assume the naming convention was merely tying into to the band's iconic haircut and nothing more.

 

    So that makes two of us with steel trap minds!

Celebrating Lee!

    My little animation celebrating a family members birthday! Here's to you, Lee!

Lee Paige in blue!

     ;-)

    

     Here is the YouTube link

A Blow to My Innocence [This post is still under heavy construction.]

     Today in short hours following the graphic murder of a truly contemptible human being, whose person I would usually prefer not to allot the slightest bit of copy space, I learned a depressing piece of information. 

     Omigod! This hate-mongering Christian Nationalist considered himself a member of the Calvary Chapel Association! A fact I stumbled across skimming over his bio.

    CCA was the direct outgrowth of Pastor Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, the one and only teen church of early seventies fame so prominent and influential in evangelical Christian culture and music! I

    Calvary Chapel, with its message of loving acceptance, almost single-handedly begat the Jesus Movement or hippie Jesus Freaks. Even Time Magazine did a cover feature on the social phenomenal.

    The church also pioneered the nascent genre of Contemporary Christian Music, giving us Love Song and Maranatha Music. In 1971, these were like the melophonic and spiritual pinnacles of my young born-again days. Indeed, for the truly saved, they were part and parcel of the Jesus experience, love being the defining factor.

    It was deciding factor, three years prior to the movement's peak popularity, that made me come to  Christianity of my own accord. I did so precisely because the love, life and person of JC for me, epitomized so much of the anti-establishment, give-peace-a-chance, love-is-all-you-need, pacifistic, caring, world point-of-view I strove to emulate. 

    He was the quintessential hippie I dug back then.

 

 

   Whatever happened to the central premise that was Calvary Chapel's original emphasis, and Maranatha Music's literal theme if you like?! So I assumed. What became of their core notion; their working "tenet"? Somewhere along the way, the ministry lost its heart. 

     That I was dismayed by the tidbit I accidentally learned, was understandable to say the least, but that I was altogether surprised - the truth be told, I wasn't.

    More likely than not, I am a victim of my own projections, my desire to want to believe the best of people, beliefs, motives, and institutions. All too soon forgetting they, just like myself, are all too human. 

    What occurred? The 80's I believe. As evangelical Christianity grew with the influx of the young, it began feeling its political oats, especially that mainline, conservative part of the church that wasn't of the incoming youth set. We Jesus People were just the frivolous trimmings, the side show they tolerated, all the while envying our numbers. Pliable minds and fertile ground were we to inculcate and till - their way.

   Many of us, like myself, disenchanted with the conservative direction of the church, dropped out. I fell away, because at heart, I also believed in pursuing hard after truth. Truth with a small "t". Even as a born-again, I valued the right; the need to question - everything, including The Truth. Too much of far left progressive and pacifist was I, smack dab in a den of right-wingers and Republicans, to ever capitulate! So their political ideology was never going to sway me, and those like me, to their ulterior, uncompassionate, world view. 

   Love drew me to the church, lack of it led me to leave. I wish my skepticism had played a role in my departure, but that 'muscle' was only just beginning to develop in me at the end of my tenure as a Christian.

    Eventually, I became an atheist, a "eupraxsophist" to be specific, with the philosophy of "practicing good" towards others as well as towards myself. Love and pacifism still motivate me. Art, fer sure, as well. Science too.

    What has all this digression to do with my topic?  Well, despite the cynic in me, the years of watching the depths of inhumanity we humans can reach, I still want to believe the better of things. Perhaps, to the point of coloring over the past. I want to believe we were capable of innocence and can still achieve it, if only briefly.

   I know better.

   That the church I once admired from afar, that touched my youthhood can produce or allow such a vicious, vile, vehemently spiteful, callous and cruel hatemonger - antithetical to all its earlier professed values - to associate themselves with it. Well, my innocence still has the capacity to be stunned and shattered..

     Nothing is sacred.

 

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Time Magazine June 21, 1971. Cover art by Stanislaw Zagorski 

 

From Time Magazine's feature story. Pastor Chuck Smith carries a young paralytic to a mass baptism in the Pacific at Corona del Mar, California. Photo by Julian Wasser. 

An early poster from the Jesus Movement, whose text Time Magazine quotes at the start of their exposé.

'The Christ' (1962) The Richard Hook painting popularized by the Jesus Movement.

