Mona

Psyched

I took a puff or three this afternoon, to no or little effect. It had been a year and I thought I should check in. Oh well, maybe try again.

Big Dave sent me a picture of Hippie Robert on an infamous plane charter we took over forty five years ago.

We were hanging out with the Dead and Warren Zevon's band back then, getting into all sorts of mischief at the hotel. I am quite skinny, I believe I was on a special Peruvian diet.

Sweet girl's name was Sue. We engaged in some serious fun a mile up in the air, pilot threatened to abort the trip. It was not destined to be a long relationship, she insisted on talking to me while I had my morning coffee and was dutifully engaged in reading the paper, a serious breach. Great while it lasted.

Here are a couple more pics of me during my psychonaut days, thought the fun and hijinx would go on forever, it didn't.

Living large

Being a good husband, or doing my best anyway, I made scones this afternoon. It has been raining off and on all day and I started the day driving back and forth to Mission Viejo, helping out a friend who is moving back to China with his wife.

Leslie has been asking me for "her" scones and it was her turn. Dried cherry, dark chocolate, walnut, pecan. I added a bit of maple to the vanilla in the wet mix.

She found a screaming deal on whipped honey with cocoa and we drizzled a few, just because we could.

Leslie says Delicious.

*

Speaking of deals, Steve Wagman told me that he found fresh swordfish yesterday for half off at Major Market, $7.50 a lb.

Leslie drove down this afternoon, brought back swordfish and wild caught fresh Alaskan cod.

I made a compound butter with garlic, paprika, lemon zest, lemon juice and parsley. 

Got my Le Crueset griddle screaming hot in the oven, did a three minute sear with olive oil on the stovetop, flipped it and stuck it back in the 400 degree oven for about six minutes, a bit longer on the cod.

We slathered it in the compound butter. Leslie made a beautiful grilled artichoke lemon fettuccine that could not have been better. Tomorrow we are back to salad.

Killer meal. Life is good.

Take the A train

Falling Down Blues

Bully Pulpit

First stop Venezuela, is Mexico next? Canada, Greenland, Denmark, does it ever stop?

Trump says we will run Venezuela now, to the consternation of many of our allies. Take the oil.

Now I am not sure if this is the good old Monroe doctrine or the divine right of kings but I don't think this bullying attitude and disrespect for other countries' sovereignty is going to end well.

Not that Maduro was a prince but I thought the GOP said it was now time to mind our own business and go non-interventionist?

The indiscriminate murder of the people on the boats, who may or may not have been trafficking drugs that may or maybe not headed to the United States makes a little bit more sick sense now, a prelude to his real intended takeover plan the entire time.

I am sure that our newfound allies in Russia, Hungary and North Korea will heartily applaud the strategy.

*

We never hear much from Russia hawk Lindsey Graham on the subject of Ukraine any more. Why the crickets, Senator? Somebody get access to the Grindr account?

Of course, there are lots of GOP members too afraid to open their mouths right now.

*

All of the polls are pretty clear, a gigantic majority of Americans support extending ACA credits.

78% of the total populace and 59% of Republicans. 57 % of the people who identify as MAGA, which makes sense since they will bear the brunt of not having health insurance.

The Republican leadership will have a lot of heavy lifting to do in order to convince Americans that destroying the health care system in this country is a good thing. 

It's not like they have not had fifteen years to come up with a suitable alternative.

But instead we have nothing.

Button your seatbelts. 

We are in for a very bumpy ride the next three years. 

Anything can happen. 

But at least we will have a lot of new gold and marble fixtures in Washington D.C..

Arc de Trump. It was a natural! 

Le Chêne

I would love to try this place. I miss New York.

Happy New Year from Jimi Hendrix

Nero's feast

New Years weekend was a gluttonous affair, not intentionally mind you, but our bacchanalian revelry ended up looking like something out of satyricon. Where's that feather?

Leslie and I decided to take a rainy New Year's Eve off and go to the Costco Business center in San Marcos. Get us some provisions.

