Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Society

  • Forty Years Later – Chapter 2

    Catch up on the first Chapter: 1

    Day 2

    As I mentioned, I was still operating on Mountain Time and had to wait for the breakfast from the lobby. I managed to dump coffee all over my shirt so had to rinse it out in the bathroom sink. It didn’t take too long to dry the shirt on the back of my bike. This actually made me smile as I thought of a similar circumstance on the previous trip, washing my clothes in the bathroom sink of the motel.

    After topping off the fuel I started one of the most pleasant motorcycle tours I’ve ever taken.

    US 89-A used to be the primary road south of Flagstaff toward Phoenix but was bypassed in the late 1970s by Interstate 17. The old road is still the most scenic way to Sedona and the primary route to Prescott and beyond. And one of the bonuses (at least to gypsy motorcyclists) is the ride down Oak Creek Canyon. The canyon rivals Zion National Park for its dramatic colors and spectacular scenery. At the bottom I am sure that I had the same feeling this year as 40 years ago; “I want to do that again!”

    I had chosen a non-weekend day for my ride and was rewarded with light traffic. It really didn’t matter as I was in no hurry and was enjoying the ride. A couple of times I let people go around while I rubbernecked.

    At the base of the canyon I discovered that a building that had been an important part in the earlier trip was still intact. In 1970 it was a Texaco gas station that had an air hose that I needed to fix my flat tire. Today it is a thriving deli and general store. The original Texaco oval sign now was painted for the new business.

    The flat tire on the rear caught me by surprise on my return trip. I had the tools to repair the tire and, fortunately, a Texaco station was right there with an air hose.

    The problem was that then, as now, I have the mechanical ability of a bonobo. Every time that I would try to mount the repaired tire, I would pinch the tube causing a new leak. It was well past dark and the owner said, “I’ve got to close and I need to shut off my air compressor!” I was still fighting myself and begged him to leave the air hose. I finally convinced him that I would push the air hose thru the hole in the building when I was finished. After multiple attempts I was finally able to get the tire to hold air and headed on to my last night in Flagstaff.

    The last time that I had passed through Sedona I had caught it at rush hour and was trapped in traffic. Today I had the road to myself and was able to enjoy the beautiful setting of the city. Riding in through the red bluffs reminded me of our own red rocks at Jemez Pueblo.

    The town of Jerome is perched upon the hillside and the road matches the destination as a narrow, two-lane road. It was there that I discovered a fundamental fact about some humans.

    I was behind two cars on a road with no passing zones. As I was going nowhere, I put some distance between myself and the car ahead. I was going the exact same speed as the cars in front of me, merely at a distance where I would not have to worry about sudden maneuvers. This drove the guy behind me completely batshit insane. On a short stretch of road ahead he passed me across double yellow so that he could follow the two cars ahead of me the remainder of the way with me still following behind.

    Lynn and I have stopped at Jerome in the past and toured the tourist spots. This is one of the places that I could retire to. I could totally see myself operating a hamburger stand there. Unfortunately for me, it was 9:30 AM local and no place was open for lunch.

    The ride to Jerome is only the beginning of the curves and slopes of 89-A. For a motorcyclist, this was heaven, tight curves and little traffic. I took my time, enjoying the scenery.

    A few miles on the other side of Jerome I encountered some minor road construction and I found myself at the end of the traffic behind the pilot car. I was in no hurry and kept back in the pack, looking for a place to take some photos of the highway curves. Finally I came to a spot where I could photograph the road and the valley below from the highway. Because of the traffic control I knew that I had plenty of time so I stopped the bike, leaned it on the kickstand and pulled out the camera.

    A few photos later I was ready to move on. After putting the camera away I readied to raise the bike off of the kickstand. And discovered that I was unable to do so.

    The place that I had chosen was on a curve and I was on the slope, leaning downward. Probably the deal-breaker was my bag on the back, its extra weight just enough to keep me from getting upright to where I could balance the bike. Regardless how I pushed, I could not get the motorcycle vertical enough to raise the kickstand.

    This was ridiculous. Although I wasn’t in immediate hazard I knew that it was only a matter of time until the next wave of cars was released by the flagman. I couldn’t get my short legs to push enough off of the pavement below to get the bike into an upright position where I could balance it.

    At last I dismounted and held the bike up from the downhill side. I was able to start it and, holding the clutch in with my left hand, engage first gear with my right and walk the bike to the shoulder. There I could mount my motorcycle and continue on the road. It was easy to laugh about it afterward but I was in a bit of a fix for a bit, there!

    The city of Prescott is one of the nicest towns in all of Arizona. Set high in the mountains it is surrounded by pine covered hills and miles and miles of open space. As I was thinking how pleasant the town of Prescott was I crossed Pleasant Street! Coincidence?

    89 continued with more curves and light traffic.

    By this time I was getting very hungry and resolved to stop at the next place that I saw for some lunch. Driving through Yarnell I spotted a restaurant, the only one that I had seen. The criteria that my brother had established (the more cars around a place, the better it is) was appropriate as the parking lot was full and I stopped for a well-deserved break.

    Walking in I instantly felt a sensation of déjà-vu; I knew that I had been here before.

    In 2002 Lynn and I had traveled to our niece’s graduation in California and had done a loop trip that included 89-A. At dinner time we were still a long way away from our hotel in Prescott so we stopped at a roadside diner for dinner. Yep, same place. To top it off, as they advertised being in business since 1948, it is entirely possible (yet totally unremembered) that I stopped at this very place for lunch in 1970.

    I still had a few more miles of curves ahead to be enjoyed. The road at one point became so steep that the uphill and downhill lanes were separated. This removed the hazard of uphill traffic and allowed me to enjoy the view without worry of traffic.

    At one point there was a vista point which showed the industry of the Congress valley below. At last it was warm enough so I took off my leather jacket and stuffed it into my saddlebags. In hindsight it was here that I made a major tactical mistake by not buying and downing serious amounts of water. It was soon going to manifest itself as a potentially life-threatening situation. One of the most enjoyable mornings of riding was going to be followed by one of the most miserable afternoons that I’ve ever had.

    The winds had been blowing all day but the trees of the forest had kept most of the pressure off. Now that I arrived at the desert they returned with renewed vigor. The wind that had been a nuisance was now a major force. Passing through Salome on Highway 60 I saw a dust devil that was more of a tornado. I watched its progress so that I would not be caught up in it, awed by its impressiveness as it soared thousands of feet above. Still, the winds! Pounding, unrelentless and sucking the very moisture out of my body. Now that I was out of the mountains I felt that I could open up the bike and cover the remaining miles. I didn’t count on the effect that the heat, dryness and winds would have on me.

    I carried a water bottle on the inside of my windshield where I could get at it easily. But the constant pressure of the winds plus the traffic, particularly the trucks, meant that I generally felt uncomfortable taking my hands off of the handlebars so I failed to keep drinking fluids. And what happens when one becomes water-deprived? They lose common sense, including the incentive to drink water!

    I was lucky to gas up in Congress as it was the last gas for many a mile down the road. I’m not sure that I would have made it from Prescott to the next gas station. The pleasure of the two-lane road was offset by the horrendous winds and the terrific heat. I’ve lived in New Mexico most of my life and am used to 100 degree days but this heat was at least ten to fifteen degrees above that and I was in gale-force winds and staring directly into the setting sun. Things didn’t get any better when I joined the truck traffic on Interstate 10. I was lightheaded trying to find gasoline in Blythe and drove around much of the town in a daze.

    I pushed onward. I only had about 100 miles to go and I figured that I could endure whatever was necessary. That endurance proved to be a test of my mortal abilities.

    My destination was Indio. I had forgotten how desolate this portion of the desert was. Scores of miles passed by with no sign of civilization. Exits were for roads through the desert and there were no services to be had. I pushed on, dodging the trucks and fighting the unrelenting wind.

    The wind also sucked the very moisture out of me and I suddenly felt an intense burning in my right eye. The hot, dry wind irritated it and I could provide temporary relief by closing the eye. After a few minutes my vision in that eye turned totally white and I was blind in that side.

    At the time I concluded that I had sunburn on the eye. Although I was wearing UV-protective sunglasses my thoughts were of people who watched arc-welding and the subsequent first-degree sunburn that it caused.

    I pulled off at the first exit and splashed water from by water bottle into my eye. The cool water cleared my vision for a few moments but the wind quickly dehydrated it once more.

    I had to assess my options, and they were pretty few. There was no other town until Indio, another 50 miles away, where I had a motel reservation. I could sit at the exit until my vision cleared or I could push on one-eyed. Daylight was slowly fading and monocular driving could only be worse at night. I had no choice. I closed my eye and returned to the highway.

    I felt pretty pathetic by the time I got to the Motel 6 and had to make a decision to take a downstairs room or a room with wifi. I chose the latter and had to haul my bag upstairs to the room that was diagonally across from the top of the stairs, the farthest room away.

    Finally I was able to soak a washcloth to put across my eyes and lay down on the bed in the darkness. After dozing for half an hour or so I discovered, to my relief, that my sight had returned. The nap had restored my energy and I was ready to find some dinner.

    As I washed my face I could see the dead skin of second-degree sunburn on my cheeks. Although I had used sun blocker it was obviously not near enough for the intense sun. Fortunately I had picked up some aloe lotion in Flagstaff and applied it liberally to my face.

    I was finally ready for dinner.

    As a general rule I avoid Mexican food outside of New Mexico but the neighborhood where I was staying looked an awful lot like the South Valley of Albuquerque and if I wanted to eat, it was going to be Mexican.

    I discovered, to my joy, that the offerings looked a lot more like home than the usual sour cream and guacamole encrusted glop of most Californian “Mexican food.” I ordered a beer and water. And water. And more water. I guess after a while the waitress figured from my face what was going on and brought me a pitcher.

    Not knowing their chili I went with the fajitas. The flavor of the carnitas took me back to the steaks that Dad had cooked years ago. I don’t know what they used that was the same.

    On the way back to my room I noticed that the motel next door bore a strong resemblance to the one that I had stayed in on my original trip. The location was about right and the layout was as I had remembered with a separate building in front and a strip of rooms to the right. If it was, indeed, the same place (now named “Economy Inn”) then it was quite a coincidence being right next door to where I was staying!

    Originally my trip was to have been two days out, a couple of days in Tujunga and then a return home via San Francisco. Quite the trip for a sixteen-year-old on a dirtbike! My plans got changed for me by a sandstorm while crossing the desert and I was forced to make an unscheduled stop in Indio.

    I checked into a motel next to the highway. The room cost $8, one tenth of my entire traveling funds. In addition, the TV required a dime for each half hour of viewing. I bought a buck’s worth of dimes from the office and rolled the bike into the room to get it out of the gale.

    I was a bit concerned about what that dust was doing to the innards of the bike so, in between washing my clothes in the bathroom sink and feeding dimes into the TV, I tore down and rebuilt the carburetors. When I checked out the next morning I left a good-sized gas/oil stain on the rug.

    I really didn’t feel up to visiting with the locals and the remoteness of my room meant that there wasn’t anybody strolling by, anyway. I hit the bed early.

    To be continued.