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 But I am not surprised.

 All sound and fury, signifying nothing.

 Helpless rag doll.

 

Cut down

By their fruits

Live by the sword Die by the sword

Reap what they sow

"Hoist with his own petard" William Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' Act 3, Scene 4 (The speech, to which the relevant phrase was a part, was deleted in a number of Shakespeare's early and later manuscripts, leading some authorities to believe this was an actual cut intended by the Bard. Other experts disagree.)

 

Despised empathy

Collateral damage 

 

Betty Bowers remark 

How You Die Does Not Redeem How You Lived

 

Unfriended a "family" member who said they were going to 'unfriend" anyone  expressing little pity My parting comment "Empathy for a man who despised it? I'll save you the trouble and goodbye."

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    Not to be flippant or facetious, but I am reminded of an old Gahan Wilson cartoon from Playboy. 

 

     Nope. Not even my supposed innocency.

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PVK, Ten Years Out

Low resolution copy of one of my favorite, Peter Van Kleef images. Photo credit pending.

    Today marks the ten year anniversary of Peter Van Kleef's passing. He was an extraordinary man, whom I almost did not meet. Were it not for the concerted efforts of another good friend of mine Di Anne Love, Peter and I would likely have slipped past each other in life."There's this person you just gotta meet, whose place you're just gonna love!" 

    She was right.

    Needless to say, I am ever grateful to her for having coaxed me to step out of my shyness and into the enchantment that was Peter and Cafe Van Kleef.* 

    I remember the particulars well..

     For months Di Anne Love, my employer at The City of Oakland Crafts and Cultural Arts Gallery, was doing all she could to introduce me to this amazing guy who she told me had some kind of fascinating art space., she was certain I would really love. Albeit, reticent as I was to meet people unknown to me or to enter unfamiliar territory, I simply hemmed and hawed, putting it off.

    Luckily Di Anne never gave up trying. She merely had to wait for the opportune moment and propitious of circumstances. In reality however, she didn't have that many chances available to her. This was because Peter's accessibility at the time. His schedule didn't exactly make it easy.

     For in 2001, Cafe Van Kleef, was still largely an on again - off again affair, its doors were literally sometimes open for business and not as the budding business underwent a couple of trial incarnations from bistro to bar. In the meantime, Di Anne would simply have to bide her time.

    That opportunity finally presented itself one afternoon, when on the occasion of returning to the art gallery from lunch, we chance to drive pass CVK** with its front gate momentarily up, although the nascent was currently in its "closed" phase.

     Catching sight of the open gate and acting fast, Di Anne immediately parked the car, and asked me to follow her inside,the establishment on the sudden pretext that she had something to hand its proprietor. This, she later confessed, was merely a ruse to get a diffident me "in the door". Suspecting nothing, I obliged her, completely unaware this, in fact, was that very place and person to which she had been trying, and almost in vain, to introduce to me! 

    Once she succeeded however, I was simply agog at the artistry confronting us. The sheer eclecticism, wall to wall; floor to ceiling; front to back as far as the eye could see was astounding!

     Seconds later, Peter stepped under the gate behind us with some items retrieved from the basement. When he saw me my awe and staring moments later at the "flying aquarium" mounted high in the wall overhead, he mused "I bet you're wonderin' how I feed them?!" (Indeed, there were live fish in the tank!) "I do it with this!" 

    Standing beneath a huge, parabolic mirror, mounted on a tripod he himself had cobbled, Peter winked. Then coming around to the back side of the bar, he extended his hand. After that, a drink followed.    

   When Cafe Van Kleef permanently opened to the public, I was there at his side as his employee on that first business day. Peter, myself, and his nephew, Lance Cardenas. We three. Peter had won me over, although Di Anne was probably not expecting the degree to which he did. To her credit, she graciously let me go, as the position Peter extended to me was full time. My work for the Crafts and Cultural Arts Gallery was only for two weeks every other month.                                                                                                                                                             

    Peter the man I came to know, work for, and remember, was the living living embodiment of one my favorite quotes from the 1964 comedy 'What a Way to Go!' - the first half of the maxim in particular: "Art erupts!" His prodigious creativity was nothing short of volcanic.

    To me, Peter's personality was larger than life, and I was fortunate, thanks to Di Anne, not only to have made his acquaintance, but experience the fleeting wonder of it.