I had promised her a big box of crab to put in the freezer. I saw some king crab there a while back. She loves crab, I am more of a lobster guy. But marriage is a series of endless compromises, as we all know.

I want to keep her happy.

We got to Costco, bought short ribs and beef ribs for later but the only crab was dungeness that was unfortunately frozen. Her friend bought fresh crab from them recently so we passed.

We ended up at the Nordahl Costco and they had fresh dungeness claws, which I bought even though she would have preferred to wait for the whole crab. 

For the hell of it I bought six fresh lobster tails too as well as the wild caught Argentinian red shrimp.

She protested both purchases but there are times when a man has to make his move.

We drove home looking forward to some sort of feast and then a bit of panic set in. 

You see, the crab and lobster were fresh, previously frozen and probably could not stand a re-freezing without a real breakdown in texture and taste.

That meant cooking everything that night. 

And you are supposed to eat lobster within 24 hours.

But when we took the lobster tails out of the pack, there were not six of them, as we were fooled to believe, there were actually twelve, they had been stacked.

Whoa!

Hmmm, what to do? Who could possibly eat all of this food?

We ended up baking and broiling eight lobster tails and steaming the other four in our large stockpot with the wire colander on top. 

I  cracked the malocostracan decapod thorax in a dish towel, cut the shells down the center, made two bottom cuts, fanned the tail and carefully pulled the succulent meat out and placed it on top of the tail. 

I watched a youtube video. Now I know.

We melted a butter garlic sauce and added a touch of paprika to the mix.

Squeezed a lemon over the tails and painted on the butter. Dash of salt and pepper.

Pre broil iteration

Bake at 425° and then a quick broil at the end.

Holy shit, how were we going to eat all this treif?

Well the good news is that we did, or we made a great stab at it anyway. 

The first night we had seven tails and a large portion of the crab, which was great out of the package, not even steamed.

We liked the grilled method better than the steamed for the tails but we tried them both ways.

Dungeness crab was superb. I didn't realize how much I loved it.

Last night I made lobster salad with two of the remaining steamed, celery, lemon juice, mayo, salt, pepper and dill.

Three to go, they will probably go into a lobster risotto tonight.

And what am I forgetting? 

Leslie had marinated a rack of lamb all day Wednesday that was supposed to be our dinner before I got the selfish shellfish itch. 

We had to cook that too. Lamb should not be over marinated or it breaks down or so she tells me.

We were so stuffed that it had to sit in the fridge until last night.

It was unbelievable, I nailed it at the perfect point of medium rare. So tasty.

I honestly can't believe how much food I/we ate. 

Amazing.

I won't need lobster for a while. My fault. But it was an incredible feast.

And while somewhat expensive, the price for all of the food was far less than what one would pay for a seat for one at a swank New Year's Eve restaurant soiree.

So there!

*

Yesterday morning we went to Del Mar to meet old friends and have brunch at Davanti Enoteca.

I broke my alcohol fast with a bloody mary. First cocktail in a year.

The place has new owners and try as they might, is just not the same. Focaccia is not as crisp, my orrechiette with fennel sausage was just good and not great, the drink a feeble memory of a forgotten masterpiece. 

Which instantly clogged my sinuses. Not sure if it was the alcohol or the tomato juice but I am susceptible to such occurrences, especially with white wine and champagne. Leslie gave me a benadryl, which got me slightly dizzy. She drove home.

Didn't taste much alcohol, she didn't either. In any case it was an underwhelming experience. My next drink will be a greyhound and I will see if it triggers my respiratory system as well? If so, all bets are off and my dreams of becoming a late in life lush might be extinguished.

Perhaps it will be a sober year after all?

In any case it was great to see Lena and Ron, Bob and Shela.

Hope you all had a great New Years and best of luck this year. The country and world will need it.

Try not to overeat. ☺

*

Yes Linda, I am seeing Dr. Mells. What a sweetheart.

