I’ve come to the conclusion that when there are issues and problems in normal hard working folk’s financial lives, it’s inevitably the fault of big business in one way or the other and number one on my list would be banks. I know. I know. There's a small generally extremist screaming minority of folks down south and up in the junior high schools of deep Alaska who want to place all the blame for everything from toe rot to our present financial recession on the dreaded government but I beg to disagree. Just to remind those robots, the government is us folks. If you vote, you are the government. If you don't, go stand in the corner and shut the hell up. Is our government perfect? Hell no but it's probably the best in the world.
Now I'm not talking about the little corner market or friendly hardware store here. I’m talking about the giants of the world. Big business in most cases has only one agenda and that is profit. Profit above all other considerations. It’s all that matters. Now I’m not talking about a normal profit margin here to be able to keep a business healthy and successful but outlandish, rip-off and the hell with the public profit. The part that consistently angers my sensibilities is big businesses complete lack of consideration for a word that slowly slipped into the clouds of yesteryear and purposely forgotten at some point. That would be the whole concept of “Reasonable”. In the beginning, businesses were rightfully expected to make a “reasonable” profit. Somehow through the intervening years, that word just flat out disappeared, especially with concepts like “Whatever the market will bear” and “Supply and Demand”. These nonsense words were invented by big businesses as logical sounding excuses to rip a new hole in us, without guilt. A hole nothing goes in, just out.
In the beginning businesses also had far different concerns. They actually cared about their customers.... first and foremost above all else.
Lets see. What’s that old concept called? Oh yeah, customer service. Yea, that’s it.
Another old, out of date concept they practiced then was quality. They actually cared about the quality of whatever product they were selling, products that were meant to last for years if not generations. The owners had pride in the products. In fact as far as they were concerned the quality of their products reflected on them personally.
Seems like nowadays there is only one purpose for a business to be in business and that would be to make all the higher ups rich beyond their wildest dreams, including all the shareholders and owners. Not the employees mind you, screw those idiots! Just those at the very top of the ladder. The hell with those peons at the bottom.
Not just get rich but get rich as quick as possible, most time to the detriment of the common man. Not become more and more successful over a long period of time as in the past but RIGHT NOW!
I know, I know. I’ve heard all the talk about business being the grease that makes everything else happen. I even have a friend that proclaims that "GREED IS A GOOD THING!" That without hardcore greed, nothing would get done in life.
That same minority wanted from the very beginning to blame the people for being stupid agreeing to all those loans the banks were offering they couldn't afford. It was their fault for not reading all the fancy smancy legal fine print, only a lawyer could begin to understand. If any of them actually asked anything about this, the banks just said "Oh don't worry your little head about that. In just a few years, you'll make a fortune in profits on your home."
OK, I don't know about you but when my wife and I sat down in the Title offices when buying our homes and they spread out those 400 pieces of paper for us to sign, we didn't read one word, other than where to sign. You see, back then we personally knew and trusted our Realtor and trusted banks explicitly to not cheat us. We also had to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that we could afford the payment throughout the entire loan period.
Piss you off? Completely agree? Read below and DO IT!
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Come on all you rich folks.....
On all the American Media, we're always seeing these huge, wonderful sounding stories of the rich and famous in society donating to great and worthy causes, building homes for the poor, adopting children with incredibly unfortunate lives and histories, establishing institutions and schools for the poorest children imaginable. Everything they do is amazingly beneficial and often times the first and only time these unfortunate fellow humans have had to know someone out there knew or cared about them. The first chance they've had in their lives to know hope even existed.
All this wonderful, selfishness and giving altruistic attitudes and actions these incredibly rich and famous people do is great indeed. There's certainly no way we could ever take that away from these caring, loving folks, now is there?
Well, I personally have a huge issue with all this. Every time I see these stories, they are almost exclusively taking place in some other country.
What about America folks? Don't we have an overabundance of super poor, needy folks right here in America that badly need help, especially in these "interesting times" we find ourselves in right now? Aren't there children slowly starving to death right here, unseen and hidden on the streets of America right now also? With all the floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes and other horrible events on American soil recently, aren't there thousands upon thousands of deserving Americans, young and old who have lost everything they had and live with no hope for the future? What about them, Mr. and Mrs. rich and famous, what about them?
Seeing this I am often times forced to question their real motives and agendas. Especially the super rich and famous actresses and actors. Is part of their reasoning just a tad egotistical? Look at me, I am so cool. I adopted this super poor black baby from Africa. Without naming names, we all know of the most famous women on Earth right now creating somewhere in Africa a giant educational institute for young girls. A place to give them a chance to become educated and enjoy the benefits of a degree they never would have had. Well, Mrs richest women in the world, how about those same girls right here in America? What about them? Are there not thousands upon thousands of super poor deserving young girls here also? What about them?