 

 

 

 

*Sadly, Di Anne preceded Peter's death by about a year. Di Anne, by the way, was the one also responsible for introducing me to Trish Keefer, a remarkable person in her own right. Trish is still my best female buddy to this day.

 

**CVK (Cafe Van Kleef) is now CRVK (Cindy Reeves Van Kleef). Cindy, all along, the true owner of the business, was Peter then wife.

 

 

Open 'n' Shut

    My sister bought this house plant (no, I do not know its name - and it isn't Arthur). She then noticed its shutting its leaves at night and opening them wide on the morrow. 

     Intrigued I wondered, I could video-record a time-lapse of the sleep-movement (nyctinasty is the name of the phenomenon), but that would tie up the portion of the kitchen demarcating the dining room, preventing access to the latter, and doing so for the entire duration. That would only be in the way and no good.

    So I instead set up my still camera* with the aim (no pun intended) to take only two photographs and construct a GIF. Carefully noting the camera's placement and position, I snapped the daytime shot, then broke up shop, keeping my physical presence on site to a minimum.

    Thus the space was open and free for business as usual. 

    Later that night, turning on the lights, I returned to the dining room, and following my notes, set the camera as close as I possibly could to its original spot. I was off, it turned out, only by a few centimeters. Next, adjusting for exposure, I released the shutter a second time. 

    After the shoot, I then brought the camera to my PC, and tweaked the files, to further align and finalize the transition between images.

    Here is the GIF:  

 

 

 *In actuality, the "camera" I used, was my Samsung A35 Smartphone, so kudos to my recently acquired, Movo PR-3 Rotating Smartphone Grip Handle Rig, making use of the cellphone possible. Additional kudos to PhotoFiltre Studio and PhotoScape X Pro for the finishing software.

Between Songs

    Call this another in my "Reminiscence bump" recollections.

    The photo in the middle is me literally "between songs" so to speak. I'm only six and a half years old in the image, and Sunday dressed for a very special occasion (which has no direct bearing on this post).* Nevertheless, by the time I was nine in 1963, two pop songs were considered my "bestest"!

     And here they are, sandwiching my dapper self!

     The first is from 1960, The Everly Brothers' number one, smash hit: 'Cathy's Clown'.

 'Cathy's Clown' The Everly Brothers (1960)

     Me, all decked out in my duds. What a dandy, dashing, debonair dude!

Sunday, January 21, 1962  Photo by Manuel Rubio Sanchez

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The second number, from 1963, is Ruby and the Romantics' only chart-topper: 'Our Day Will Come'.

 'Our Day Will Come' Ruby and the Romantics (1963)

    Why I was especially fond of these two numbers, I no longer know. In fact, when I look at my portraiture, aware that the date is January 21, 1961 (the Sunday it incidentally snowed in San Francisco), reminds me that Jorgen Ingmann's cover of The Shadows UK hit 'Apache' was currently climbing to the top of the American AM radio charts. 'Apache' was a tune about which I was also wild. (However, as it featured no lyrics that I could sing, which would help identify the song to someone unfamiliar with the title - I could barely carry a note, besides - is one plausible reason keeping it as a contender for consideration, out of the running for inclusion into my "bestest" category. I can only presume.)

*[SEE:"Frost!!" (Take One: The Fiftieth Anniversary - Pathé Newsreel Edition) Posted: January 12, 2012 and  "Frost!!" (Take Two: The Fuller Account - Family Photographs Edition) Posted: October 5, 2024] 

 

 

 

HATARI! Means Danger! [This post is still under construction.]

    So the ad campaign went.

    In the summer of 1962, my dad took my sisters and to see ‘Hatari!”. I can’t say if he did so, because he was aware of the San Francisco world premiere that had just occurred, with the main stars of the film in attendance, and all the hoopla, or if it was because of the striking advert in the movie section of the San Chronicle that surely must have caught my eight year old, wide-eyed attention. A charging rhino has gotta rank up there with dinosaurs went you ain’t got any living dinosaurs around anymore! It’s like the next best thing! If it was the second scenario, I can well imagine my having pleaded with my dad to see the film.