  • Memphis Bike Lanes

     

    I don’t think bike lanes are a great idea…mostly. Don’t get me wrong: a smart, separate, and affordable way to share an interstate bridge in a town with commuting problems is one thing, but messing up the whole town with crazy little specialty lanes is a bad idea. Cruising around Memphis recently, I spent about ten miles on bike lanes and so many things came to mind:

    1) The biggest problem is that when there are bike lanes around town, folks decide that’s where bikes belong. You’re not a reasonable vehicle any more the second you peddle outside the lines: you’re off the reservation. Most car drivers have this idea that they own the road, so this is already a problem if you are a pedaler or pedestrian or any of the other annoying variants getting in the way of the great automobile. I’m not looking to be, but I now am a problem if I need to leave the bike lane.

    2) Bike lanes themselves make enemies: every guy who before was parking on the curb is mad, the commuter who has been funneled down to four lanes from six to make room for the bikes resents deeply, the shopkeeper whose clients must now mind a gap while parking and then dodge cyclists before they can even gain the sidewalk is incensed. Drivers generally hated bikes already; now they hate the lanes per se…and, by extension, they hate cyclists even more; that won’t help out in traffic land.

    3) Bike lanes subvert basic traffic law and dumb down everyone. They’re mindless, like an interstate: we pedal onto one and turn off the brain; bike lanes appear around town, and drivers don’t need to worry about cyclists anymore so they get to think less because (see 1 above and repeat after me) that’s where bikes belong. I already compete as a cyclist for the attention of those with whom I share the road, with their texting, their spilling their coffee in their laps, their screaming spawn in the back seat, their hood ornament, and all the other things they focus on instead of looking down the road a furlong or so and figuring out what they might need to prepare to do in the next five or ten seconds with the two tons of steel they’re slinging around town. Right-of-way…what is this thing you speak of, mad man? My buddy reports this typical move today: car overtakes him and then suddenly turns right off the road immediately in front of him…while he’s pedaling over 20mph…because he’s a cyclist and is just in the way…because that driver has lost touch with all the simple right and wrongs he learned when he was 15 from the nice pamphlet that the governor printed for us all, which we all had to memorize before we could get the pretty wallet cards with our pictures on them. I guess if he drives over an old lady in a cross-walk, she had it coming for being so hopelessly out of date; get with the times, grandma; walking is lame!

    4) Ye gods these damned bike lanes are dangerous…and ugly! They need not necessarily be, but they generally are. There’s all this extra paint that’s super slick in the rain. Bike lanes often come with tons of extra furniture: little stanchions that corral us off at intersections and such. But the biggest problem is maintenance: if there’s a bike lane, I belong in it, supposedly, and I shouldn’t opt out of the leaf piles, fallen limbs, broken glass, sand, gravel, wreckage (literally: headlamp lenses, grill shards, random sharp bits of injection-molded carnage), and any other flotsam that heavier traffic knocks out of the “real” lanes and into the little lane where the guys with the thin tires roll. For a few miles on one street in town, both east- and west-bound bike lanes are contiguous, both on the north side of the street: west-bound I’m pedaling against traffic; who’s going to look for me over there on the wrong side of the street when they cross my lane at an intersection…how is this stupidity improving cycling in particular or traffic in general?

    5) No one knows what the lanes mean; the signage is random, inconsistent, and at least somewhat ambiguous. How do we merge so you can turn right and I can carry on straight? Does the bike lane trump other rules? Is that cyclist a criminal or a mere jerk for wheeling out of his bike lane to avoid a stretch of missing, broken, lumpy…whatever type of failed pavement?

    We’re teaching ourselves not to think, exacerbating the tension between cars and bikes, and pitting ourselves against our neighbors with these lanes. There’s got to be a better way to design traffic to be bike-smart than what I’ve seen around Memphis.

  • Forty Years Later – Chapter 1

    Introduction

    In 1970 I was 16 years old and caused a minor family scandal by driving from New Mexico to California to see my girlfriend on my 250cc dirtbike.

    I had forsaken all local females (for reasons that are best left unstated) and sent letters to two out-of-state daughters of family friends, resolving to visit whichever one answered first. Fortunately for me the one from Pennsylvania never replied and I carried on a correspondence with Lynn from California. I planned my visit to see her for the week that summer vacation started (between my junior and senior years in high school).

    I’ve always loved motorcycles and grew up in a family of two-wheel enthusiasts. Dad had a variety of bikes when I was growing up and our uncles sold my brother and me our first motorcycles. Dirtbikes were natural transportation for us growing up in the mountains. Somewhere along the way I picked up a Yamaha Big Bear Scrambler that was big enough for me to ride back and forth to school. And fast! This 250cc two-stroke was one of the quickest bikes off of the line in its time and I routinely beat 350cc Hondas from light to light. But, being two-stroke, I had to keep tabs on the level of oil in the auto lubrication system. Generally, though, the usage was about a quart for every couple of tanks of gas.

    I prepped the bike by changing the sprockets to gear the bike for a road trip and added some highway pegs before I left. The latter were actually quite useful. Sitting in the same position for hours gets to be uncomfortable and tiring. I often drop one or both legs back hooking the heel of my boot on the passenger pegs. The highway bar was a section of pipe that I bolted onto the frame in front of the engine to give an additional position to select.

    I knew that there was no way that Mom and Dad would let me go on a trip across three states so I told them that I was going to go camping in Colorado for a week. I didn’t know it at the time, but Dad had pretty much figured out where I was going to go, although he never said anything. I actually intended upon camping during this trip and had a sleeping bag and cooking gear along with me. Flagstaff was the designated midpoint for both going and coming and there were some good campsites in the area.

    At the time of my previous trip, Interstate 40 (US-66) was fairly complete between towns but would divert traffic through each municipality that was along the way. Some of the towns weren’t too bad: Winslow; Grants; Gallup. Some of the gaps were significant, such as the stretch from Seligman to Kingman in Arizona and from Essex to Ludlow in California. It was the latter two stretches that induced me to take US-66 to Flagstaff, then AZ-89A to Prescott, connecting to Interstate 10 near Blythe, California. From there I followed Interstates 10 and 5 to Tujunga, where the von Groffs lived. I returned by the same route.

    By the way, I wound up marrying the girl.

    Forty years later I’m still married to the same lady and still riding, now a Kawasaki Vulcan cruiser instead of the two-stroke. I had been looking for a trip to take and it occurred to me to repeat the 1970 trip including the diversions through the towns, and see how things have changed.

    I joined the US Air Force in 1971 and, by some berserk malfunction of the normal tendency of the military to assign someone on the opposite side of the globe from where they request, I was assigned to March AFB, 80 miles away from my sweetie. During this time Lynn and I made several trips from California to my parent’s place in Cedar Crest and also during this time many of the towns were bypassed by completing the freeway around them, although we still made trips over “old” US-66.

    While I covered the same ground going and coming in 1970, today I prefer to do loop trips, outbound and inbound on different routes. Hence I resolved to duplicate the 1970 trip from Cedar Crest to Tujunga and then to follow historic Highway 66 on much of the return trip.

    Day 0

    I now live in the Jemez Mountains, 150 miles from my original beginning in Cedar Crest. A search on the Internet turned up a bed and breakfast that is, remarkably, less than a quarter mile away from the folks’ house (as the crow flies, at least). I made a reservation and planned to start the trip from there.

    Part of the purpose of this trip was to observe and comment upon the changes to my old “stomping grounds” so I drove by many of my old haunts. I knew that the area was going to grow; it’s a prime place to live and raise a family. But, wow! Some places, then large fields, now were large subdivisions. I tried to find the road back into an area where we used to hunt and drive dirtbikes. Wall to wall homes now.

    The summer that I first got my drivers license I drove all over the area including a near-daily ride to Sandia Crest. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to repeat the ride. The road winds up the east side of the mountain, rising from piñon and juniper through pine then into spruce and fir forests. Many curves and light traffic; a rider’s dream. I had to limit my time at the top of the mountain as a thunderstorm was threatening and there weren’t many things taller than me on the mountain!

    The folks’ house looked the same and the ride up the road gave me a momentary rush of nostalgia. It was the same, but different. An arroyo where I used to ride my dirtbike is now full.

    I still had some time before dinner and I took the road north to San Pedro then turned east on 344. Family friends had lived in San Pedro back in the 1920s when it was a booming mining town. By the 1960s there was nothing left but the concrete foundations of some of the buildings. Today it was difficult to find even those.

    This road loops around the Lone Mountain through Cedar Grove to Edgewood. There was no traffic and the light rain only reassured me that I was self-contained and ready for anything. My bike was running perfectly and I was comfortable in seating and control. My motorcycle was ready for this. I was ready for this.

    At the B&B, I visited with a couple of my fellow lodgers. I was curious what had led people to stay overnight a stone’s-throw from where I grew up. In both cases the Internet had led them here, outside of Albuquerque yet near to all of the attractions that the city had to offer.

    One fellow was a bit older than me, probably in his mid-60s. He had made a successful career in engineering and, now that he was retired, he was looking for a more creative outlet. In his case he was learning to play the bass guitar.

    I mentioned that his story had many similarities to mine. I, too, have had a career in engineering and am now trying to develop my own creativity, writing in my case. Oh, and when I was a teenager I played the bass guitar.

    Day 1

    After breakfast I packed up and followed the road to Highway 14. My trip had begun.

    North 14 (I still call it North 14 although it is just Highway 14, now. Hell, I remember when it was North 10!) is now a 4-lane road serving the entire East Mountain area. The freeway wasn’t there in 1970 so I followed old 66 through Tijeras canyon.

    I don’t have any direct memories of leaving that morning in May of 1970. I probably would have grabbed some breakfast then left early to avoid embarrassing questions from the family. My duffel bag was strapped on back and I followed the dirt road to the highway. The trip down North 14 and 66 would have been familiar as I rode it each day to school. The freeway through Albuquerque was complete and old-66 connected at Carnuel. I crossed town to the West Mesa where the freeway ended and the four-lane began.

    The freeway through Albuquerque had been completed in 1970 and now as then I entered at the Carnuel interchange.

    Despite the giant casino, the bridge over the crossing of the Rio Puerco on the frontage road was still there. They removed a similar girder-style bride over the Rio Grande when they built the upgraded road at Otowi and I always thought that was mistake.

    Over the years I’ve driven past the pull-out for Laguna Pueblo and never stopped. Well, I finally stopped and took a couple of photos. It seems we’re so busy nowadays that we never stop to look around at what we’re passing.

    The lava flows near Grants are always interesting. At the first exit the freeway would have ended so I turned to drive through town.

    I remember driving past the lava outside of Grants. Grants was the first diversion from the freeway and I drove down main street.

    About this time I encountered a fellow motorcycle traveler. He introduced himself as simply “Stogie” and he was riding a Honda 160 that had seen better days. We were headed the same direction and resolved to ride together.

    Grants today is depressing to drive through. Many old buildings are still standing, the land not worth their destruction. Some of this can be blamed on the collapse of the uranium mining, but many of these buildings would have been standing when I passed by forty years ago.