Pretty tight

End year ramble

I guess I have time for an extended end of the year free form shpiel. I'm really out of practice, honestly, tasting my output before it rolls off my keyboard of late. Not everything needs to be shared and I am trying to be a bit more measured about what to hold inside.

I was thinking the other day about how time slips by. Before too long, all the boomers will be extinct and Gens X,Y, Z and M can have at it. I don't have my hopes up for the future for a variety of reasons, predominately environmental in nature, but perhaps we can be pleasantly surprised?

As we move forward at technological lightspeed our personal conventions are changing. McLuhan was right, the medium is the message and technology changes human behavior in ways and at a speed that heretofore would be unimaginable. 

All of our successors on this earth have never known a world without email or the internet yet ignorance of history and general incompetence seems to be at its zenith.

Even with a powerful computer at the end of everyone's arm.

Because history is now whitewashed and shaped by those that control our respective media silos, truth be damned. Ahh, truth, that illusory thing that we called reality, now on sale to the highest bidder.  That and general apathy and stupidity anyway. Anyway, our methods of communication are certainly changing and I got sobering news of that the other day.

My friends know that I always say, "I am a talker, not a texter..." It is easier for me. I prefer to talk in human voice with someone than text. It is called a real dialogue as opposed to a staggered monologue. The word dialogue comes from the Greek dialegesthai to ‘converse with.’ In my book converse means to exchange spoken words but I am admittedly old fashioned.

Anyhow I was told the other day that it is now deemed gauche to call someone on the phone without texting first.

Really?

If this is true, I think it sucks.

If you have something to say to me, please call. Let's have a pleasant chat, shall we? If you can make the time.

*

I guess if I am on an end of the year bitch session I should relay some other things on my mind that are bugging me. 

Like AI.

What a great tool for people that lack their own artistic vision or have no interest in that reality thing we were talking about earlier. Why bother with it when ChatGTP can give you a reasonable facsimile that may or may not be riddled with errors but is good enough to fool a good chunk of the audience a good amount of the time?

What a bunch of bullshit.

*

The Trump administration is now talking about revoking Somali immigrants' citizenship. I have no doubt some fraud was committed in Minnesota, I have no idea of the scale. Might be enormous. People need to be prosecuted.

But like all peoples, there are good somalis and bad somalis, like in every culture. We are a nation of immigrants, back to the first inhabitants crossing the Bering Strait 10 or 20kya. To single out a people like this seems un american to me. 

Substitute, Italians or Irish, or Jews, Chinese, Blacks or Indians or any other particular group that you yourself might actually belong to and think about how you would feel?

I've known some wonderful Somalis in my life, some in hijabs.

We are better than this.

Trump recently called for more immigration from nordic nations, let get some more hot women, right? Oh and white South africans. 

If I didn't know better I would think the administration was just trying to exclude the browner shades of humans from our shores. What is that called again?

*

I am back to my winter cooking regimen. Made my first pot roast the other night. 

I couldn't afford the chuck roast at ten bucks a lb. and went with the cross rib. 

Not as much fat but not a lot of difference. 

Still expensive at almost seven bucks a pound.

Roasted chicken the next night and rack of lamb tonight.

I love cold weather cooking. 

Gives me a chance to get the dutch oven out.

Short ribs soon, freezer is packed!

*

I haven't been to a dentist for four years. My guy retired and my hygienist lost his foot to diabetes. 

Leslie found me a dentist yesterday. I have a little gum emergency. Going to be a bit expensive, four deep cleaning sessions. 

But I like her. The ordeal starts Friday.

Remember to take care of your teeth.

*

I wish you all the best of New Years.

*

Darkow

 

Bottoms Up!

Well, a very different year is coming to a close. Since I decided to forsake weed and alcohol for the past 12 months, with the exception of one glass of port and cabernet respectively, I guess I will forever think of it as the "dry year." I said I would abstain and I did and I feel proud that I could. I got a lot of stuff done, although life was lacking a little inspiration in spots.