    On a side note: I can even recall sitting before the tele watching a certain Three Stooges short the moment my father came into the room and told us to get our things as we were about to set out to the movies. If I ever stumble on that Three Stooges episode, I’ll be sure to list it here.

    Once at the Paramount, as the curtains opened, and the first four notes of Henry Mancini’s horn section sounded, I was mesmerized! For me, the nearly three hour long feature was a visual and auditory feast. I couldn’t get enough! I came home humming the ‘Theme to Hatari’ over and over and, within days, I manage to find a wooden pole, and with my dad’s hemp rope, tried as best I could to fashion the boom used by John Wayne’s character, Sean Mercer.

     And the drawings, I never stopped! Pages and pages of paper were spent,  happily recreating the standout scenes so indelibly etched into my boyhood brain. In fact, up until four years ago, I still had many of those illustrations. Sadly, they were an accidental casualty of a move.

    ‘Hatari!’ was instantly, my all time favorite movie to see at the theater. (‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ which I also on television that same year - it had its national network television premiere on NBC’s Saturday Night at the Movies - is my favorite movie). Anyway, I got taken to see ‘Hatari!’again. And as grew older, every chance I got to catch the film playing at some neighborhood movie house, I would go.

     All in all, I believe I saw the picture at the local show, fourteen or more times! 

     In 1967, ‘Hatari!’ had its network debut on ABC and I was so mad at what the broadcasters did; taking the main credits and sticking it along with Henry Mancini’s wonderful theme, at the end of the telecast, leaving this awful jump cut as the crew prepare to leave the Ngorogoro crater, after the opening chase, to Kurt (played by Hardy Kruger) instantaneously arriving at the compound to pick up Brandy (Michele Giradon) many hours later. It literally cuts from noon day to dusk! Jarring! 

    Here is the opening rhinoceros chase and the main title credits that follow a couple of scenes later.

     Oddly enough, I was never a John Wayne fan, though as a kid I did like Red Buttons. Actually, it was music, the location, and the cinematography that had me utterly enthralled. Director Howard Hawks' signature use of  ensemble acting also added to the film's appeal, though I was too young to realize the technique for what it was at the time.

     I didn't realize a lot of things then. Now with hindsight, I can see how 'Hatari!' was very much a product and reflection of its time. There are sociological artifacts that clearly date the film. However progressive it tried to be - going from the genre of the big game, safari hunt to wild animal capture or utilizing an"international" cast - "Hatari!' is still entrenched in some outdated notions.

    True, the animals are no longer being shot for sport, but they are being ruthlessly hunted nonetheless to be wrested from their native habitat to become the sole captive property of this or that zoo.

    The said "international" cast consists only of westerners. And sadly, the most telling indictment of all against the film is the fact that only nine words of English, in the picture's entire 2 hours and 37 minute running length, is given to the actors playing the indigenous Africans!

     Arga, the House"boy" has three:

    "In room,"

    "Bad?"

    Three scenes later, the Safari Bar Bartender (played by Emmett Smith), has the remaining six: 

    "Safari Bar. Yes sir, they're here!"

     That's it!

    The adult, African extras that make up the Momella Compound staff and catching crew are repeatedly referred to as "boys" throughout the film.

    What's dismaying, is the racist assumptions deemed so unquestionably normative. Yet even today, sixty three years later, the white male gaze and perspective still predominate in many a big budget, motion picture. It's getting better, but not fast or far enough.

     There are sexist tropes as well. Right at the start, Pockets (Red Buttons) first line in the film is to quip about the weaving rhino "This one's got to be a female! She can't make up her mind which way to go!" Incidentally, the rhino's gender changes from feminine to masculine once it has gored The Indian / Little Wolf (played by a Caucasian Bruce Cabot). "Hatari", i.e., "danger", means male as well, I suppose.

    Undoubtedly, the dating advice concerning the roles to be played by men and women garners many an eye roll.

    Okay, that does it for my critique, which also must include myself, as I still find the romantic chemistry  charming, chiefly for its nostalgic familiarity. I grew up on Hollywood romance, finding myself still affected by it. Oh well,

    I''m sure missing many other things. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Hatari!' even had its world premiere in my home town of San Francisco with cast members John Wayne, Elsa Martinelli, Red Buttons, and Bruce Cabot live on stage, in person, not to mention Sonya, the cheetah being the fifth “cast member’ present! 