    Part of what I was looking for on this trip was the heart of Old 66 and deep in that heart were the Whiting Brothers. They ran a series of gas stations and hotels along the highway and the secret of their success was name recognition. For example, few autos of the 40s and 50s had air conditioners. The Whiting Brothers rented window-mounted units that provided cool air via evaporation of water when traveling at highway speeds. The driver would return the air conditioner to the Whiting Brothers station at the other end of the desert for a return of deposit. They placed their businesses in well thought-out locations and I photographed an abandoned gas station and hotel at Continental Divide. Big trucks were light on power at the time and it made sense to approach the highest part of the road with empty tanks for the least amount of weight.

    As near as I can remember I had never been west of Bluewater on I-40 with the folks, so I probably had a rush of excitement as I passed that point. Uncharted Territory! Here be monsters!

    Gallup was a completely different world than Grants. Very few abandoned buildings, many businesses. Most old service stations closed in the 70s and 80s but the buildings continue on as florists, pottery shops and even auto repair mechanics.

    In Grants Stogie made a phone call while I topped off the gas and checked the oil. “Good news,” he said as he returned. “I got us lunch!”

    We rode our bikes up the hill into Rich Folks Land. Stogie knew this guy from college and they were great pals. I kept quiet and admired the kitchen while Stogie and young Mr. Kennedy chatted up. Then it was time to push on.

    After lunch I re-entered the freeway and headed toward Holbrook. I had to laugh just as I was leaving New Mexico. Chief Yellowhorse’s tourist spot is still in the same place on the border and doesn’t look like it’s changed a single bit in 40 years.

    From the count of the mile markers, it appears that the knife-edge of the bluff over Chief Yellowhorse’s place is the state line and indeed it is quite close to there.

    Just inside the border, traffic is diverted through an official looking building. I knew that I was “clean” and had all of my required paperwork (although I didn’t know at the time that I could have been held as a “minor in flight”). I asked Stogie what was going on. “It’s just an agriculture inspection station. They’re looking for contaminated fruit. You got any contaminated fruit?” I assured him that I didn’t and we were whisked through with the minimal amount of hassle.

    I was quite surprised to see how many people live in the villages off the freeway through the Navajo lands. More people in the world and they’ve got to live somewhere.

    The freeways are fast and the miles roll by and as I approach Holbrook I recall the flat tire 40 years ago.

    I had been losing air in the front tire for some time but had been able to keep it going with a fresh fill at each gas stop. This time, though, the distance and, probably, the heat seemed to speed up the process so I finally pulled over at one of the washes with a flat. I had tire tools with me and a little tiny air pump that could fill a football before the first quarter was over, but a bit slower with a tire. “Take the whole wheel off,” Stogie said, “And I’ll take it to the truck stop in Holbrook.” I unbolted it and he threw it on the back of his bike and took off. Wasn’t but a short time later that I began thinking things like, “I don’t know this guy, I don’t know his real name or where he’s from.” My bike was totally disabled almost 200 miles from home. I had only a vague idea of where I was and no one else who cared for me knew even that. My fears disappeared when I saw Stogie a while later crossing the median with my tire in his lap. I quickly remounted the tire and we drove on to Holbrook.

    I wanted to thank Stogie for running the tire but I wasn’t old enough to buy him a drink like in the movies so we settled for a coke in a diner. There he broke the news to me that he was stopping his ride here. His engine was using a lot of oil and making some noise so he didn’t figure it would make it across the desert. His plan was to go to the truck stop and find some trucker who had room for him and his bike to haul to LA.

    I thought of Stogie as I came into Holbrook. It was easy to spot the diner where we parted; it’s even still a diner. There was a bulletin board at the SUB at UNM where people could advertise or try to connect with other students. I left a couple of messages there when I attended a couple of years later but never heard back from him. Makes you wonder sometimes about people who just drop into your life at the right time to help you out of a jam then disappear forever.

    Holbrook looks hale and hearty, lots of small businesses, very few closed buildings. Saw some buildings that would have had to have been here 40 years ago but I didn’t remember directly, aside from the diner.

    Over all, most of the places that I visited on this trip were much better off in 2010 than in 1970. Recessions come and go but the country continues to grow.

    The wind had been getting steadily stronger, coming at me just to the left of head-on, and the electronic highway signs gave warning of high wind alerts ahead. My windshield cut a lot of the force but some of the gusts felt like they were going to rip the helmet off of my head. It was hitting in massive gusts, pounding me as I went.

    When one rides a motorcycle the bike leans to turn. With the pressure of the wind I would lean to the left to counter its force simply to go forward. Suddenly the wind would stop and instead of countering the force I would be turning to the left such that I had to lean to the right to recover the correct direction. Then the wind would strike again and, leaned to the right, I would feel like I was going to go down on that side. I would then have to balance my propagation down the road to the pressure of the wind on the side and lean back to the left into the wind. Repeat constantly. A very tiring process, to say the least, and not exactly safe as the pounding of the gusts reduced the control of the bike considerably.

    The effort with the flat tire used up much of my daylight and I rode westward into a setting sun. Winslow was off the freeway but was a divided road so that I could keep ahead of slower traffic. However, the climb into Flagstaff was in the dark and pushing a bit of a headwind. I discovered that I could find a respite in the wake of the trucks and spent as much time as I could there until they slowed for the hills and I went around. The truckers seemed to be cool with that and I kind of felt like they were looking out for me.

    I got my first true feeling of nostalgia when pulling into Winslow off of the freeway. There was a park there to welcome travelers and it had not changed very much in 40 years. I recognized a couple of former gas stations that I had fueled up in the past.

    Back into the wind and onto the freeway.

    I passed Two Guns and Twin Arrows, gas stations and curio shops that, even in 1970, were closed.

    Two Guns and Twin Arrows are relics of the Old 66, spots on the highway to get some gas, some water for the radiator and maybe buy a bit of Indian jewelry. From the style of gas pumps at Twin Arrows it must have made a renaissance in the 80s but it’s nothing but an abandoned building covered in political graffiti today.

    I took an early exit in Flagstaff showing Historic 66 and it was a relief to get out of the wind.

    The ride through the town was uneventful and I checked into my motel.

    Although I had intended to camp I arrived in Flagstaff well after dark. I had a chum from high school, Bruce, who had moved to Flagstaff so I gave him a call, begging a place to sleep. He said “No problem” and gave me directions to his house.

    Most of the memories of my stays with Bruce, both going and coming, are lost. I do recall the evening of my outbound trip.

    Bruce was playing in a garage band and they had rehearsal that night. They were jamming without their singer and invited me to take place. I, of course, jumped at the chance. I didn’t know the words of a lot of songs and would do occasional improvisations as necessary. They played the Cream song “Spoonful” and, as I thought that the lyrics were obscure references to drug culture (they probably were), I made up my lyrics to reflect this. I was asked to tone it down (the parents were listening).

    Part of the intent of this trip was to converse with my fellow travelers to get their insights of the road. After dinner I set a chair up outside of my room, poured myself a drink, lit a cigar and sat down to interface my fellow man. No one showed up. There was a Harley across the parking lot but I never saw its rider. Quite a bit later on a fellow showed up who was highly agitated and probably quite drunk. I decided that my interaction resolution didn’t include agitated drunks and I kept my distance from him.

    I looked at the bike as I sat there and noticed something interesting. When I was a teenaged motorcycle enthusiast I often encountered parents and relatives of my friends who were glad to tell their motorcycle tales. One guy talked about the day he had ridden all day in a crosswind and when he got to where he was going he saw that the front tire of his bike was so worn that it was showing threads on one side. At the time I took it as another “tall tale.” But I had put a new tire on the front of my bike in preparation for this trip and the right side of the tire still had the nubs. The right side and not the left as the nubs on the left were completely worn down. I had been fighting the wind from the left all day and I now had a new appreciation of old motorcyclists and their “tall tales.”

    When the drink was gone and the cigar was cold, I went back inside.

    To be continued.

  • Pinky Out! The Fancy Beer Challenge — Part 2

    Swiss decided to challenge me again.  This time instead of the worst possible beer I could get my hands on I was to locate the absolute snootiest of snooty beer.  Unfortunately, I might have painted myself into a corner with the deadline in this one. I told him I would have it finished before the Beer it Forward piece.

    This might have been my fault.

    Up first was the second most interesting thing I could find at AJ’s, a local high-end grocer.  By high end grocer I mean in the same neighborhood as a Catholic high school with yoga pants wearing Catholic schoolgirl types.  Why the second most interesting? The most
    interesting thing was barrel aged Old Rasputin and quite frankly I already did an article on that one.  The best part was I actually wrote that one at work (Rufus).

    This one to put it bluntly is quite good.  It reminds me a lot of a Belgian quadrupel ale with a lot of spices we typically associate with fall.  I would probably enjoy it more if it wasn’t 115 degrees. Still, I give The Brurey Autumn Maple a solid 4 pinky’s out of 5

    I woke up with a splitting headache.  Slightly nauseated. Loss of appetite.

    “You’re not hungover.” Sugarfree said. He had settled himself in a lotus position on top of a rock conveniently placed in the sun.  A small mirror was in the dirt with grayish black powder strewn about its surface. He appeared to be meditating but when most people do that they normally aren’t twisting their nipples.  I hesitated to ask why he felt the need to do this naked.

    Quite frankly I didn’t want to know.

    I noticed a small pile of spent 5.56 NATO ammunition near our campground.  Next to Sugarfree’s meditating rock I found more empty cartridges along with their corresponding projectiles.  They looked like they had been pulled out using teeth as a vice.

    “What happened last night?”  I asked.

    “STEVE SMITH HAPPENED.”  Sugarfree replied.

    “I gathered that.”  I said. Sheepishly examining my ass.  Nothing out of the ordinary there.

    “You shot him six times.  It left a convenient trail for us to follow.”  Sugarfree explained. He opened his eyes. You did the worst thing you could possibly do to STEVE SMITH.”

    “…shoot him?”

    “You frustrated him.”

    “Oh…goody.”

    “That’s why I took the pews from your assault pew pew thingy and snorted the pew powder inside.”

    “Of course you did…did you do that with all 210 rounds I had?”

    Sugarfree stood atop his rock, turned around and bent over.  He let out a hearty cough while coming to a squat.  The procedure allowed me to infer he ate at few bullets.

    “37.”  He answered.  It then occurred to me I could’ve just checked my bag to see if he stole all my ammunition.  “I got full.”

    *Honk* *Honk* *Honk*

    “What the hell?”  I asked. Looking down the trail I noticed a plume of dirt approaching us quickly.

    “This just got better.”  Sugarfree explained. “He found us!”

    “Who found us?”

    A Subaru Forester came to a abrupt stop in front of our campground.  A skinny hipster wearing a dirty, vintage t-shirt and skinny jeans stepped out.  He turned and looked in Sugarfree’s direction but stopped abruptly.

    “Did any of you guys call an Uber?” He asked.

    “In the middle of the woods?”  I was confused.

    “Oh okay.  He told me you’d ask me that.” The hipster said.

    I noticed he was still behind the door.

    “Who told you that?”  I asked, still confused.

    “The man who gave me this.”  The hipster reached into the Subaru and pulled out a box.  In his haste, he
    revealed he had a bloody stump, wrapped with a linen dressing.

    “What happened to you?”  I asked.