I know this is probably far from politically correct (tough shit) but have you seen how much money all those famous actors and actresses make per year lately? Holy crap! You and I could live for a year on what they make "Per episode" on some of those silly weekly shows we drug ourselves out on.
I would ask them to forgo just one of their three mansions in Hollywood or get rid of just one super Jet and instead donate that money to....oh, I don't know....maybe a dozen super needy families right here in America? Maybe forgo that 3 months vacation for 30 of their best partying pals this summer in Haiti and instead keep a thousand children from starving to death this month right here in America?
Whatchathink?
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
All this wonderful, selfishness and giving altruistic attitudes and actions these incredibly rich and famous people do is great indeed. There's certainly no way we could ever take that away from these caring, loving folks, now is there?
Well, I personally have a huge issue with all this. Every time I see these stories, they are almost exclusively taking place in some other country.
What about America folks? Don't we have an overabundance of super poor, needy folks right here in America that badly need help, especially in these "interesting times" we find ourselves in right now? Aren't there children slowly starving to death right here, unseen and hidden on the streets of America right now also? With all the floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes and other horrible events on American soil recently, aren't there thousands upon thousands of deserving Americans, young and old who have lost everything they had and live with no hope for the future? What about them, Mr. and Mrs. rich and famous, what about them?
Seeing this I am often times forced to question their real motives and agendas. Especially the super rich and famous actresses and actors. Is part of their reasoning just a tad egotistical? Look at me, I am so cool. I adopted this super poor black baby from Africa. Without naming names, we all know of the most famous women on Earth right now creating somewhere in Africa a giant educational institute for young girls. A place to give them a chance to become educated and enjoy the benefits of a degree they never would have had. Well, Mrs richest women in the world, how about those same girls right here in America? What about them? Are there not thousands upon thousands of super poor deserving young girls here also? What about them?
I know this is probably far from politically correct (tough shit) but have you seen how much money all those famous actors and actresses make per year lately? Holy crap! You and I could live for a year on what they make "Per episode" on some of those silly weekly shows we drug ourselves out on.
I would ask them to forgo just one of their three mansions in Hollywood or get rid of just one super Jet and instead donate that money to....oh, I don't know....maybe a dozen super needy families right here in America? Maybe forgo that 3 months vacation for 30 of their best partying pals this summer in Haiti and instead keep a thousand children from starving to death this month right here in America?
Whatchathink?
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Grown man crying..........
I'm by anyone's standards a grown man. Like most men, I almost never cry. That I can remember at this point, I can count the times on one hand in my adult life. When my Dad died, then my Mom and when our Daughter was laying in the hospital on the edge of death (She survived fine in the end, thank you).
Like a lot of folks, I'm a fan of National Public Radio. I listen to it religiously every morning on my way to work and every evening on the way home. No screaming music or bullshit talk radio for me. I enjoy what I consider to be a station for intelligent, thoughtful people like I consider myself to be.
By the way. This week is their pledge time. Get your butt over to their website
(http://www.capradio.org/default.aspx) and share some of your wealth to keep this great service we all depend so heavily on going.
As we all know, the airwaves right now including Public Radio are filled to the brim with the death of Osama Bin Laden. This morning during the Morning Addition segment, a piece they call a driveway moment came on for me. That's what they call a story that you find so compelling that you stay in your car until it's over. Before this piece was over, I could barely see, I was crying so much. I was bawling like a baby after receiving their first shot in the leg at the doctors office.
Giving full credit to National Public Radio's Morning Addition segment, I feel compelled to pass the story on to you. This is straight off their website (May 5, 2011), verbatim.
Now this was in Mrs. Beverly Eckert's own words and voice. As you can imagine, she was gently crying throughout the entire telling. It was her voice and deeply felt emotions that finaly tipped me over the edge.
Beverly Eckert lost her husband, Sean Rooney, in the south tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. She remembers her husband's warm brown eyes, dark curly hair, and that he was "a good hugger."
The two met at a high school dance, when they were only 16 years old. When Rooney died, they were 50.
On Sept. 11, Rooney called his wife at 9:30 a.m. He told her he was on the 105th floor, and he'd been trying to get out.
"He told me that he, you know, hadn't had any success and now the stairwell was full of smoke," Eckert says. "I asked if it hurt for him to breathe and he paused for a moment, and says, 'No.' He loved me enough to lie."
After a while, they stopped talking about escape routes and instead focused on the happiness they'd shared together.
"I told him that I wanted to be there with him, but he said, no, no, he wanted me to live a full life," she says.