 

 

 

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Yes, for decades I even had the Dell comic book (which I unfortunately lost in the mid 1990's)

 

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Many years later in the early 1990's I went to the San Francisco Fleishhacker Zoo, as it was then known, and stopping with my friends two daughters, Sarah and Stephanie, to see the elephants, listened as Sarah, struck up a conversation with one of the staff. She in turn shortly found out I had seen 'Hatari!' as a child thirty years earlier. That's when the staffperson, becoming all excited, suddenly couldn't wait tell me and the girls that it was "Tembo", the film's main baby elephant herself, standing before us, all grown up and in the pink! (Sorry for that last pun.) Needless to say, I was simply gobsmacked!

Addendum: There’s information on IMDB wherein another zoo in Europe is claiming “Tembo” to have been theirs. Well, as there were three baby elephants in the film, who knows which zoo has who.

Nagasaki

 Remembering...

(Kotaro Ueda - Kyodo News via AP)  2025-08-09

Quickly or Slowly?

    At 80 years out today, what has humanity, the world over, learned?     

    I posted my rhetorical question to Facebook and got and immediate, first-time reply from a casual acquaintance I "friended" on the social media platform some twenty years ago. Regrettably, his disheartening response only served to illustrate humankind's pernicious blindspots and ongoing obstinacy to improve.

    The emphatic lesson learned, according to his comment (and by inference, the only lesson to be learned), is that a nation shouldn't sneak attack another having the technical superiority to rain down fire in return. Indeed, going on to recite Isoroku Yamamoto's "sleeping giant" quote, he concludes, with both Hiroshima and Nagasaki as proof.

     In the face of such schoolyard, ass-whooping, myopic, juvenile jingoism (younger than me, this callous commenter wasn't even born at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack - nor was I) and utterly missing my broader point about warfare in general, I was left to lament, "It's as I feared, we're not learning at all." 

     I wasn't just speaking of one particular conflict of one particular group of nations or peoples. In fact in nationalists such as he, I see the Japanese, I see the Americans, I see the Nazi's, I see the Russians, I see the Israeli's, the Sudanese, the capitalists, the communists, the Haitians, et cetera. I see all the the armed, I see the good soldier, and all the factions, between nations, and within, everywhere, always warring, and pointing out the "other" as well as the accusing finger of blame. 

    Am I morally superior? I doubt it. Am I enlightened? I am the village idiot. I am the child who doesn't understand what it is I see. I see horror, I see mayhem, I see systematic murder and maiming. I see unspeakable violence being threatened and homicidal vengeance being "rained down". This is diplomacy?

    This is honorable?

    Still, it continues. Unstopped. It is being born anew and fostered, generation after generation (take my Facebook commenter for instance). What I find abhorrent is how it festers in the thinking and attitudes of so many - making Hell on Earth.

    Sorry for my ramble. It is hard so see hope for humankind dashed.

    I wondered if at first to leave the Facebook comment up (along with my reply) not wishing to thcensor disparate points of view. I thought to use it as an object lesson perhaps. However, when I saw the other reprehensible, blog posts made by this account holder (who is unashamedly proud of their religiousity - go figure) I began to feel their latest comment, a canker instead. And in the end, I did not wish platform it. 

    So I deleted both our replies to my post and, not desiring to associate myself with warmongering, "unfriended" this particular apologist. I will not be an avenue to the inevitable, the hate spawned by hawkishness. It has such a big stage to spread its ills already, that it does not need mine.

     Are my actions severe? Is my judgement prejudicial? Am I self-righteous? However, it is the little delusions we tell ourselves, the flag-waving, the tiny justifications, I fear and despise. The rationalizations for war must end. I hope I can do my part.

   These are the thoughts I managed to jot. I will go back and tidy, what I, for the moment, have hastily written.

Above Images: Pictorial Press Ltd., DPA Picture Alliance, Alamy

Might is all that matters (not quite cousin to might makes right)

A Note.

    Although I haven't any audience at all save myself, when looking at my blog posts and considering the ills of the world at large, I can't help but wonder how my entries would be viewed by others, Words such as fatuous, frivolous, meaningless, pointless, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, trifling, trivial, useless, vacuous, wasteful spring to mind. 

   Am I not the least bit aware of the sociopolitical and environmental horrors transpiring about me?