I was never a huge drinker, more of an occasional puffer, but it is funny. I really have no desire for weed whatsoever but a huge hankering at the moment for alcohol, specifically vodka. 

I have been dreaming of the perfect bloody mary, one that I intend to imbibe early on New Years Day.

The problem is that I don't know where to find a great one anymore. 

Perhaps one of you has a suggestion?

The go to Bloody Mary bar for me was Davanti Enoteca in Del Mar. 

Their bloody mary setup went from here to eternity with every possible condiment available that one could possibly require. Sadly, they got rid of the bloody mary bar. 

Heartbreaking.

They tell me that they still make a great bloody mary and based on our past history it may be my initial stop.  If for nothing else, their focaccia. 

At some time in the day I will probably switch to the greyhound, my old standby. 

I haven't even thought about quaffing Jamesons, my other favorite drink.While 2025 was the year of sobriety, 2026 is where I do my best to turn into a lush.

Leslie actually makes a mean bloody mary and her secret must have ingredient is pickle juice.

I honestly don't know if this will be a year for drinking or not. Or writing. I am going to play it all out by feel and see what happens.

Please be safe this New Years Eve, especially in this wet weather. Let's start on Thursday.

*

Best bloody mary's of San Diego.

Louie Bellson

Seedy blues

Wear my love like heaven

Over eleven million served

Sort of a milestone day. The Blue Heron Blast crossed the eleven million view mark early this morning. 

Seems like the last million hits came quick.

Thanks to all of my readership, past and present. 

This year has seen a real paucity of posts but probably a little better mental health and work/life balance.

Who knows what the future will bring?

Wishing you all the best of holidays.

*

I just came back from a great trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where I did an appraisal for a very nice estate.

I flew up in a Learjet 40 XR, my first. Quite nice, about a two hour flight. Flew back on a Citation.

 

We got some serious snow the second night and tales of strong winds to the south. Was a bit worried about getting out.

But not to worry. 

In the words of the great Bob Weir, everything ended up exactly perfect!

Happy, happy everybody. There's still time to send me an end of the year shot.

Joe Ely

Sad to hear that one of the greatest live performers I ever heard has passed.

Misty Roses

Sunday ramblin'

Trader Joe's brioche bread makes the best peanut butter sandwiches in the world. And they taste even better if you peel the paper off the bottom. * Congrats to Indiana's Fernando Mendoza for winning the Heisman Trophy. Now watch ICE come for him and his family. * Paul Simon is going on tour again. How long did this retirement last, three weeks? I thought you were deaf, give it up, gramps. * If the population is aging so much like they say it is, why can't we get a little less kid proofing on medicine and vitamins so that those of us with arthritis can actually open the bottles? I'm personally getting very tired of opening chips and cheese packaging with my teeth. * Do you know how much more health insurance premiums will be for citizens of Wyoming? 421 percent. Ouch. Hey, you voted for him. * If you were a Canadian, would you visit the United States? * Pretty raw deal when you do everything right on the path to citizenship and then you get cancelled by our government right before the oath ceremony. * Want to support the Trump family? Eat Chobani yogurt. *  I watch a lot of crime and bodycam videos on YouTube. Why do seventy percent of the drunken and oft entitled  miscreants live in Florida?  Disney World, the airports, these people are out of control. What are they putting in the water out there? Florida and Ohio, oh brother. * Good judge. * I've been melting silver all week. Straight to the refinery. Melt price is far higher than any decorative value silver may have had in memory. Let me know if you have any sterling flat or hollow ware laying around that you want to turn into money. Cha-ching!

The Dick Carpenter Trio

That Karen Carpenter sure could drum.

Jesus was a refugee

Wonder what kind of Christian you are? You might want to see where you fall in this argument. 

A church in Massachusetts had its own take on the traditional nativity scene.

St. Susanna Parish, a Catholic church in Dedham, reportedly first put up the display shortly after Thanksgiving. In lieu of the standard image of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, farm animals and wise men, the church had two simple signs: One reads “ICE was here” and another letting parishioners know “The Holy Family is safe in The Sanctuary of our Church” and advising them to contact the hotline for LUCE, an immigrant justice network.