As the smoke got thicker, Rooney whispered, " 'I love you,' over and over," Eckert says. "I just wanted to crawl through the phone lines to him, to hold him, one last time."
Then she heard a sharp crack, followed by the sound of an avalanche. The building was beginning to collapse. Eckert called Rooney's name into the phone repeatedly, and then she just sat there, pressing the phone to her heart.
"I think about that last half-hour with Sean all the time. I remember how I didn't want that day to end, terrible as it was, I didn't want to go to sleep because as long as I was awake, it was still a day that I'd shared with Sean," she says.
Rooney had kissed Eckert goodbye that morning before going to work. She says, "I could still say that was just a little while ago, that was only this morning. And I just think of myself as living life for both of us now. And I like to think that Sean would be proud of me."
So go ahead and ask me what I think of Osama Bin Laden's death. Should he have been captured and tried in a court of law? Should they show the pictures of him as proof of his death? Who should get credit for his capture and death?
To every question you might ask, my answer is exactly the same. I don't give a shit!
Mrs. Beverly Eckert's personal story is the only reality that matters at this point.
The rest is pure unadulterated bullshit.
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Like a lot of folks, I'm a fan of National Public Radio. I listen to it religiously every morning on my way to work and every evening on the way home. No screaming music or bullshit talk radio for me. I enjoy what I consider to be a station for intelligent, thoughtful people like I consider myself to be.
By the way. This week is their pledge time. Get your butt over to their website
(http://www.capradio.org/default.aspx) and share some of your wealth to keep this great service we all depend so heavily on going.
As we all know, the airwaves right now including Public Radio are filled to the brim with the death of Osama Bin Laden. This morning during the Morning Addition segment, a piece they call a driveway moment came on for me. That's what they call a story that you find so compelling that you stay in your car until it's over. Before this piece was over, I could barely see, I was crying so much. I was bawling like a baby after receiving their first shot in the leg at the doctors office.
Giving full credit to National Public Radio's Morning Addition segment, I feel compelled to pass the story on to you. This is straight off their website (May 5, 2011), verbatim.
Now this was in Mrs. Beverly Eckert's own words and voice. As you can imagine, she was gently crying throughout the entire telling. It was her voice and deeply felt emotions that finaly tipped me over the edge.
Beverly Eckert lost her husband, Sean Rooney, in the south tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. She remembers her husband's warm brown eyes, dark curly hair, and that he was "a good hugger."
The two met at a high school dance, when they were only 16 years old. When Rooney died, they were 50.
On Sept. 11, Rooney called his wife at 9:30 a.m. He told her he was on the 105th floor, and he'd been trying to get out.
"He told me that he, you know, hadn't had any success and now the stairwell was full of smoke," Eckert says. "I asked if it hurt for him to breathe and he paused for a moment, and says, 'No.' He loved me enough to lie."
After a while, they stopped talking about escape routes and instead focused on the happiness they'd shared together.
"I told him that I wanted to be there with him, but he said, no, no, he wanted me to live a full life," she says.
As the smoke got thicker, Rooney whispered, " 'I love you,' over and over," Eckert says. "I just wanted to crawl through the phone lines to him, to hold him, one last time."
Then she heard a sharp crack, followed by the sound of an avalanche. The building was beginning to collapse. Eckert called Rooney's name into the phone repeatedly, and then she just sat there, pressing the phone to her heart.
"I think about that last half-hour with Sean all the time. I remember how I didn't want that day to end, terrible as it was, I didn't want to go to sleep because as long as I was awake, it was still a day that I'd shared with Sean," she says.
Rooney had kissed Eckert goodbye that morning before going to work. She says, "I could still say that was just a little while ago, that was only this morning. And I just think of myself as living life for both of us now. And I like to think that Sean would be proud of me."
So go ahead and ask me what I think of Osama Bin Laden's death. Should he have been captured and tried in a court of law? Should they show the pictures of him as proof of his death? Who should get credit for his capture and death?
To every question you might ask, my answer is exactly the same. I don't give a shit!
Mrs. Beverly Eckert's personal story is the only reality that matters at this point.
The rest is pure unadulterated bullshit.
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Personal Responsibility?
I was born and raised on a small farm in mid California. Everyone raised in those conditions and times learned very early in life that there were things out there that could possibly hurt you. We were taught to be careful in life but told that bad things could still happen to you and it was your responsibility to take care of yourself. Example.....One time I was playing over at my friends farm. Now his father had dug a huge hole in the ground. No idea why. Maybe he was putting in a septic tank or something. Here's the deal though. With such a tempting thing as a deep hole in the ground, where do you think me and my friend were playing? Yup...right there on the edge of that hole of course. Probably throwing rocks in or something young boys do.