    “He told me you would need a hand.” The Uber driver curled up into a fetal position and began to cry uncontrollably.  I opened the box to find a soft, white hand still holding an iPhone inside a red, silicone case with a white cross.

    “Judas Titty Fucking Priest.”  I said out loud, to myself.

    “He told me…you’d…say that too.” The Uber driver managed to get out between sobs.

    Sugarfree drummed a catchy tune across his stomach then twiddled his fingers in the air.  “Narrowed gaze…”

    The phone then began ringing in the classic bluegrass ringtone.

    _____

    “Hi, this is Anna with Swiss Corpse International Industries, how are you today?”  Swiss got a new receptionist. This one was particularly bubbly.

    “It’s pronounced core…”. I said flatly.

    “Please hold, I’m going to try to patch you through…I’m still learning this so in case we get disconnected call 312–“

    “No!  Don’t you fucking do it, do not give out his number! HE WILL MURDER YOU!”

    “Connecting you now.”  Swiss always has the sweetest receptionists.  It’s terrible he could never find one that meets the Swiss standard of perfection.

    “…Damnit mex.  You have any idea the pickle you have me in?”  Swiss was yelling, I pulled the phone away from my ear, slightly.

    “I’m in the woods with Sugarfree, and he lost his pants.  Do tell me how your date with the Uber driver went…did he give a reach around?”  I turned to check on Sugarfree, and found that he had gathered a number of small rocks arranged into a circle.

    “No.  Why do you think I told him to give you a handy?”  The fucker had me cornered.

    “Fine.  Go.” I said.  Sugarfree had gathered a surprising amount of kindling.

    “You have any idea how long you two have been out there?”

    “No, but I bet your watch has a date complication that confirms how long I’ve been gone.”

    “You’re damn right it does.  Without a date complication a Rolex Datejust is just a ‘just’ now isn’t it?”  For a guy that hates puns and the people that make them, he was on a roll.  Even if that one was terrible. “I didn’t think this ‘ass-dog’ thing would be such an issue for you.  So you need to get something straight….”

    Swiss was gonna straighten me out.

    “Okay…”

    “I just found the most awesome watering hole.”

    “Okay…”  I said as I noticed Sugarfree got a small fire going.

    “You should see the chick that works there.”

    “Okay…”

    “Okay?  She has an unbelievable ass.”

    “Okay…”

    “Don’t ruin this for me!”

    “Okay…sorry…?”  I gave Sugarfree an inquisitive look.  He began to examine the Uber driver’s hand.

    “You should be sorry, now I’m down three posters this week.  I’m sending Warty your way.”

    “Warty!”  Sugarfree started jumping up and down, clapping with the Uber driver’s severed hand.  I turned away since I rather not see his junk bouncing along with him.

    “What?  Why? I have this Tiny-ass Dog thing down.”  I tried my best to be confident.

    “Bullshit.  You have any idea what the commenters said last week?  We had them bitching about random shit from jezebel and jihadwatch.  Then they started to Gilmore threads on corrupted titty-links. You have any idea what happens if you don’t channel the Saturday day drinking rage towards something that’s tangentially related to beer?”

    “…..no.”  If said yes, I feared he’d send me another hipster that would be paid to cut his own heart out and eat it in front of me.  At this point Sugarfree had the Uber driver’s hand on a spit over the fire.

    “Warty is of approximate size to STEVE SMITH.  You have the best tracker, and the best possible deterrent.  Make.This.Happen.” The call was over as quickly as it started.

    “What are you doing?” I asked Sugarfree.

    “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”  Sugarfree replied.

    “I have a granola bar in my bag….” I lied.  I ran out of food several days ago, and if I had any I wasn’t about to give any to Sugarfree.

    “I can’t eat that.  I’ve totally gone Keto.”  He turned the hand over. “Sugarfree isn’t just some moniker, it’s a lifestyle.”

    _____

    We followed the blood trail.  Sugarfree was right, and since I did get a few hits it was much easier to track STEVE SMITH.  The only problem was the drops became fewer and fewer, as if he had some kind of magical healing ability.

    “He has a magical healing ability.”  Sugarfree said.  He really needs to get out of my head.  “It makes him hard to track.”

    “Seriously, you need to stop doing that.  I don’t know how I think of something and then you immediately answer me back with a relevant response.”  I said.

    “I hear voices.  Sometimes they sound like you.  Other times they are just voices.” Sugarfree replied back ominously.

    “Are you hearing any others?”

    “Just yours.”

    A soft rustling in the bushes ahead got the attention of the two of us.  I couldn’t make out what was behind it.

    “STEVE.”  I asked.  “Look we need to talk…man.  I’m not trying to hunt you or your kin.”  I flipped the safety off.  “I just want the tiny ass dog back.”

    More rustling came from behind us.  I pivoted around in a low ready stance while Sugarfree kept spinning with his arms in the air.

    “Lets be reasonable STEVE.”  I knew there was nothing reasonable about that request.

    “Look.  If you shoot me. I’m going to have to break you, and I’d rather not do that, but I will if I have to.  You already made me miss my short workout for today, and I need to make up for it.”  The voice in the bushes responded.

    “WARTY!!”  Sugarfree started jumping up and down clapping.  Thankfully he found his pants a mile back.

    “Wait, you’re Warty?”  I asked.  That can’t be Warty.  This was a guy dressed like a Victorian-era explorer, monacle and everything.  “I was expecting somebody–”

    “Bigger?”  He asked.

    “Yes.  Bigger, balder, looks like he’s seen the inside of a gym.”

    “Its just my disguise.”  Warty explained.  “Sugarfree and I go a long ways back in tracking STEVE SMITH; going back years.  He’s not the type that will approach unless he thinks he has the upper hand.  He’s been lethal as early as eight months, and I do mean lethal. I’ve hunted most things that can hunt you, but the way he moves…”

    “He’s fast.”  Sugarfree interjected.  He began doing a dance reminiscent of the TechnoViking.

    “Cheetah speed. Fifty, sixty miles an hour if he ever gets out into the open, and he’s an astonishing jumper…”  Warty continued.

    “I’ve heard this somewhere before.”  I said.

    “He shows extreme intelligence, even problem-solving intelligence.  That one… when he looks at you, you can see he’s working things out. That’s why we had to feed him like that. He was attacking the fences when the feeders came…”

    “Like an electric fence?”  I asked.

    “That’s right, but he never attacks the same place twice. He was testing the fences for weaknesses, systematically. He remembers…”  Warty didn’t come up with this line.  He got that from somewhere.

    “He totally got that from Jurassic Park.”  Sugarfree did it again.

    “I told you to stop doing that.”

    “Stop what?”  Warty asked.

    “He does this thing where I think of something, and he responds to what I am thinking with an eerily appropriate response.”  I replied.  “GET OUT OF MY HEAD.”

    “Yeah, he does that.  You get used to it.”

    “The mind reading bit?  I’m supposed to get used to that?”

    “Don’t think of it as Sugarfree listening to your thoughts.  Its more like breaking the fourth wall, except the wall is your head, and you’re his audience.”  Warty explained.  “And his purpose is to use your thoughts to terrify you.”

    “What?”

    “It doesn’t matter.”  Warty said, working the massive bolt on his Holland and Holland “Bolt Action Magazine” rifle chambered in .375H&H.  “We have a sasquatch to find.”  He began waking quietly down the trail.

    “Dog.  We’re finding my little ass dog.”  I said.

    “Sasquatch.”

    _____

    “Sugarfree.  Quiet down.”  Warty said quietly.

    Darkness had fallen.  We were peeking over the edge of a berm.  I could just barely make out the form of the little dog under a bush.

    “If I make a break for it, I bet I can grab it and go.”  I whispered.

    “We can’t.”  Warty whispered back.

    “Why not?”

    “We’re being hunted….”  Warty whispered ominously.  Sweat began to bead across his brow as he flexed the massive muscles that worked his jaw.  His disguise was fading.  He turned quickly to me.  “GO!”

    Sugarfree made a break for it.  “AYE YA YIE!”

    “Not you!  Damnit.”  Warty said.

    We both turned and saw it….

    “Clever girl…..”  Warty whispered.  The cat slowly began to walk towards us, contemplating which one of us was easier to eat.

     

    STEVE SMITH LIKE NICE KITTY.  STEVE SMITH TAKE NICE KITTY HOME.  BY TAKE NICE KITTY HOME….

    The mountain lion struggled against STEVE SMITH’S massive, hairy arms and his massive hug.  It screeched like a housecat that got caught under a wheel well in the winter when it gets cold out and it wants to get warm from proximity to the engine.

    OOOH OOOH OOOH OOOH

    “This is messed up.  Let’s just get the dog and go.”  Warty said.

    _____

    We celebrated later at a hotel and discovered they had Alesmith Speedway Stout on hand.  It was a fantastic imperial stout that rounded out our evenings with intense notes of chocolate and coffee.   I gave it a solid 4.5 pinkies out of 5.  I then considered something doesn’t add up, as a hotel probably wouldn’t have this sort of thing on hand.

    “It’s only a plot hole if you don’t acknowledge the existence of the plot hole.”  Sugarfree said.

    “I told you to stop doing that.”

     

     

  • Masterpiece Cakeshop and the Search for Silver Lining

    This week, the Supreme Court (or SCOTUS, for the cool kids / kids who don’t like to type long words), released their opinion in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop V Colorado Civil Rights Commission.  Because it’s 2018 and up is down, white is black, and the Black Panther is an Alt-Right parable, SCOTUS rules that the Colorado Civil Right Commission technically lived up to their name and violated someone’s civil rights.  Kids, this is why you call your fundraiser the “Race for the Cure” not the “Walk for Cancer.”

    Everyone expected a bombshell, and most people think this decision was a dud.  Everyone was expecting something along the lines of ‘No, you can’t force someone to bake that cake.’  What we got instead was a ruling that said the Civil Rights Commission clearly hates religious people and therefor their finding is thrown out.

    I’m going to try to convince you that, for us weirdos, this may be a very important dud.  Well, no.  That’s too optimistic.  I’m going to try to convince you it should be a very important dud, but it probably won’t be.

    In broad strokes, Justice Kennedy wrote an opinion a few years ago requiring the government to recognize gay marriage.  He threw in some language that people with religious objections might be wrong, but they aren’t evil.  In standard Kennedy style, it was long on rhetoric and short on formal logic.  Which is OK.  It’s a style.  But it’s one that makes it easy to ignore the parts you don’t like.

    And boy howdy, did our finger-wagging betters ignore that part.  But Kennedy really meant it.  I’ll get back to that in a second.  First, a diversion.

    When thinking about history, context is king.  Why does the First Amendment call out freedom of religion separately and additionally with freedom to assemble?  Same reason we have the Second Amendment.  The Founders knew their history and knew what went down in the British Civil Wars.  What happened?  Well, lots of wars.  Some of it over state suppression of religion.

    And it was very clear to the Founders.  People will die for their religion.  Worse, they’ll kill their neighbors over it.  Better to take it off the table.

    Over the next couple hundred years, this has mostly worked out for us libertarian and libertarian-adjacent folks.  Sure, it’s not logically consistent to call out one kind of moral code and not another.  It probably riles up the kind of libertarians who can spell deontological on the first try.  But in the cause of liberty, I think religion has been a net positive.  Martin Luther was a professor of theology.  Martin Luther King was a reverend.  An open and vibrant market in churches leads to better churches and a more vibrant religiosity of the population compared to state religion.

