I just realized that if Trump loses, all the Democrats and their media will suddenly announce that a cure has been found for the disease and will unlock most of the people.  See, it was Trump's fault they hadn't found it earlier and they'd go back to ignoring any virus deaths just as they all the years previous.

□ [“Colorado Removes Trump Letter From Millions Of Food Shipments"]

Well, it's not like their workers have anything else to do.  There's lots of time to sit around taking stuff from the shipments.  It's not like people are hungry.

□ [“Biden: You Can 'Keep Your Private Insurance if You Like It'"]

Really?  I mean, obviously he has no idea what life is like for private citizens but...  Well, the people working for him probably don't know either.  They're either too young, too rich or just always worked for the government anyway.  But anybody who actually knows something will remember when Obama claimed "If you like your insurance, you can keep it" without adding the obvious true statement "unless it's against my law, in that case I'm taking it away and there's nothing you can do to stop me.  If you like anything that's against my law, you're out of luck."

Ricky Martin: 'It's Really Scary,' 'Super Sad' That Latinos Would Vote For Trump
October 30, 2020

Well just be like Biden and say they aren't Latinos if they do that.

Voting Fraud Plot Uncovered in Major Florida County to Register Dead Voters for Democrats
October 31, 2020

Sean Connery – the Original James Bond Actor – Passes Away at Age 90
October 31, 2020

Obviously this was news anyway - he's Sean frickin Connery - but yesterday I ran into this article which is odd timing (although it's dated October 24 but I doubt Connery just keeled over one day.)
□ [“James Bond Film ‘No Time to Die’ Explored $600 Million Sale to Streaming Services"]
It seems MGM has reportedly lost at least $30 million or up to twice that much since delaying the release of this movie.  There's no explanation of where that money is going although there's enough speculation that I suspect studios just take immense loans to make movies and keep everything for themselves.  If the movie's a hit, it can pay the loan, the interest and pay for other movies that aren't hits.

Usually they can make it work every year, but 2020 has made it pointless to do that since no one's going to the theaters anymore.  They had enough problems when people would rather watch movies on their computers or phones.  It sounded like they were trying to make theaters events in and of themselves, but that obviously doesn't apply now.  I don't pretend to understand what standard the "James Bond" movies would make - I've only seen three in my life, all of them in theaters early in my life - but if there is something for a franchise beyond just being one movie after another, or even if they can pretend there's something more in a franchise, that probably complicates the economic strategies for the loans.

This would explain why the people involved in movies have to work in another reality than normal people, they have to present themselves as capable of understanding these complicated maneuvers to just make it through a day and they're in an industry where surface image is much more important.  It just becomes even more complicated by the number of people who have to be involved just to put together any generic love comedy or action flick.  Hell, even porno movies probably have a few dozen people involved just to handle the filming and administration and those are 100% based on the attractiveness of the lead females.

I suspect that's why people don't just film their own movies, or even ongoing tv shows.  I've always wondered about that, why doesn't a theater group just put out work like that?  One would think a half-dozen actors could crank out enough of a script to put together scenes they thought worth filming, whoever's not on screen at the moment is the one behind the camera or the lights, and that could be entertaining to someone.  Yet in all these decades, they never make them, or at least never release them after someone gets famous.

And obviously they can't do stuff like that after becoming famous although it's not clear why.  I guess they have to form a company and that is such a complicated task that almost no-one's willing to even try, much less succeed at it for years.  I suppose you can't point to George Lucas as a big example, he was totally devoted to making movies and he's only made seven movies as writer and/or director and another eight where he came up with the basic story and then let others make the actual movie.  There's also nine short films he made back in the 1960s but nobody pays any attention them.  Yet he's run an incredibly successful company for decades.

[One of those movies was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which is one of my absolute favorites and seems to be the only movie I've with Sean Connery as more than a cameo.  I've also seen Connery in The Rock which I totally hated and don't remember how he was.  The only other was his appearance at the end of Kevin Costner's Robin Hood and he was magnificent as the King of England.]

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but it was interesting to get a clue of how this works.  I think that's one of the main-if-unconscious reasons why some people generally don't like tv or movies, there's just too much required to make one, much less enjoy them.  I've been completely surprised to see myself focused on the Avengers movies this year but I can at least say it's a life-long love of the superhero genre that doesn't even rely on these specific characters.  And even that fixation has been running low in the last month or two.  It's probably not totally gone but it is what it is.  Anyway, I have noticed that there hasn't been any big increase in internet movies since people have stayed home so much more during this virus.  Ok, maybe there was and I just haven't heard of it, but still...