Well, the inevitable happened and I fell in. Smacking down in the bottom of that big old hole, I broke my arm. As I lay there yelling, crying and screaming in pain, my friend ran and told his Mom what happened and they called my parents to tell them what happened. My Mom came and everyone dragged my sorry ass out of there and she took me to the local doc to get it fixed. Guess who got in trouble here? Me and my friend of course. All the way to the doctors office my Mom was berating me for doing such a stupid mindless thing as falling in that hole. I knew my friend was getting his ass chewed out real good for the same reason.
Now I'm telling you right now that the idea that my friends parents should be sued or held responsible for having this huge, dangerous hole for me to fall into did not even cross anyone's mind, much less my parents. The only person they were mad at was the people responsible for doing such a stupid thing and that was me and my friend. Can you imagine how different this scenario would be nowadays? Nowadays, not only would people sue those negligent land owners for not properly protecting innocent kids from such a dangerous situation, the people who owned that land might even lose the whole farm over this.
How idiotic is that? Nowadays the injured party would not even feel bad about suing because it's not personal, you see. That's what insurance is for. With the advent of insurance, we have lost our sense of responsibility of our own actions.
Another example. When I was in high school, there were a couple of cool things all of us did. One would be to hang out at the bowling alley and the other would be to go roller skating. Now I remember plain as day, even at that age that as we walked into the roller skating rink, there was a huge sign up on the wall that said:
"Skate at your own risk". As far as everyone was concerned at that time it was a done deal with that sign. It made it perfectly clear that it was our choice and responsibility if anything were to happen while skating.
Another example we've all heard about is the lady who spilled her hot coffee she just bought at a McDonald's and won millions! Now clearly she was not responsible to make damn sure she was careful with that coffee. The restaurant was negligent for having the coffee too hot.
One of the insane things that drives me crazy nowadays are those jerks, mainly in politics both national and local who constantly try and make everything perfectly safe for us. Impossible, I say. What ever happened to the reality of "Shit happens"? Just to make a very clear, concise and direct point. In my perfect world, which doesn't exist of course, when some poor unfortunate kid fell down in the skating rink and became paralyzed from the neck down, everyone would of course feel terrible for him or her but that would be that. His or her parents or family would just have to deal with this unfortunate and sad situation themselves as humans have done all throughout history. The skating rink or society in general would have nothing to do with it.
Whatchathink?
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Well, the inevitable happened and I fell in. Smacking down in the bottom of that big old hole, I broke my arm. As I lay there yelling, crying and screaming in pain, my friend ran and told his Mom what happened and they called my parents to tell them what happened. My Mom came and everyone dragged my sorry ass out of there and she took me to the local doc to get it fixed. Guess who got in trouble here? Me and my friend of course. All the way to the doctors office my Mom was berating me for doing such a stupid mindless thing as falling in that hole. I knew my friend was getting his ass chewed out real good for the same reason.
Now I'm telling you right now that the idea that my friends parents should be sued or held responsible for having this huge, dangerous hole for me to fall into did not even cross anyone's mind, much less my parents. The only person they were mad at was the people responsible for doing such a stupid thing and that was me and my friend. Can you imagine how different this scenario would be nowadays? Nowadays, not only would people sue those negligent land owners for not properly protecting innocent kids from such a dangerous situation, the people who owned that land might even lose the whole farm over this.
How idiotic is that? Nowadays the injured party would not even feel bad about suing because it's not personal, you see. That's what insurance is for. With the advent of insurance, we have lost our sense of responsibility of our own actions.
Another example. When I was in high school, there were a couple of cool things all of us did. One would be to hang out at the bowling alley and the other would be to go roller skating. Now I remember plain as day, even at that age that as we walked into the roller skating rink, there was a huge sign up on the wall that said:
"Skate at your own risk". As far as everyone was concerned at that time it was a done deal with that sign. It made it perfectly clear that it was our choice and responsibility if anything were to happen while skating.
Another example we've all heard about is the lady who spilled her hot coffee she just bought at a McDonald's and won millions! Now clearly she was not responsible to make damn sure she was careful with that coffee. The restaurant was negligent for having the coffee too hot.
One of the insane things that drives me crazy nowadays are those jerks, mainly in politics both national and local who constantly try and make everything perfectly safe for us. Impossible, I say. What ever happened to the reality of "Shit happens"? Just to make a very clear, concise and direct point. In my perfect world, which doesn't exist of course, when some poor unfortunate kid fell down in the skating rink and became paralyzed from the neck down, everyone would of course feel terrible for him or her but that would be that. His or her parents or family would just have to deal with this unfortunate and sad situation themselves as humans have done all throughout history. The skating rink or society in general would have nothing to do with it.
Whatchathink?