    And, for the most part, we could rely on the legislative and executive branches of governments to protect generic mainline Protestant freedoms.  Sorry Catholics, no public schools or wine on Sundays for you!

    But the winds of change have been blowing, as anyone who read a newspaper after Obergefell could see.  Legislatures and executives are now more protective of the new mainline morality: left of center secularism.  The court, as we see in Obergefell, is good with this.  In fact, they push farther than the other branches sometimes.  How should we feel about this, as libertarians and libertarian-adjacent folk?

    I think in principle, it’s probably a net win for liberty if it’s handled as a limit on state power.  Let’s face it, “don’t shit on people with fringe theories of morality” is probably an abstract idea that we should be able to get behind.  We’ve got fringy theories sometimes.

    In practice, not so much.  We aren’t seeing left-of-center-secularism leading to restraint on government.  Instead, the whip is now lashing in a different direction.  Surprise, surprise: the left-of-center is now motivated by animus and using state power to score points in the culture war.  This is my shocked face.

    I said Obergefell was kind of rhetorical.  It was.  It was lofty and nice.  It was nice to people with deeply held religious opinions.  “Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here.”  Most people skipped right over that and made with the disparaging.  But they shouldn’t have.  See, Kennedy has a very particular and idiosyncratic idea about how the government should relate to the populous.  He thinks it shouldn’t be a tool of animus, used to beat down your political opponents.  Crazy, right?

    But this puts us in a funny spot.  We have two big decisions that should work together.  One says you can’t craft laws that oppress people just because your religion tells you to.  One says you can’t act in a way that oppresses people just because you think they are scum.

    I’m… I’m totally good with that.  If we could use that as the basis for some formal logic, that takes us places.  Polygamy laws were clearly put in place because people had religious differences with the Mormons and because people thought they were scum.  Lots of zoning is pretty clearly an effort to keep ‘those people’ away from us nice folk, for various values of those and nice.  Nixon started the drug war because he hated those long hair hippies always talking about peace and love and brotherhood and voting Democrat.

    Do I think this is going to happen?  Do I think SCOTUS is going to say that any of these rules were motivated by animus and should be thrown out?  Nope.  Kennedy isn’t all about that formal logic, and those in the know think he’s going to retire soon.  And this is a test that is somewhere between mostly impossible and impossible to apply.  All you have to do is mouth the right words if you are a public official.  But there’s worse principals than “you can’t use government to crap on people.”

    So I’m going to sit on my silver cloud here, and say that we are probably in a better place for liberty than we were last week.  Even if not by much.

  • Life of Pie: living next to an old graveyard

    Free street parking, moslty
    What is the meaning of life and death?

    I live in a fairly central area of one of the busiest cities in Europe. At the end of my street- well not mine per se – is a wall. If this seems totally unremarkable to you, it’s because it is. It is an old wall, fairly long and not particularly distinctive. It does not have a gate or any another entrance on this side, and above it all you can see is tree tops. Most people who pass the wall have no idea what is behind it, nor do they care.

    On the ehm… other side, so to speak, lies a quite old and mostly abandoned graveyard. Due to some peculiarity of human psychology, some people find living next to a graveyard unsettling. I am not one of those people. Being mostly abandoned, it is little more than an unkempt park, siting on 7 hectares of quite prime real-estate (600-800 dollars per square meter or maybe more) and containing some 30 thousand graves. The cemetery is no longer active, so you don’t have to see funerals –maybe one or two a year –  or mourners walking about as the graves are old and the families are no longer living in Romania. The cemetery is called Cimitirul Evreiesc Filantropia, meaning of which I assume you can eventually figure out without translation.

    For most of my life I paid it little mind. It had, off course, some perks being an area with no buildings, it was quiet and provided glorious, available street parking, which in a city like Bucharest can be a godsend, so to speak. Usually the departed don’t drive, although they may still have a valid license and, on occasion, vote.

    Good contrast with the architectural marvels of communism
    A good background is important

    It is one of 3 Jewish cemeteries in Bucharest and, according to the caretaker, 832 recorded in Romania – although many have been destroyed under the Antonescu regime. This is an Ashkenazy graveyard, build in 1865 on the site of an old quarry. The other two, known as Giurgiu cemetery and The Spanish cemetery –incidentally on much less valuable real-estate – are Sephardic. Giurgiu is the largest of the three – 14 hectares – and second largest in Romania after the one in Iași.  I always though Ashkenazy versus Sephardic to be purely a geographical designation, a Jewish appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) if you will, but the cemeteries seem separate.

     

    Sometime this year it occurred to me that I had never visited it to see what is beyond the wall. In cities like Paris, visiting cemeteries was a thing people did. I decided to change this, and one sunny Saturday morning I went to the entrance, only to find it closed. I did not know cemeteries close, but this one did, every Saturday. So on a sunny Sunday morning, I went for a visit. At first I was not even sure this was possible, to visit it I mean, but it was, with only the request that I wear a small round hat. And since I visited and took some pictures – not particularly good ones, mind you, I only have my phone and am a bad photographer – I thought I would share. So basically trigger warning – pictures of cemetery and graves and stuff, for those who do not want to see such things. Now, normally, I would not make a post on a cemetery, but found this one interesting.

    After the entrance is the chapel. Beyond the main alley started. It was long – 1 kilometer or so- and looked like it got lost in distance and vegetation.

    Walking down it, it had a sort of story atmosphere, as it became progressively less maintained and wilder as you moved along.

    The further back, the older everything was and the alley narrowed

    Towards the end it was barely there until it stopped in thick bushes

     

    Here and there, there are small stone benches, usually with the name of the person who donated it.

    One thing I noticed, unlike orthodox graveyards, there were no real crypts or mausoleums build by rich families. There were some more elaborate graves, but mostly just had a grave stone.

     

    I noticed two kinds – simple stone and black marble or granite, the second ones having survived the passing of time much better. I saw no white marble or lightly colored granite.

    About half way down the alley, there is a monument to Jewish soldiers who died in the Romanian army in World War 1, 119 of which are buried in this cemetery. Until this monument the cemetery looked at least somewhat maintained. After this the wilderness started. The main alley was narrower and in poorer repair.

    While the main alley still looks somewhat taken care of, on the sides of it the cemetery looks quite abandoned

     

    From the main alley there are, as expected, there are side paths. This were sometimes paved, but mostly not and often just look like a path in the forest. Some of the gravestones were completely lost in the vegetation.

     

     

    In the wooded area you can occasionally see really old stones lost in the thicket.

     

    There is an area which I could not access, the vegetation was to thick. I was told that at the center there is a pond. Not originally there, but formed when the ground sank as a result of movements caused by the building of a subway line nearby. It dries durring summer, but in the autumn to spring period, part of the graves are underwater. I could not get a shot of this so just took a geneic picture of the area.

     

    It is, all things considered, a very peaceful and contemplative place. Walking through it, you get to places where you almost cannot hear the traffic, something rare in Bucharest. And, unlike other graveyards in which there are always groups of people walking about, I was alone here and did not see another person besides the caretaker at the entrance. This may be a bit sad or not, depending how you look at it. The families of the people here probably moved on long ago, to the US or Israel or some other country and in a sense, many areas of the graveyard seem long forgotten. Time has moved on. It can be depressing or somewhat comforting, depending on how you look at it. So I will leave it at that, maybe with just a few more pictures.

     

     

     

  • On Political Extremes (And What to Do About Them)

     

    A Polarizing immigrantIt seems the word of the last two years, if not the last decade, is “polarizing.” The media runs countless stories about how polarized the country has become, with each segment of the media casting political opponents as the cause of the polarization. I do not deny that some people in our society espouse extreme or outrageous viewpoints; such is a known risk when freedom of speech and freedom of conscience make up the framework of our governing philosophy. But despite a few oddballs and whack jobs, I think we find that most people, whether conservative or progressive, hold beliefs that are not irrational. The polarization, then, comes from opponents misrepresenting the other side’s views to their own bases. So rather than finding common ground to have a dialogue we are left with hysterical screaming in defense of or against some view or another. This is my attempt to cut through some of the screaming to help each side understand the other a little better in three specific areas: immigration, education, and wealth/poverty gap.

    I read a story like this about MS-13 attracting girls to their ranks–and yes, it’s Salvadorans and not Mexicans–and the very real truth is that there are violently-minded people illegally immigrating to the United States. To deny that is naïvete at best and utter mendacity at worst. Some of these girls are driven to MS-13 or affiliated gangs because of some past trauma, but only a dyed-in-the-wool progressive would argue that assimilation to American culture radicalized them.

    Still, not every immigrant that comes to this country illegally is ready to behead someone or stab a man 153 times with fellow gang members watching and laughing. In fact, many come here in spite of the danger that illegal entry presents because the opportunities continue to be far better than what they can achieve in their countries of origin. Even the risk of deportation and a lifetime ban from re-entering the United States (which means leaving other family and even offspring behind) does not deter many who just want to provide for themselves and their families. A new documentary series on Netflix called Ugly Delicious, produced by renowned chef David Chang, explores this very issue in its second episode on tacos.

    In a similar vein, but on the topic of education instead of immigration, my wife and I were discussing some of the students in her class last week. She seems to have quite a few bad apples this year, but one girl in particular stands out. This girl failed sixth grade last year and was actually held back to repeat the sixth grade again (shocking in Chicago Public Schools!), and is now in danger of failing again. My wife says the girl’s mom has to work 2-3 jobs and crazy hours just to provide for her daughter, and the mother was in tears about what to do since she can’t be home to watch the girl do her homework every night. The girl attends a magnet school but chooses to hang out after school with kids that go to the much worse neighborhood school. Basically, the girl is a textbook case of total apathy toward education (and life in general), even with a mother who wants her to become something more.

    Many people believe education is so important that it should be provided for free to students at taxpayer expense. And I agree that education is vitally important. But progressives who demand public subsidizing of education deny the existence of students like the one in my wife’s classroom. When my wife has to focus more attention on this girl and other students who are not interested in learning, it holds back the potential of many others in the class. The “Education is a Right!” crowd would have us believe that every student has an innate desire to learn and the only thing preventing them from doing so is a lack of money or profit-seeking charter schools. (In fact, the latter may actually address the needs of apathetic students more by giving them a school to be proud of. See The Ron Clark Academy, for example.)

    I think the other side, however, plays up the apathy or entitlement a bit too much. There are plenty of students who grow up in homes where education is not valued, but with the right teacher or educational environment they could thrive. Unfortunately, our system rewards teachers based on tenure and not on merit, creating a structure that chews up and spits out young and inspiring teachers who can reinvigorate apathetic students with a passion for education. Meanwhile, thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of jaded teachers clock in at 7:30 and clock out at 2:30 just so they can collect a paycheck and employee benefits that are funded by the taxpayer, and care little for the time and attention it takes to nurture a student’s desire for learning.