    I am.

    Why don't I occasionally direct my writings to  some of those issues? If I were well-spoken, knowledgeable, and intelligent, I would. Believe me, I would. I do care and am deeply impacted by the weightier matters that abound. I just don't have the competence, eloquence, or skill-set, I believe, to address them.

    What do I think of the horrendous genocide being perpetrated by the nation state of Israel on Palestine? ("Shooting fish in a barrel" as a number of the soldiers and security forces are doing.) How do I feel about the inexcusable and deliberate mass starvation in full view and evidence?

    I'm a pacifist and eupraxosphist, and my mind literally screams at the horror of it! I hate war - all forms of it! I do not think it honorable in the least! When I see what warfare, nationalism, and service has done to my family members, friends, and others, I spit bituminous bile. That humankind, all over the world, can routinely sink to such barbarity!

    But who listens to a little punk like me? I am nobody.

    What are my thoughts concerning the open attack on democracy here in the States and the world over? To think that heartlessness, hate, violence, and cruelty are the order of the day. Esurient and unfettered capitalism is devouring our planet at a devastating rate, and consigning our progeny to an disastrous, environmental fate we may be already unable to stop for them, let alone reverse! 

    Peace loving as I would wish to be, even I am sometimes tempted to say "eat the rich"! 

    The rights of people of color, of which I am one, the rights of women, and of the LGBTQIA are being trampled before my eyes. The candle of enlightenment is being snuffed by the mendacious, malevolent, murderous, and malicious. What do I say?

    The world is going to Hell in a proverbial handbasket, with those currently in power, callously slamming the levers as far forward as they can - full throttle! I almost can't believe it. Yet recklessness and irresponsibility are becoming more the norm everyday.

   Currently, this is the photo that haunts me.

Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, an 18-month old child in Gaza who faces life-threatening malnutrition. Photograph by Anadolu - Getty Images

    There are days when I literally sick of it. 

    STOP!!!

Trinity (July 16, 1945)

"Now I become 'Death: the Destroyer of Worlds'."

Alamogordo, New Mexico, July 16, 1945

"A few people laughed, a few people cried... Most people were silent."

"I supposed we all thought that, one way or another."*

  

*NBC White Papers: 'The Decision to Drop the Bomb' (airdate: 1965-01-05)

 

'A Shot in the Park' + 23

    Twenty-three years ago Brian Vouglas and I collaborated on a birthday spoof created for Karl-Heinz Teuber and his celebrants. Sadly, for the wider public, the 2002 video files have been not available until the present. However, in Karl's memory, this newly reworked version (edited for time and music) can now be enjoyed. ;-) Starring: Brian Vouglas

 

 .

Scopes (backdated)

Oh, I just learned earlier today (July 16, 2025) that we've passed the 100th anniversary of the Scopes "Monkey" Trial (July 10th ~ 21st, 1925).

William Jennings Bryan on the witness stand (left) being questioned by Clarence Darrow (right).

While the actual trial and subsequent appeal had no immediate legal impact, its cultural and sociological legacy still reverberates in the American psyche to this day.

 

Going, Going... Gone!

    For many years, stood the three, proud and tall!

     No more!

Molcajete

    In clearing out the shelving and drawers, to prepare for the work to be done on the kitchen cabinetry, my sister Yvette and I came across this...

    The molcajete (mortar and pestle) once belonging to our grandmother on our father's side. It is probably a century or so old. We wondered whether to continue to hold onto it or not, when I thought to see if the familia Sanchez mostly living in Southern California would like the simple stone instrument passed down to them. 

    I asked our cousin Ruth Gonzalez nee Sanchez, and she was thrilled to have  the heirloom. Grandmother's molcajete is now safely in Ruth's possession. Thank you UPS.

As For Me...

    This Californian State pair is hereby now...

    ...a Real person! Woot!

    Eleven days later, on June 27, 2025, my Drivers' License / Real ID arrived in the post! Yay!

 

 

Beyond This Sheet

Change is afoot.

My sister is having the cabinetry refaced. What once was, since the home was newly constructed, is now...  

    Voila!

    Refacing courtesy of Reborn and Jimmy and Nathan.

 

 

Reborn Home Solutions' on-site auditor. [If it is possible, I'll get the gentleman's name and update the blog.]