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Garbage in, garbage out.
Has anyone else noticed the shadowy, slowly creeping, insidious "Dumbing down" intellectual place we seem to be entering nowadays? Let me take a wild guess here that the main cause is our entire drugged, hooked, obsessive fascination with "The Media". They very well might be our present day demon. The demon who is determined to erode our minds with trivial, shallow junk. Stuff about as stimulating as watching paint dry.
Lets take a good cold hard look at what's going on with the media. Starting with the News. You've all heard that only bad news sells? A stupid concept in my humble opinion but there it is folks. Doesn't matter in the slightest which news program you watch or listen to, the only things you're going to learn is how the world is about to end in one catastrophic way or another. Here's the truth though if you read between the lines. Pretty often the normal news programs will have a small story about this amazing man or women who does some absolutely stupendously wonderful thing for mankind out of the kindness of their ample hearts. Helps drug addicts or provides housing for the poor or started an organization to show our military people how thankful we are for their sacrifices.
I could go on with examples for pages here but you know what I'm talking about. These geniuses are most always just one person. In a lot of cases, if that one person went away, the whole fantastic organization would just melt away. Here's the thing though. Those unbelievable folks are out there right now doing stone cold miracles. There out there by the millions, all over the world much less. So, how come the "News" doesn't tell us all about their good deeds and accomplishments? Stories about these kinds of people would certainly be good food for our minds and souls huh? I'm going to take a wild guess that for every negative thing going on in the world right this second, there are thousands of purely wonderful and positive things happening also. Remember the golden rule though......Only bad news sells.
OK how about the general entertainment media now? If you have a bit of age on your bones, you'll remember that Movies and Television's early days had programs and shows that were intellectually stimulating. Alfred Hitchcock for instance put the fear in your imagination and intellect instead of throwing a bucket of blood and guts in your face. The shows had at least a modicum of substance and value. They set up situations that demanded your complete attention.
Nowadays? I personally think there are a few little diamonds in the ruff out there at this time as I'm sure you do. The vast majority though is pure unadulterated garbage. I would go so far here as calling it poison garbage. Ultimately insidious, dangerous garbage. Instead of challenging our minds, it's like having that 14th beer, third glass of wine or third joint. You've gone from fun to stupidity. The creators of the majority of programs or movies being made now could care less about the effects of the madness and stupidity their pumping in our vanes causes. They have the same exact agenda that all the other media outlets have. That's to take as much money out of our pockets they can and putting it in theirs.
The main point I'm trying to make here is we have let ourselves slowly but surely be pulled into the media's version of reality but it's all a damn lie. It's all not only false but mind numbing crap designed to rob us of our minds and turn us into something we clearly were not meant to be. Humans are the most amazing things on the planet. We were strong enough to pull ourselves out of the dirt and caves of long ago to be the creators of all the amazing, creative, artistic and useful things we have now.
The only thing I can think to do is try with all my might to remember it's all a bunch of bull pucky. It's not real. It's all just crap to draw you in and get your money. I think I would much rather spend my money on that first glass of wine.
My advise? Sorry, don't have any. Nor am I presumptuous enough to think I could tell anyone else what to do. Just more of my Esoteric Mumblings.
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Lets take a good cold hard look at what's going on with the media. Starting with the News. You've all heard that only bad news sells? A stupid concept in my humble opinion but there it is folks. Doesn't matter in the slightest which news program you watch or listen to, the only things you're going to learn is how the world is about to end in one catastrophic way or another. Here's the truth though if you read between the lines. Pretty often the normal news programs will have a small story about this amazing man or women who does some absolutely stupendously wonderful thing for mankind out of the kindness of their ample hearts. Helps drug addicts or provides housing for the poor or started an organization to show our military people how thankful we are for their sacrifices.
I could go on with examples for pages here but you know what I'm talking about. These geniuses are most always just one person. In a lot of cases, if that one person went away, the whole fantastic organization would just melt away. Here's the thing though. Those unbelievable folks are out there right now doing stone cold miracles. There out there by the millions, all over the world much less. So, how come the "News" doesn't tell us all about their good deeds and accomplishments? Stories about these kinds of people would certainly be good food for our minds and souls huh? I'm going to take a wild guess that for every negative thing going on in the world right this second, there are thousands of purely wonderful and positive things happening also. Remember the golden rule though......Only bad news sells.
OK how about the general entertainment media now? If you have a bit of age on your bones, you'll remember that Movies and Television's early days had programs and shows that were intellectually stimulating. Alfred Hitchcock for instance put the fear in your imagination and intellect instead of throwing a bucket of blood and guts in your face. The shows had at least a modicum of substance and value. They set up situations that demanded your complete attention.