    With public education, most families are at a complete loss when assigning value to their kids’ education because they do not have any direct costs. On the other hand, they know how much their groceries cost; they can see how expensive refueling the car is. They even know, for the most part, how expensive a new car or cell phone is (although there are a lot of hidden fees in those contracts that can ensnare the unsuspecting buyer). But when it comes to education, people have accepted the belief that education is “free,” and therefore they assign no value to it. It’s just something one has to do, going through the motions from K-12 and beyond because society tells us its important.

    A final example of the polarizing extremes that people ascribe to their opponents comes from personal finances. One side believes that all wealth is inherited and every millionaire only got where he or she is by stepping on others. Dave Ramsey, on his national radio show, disproves this theory regularly with a segment he calls “The Millionaire Theme Hour.” He asks millionaires–those whose net worth is over one million dollars–to call in and asks a series of questions about how they obtained their wealth. Only a tiny fraction of callers received any inheritance, and for those who did it was a paltry sum from a family member who died well after they were already self-made millionaires. By and large, the secret to success is, wait for it… spending less than you make!

    The other side, however, categorizes the poor and downtrodden as lazy, dumb, or victims of divine judgment. There is a common perception that because most successful people have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, anyone who is struggling must not be working hard enough. Although free markets and laissez faire government offer the best economic opportunity for people to rise from nothing to something, reality intrudes on that idealistic worldview in that some people just get bad breaks. Whether they are immigrants whose options are limited because of their legal status, or they come from a family of under-educated individuals, or they just have unplanned expenses continue to assault their monthly income, life has plenty of people who can’t get ahead.

    Ultimately, the solution to all of these situations–immigration, education, poverty–lies not in either of the extremes, but in looking past the collective and at the individual. A system that cares more about enabling hungry, driven, and dedicated individuals to thrive will prosper far more than one that seeks only to sustain a lower class in poverty. If we focus on providing incentives to make good decisions rather than making decisions for others, we will prosper. This means that some people will continue to make bad decisions, and we have to be okay with that. We–as individuals–can show them grace; we can show them compassion and mercy; we can even show them charity and generosity. But if we–as a society–continue to enable people to coast instead of strive to succeed, everyone suffers.

  • A Tale of Two Systems

    I’ve had both of my hips replaced with titanium implants. My friends and I joke about being a cyborg and being part-Terminator. Laughter is indeed medicine. I had my right leg done in the States with private insurance and the left done in Korea, which has universal health care. This is my tale.

    I was a few months away from being 25 when I first noticed a problem. I had been in the States visiting family and back flew to Korea to start my new contract. Literally the day that I arrived I started to feel a tinge of pain when I put weight on it. I assumed it was the stress of travel and schlepping all of my luggage around.

    I used to run 3-5 miles a day and naturally assumed it was related to that. Everyone who runs is used to little tweaks and pains. My limp increased and I just dealt with it. People kept telling me to go to the hospital. I figured it would go away and rebuffed their advice. After six months of existential pain with every step, I figured it was time to see the doc.

    It only took a simple X-Ray. The doc sat me down and showed me the film. My femoral head had a noticeable dark spot on it. He told me that I needed to have my hip replaced. With cool composure I asked about the details. Turns out that the blood vessels in my femur had closed off and the bone wasn’t getting oxygen. Necrosis, he said. The bone had literally died. The pain I felt was my body weight slowly crushing the bone into itself.

    He says the left hip has the same problem but it’s not as advanced.

    Outlook: not bright

    Most people assume that I had been hit by a car when I tell them about my hips. I tell them the docs told me it was idiopathic. This may be true, but I think I have an idea. But that theory’s for me.

    Cut and dry, it simply had to be replaced. It wouldn’t ever go away, and eventually would catastrophically shatter.

    I got into a cab and tried to digest this. I called into work to get the day off. It also so happened that that was the day my parents were arriving to visit me. I fought off my emotions in the taxi. As soon I shut more apartment door I bawled my eyes out. I’ve never cried so hard. I collected myself and then collected my parents outside. It was pouring with rain, which felt fitting.

    We went to Seoul with my ex that weekend. I walked with them for miles that day, unable to hide my limp that I hadn’t told them about. They wanted to see a palace. I bowed out saying that I was tired and had already seen it. Truth was the idea of walking over gravel for a few hours was too exhausting to think about. We later got pizza. While I was in the bathroom my parents asked the ex what was wrong. To her credit she didn’t say, per my wishes.

    I flew back to the States to get the surgery done about a month later. I had three hour-plus one-on-one visits with the doc. He explained everything that was going to happen and what to expect. Being a young patient, he took a special interest in me. “This doesn’t happen to people as young as you,” he said. Not words you want to hear.

    I had to go to group meetings to get prepared for the operation and what I need to do afterwards and what I won’t be able to do. After the surgery I wasn’t supposed to bend my hip past 90 degrees. It might dislocate, they said. I was easily 30 years younger than everyone else present.

    Time for surgery. I was the first of the day and arrived early. I was given Valium and the nurses were very sweet. I was put under and don’t remember anything for the first 24 hours or so. I awoke in a spacious, private room. My bed was a lot of fun. I was pumped up with pain killers and felt incredibly stiff but no pain to speak of. I had a menu and could call at any time of day and get whatever food that I wanted. Having good food and calories were very important and comforting. This turned out to be very different than Korea.

    Perhaps I should explain the surgery. First they had to sever three thigh/ass muscles. Then they dislocate your hip. Then they saw about 6 inches of it off. They shove the implant down through the bone marrow and pop the new head into one’s pelvis. Then they screw it in place through the bone.

    Again, I don’t remember the first 24 hours. But I stayed at the hospital for three days and two nights. I don’t remember it being too unpleasant, other than how unpleasant being stuck in a hospital bed inherently is.

    I was released home and was given a boatload of pain pills. I was encouraged to get out and about as soon as possible. The abject swelling and stiffness is hard to explain. But I dutifully would go out and walk 100 feet and back to the house. When going on stairs, the rule is: Good Leg up first; Bad Leg down first. Also—always use the cane on the opposite leg. Movies get that wrong so frequently. I notice it constantly now, just like I’ve always noticed when someone is left-handed.

    I took my recovery very seriously. Eventually I got down to the end of the street. Then I went a block further. Soon enough I got to the nearby forest and tested myself walking over uneven trails. There was a real sense of accomplishment.

    After a month the pain was still there but certainly manageable. The stretches I had to do were a terrifying new flavor of pain. It’s hard to explain. Your entire body is saying that this movement is absolutely unacceptable. It was a cold, desperate pain. It felt like something was going to rip. That tends to dampen your enthusiasm to your new regime. I probably didn’t do them enough. It’s still very difficult to get my right leg over my left knee into Newspaper-Reading stance.

    I would say after six months my walking life was pretty much back to normal. No more running, though. No more jumping. They don’t know how long these will last on me because I’m not the average patient. But because I was young and fit they were encouraging. But they had no real answer. That I will almost definitely have to have another operation—one that I’m told is much, much worse– in x years is something that I try not to think about. It brings about feelings that I prefer to push out, given I have no control over them, I get sad when I make the mistake of dwelling on it.

    I flew back to Korea. My life went about pretty normally for six months or so. My ex would help me with my grueling stretches. And then, in 2014, I started to feel the same pain in my left leg.
    That was a fun day.

    I decided to do the second surgery in Korea. My retired mother flew out to be with me. The surgeon spoke English but I only talked to him for maybe a minute at time. If I spent 5 minutes total talking to him I would be shocked. But I did have a Guardian Angel as a nurse.

    And her name was….well I forget, sadly. She had studied in San Francisco and was my English aide throughout. She was the only competent person in the building. Every room had soap dispensers. She was literally the only one who used them. The only one. I’ll get back to that.

    I paid extra for a private room, because I couldn’t handle that shit. Everyone else was in rooms with 6-8 patients. Cloth curtains, noxious smells and Korean food that even the locals didn’t eat. I was prepped for the op and I was wheeled down to the theater.

    I got gassed and I went under.

    I woke up sometime later, groggy and unfocused. They started to wheel me out. The anesthetic wore off shockingly fast. As soon as I was wheeled out into the expansive main floor of the hospital, all of the pain hit my acutely aware brain.

    Torn muscles. Dislocated hip. Sawn off bone. Titanium thrust into my femur. Screwed back in.

    I am screaming in the hospital. I’m talking taking-a-Minie-ball-to-the-leg-at-Antietam screaming. I couldn’t control it. Couldn’t hear myself. Couldn’t think. I was wheeled in front of patients, women, children….and my mother.

    My mother had to hear her youngest scream like that. I’ve never talked to her about that moment and I never will. I can never forgive them for that. Never. Ever.

    We got into the elevator. Again, my mother present. The echoes of pain must’ve been haunting in that steel box. I’m glad I don’t really remember it. We got to my room. Instead of picking me up by the sheet I’m on, they grabbed me limb-by-limb and flop me into the bed.

    Then, and only then, did they inject me with more anesthetic. Let that incompetence sink it. Infuriates me to this day. Again, never, ever can I forgive.

    That sadly, was only the beginning of my troubles. I had tons of drainage tubes attached to the bed. All in all I spent 10 days tied to that fucking bed. Shackled. They had people come a few times a day to turn me over and hit my back to prevent bedsores, which I eventually did develop, but thankfully they didn’t become a problem. Hilariously, those back-slappers were the only people that wore gloves, even when dealing with my stapled wounds and drainage tubes. I’ll come back to that, as well.

    My mother was a saint. A Subway just opened up in Daejeon and it was really busy. I wanted actual food and she would wait in line for an hour to bring some comfort to her youngest. I liked getting her out of there. I didn’t like being so helpless and needing everything done for me. My friends wanted to visit and I told them no. I would visit them when I got out. I didn’t want to be seen like that.

    My humanity was spiraling.

    One thing made me happy. I would trudge along until 6pm. That was always the goal. Deal with the shit and you can make it to six. That’s when the Korean baseball games would come on. I don’t care about the teams here—I’d flip through channels 44-48 trying to find the best game. Whatever game was the most interesting, I would watch. For those 4 hours I knew I could kind of escape myself. And at 10:00 or 10:30 when the games ended, I had to deal with reality again. Cold, painful, lonely nights.

    I didn’t take a shit for 6 days. They started to get nervous and would give me laxatives every meal. Still, nothing. Sometimes I would think that I had a shipment to deliver and I’d get the bedpan. My mother would leave and I would painfully struggle to pick myself up enough to get it under me. Usually I had Top Gear on to distract me from the desperation. I had two days of false alarms. When I finally did take a shit it was hands-down the foulest thing my body has ever produced. Had the consistency of daub. The Mississippi Indians could’ve built a duplex with that load.

    I had to give that vitriolically foul deposit to my mother to deal with. Again, a Saint.

    A week after the op came Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

    Everyday I was wheeled out into the lobby to get my bandages dressed. But on this Day of the Lord, the doctors were off. Interns and graduate students only. They were going to remove my drainage tube. I was on my side, lying away from the two kids taking it out. I felt a pinch. They had just got back from their smoke break. Reeking of Marlboro, they fiddled around this inch-long incision in my lower ass. They were not wearing gloves.

    Then, all of a sudden, a lovely surprise. It turns out that that pinch I felt had nicked an artery. So there I am, lying on a hospital bed, in relative public, with blood spurting out of my ass with every heartbeat.