“These displays feel like churches are actually remembering who Jesus was and how he came into the world — among the oppressed, which is who he ended up advocating for,” Hale said. “Jesus was an immigrant. His family fled state violence. They crossed borders without permission. They sought safety in a land that wasn’t their own.”

“It forces people to see Jesus the way the world saw him: as poor, displaced, brown-skinned refugees seeking protection from an empire that wanted them dead,” she continued.

Now I am not a believer and have no stake in this race but I am a bit of a historian and cultural anthropologist and have read the entire bible multiple times. 

It seems to me that the church strikes closer to the original narrative here than the MAGA version. Have some people failed to see or truly understand his message? Or am I the one who is off base?

Eighteen with a bullet

I don't think so

Republicans, after failing to extend ACA subsidies that will result in tripling of insurance premiums in many states, are in a world of political hurt.

They could not extend the subsidies without inserting a bunch of anti abortion language that was not going to fly with the Democrats but insisted on by the Susan B. Anthony types.

Tonight Trump was nice and conciliatory towards Dems for the first time in memory, pushing for a bi-partisan solution as a way to share the political heat.

No thanks.

You waited how many years to deal with this and did nothing and now want the Democrats to bail you out?

Enjoy.

Whoops!

 

Another wackjob appointed to the CDC, allowed whooping cough to spread in Louisiana. Meet Ralph Abraham, a one time veterinarian turned doctor.

Already this year, anti-vaccine activists have downplayed the risks of measles and polio. Now, they’re adding whooping cough to the list, even as cases of the disease surge, killing at least ten babies over the past two years. Two of those babies died in Louisiana, where a crusading state surgeon general, Dr. Ralph Abraham, waited months to warn the public about the outbreak and banned mass vaccination campaigns.Physicians criticized Abraham for failing to warn residents of the disease’s dangers—and the critical importance of maternal vaccination during pregnancy, since babies can’t be vaccinated until they are two months old.Abraham has a history of anti-vaccine rhetoric. In February, Louisiana’s Department of Health officially banned vaccine promotion events in the state.

To Kingdom Come

Personal taste

Art and taste is so subjective. There obviously is no right way of seeing or listening. 

One man's Marty Bell is another man's Leonardo DaVinci.

I was thinking about this because I was listening in the radio in the car and a Stevie Ray Vaughn song was on. 

I listened for a few seconds and then turned it off.

Why?

Because I never really liked his sound that much. Too brittle for me. And I still don't. It fatigues me, honestly.

Now SRV is acknowledged as one of the very best and greatest of all time. A virtuoso. But by and large it is lost on me. Go figure.

Ditto Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin. Not my sound.

Steve Vai, Satriani, the shredders. Eddie Van Halen, Aerosmith, Rush. Tremendous musicians and technical players. None of that stuff ever worked on me.

Other people love them and I appreciate that. Music has to touch me emotionally in some way for it to work.

Neal Peart may have been the greatest of all time but I never once heard a Rush song I liked. Couldn't get past Lee's voice.

Two bands that I did like were the Beatles and the Band. And I can't think of a single solo in their whole lexicon. Because they were about music as opposed to virtuosity. I get made fun of for some of the music I like. Karen Carpenter, Tom Paxton, Dave van Ronk. Not most people's cup of tea. 

I used to listen to a lot of Jerry Garcia. One day a passenger in my car begged me to turn it off, he thought it sounded like drilling by a bad dentist with no anesthesia. I cut him some slack.

Art and music is very personal. I know a guy who played with all the blues greats, GP. Played in top blues bands all over the world. Didn't like Bloomfield's sound, a guy I adored. His ears, his right. He liked Buddy Guy, a guy I never cared for. Give me Otis Rush or Albert Collins. Hollywood Fats or Cornell Dupree.

We all like what we like.

Frank Zappa - Who Are The Brain Police?