Nowadays? I personally think there are a few little diamonds in the ruff out there at this time as I'm sure you do. The vast majority though is pure unadulterated garbage. I would go so far here as calling it poison garbage. Ultimately insidious, dangerous garbage. Instead of challenging our minds, it's like having that 14th beer, third glass of wine or third joint. You've gone from fun to stupidity. The creators of the majority of programs or movies being made now could care less about the effects of the madness and stupidity their pumping in our vanes causes. They have the same exact agenda that all the other media outlets have. That's to take as much money out of our pockets they can and putting it in theirs.
The main point I'm trying to make here is we have let ourselves slowly but surely be pulled into the media's version of reality but it's all a damn lie. It's all not only false but mind numbing crap designed to rob us of our minds and turn us into something we clearly were not meant to be. Humans are the most amazing things on the planet. We were strong enough to pull ourselves out of the dirt and caves of long ago to be the creators of all the amazing, creative, artistic and useful things we have now.
The only thing I can think to do is try with all my might to remember it's all a bunch of bull pucky. It's not real. It's all just crap to draw you in and get your money. I think I would much rather spend my money on that first glass of wine.
My advise? Sorry, don't have any. Nor am I presumptuous enough to think I could tell anyone else what to do. Just more of my Esoteric Mumblings.
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Friday, March 11, 2011
Random thoughts, or just magic?
Being an amateur writer in the true sense of the word but enjoying the hell out of myself, there are some things I find amazingly interesting but just flat out don't understand about the whole writing process. I'm positive I'm not the first amateur writer to ask these questions.
Writing these rather small column type pieces is actually quite easy for me. All I need to start the faucet flowing is what I call just a seed of an idea. Almost always not from my feeble mind. Usually gleaned from some conversation at my place of business. It turns out that normal, everyday folks have great ideas, opinions and thoughts and can articulate them in interesting, intelligent and creative ways, if given half a chance. So that "seed" I speak of is actually one hell of a good head start for my blathering on and on about a subject.
The truth is once I get a seed, such as the seed of todays piece, which was simply "Where in the hell do writers get their ideas from?", I just set down as I'm doing right this minute and like magic, all these hopefully pertinent and applicable to the subject words just start flowing out of me like water onto the screen, using the keyboard strokes. I consider myself lucky because back in high school, while choosing which courses to take, my choices included "Typing". Now back then only girls took typing, so of course that appealed to me. Being the only guy with all these pretty girls sounded good to me. Also, typing seemed like it would be a pretty easy class, especially compared to things like Math(Yuk)or History(yuk and 1/2). So typing it was for three straight years. Didn't use that skill for years but now it paid off in spades for me.
See, there's an example of fill thoughts just to add to the story and take up space....heh.....heh....
OK, back to the subject at hand. I have to admit with just a touch of humble pride that quite a few times in the recent past, folks have said to me that my writing was pretty good and why don't I write a book? Well........On to another side tangent here for just a moment. I'm actually one of those crazy reading nut cases. Without exaggerating, I would take a wild guess, I've read thousands of books in my life but write a book? Holy Molly!
How do those great adventure writers do that? To make up an entire alternate reality or universe in the case of Science Fiction or Fantasy writers. Then fill it with original characters, places, scenes, timescapes, conversations, action sequences, danger, love scenes maybe including interesting and creative mysteries? Where do their original ideas come from? I've actually heard several writers say something like this. "I have no idea where those things come from. I just set down and things like that just come out of no where. Almost like I'm just the worker bee and someone or something else is feeding these ideas into my mind."
I once read a book by this psychiatrist by the name of Fritz Pearls. He developed the Gestalt Therapy model back in the 60's to help people hopefully dump all the built up crap out of their systems that might be holding them down. Wew...How's that for nonsense filler? The important thing I did take away from reading his junk though was he said everybody had a book in them if they would just set down and start writing without any editing at all. Just let it flow out like water.
So, am I going to write the next great novel of the universe? How should I know? I'm just the worker bee here, ya know....
So.....here's your assignment for today kids. Set down at your computer or get out a piece of paper and pen and just start writing. See what happens. I'm going to guess here that you'll be pleasantly surprised at what comes out in the end. Hell, who knows. Maybe you'll be one of those people who end up with a second successful career as a famous rich writer.
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Writing these rather small column type pieces is actually quite easy for me. All I need to start the faucet flowing is what I call just a seed of an idea. Almost always not from my feeble mind. Usually gleaned from some conversation at my place of business. It turns out that normal, everyday folks have great ideas, opinions and thoughts and can articulate them in interesting, intelligent and creative ways, if given half a chance. So that "seed" I speak of is actually one hell of a good head start for my blathering on and on about a subject.