    I actually had some fun with this one. It didn’t hurt and I wasn’t really concerned. They called the doc and were frantically asking what to do. They applied pressure. Again. Their bare hands smoke-infused. Pressure was applied for about 5 minutes. They pulled away and breathed a sigh.

    To my great pleasure, the spurting returned!

    I was legitimately laughing at this point in time. This felt like a bit of my revenge. I wasn’t in pain and I was gleefully inconveniencing others for a change. Their white coats were splattered with blood. Felt like justice. More pressure was applied. Eventually the bleeding stopped. I’m glad my mom wasn’t there for that one. She wouldn’t have approved of my Grinch-like grin.

    After ten days of being locked to the bed (I was still attached when they wheeled me out to get new bandages), they finally let me out and into a wheelchair. To be able to read in the sun was a revelation. I got some upper body exercise speed-wheeling myself around the hospital. And I hatched a plan. I got a hold of some crutches. “Don’t walk” they said. Well, this wasn’t my first rodeo and I knew what I could handle. At night I would get down to the main entrance and crutch-walk my way out. This was a great time to pull the Foreigner Card. No one ever said anything to me.

    I went across the street to the 7-11, bought smokes and booze. Smoked a celebratory cig worthy of The Great Escape and went back in. I got loaded in my room and had fun for the first time in a very long while. I repeated this every night for the next four days. The satisfaction I got by taking back my agency was worth everything. Also, I had been dramatically weaned off the pain killers by this point in time. I felt like I was keeping up the tradition of getting drunk before/after battlefront surgery. Shit works, yo.

    After a total of two weeks I was allowed to leave that infernal place.

    My surgery in America came on insurance and cost $80,000. With our fantastic insurance (granted my mom was a teacher with a very strong union), our family was charged $674. I was in the hospital for 3 days and was pampered and taken care of. I was given dignity. I was given the tools I needed to recuperate on my own afterwards.

    In Korea the surgery cost me $6000. No idea what it actually cost to do. I was chained to a bed, humiliated, traumatized, was treated by monstrously inept staff (save, of course, for my Guardian Angel), and was given no pain killers to help with my recovery once I left the hospital. It was absolutely the worst fourteen days of my life.

    Now, to compare the two systems in terms of policy. The actual price tag in the States would legitimately be out-of-reach for the vast majority of people. Insurance mitigated that, however. I actually benefited from Obamacare by still being on my parents’ insurance. That’s why I did it there to begin with. My mom still doesn’t understand how I can be opposed to a program that actively helped me. Because it’s my mother, and she’s a Saint, I don’t follow up with an answer.

    In Korea, $6000 is attainable for most people, even if they have to take out a loan. The quality was absolutely atrocious, and it was very easy to see how they cut on the amenities in order to focus costs on actual medicine. That’s probably a good idea with their budget, but I learned that a lot of healing and getting better is being comfortable. Having good food, being in a clean place, not being in pain, having helpful nurses and staff, fundamentally helps you recover. It relieves your stress, the stress of your family, and the stress you feel from forcing your family to feel that stress to begin with.

    I’m not going to make a policy argument of the pitfalls and perks of these two systems. The purpose of this piece isn’t really for myself to get into the politics of everything. My point was to show what the same serious operation is like in one system versus another. They both have their pros and cons and I benefited from both of them in my own way. I’ll be plain and say that the best solution would be to have an actual market, which we all know doesn’t exist when it comes to health care. If you can afford the filet mignon and lobster, go for it if that’s what you’re in the mood for. If a buck McDouble is going to sate you, then that should be available for you as well. You should always have the option to choose.

    ***** For what it’s worth, the second surgery was in 2014 and I felt back to relative-normal six months later. I have been walking pain-free ever since, after having dealt with existential pain every step for over three years. I sometimes catch myself getting bitter about the things I can no longer do and what I’m facing in the future. But then I try to focus on how lovely it is not to deal with that pain anymore, and how modern technology saved me from an affliction that certainly would’ve left me direly crippled or dead a hundred years ago.

    Here’s to hoping further innovation and a bit of luck can help me keep walking for decades to come. Please, Washington, don’t get in the way.

  • Reviews You’ll Never Use: Texas Frightmare Weekend 2018

    Hello boils and ghouls, it’s your old pal the Cryptkeeper here…no wait, that’s not my name. Sorry, sometimes I get caught up in the moment.

    Though I gave up the regular movie review beat, I still thought I’d bang out an article like I did last year on our experiences at TFW. To celebrate, one of the below links will go to a hardcore porn site – the rest are safe. This is your NSFW warning. You’ll never know which one it is until you try. C’mon, don’t be a pussy.

    This one will be a bit different in content, since many of you would have already read my post on this from last year, and thus are already familiar with the context. For those of you who are new to the site within the past year, or didn’t read my previous write-up, in brief, TFW is the southwest’s largest horror convention, and my wife & I spend the weekend there every year.

    Like last year, I’ll have a few images in the text, but most all the photos will be at the bottom of the article. It’s mostly just pics of costumes & the stuff we bought, because almost all the celebrities this year charged extra for photos with them, and the few times I tried a creepshot, it came out terribly. The other photos are mostly terrible as well due to the fact that this is literally the only time of the year I ever take photos of anything, so please understand and forgive. The only ones I really regret it on are two cosplay photos of Tippi Hedren & Spawn, which were both good costumes but when I reviewed the pics afterward, you can barely see them due to bad backlighting. It was too crowded during the main hours to take shots, so I tried to snag a lot of them in the hotel lobby. Also as before, I had trouble formatting them into a row, so you’ll have to forgive me & simply scroll down the photos in a line at the end.

    The guest lineup this year was fabulous. They had all of the original cenobites (minus the chick from the first film, because she never does any conventions, ever – so the guest in her place was the chick from the second movie, which was still a good horror film). To round that group out, we had a *very* special treat – Mr. Clive Barker. He doesn’t do a lot of these kinds of things, so we were overjoyed. In addition to his prolific painting and film work, if you haven’t read any of his fiction, I highly recommend it. His Books of Blood is one of my favorite collected works of short stories ever. If you dig fantasy/horror short fiction, check it out, seriously.

    Also making appearances were Ron Perlman, Adrienne Barbeau, Billy Zane, Phil Fondacaro, Tommy Flanagan, Brad Dourif, Tom Savini, Matthew Lillard, all the kids from the new IT movie, Charles Band and a shit-load of people from the various Friday the 13th films. The Friday night party was themed Camp Crystal Lake, so they were heavy on those guests (as this is the 13th year of TFW). Since I’m honestly not crazy about that film series outside of the first two movies & a few creative kills, I didn’t much care about their presence. If you don’t recognize the names of anyone just listed, check the links – I promise you’ll recognize them or at least have heard of their work.

    The weekend got started off right, with Adrienne Barbeau flying in Thurs. night to attend a screening of Escape from New York at the Texas Theater, and do a Q&A afterward. The print they used was fantastic, better than my dvd, and Adrienne was an engaging speaker. She said she has done so much voicework that she has frankly forgotten most of it, and only recalls that she took some particular job once every year when some check shows up for $0.96 and has “Judge Dredd” written on the memo line (she was uncredited as the voice of the computer in that film). She tossed that out as the example, but said she just gets checks for tiny amounts every day for random old things she did. I thought this must be a strange thing, to go to your mailbox every day and be like, “Huh, I got 8 checks in the mail totaling $5.72.”

    So the next day the spousal unit & I took a half-day off of work & rolled into the convention in mid afternoon, though it doesn’t open until 6. On the plus side, in their fruit-infused water jug up front, the fruit was cut into the shape of skulls.

    Skull-melons
    “White people are fucking weird”. Also, wood.
    Stupid

    Also amusingly, the little cute Asian girls they have working there had to wear wound makeup and have silly horror accessories, like this photo of an attractive young lady with scissors sticking out of her head. I’ve often wondered what they think about that, because the racial breakdown of the con attendees is about 70% white, 25% hispanic, and the rest is miscellaneous. Like seriously, my wife is one of maybe 20 Asian people there actually attending, and I can always count the numbers of black folks on my fingers. I have no idea why that is, but it’s true. Less amusing was the eyeroll-inducing naming of the food on the menu. I mean come on, Trembling Turkey? Blood-Dripping Buffalo Wings? And what the fuck happened to the Southwest Shrimp Cocktail, didn’t warrant a new name because it’s already so awful?

    The convention started off poorly – it was so fucking crowded that Friday night, I panicked. This thing frankly outgrew the convention space last year, and this year was worse. We try to do signature hunting on Fri. night & Sun., when it’s less crowded. Well we spent an hour in line for Clive Barker, only to be told that he was leaving to do his scheduled photo shoot & wouldn’t return to the signature line that night due to feeling poorly.

    Yay

    So the first hour was a waste, but it kind of worked out. If you recall last year, we purchased a crocheted Count Orlock. Well the same vendor was there and she had a big crocheted xenomorph, but only one of them. She told us it had been a right bitch to make, and she was never going to make another one, so we pounced on it. If we hadn’t been forced to do a little browsing on Friday evening, I’m certain someone else would have bought it & then I’d have had to have killed my wife and myself, and possibly my extended family as well.

    5 of the 6 sides are now signed – four cenobites & Clive Barker

    We did get the rest of the cenobites, Adrienne, and Billy Zane that night. A few anecdotes – the cenobites, despite being English and therefore you’d think reserved, will talk your ear off, even if you’re actively trying to exit the conversation. Nicholas Vince, who played Chatterer, was dressed in nice proper business-formal attire, except for some weird Pinhead Hello Kitty cufflinks, and to his delight my wife was the first to notice them that evening. Of course it’s because she’s fucking Asian, so she saw the Hello Kitty shit immediately somehow.  Also, Barbie Wilde, the female cenobite, was selling her horror fiction books, and apparently is a very nasty-minded girl. Everything was a sexual innuendo or reference, and we all had a good laugh when, midway through our conversation, we could hear someone in another row (a worker, we believe, trying to repair something in a guest’s booth) said, “Damnit, I thought sitting in this chair would make it easier, but I think I was having more success on my knees.” Barbie, my wife and I all just looked at each other for a second before bursting out laughing. The photo you see is of the nice mahogany & etched brass puzzlebox we purchased to collect all their signatures on.

    Also true fact: Billy Zane was just a leeeetle-bit of a dick. The best line in Zoolander pertains to him; “You should listen to your friend Billy Zane – he’s a cool dude”. Well we purposefully waited until there wasn’t anyone in his line, so that we wouldn’t be holding anybody up, and I asked him, “Hey, I know this is a bit unorthodox, but could you possibly sign this, ‘You should listen to me – I’m a cool dude’?” He smiled and kind of laughingly said, “Absolutely not”, then just stared at us. We thought he was joking for a second, because he said it kind of jovially, but then he said, “So…you just want me to make this out to the two of you or what?” So we said sure, and that was that. I mean hey, celebrities don’t owe me anything, I know that. But perhaps a, “Sorry man I don’t do personalizations to that extent” could be used instead of, “Hahaha NO”. Anyway he seemed nice enough in every other way, so maybe he’s just sick of that request. He was in a tracksuit & cowboy hat, and so looked kind of like a Russian gangster.