 

 

Subcontractors Jimmy and his son Nathan.

 

 

 

 

    UPDATE: Saturday, July 12, 2025

    The refacing is completed! A different crew finished the three remaining drawers.

 

Try As One Might

    Forty six years ago... (I'm always writing about my past. So be it. The past continues in me.) ...I began in earnest to keep my pledge to someone, to set them as free as my heart was capable of doing, and to never cross their path. That rule was only bent on four occasions (three at the insistence of my psychologist, and the last one totally by accidental happenstance). Save for those four exceptions, this individual's life and mine have never crossed.

    I have tried my best, never to darken their day, but now and then our worlds indirectly touch. A few years ago (I may do a backdated post) I stumbled on a Facebook video clip taken in 2017 where the camera swished past this unexpected someone in a pan. Its motion blur did not prevent me from instantly recognizing them. Bump!

    Now, tonight Facebook strikes again!

Redacted to guarantee privacy.

    You see, apart as we two are to each other, she and I still sporadically share many of the same long-time acquaintances. 

    This makes befriending old colleagues online difficult, as I never know who actively, to this day, keeps in touch with with the woman I am doing my best to avoid. The one I call "She". This was the case in the 2017 video incident, wherein I was considering sending a Facebook Friend Request to a past acquaintance having completely overlooked the probability of her own ongoing friendship with him. 

    Surprise, surprise, smack in the video of his I was naively checking out, there she was, front and center, among the videotaped group of guests gathered at his house to celebrate Christmas! Although I should have, I did not see that coming. Talk about a blindside! I still recall the hair-raising shock I experienced!

     Alas as an unintended result of my promise to her, I subsequently had to pass on requesting my former acquaintance's friendship, seeing as she was still involved in his life. Not to have done so would have violated the conditions of my self-imposed exile.

    This time however, it was the algorithm at work, and not my slip-up that bumped our worlds for the present.once again.

    Currently, I have a longtime Facebook Friendship with, my former roommate and mentor from the past. We met fifty four years ago and have always remained in touch. Later on, after he married, he also became a family friend of "She" - her children and his were fast, San Francisco playmates back in the day. (This by the way, was the basis of my near run-in with her at his house in 1991 - the last occasion where my standing rule was bent, albeit by accident. Unawares, I had come to visit his daughters; unaware, she had come to drop off her sons.) 

   His daughters are also Facebook Friends of mine; one of them, very recently.

   Well, it didn't take long then, for the social media site to put things together, and shortly make a friend suggestion on and of its own:

    Tonight, I was just asked if I would perhaps know and like to connect with the son of "She', the younger of her two boys and middle child of three. The younger daughter of my former roommate was his childhood playmate. Again, I should not have been surprised. 

    Yikes!

    Be assured, I will not request to befriend him, I will keep clear, nor use him or his account to learn anything about "She". I will not ingratiate myself nor will I drop my current associations - all these people are innocent - but I will conduct myself with a measured amount of caution and prudence, from this time forward.

    If this female significant and I ever are to run into each other, it must be by accident, or by her wish and instigation, and not through any machination on my part.

    So much folderol some would say, but then again, she's been able to build and live a life completely free and clear of me. 

    I keep my word.

     Solemnly.

2025-07-20 21:30:00

    This time it's the daughter, whose current photo I have just seen. She too is a long-time intimate friend of my Facebook acquaintance. She bears the same first name and was my friend's childhood compatriot and house guest.

    This incident now makes it thrree strikes and I'm totally out of the picture once again! My big words mean nothing!  

    Forgive my invisibility, I feel a little bit low right now. It's hard being absolutely irrelevant. 

    I am superfluous. Forever superfluous.

2025-07-21 00:30:00

    Seeing as superfluousness is a constant condition for me anyway, I merely stepped away for a moment to scribble a few lines of poetry (or "woetry" as I call it). That did the trick and got me outta my funk until the next emotional blow.

    However, just for a second or more, I felt the onset of an even uglier emotion, a dour anxiety that has struck me only a very few times in life. It even goes beyond my unrequited woes to something more dismal, and I have had these horrific attacks even as child. 

     Fortunately, I was able snap myself from going there, and the awfulness ended almost as quickly as it started! Whew! This unspeakable state is almost like all of the "mean reds" and blues thrown together. I just escaped - barely.