The truth is once I get a seed, such as the seed of todays piece, which was simply "Where in the hell do writers get their ideas from?", I just set down as I'm doing right this minute and like magic, all these hopefully pertinent and applicable to the subject words just start flowing out of me like water onto the screen, using the keyboard strokes. I consider myself lucky because back in high school, while choosing which courses to take, my choices included "Typing". Now back then only girls took typing, so of course that appealed to me. Being the only guy with all these pretty girls sounded good to me. Also, typing seemed like it would be a pretty easy class, especially compared to things like Math(Yuk)or History(yuk and 1/2). So typing it was for three straight years. Didn't use that skill for years but now it paid off in spades for me.
See, there's an example of fill thoughts just to add to the story and take up space....heh.....heh....
OK, back to the subject at hand. I have to admit with just a touch of humble pride that quite a few times in the recent past, folks have said to me that my writing was pretty good and why don't I write a book? Well........On to another side tangent here for just a moment. I'm actually one of those crazy reading nut cases. Without exaggerating, I would take a wild guess, I've read thousands of books in my life but write a book? Holy Molly!
How do those great adventure writers do that? To make up an entire alternate reality or universe in the case of Science Fiction or Fantasy writers. Then fill it with original characters, places, scenes, timescapes, conversations, action sequences, danger, love scenes maybe including interesting and creative mysteries? Where do their original ideas come from? I've actually heard several writers say something like this. "I have no idea where those things come from. I just set down and things like that just come out of no where. Almost like I'm just the worker bee and someone or something else is feeding these ideas into my mind."
I once read a book by this psychiatrist by the name of Fritz Pearls. He developed the Gestalt Therapy model back in the 60's to help people hopefully dump all the built up crap out of their systems that might be holding them down. Wew...How's that for nonsense filler? The important thing I did take away from reading his junk though was he said everybody had a book in them if they would just set down and start writing without any editing at all. Just let it flow out like water.
So, am I going to write the next great novel of the universe? How should I know? I'm just the worker bee here, ya know....
So.....here's your assignment for today kids. Set down at your computer or get out a piece of paper and pen and just start writing. See what happens. I'm going to guess here that you'll be pleasantly surprised at what comes out in the end. Hell, who knows. Maybe you'll be one of those people who end up with a second successful career as a famous rich writer.
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Community Involvement....
I've had a business in a very small community for something like 34 years now. I've lived in another very small community for something like 23 years now. In both of those instances, a recurring theme and complaint I've heard over and over from the locals in one form or another is the fact that a lot of folks who live there don't seem to participate in the local clubs, organizations or events that come and go, sometimes yearly or more often. A lot of those complainers always wonder why more people who move there don't become involved in the local happenings.
Even I, in the beginning years of working and living in these small communities had the same disappointments, to say the least. Years ago, I got into the whole website building business. I came up with an idea everyone who heard about thought was a wonderful and grand idea. I noticed back in the early days of the Internet that large towns and communities had these great websites. Websites that gave all kinds of information about the towns or communities. People from all over the world could simply go to the town website to learn everything they needed to know about that town.
So, my grand idea for my own new successful business was to build both of those towns a great, creative, informative website. Now get this! My thought was to do this FREE! No charge whatsoever from the community. What I did do however was to offer to build all the small businesses in that town a website and maintain it for a relatively small fee. The few businesses who already had a website in those early years could pay me to have a link directly to their website, so potential customers could access information about their business straight from the community website.
I even had town meetings with all the interested parties and businesses present. I would then present my idea with power point presentations to educate everyone about this service I was offering. Well everyone thought it was a great idea. YEA! They would say. Lets do this!
The only thing I requested and expected from the local involved folks was for people from each of the clubs, organizations and event people to feed me any information they wanted others to see on the website. I would do all the technical work on the website FREE!
So, I went about the labor intensive work of building two small local towns websites, so the world could access information about them. Then I rounded up quite a few local businesses that were interested in having me build them websites or have links to their websites. I then created all those websites and added all the links of the others.
Then went in person to all the clubs, organizations and event people to try and get them to assign the job of a liaison between their clubs and me. People who would feed me via e-mail anything they wanted to have on the website for the world to see. Well, everything went pretty damn well for the first year or so, then slowly but surely those people assigned to talk to me got slower and slower. So I then went back out to reinvigorate them into action again. Again it worked for a while, then slowly went away. With very little new information on the websites, the businesses began to logically slowly drop out also. The truth about websites, whether they are about towns or are business websites is the towns or owners of the businesses have to constantly update them with new exciting information. Without this dynamic, you might as well shut them down. They just set there and die a slow and painful death.