American Stasi

Leslie told me to be careful, I might end up on Bondi's enemies list. I hadn't heard of such a thing so I looked it up. Wow.

Attorney General Pam Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” according to a Justice Department memo published here exclusively.

“These domestic terrorists use violence or the threat of violence to advance political and social agendas, including opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality; and an elevation of violence to achieve policy outcomes, such as political assassinations.”

In a section titled “Defining the domestic terrorism threat,” the memo cites “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment” — indicators that federal law enforcement are instructed to refer to FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs). Those JTTFs are then instructed to “use all available investigative tools” in order to “map the full network of culpable actors involved” in both “inside and outside the United States.”

Seriously? Don't we have a first amendment? We did...

In addition to compiling a list of undesirables, Bondi directs the FBI to enhance the capabilities (and publicity) of its tipline in order to more aggressively solicit tips from the American public on, well, other Americans. To that end, Bondi also directs the FBI to establish “a cash reward system” for information leading to identification and arrest of leadership figures within these purported domestic terrorist organizations. (The memo later instructs the FBI to “establish cooperators to provide information and eventually testify against other members” of the groups.)

The payouts don’t end there. Justice Department grants are now to prioritize funding to programs for state and local law enforcement to go after domestic terrorism.

Shit, maybe I am in trouble. 

Gentle On My Mind

Raul Malo is in his last days, fighting stage four cancer in the hospital. He has such a beautiful voice. Read about his thoughts regarding the state of our country from earlier this year. You will be greatly missed, Raul. Thank you.

“The words ‘liberty and justice for all’ have faded into a distant past,” he wrote on social media. “To some of us those words were deeply personal. My family came here because of those words. I was born here because of those words. I have had an extraordinary life because of those words. And now those words have lost their meaning. They are now abstract concepts used to inflict cruelty and suffering on the unsuspecting, the weak, the sick, the poor, the needy. We can add Purple Heart war veterans to that list as several have been deported already. This is America right now.

“Some will tell me that I should leave the country or my favorite ‘shut up and sing (A statement so void of any sense that it is impossible to execute),’” he continued. “On the ‘leaving’ part … that may come true whether I want to leave or not. The way the new law stands my mother could be stripped of her naturalized citizenship, then my sister and I would be illegal birthright citizens and away we go. As far as ‘shut up and sing’ well, clearly that’s not happening. You see the thing is this is my country too. Always has been. My country has been that beacon on the hill for so long and for so many.”

Malo was not through.

“As Lady Liberty’s flame dims with every atrocity committed in her name, we will not be afraid of the dark,” he wrote. “We will find the light again.”

Welcome back, Measles

The Trump administration does not have a whole lot of successes under its belt but they have accomplished at least one thing. 

After decades of dormancy, due to a vigorous immunization program, with the right amount of stupid in Washington, we have now managed to bring measles back. 

Measles is expected to lose its immunization status in January of 2026.

The disease has cropped up in low vaccination states like Texas, Arizona and Utah and has been spreading out like wildfires. 

Easy to point fingers here, RFK Jr. downplayed the problem earlier this year, intimating that the disease was no big deal.

“Every child who gets measles gets a headline,” Kennedy said during the visit alongside Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “When I was kid, there were 2 million measles cases a year and nobody wrote about them.”

Don't worry, Kennedy has a snake oil cure and you don't have to drink bleach this time. A little vitamin A and some steroids will not cure you but might stop the itch a little. Rest is in god's hands.

Trump and his MAGA cohorts have managed to destroy the CDC and seriously set back health care in this country and here you have it. More info on measles here. Can polio and tuberculosis be far behind? Because your "religious freedom" now gives you the right to get everyone else sick.

Another shot of formaldehyde, please...

Ready to feel absolutely pickled?

With former chemical industry insiders now running the show, the Trump EPA says, make it a double of the chemical that causes more cancer than anything else in the air, formaldehyde. 

Bottoms up.

By the way, they are not done yet.