    Phil Fondacaro’s line was short enough I was able to chat with him a bit. I asked him if it was just an outsider’s perception, or if there really were fewer opportunities for physically different actors like himself & Warwick Davis, with the advent of digital effects. He said absolutely, but it’s something of a mixed blessing because as he’s gotten older, and especially for someone who is physically limited to begin with, it’s a relief to not have to wear all the latex and costuming that he used to. A lot of the stuff that’s added in post now were the most cumbersome things to wear and act in, so the digital revolution isn’t all bad from his perspective. Of course the photo I got signed was of him as Vohnkar! And if you don’t get that reference, you’re no true child of the 80s.

    Saturday was given to drinking, shopping, and making merry. It still sucked, because I had to wake my ass up at 7:30 to get in line for Clive Barker. Keep in mind the convention didn’t open until 11. So over three hours I sat there, but was 10th in line and so assured a chance to meet the great artist. Still, it left me a bit depleted for the remainder of the day.

    We learned our lesson from previous years, and brought some beers, a bottle of bourbon (Larceny, which was very good for being as affordable as it was), and a bottle of Fireball. The hotel doesn’t care as long as you don’t get belligerently drunk – like David Arquette from a few years back. We were there and we saw bizarre things from a man still supposedly on the wagon. At least he drunkenly bought me a beer while we were both waiting at the bar. Anyway I attached a bunch of photos of all the shit we bought below, and some of the costumes we encountered.

    That evening we spent a bit of time in the karaoke party, & went to a screening of Takashi Miike‘s live action adaptation of the manga, As the Gods Will. Now granted I wasn’t exactly sober, or anything even really resembling sober, by the time I saw this thing, but I still have no fucking clue what was going on. A weird doll was playing red-light, green-light with a class of students, and when it caught them moving their heads exploded, then the survivors went to their gym & dressed as mice and a giant maneki-neko was eating them, and it just got stranger from there. We finished out the night hanging out with all our friends on the patio, and there was a dude giving away free cigars for some reason, so that went well with the last of my bourbon (yes, the bottle was killed, with the able assistance of a couple of our friends).

    Sunday was recovery day, so we went to the Ron Perlman panel. He’s a fun speaker – extremely foul-mouthed and self-deprecating. We snagged his signature and called it a weekend.  As of the time of my writing this (Monday evening), yesterday was the saddest day of our year. This is our biggest event, and we get to spend it with a lot of great friends, and get a lot of great merchandise and add to our already ludicrous collection of autographs. Monsters everywhere, blood and guts, toys, movies, games, it just doesn’t get any better for the dedicated horror fan. And now it’s a whole other year until it comes around again. Oh well, less than six months to Halloween.

    Love this shirt. I put this in just to trigger Old Man With Candy. “You all know me, know how I earn a living.” Great scene.
    This film stars a resident of Bronson, Missouri.
    Good costume tandem.
    I had no idea what the fuck this midget/child was dressed as.
    Sadly, they just don’t make movies like this anymore.
    This was sitting next to the coffee at the breakfast buffet.
    American Werewolf in London. Fucking awesome.
    A good group effort
    This is some monster from an anime I don’t watch, but he did a good job with it.
    Oddly enough we were in the market for a new shower curtain, so we picked this up.
    I purchased this shirt to use as evidence because it has an unauthorized use of my likeness.
    A Game of Thrones Super Friends print. The Wonder Twins are Jaime & Cersei. Check out how their Wonder Twin powers activate.
    A bunch of little Aliens figurines we bought
    My wife bought this shirt. I was so pleased with her, I gave her the gift of the penis that very night.
    Remember Mad Balls? I remember Mad Balls. Now they’ve come back in the general wave of nostalgia, and there are Aliens Mad Balls.
    Great Spawn costume. You can’t see it well, but the eyes do glow bright green.
    For some fucking reason, there was a ton of Halloween III merch everywhere. I have no idea why, nobody likes that movie. Or I guess it’s trendy to claim to like it.
    The maid from the first season of American Horror Story. Also, wood.
    Of course I bought this shirt.
    A pretty good female Pennywise. Also, wood.
    Sloth loves ink
    Andrew Lincoln stealthily infiltrated the convention
    Hottie Ash. Also, wood.
    I liked this shirt.
    Creepy random guy. It’d be great if he just showed up like that and didn’t know there was a horror convention going on.
    Oh you *know* I bought this movie.
    Succubus. Also, wood.
    I liked how the only part of her costume that glows is one little strip right beneath her eyes. Wood knot, however.
    Well she normally wouldn’t have bought a denim vest, but the damned thing fit like it had been tailor made for her, so fuck it, the wife picked this up.
    Mutilated Disney princesses. Wood knot, to both.
    It’s really a shame you can’t see this properly, because she really does have like four or five birds attached to this thing attacking her. Wood knot.
    This was a great heavenly Pinhead costume. The insert glowing heart really sold it. Kudos to this guy.
    The whole Game of Thrones Super Friends.
    Sadly, did not buy this movie.
    If you can tell what that creature with the one large yellow eye is at the bottom of the poster, I’ll buy you a cookie if we ever meet. *HINT* It was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid.
    It’s like the fuckers are purpose-designing posters to try and get me to leave my current job and apply with them.
    I appreciated that he did the whole costume head from the first movie. Very few Captain Spauldings go through that extra effort.
    Hard to see, but she has a super realistic werewolf baby. Wood knot.
    I have no fucking clue what this is supposed to be.
    Mexican Deadpool being eaten by a guy in a big inflatable dinosaur skeleton costume. I should have also gotten a head shot of Mexican Deadpool for you – he had a sombrero & a big mustache. Such problematic, so appropriation.
    What the fuck is this I can’t even
    Oh look, The Shining. Wood knot.
    A representative from Dark Hour Haunted House in Plano, TX.
    Loved this idea – it’s Jason as he appeared in the NES game. Clever. Sadly, I had no rocks to throw at him, to keep try and act out the game.
    I liked the work this guy did on his head piece.
    A kid dressed as something from Five Nights At Freddy’s.
    Don’t know what the character is from, butt wood.
    Some anime, I’m sure. Wood.
    I thought this to be a clever way to do something different from the dozen bloody-soaked Carries walking around.
    The less said about this, the better.
    Wood knot.
    Silent Hill. Respectively, from the left, wood, knot knot knot.
    Star Trek…spiders? WTF is this even…?
    I thought about buying this for those days I feel like identifying as female.
    Great shirt – I had to zoom a lot to get it, so if you can’t tell, it’s our two protagonists from “They Live”. If you haven’t seen that movie, you’re a disgrace of a human being.
    There were a lot of IT costumes about. This was one of like, fifty.
    Hmm – from the left: wood knot, knot, wood, knot.
    It seems strange and grimly hilarious to me that a horror convention chooses depression as it’s charity of choice.
    The family that slays together…
    And of course you can’t even go to a fucking FFA convention anymore without there being multiple Deadpools.

  • On Welfare State, compassion aside

    There was a fine post on this fair blog about compassion, pity and the welfare state. I though I would add my 2 grams of silver and share a few thoughts.

    Outside a narrow circle of non-bleeding heart libertarians or, as I like to call them, actual libertarians, there is about zero support of completely removing welfare. The people on the left generally want more of it, and the people on the right just want somewhat less of it and “more efficiency”. Neither of these options will work in the long term, in the opinion of this heartless libertarian who just hates the damn children.

    The Universal Basic Income is, for example, one of the more prominent recent attempts to fix welfare, one that even some libertarians support. The idea is no welfare is not an option, so let’s have the best system. Sadly, I do not believe a best system, even if it existed in theory, can exist in practice. Why? This is what I will try to cover.

    They just want what is best for you, really...
    Kind, compassionate people

    The essence of the question is found in the essence of government. Government is at its core a concentration of power. This, naturally, now and always, attracts people who want power. So in the end, the ultimate goal for many at the top of government will be to get and retain power. Sure, they may have other ideas about society and maybe even be honest about wanting to improve it (at the point of a gun if necessary) and thinking they have the capability to do so (ignoring a few broken eggs here and there). But this is always secondary, at least for the ones who get to the top.

    In my view, in a struggle between those who want power to use it for, let’s say for lack of a better word, “good” and those who want power for the sake of power, the latter will come on top. What has this got to do with welfare? Well, any government activity will be inevitably used as a tool to get power, and will not be shaped to maximize results but to keep people in power. Welfare is no different. You will never get the welfare that is most efficient and helps the poor; you will get the one that helps politicians.

    Now, there are moments when feelings get the best of reason, and I think it would be acceptable to have a limited welfare system for the truly needy. This is a view of many right wing people I know. This will not work because there is not choice between limited welfare just for truly needy and a massive and much abused inefficient system. The choice is between no welfare and a massive and abused inefficient system. A limited system will never stay limited because, in essence, any program that allows politicians to transfer money from one person to another will be used to buy votes. More and more needy will be found. More and more people will receive something. And the limited help will be declared insufficient.

    Honesty is the best policy... exept in politics
    Telling it how it is

    It was always strange to me how people who support a social democracy scream about the evils of campaign money as “buying votes” while their political platform is literally buying votes. If someone gets money from the government, when a politician says, “I will increase these payment,” that someone will, quite literally, hear vote for me and I give you money. A welfare state is practically a license for a politician to buy power with other people’s money. And if I am wrong, I would love to hear a reasonable, logical argument as to how I am wrong.

    But there is a second layer. The large amounts of people not on welfare but who emotionally support the programs, either out of a misguided view on compassion or basic signaling of their moral high ground. So this is another group who will be convinced to give their votes because welfare is insufficient. I have seen multiple articles in the press where such people tried to live on welfare money to prove it can’t be done, and the conclusion was it can but it is not easy. So even when there is a level of welfare that many view as quite enough, others want more of it.

    One should keep in mind that the cost of welfare is not just the money that ends up at welfare recipients. Welfare also keep politicians in power, which means lots of money spent on various graft, not directly related to the welfare, but related to the politicians. Another point is that there will be an ever-growing bureaucracy dedicated to administering welfare, which may end up costing more than the welfare itself. There is also the cost associated with people who may be able to do something productive and do not, both due to incentives of welfare and to the economy in general, which is affected by the taxes needed to fund all the above costs.

    On the other side of the spectrum, other politicians will use it as a tool for their base, talking about scroungers and welfare frauds. But this will basically lead to another layer of division between people which is exactly what the politicians want. Divide et Impera is what keeps the big parties in power. There always need to be another side which is bad, and my side which is less so.

    The art of politics is basically to keep the people split on as many issues, so that they do not notice that no issue is handled properly. Must spread attention as thinly as possible to keep scrutiny off what the government actually does.

    Universal Basic Income will be no different. It will not stay for long as the only program, as different programs for different groups will be invented. It will constantly be under pressure to increase. And it will create an ultimate feeling of entitlement. You get money for breathing, basically.

    So to me the alternative is no welfare or a system which will inevitably become first and foremost a tool for power, with all other functions secondary. If no welfare is not an option,  I will accept a constant struggle will be on this and just stay out of it and leave it to others. I assume the system will oscillate, going too far then followed by a snap-back and then too far again. But to those who think welfare will be mostly about helping people as well as possible, I have a bridge to sell.