Well.........there finally came a time when I decided that as long as I was the "Super salesman personified" everything went pretty well. You know what though. I was always only interested in being the technical administrator, not the "Used Car Salesman of the month" with this. So eventually I shut both of the websites down and both these small towns lost an unbelievable resource back in those early Internet days to show the world what they had to offer.
I came away from this very telling experience with a far better understanding of the dynamics of the whole small town "Community Involvement" realities. The cold hard truth about these folks is new people who move to these small communities are generally people trying to escape the whole big city overcrowding, noise and "neighbors in your face" experiences. They are clearly trying to avoid the huddled masses any way they can. They are mostly rather "recluse" and came there to be able to do that very thing.
So where does all these truths leave the civic minded folks who want to become involved in their communities and make them a better place to live? The ones who are constantly complaining about the lack of Community Involvement from most people? Well, as anyone knows who tries to get folks "involved", you learn right away that each club, organization and event actually only has a very few energetic, great volunteers who do ALL the work involved in making it happen. Any others that come to the events just come on show day and enjoy the benefits of these few people's efforts. I'm not judging anyone here. This is just the reality of it.
So everyone else should at least just appreciate the hell out of the 4 or 5 nice, great people in each of these clubs who are willing and able to make these fun, entertaining events happen. The next time you're standing there enjoying the wine, eating the delicious little sandwiches someone went to all the trouble to make. Profusely thank those 4-5 people for all they do.
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
Even I, in the beginning years of working and living in these small communities had the same disappointments, to say the least. Years ago, I got into the whole website building business. I came up with an idea everyone who heard about thought was a wonderful and grand idea. I noticed back in the early days of the Internet that large towns and communities had these great websites. Websites that gave all kinds of information about the towns or communities. People from all over the world could simply go to the town website to learn everything they needed to know about that town.
So, my grand idea for my own new successful business was to build both of those towns a great, creative, informative website. Now get this! My thought was to do this FREE! No charge whatsoever from the community. What I did do however was to offer to build all the small businesses in that town a website and maintain it for a relatively small fee. The few businesses who already had a website in those early years could pay me to have a link directly to their website, so potential customers could access information about their business straight from the community website.
I even had town meetings with all the interested parties and businesses present. I would then present my idea with power point presentations to educate everyone about this service I was offering. Well everyone thought it was a great idea. YEA! They would say. Lets do this!
The only thing I requested and expected from the local involved folks was for people from each of the clubs, organizations and event people to feed me any information they wanted others to see on the website. I would do all the technical work on the website FREE!
So, I went about the labor intensive work of building two small local towns websites, so the world could access information about them. Then I rounded up quite a few local businesses that were interested in having me build them websites or have links to their websites. I then created all those websites and added all the links of the others.
Then went in person to all the clubs, organizations and event people to try and get them to assign the job of a liaison between their clubs and me. People who would feed me via e-mail anything they wanted to have on the website for the world to see. Well, everything went pretty damn well for the first year or so, then slowly but surely those people assigned to talk to me got slower and slower. So I then went back out to reinvigorate them into action again. Again it worked for a while, then slowly went away. With very little new information on the websites, the businesses began to logically slowly drop out also. The truth about websites, whether they are about towns or are business websites is the towns or owners of the businesses have to constantly update them with new exciting information. Without this dynamic, you might as well shut them down. They just set there and die a slow and painful death.
Well.........there finally came a time when I decided that as long as I was the "Super salesman personified" everything went pretty well. You know what though. I was always only interested in being the technical administrator, not the "Used Car Salesman of the month" with this. So eventually I shut both of the websites down and both these small towns lost an unbelievable resource back in those early Internet days to show the world what they had to offer.
I came away from this very telling experience with a far better understanding of the dynamics of the whole small town "Community Involvement" realities. The cold hard truth about these folks is new people who move to these small communities are generally people trying to escape the whole big city overcrowding, noise and "neighbors in your face" experiences. They are clearly trying to avoid the huddled masses any way they can. They are mostly rather "recluse" and came there to be able to do that very thing.
So where does all these truths leave the civic minded folks who want to become involved in their communities and make them a better place to live? The ones who are constantly complaining about the lack of Community Involvement from most people? Well, as anyone knows who tries to get folks "involved", you learn right away that each club, organization and event actually only has a very few energetic, great volunteers who do ALL the work involved in making it happen. Any others that come to the events just come on show day and enjoy the benefits of these few people's efforts. I'm not judging anyone here. This is just the reality of it.
So everyone else should at least just appreciate the hell out of the 4 or 5 nice, great people in each of these clubs who are willing and able to make these fun, entertaining events happen. The next time you're standing there enjoying the wine, eating the delicious little sandwiches someone went to all the trouble to make. Profusely thank those 4-5 people for all they do.
Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!
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