Philip Upchurch Combo - You Can’t Sit Down (Parts 1 & 2)

Sconerific

We are strange bedfellows. She likes chocolate. I, being of a more sophisticated upbringing and breeding, favor vanilla. So how do we make things work all these thirty five years of mostly married life? Simple. She gets to win most of the time.

I like to make scones. If fresh peaches are unavailable, my go to scone is cranberry blueberry walnut. She likes chocolate cherry. Happy wife, happy life, my last batch was (surprise!) chocolate cherry. 

Tonight Leslie went to a comedy show with her friend Penelope and I was able to stage a brief moment of autonomous rebellion and actually make the scones that I personally favor.

I made a cranberry, raisin scone with pecan instead of the customary walnut. I added some frozen blueberries because what the hell and a bit of candied ginger to the mix. Cinnamon, vanilla extract, brown sugar, the usual.

With all the ingredients my mix was a little dry so I added some Greek yogurt to the cream.

Finished them off with lemon zest.

Too hot to eat, will let you know.

Postscript: Yummy!

Roxy Music

Speak up

I have a lot of friends, on both sides of the political equation. As a moderate, centrist liberal I am outnumbered about eight to one or eight to two at morning coffee, some people either choosing not to show their cards or even more sadly, having no cards to show.

I have no problem with people who hold different opinions then I do, especially if they are well thought out. In fact I sort of like the sparring and opposing viewpoints. We are all and will continue to be friends.

I used to be quite strident on the blast. I lost two major clients, for my not having enough "balance". Maybe three. All multi, multi millionaires. One of them walked into my shop after I had smoked a joint and cut me off forever, one moved to Hawaii and one became intensely hardcore MAGA and insufferable.

I look back in retrospect and have to say that only one of them is truly missed. I had to ask myself if I would want to hang out with a person even if they were stone broke?  Did I like them or did I like their business? Hmmmm, that was easy.

Truly, I can only say that about the guy who moved to Hawaii. I really liked and admired him, politics withstanding and it hurts to be dumped, even by a friend.

For the past eleven months I have tried to dial down the writing and politics as much as possible. Never alienate a client, you know. I think that is about to change. I think that after this sober, quiet year, I am ready to let it fly.

I will never get Mr. MAGA back and he nauseates me anyway. If my business suffers, so be it. I have been through worse.

I think we are in a horrific place in our country. So many Republican friends that say the same thing, "We don't like his tone but we like his policies..." 

Well, I don't. 

I think that we are dangerously close to a total breakdown, from ICE repeatedly jailing and brutalizing United States Citizens to blasting boats out of international waters that aren't even heading to our shores. Alienating Canada, Europe and Mexico while cleaving to tinpot despots and oligarchs around the world and throwing our lot in with Russia. How many states can now force women to carry a deformed or fatally damaged child to term, even in cases of rape and incest and even if the mother's life is in jeopardy?

Too many.

I have a friend who thinks ICE is merely a front for a new federal Police Force put in place and destined to subvert the next midterm elections. Sounds farfetched but who knows? Another thinks they are filled with the ranks of Jan. 6 rioters who have all been conveniently released.

The fight against globalism and free trade has now completely destroyed agreements and relationships that have taken decades to create, destroying major sectors of our economy. Think corn and soybeans will ever come back? Or automobile manufacturing? Trump answers by charging tariffs, a tax largely borne by the American consumer.

Of course, ICE has done such a good job that there is no one left to pick the fields but the farmers won't worry because largely blue state taxpayers will pick up the bill and bail them out once again. A new permanent ward and liege. 

Beats working.

I think I am done shutting my mouth. I can't be worried about losing business because this is actually more important than me making a buck. This is a total breakdown and we are in a world of shit. I have been waiting for my more moderate comrades on the right to speak up and say enough and very few ever do. R.N., I salute you!

Of course, if I get really broke I might change my tune. If you want to cut me off, well, feel free. I'll get over it.

Let her rip.

Scary times indeed...

 Does the current time hearken back more to Hoover 1929 or 1935 Berlin?