France: Gunman Shoots Priest in Lyon Church - No word on the gunman yet
October 31, 2020

When a felon's not engaged in his employment or maturing his felonious little plans, he must not be worried about being re-elected.

□ [“Los Angeles & DC Businesses Brace for Election Day Chaos, Board Up Windows"]

□ [“Fearing Civil Unrest, Walmart Temporarily Moved Guns and Ammo Off Sales Floors"]

Yeah, they're getting ready for the next civil war.  They've all been hit many times in the last several months and, oddly enough, all by Biden supporters.  This won't end well (or soon) even if Trump wins.  But now it's finally coming out in the open.

□ [“Florida Dems Hit The Panic Button Over Miami-Dade Turnout"]

□ [““We’ve Got to Stop the Bleeding” – CNN, Democrats Freak Out About Republicans Outpacing Democrats in Florida" (VIDEO)]

These are still anecdotal clues but they are helping to build the overall picture and the left refuses to acknowledge any of it.  The people in charge of them and their media have to accept reality more often or else they won't remain in control.  Apparently Biden went to Minnesota today, a state that hasn't voted Republican in my lifetime.  I know what I said yesterday about his travels going to sensible places for his campaign, but this isn't one of them.

There's going to places that are totally on his side just to please the loyal followers and there's going to states that are going to ditch him.  Obviously the fake media nonsense about his poll victories being even bigger than Hillary is supposed to make up for the fact that he's not going to states that don't Democrat and try to win them over.  If he's so guaranteed of victory, that would help make the victory even bigger.  I haven't been following Trump's travels but one reason I create my books is to keep track of stuff and The World Turned Right-Side Up has on page 2-3 a record of Trump and Hillary's travels in 2016's last four months.

In November, Trump went to 12 states and won 6.  Hillary went to 8 states and won 2.
In October, Trump when to 15 states and won 6.  Hillary went to 9 states and won 3.
In September, Trump went to 12 states and won 6.  Hillary wen to 8 states and won 3.
In August, Trump went to 15 states and won 9.  Hillary went to 8 states and won 2.

Ok, I'm not sure what that proves.  It certainly doesn't help my idea.  They were obviously the same states over and over.  Try it a different way.

Trump went to Arizona 3 times, Hillary went 1.
Trump went to Colorado 3 times, Hillary went 2.
Trump went to Connecticut 1 time, Hillary went 0.
Trump went to Florida 24 times, Hillary went 12.
Trump went to Iowa 6 times, Hillary went 3.
Trump went to Maine 3 times, got 1 of its 3 Electoral college votes, Hillary went 0 and got 2.
Trump went to Michigan 8 times, Hillary went 4.
Trump went to Minnesota 1 time, Hillary went 0.
Trump went to Mississippi 1 time, Hillary went 0.
Trump went to Nebraska 0 times, Hillary went 1.
Trump went to North Carolina 16 times, Hillary went 6.
Trump went to New Hampshire 8 times, Hillary went 2.
Trump went to New Mexico 1 time, Hillary went 0.
Trump went to Nevada 6 times, Hillary went 6.
Trump went to New York 1 time, Hillary went 0.
Trump went to Ohio 14 times, Hillary went 8.
Trump went to Pennsylvania 15 times, Hillary went 9.
Trump went to Texas 1 time, Hillary went 0.
Trump went to Virginia 7 times, Hillary went 0.
Trump went to Washington 1 time, Hillary went 0.
Trump went to Wisconsin 6 times, Hillary went 0.
Trump went to Washington DC 1 time, Hillary went 0.

Of course that doesn't get very specific on anything.  Trump worked harder than Hillary and she took a month off.  States are different and even though he may have been brand new to running for office, Trump must have had enough sense to not do too much with states he was guaranteed to win or lose.  New York, Texas and DC look like the only places he went to and in New York's case, he'd go there no matter what.  Nebraska splits its three Electoral votes and I assume Hillary went there to attempt to get one as Obama did.  [I don't remember for sure if he got one but he definitely tried.]

Ok, that does suggest both of them were trying to win states that were in play.

Trump won 10 of the 21 states/DC he visited 129 times.  He won 6 of the 10 states he visited 5 times or more.  88 of his visits were to states he won.
Hillary won 4 of the 11 states she visited 56 times.  She won 1 of the 5 states she visited 5 times or more.  10 of her visits were to states she won.
Nebraska is the only state Hillary went to that Trump didn't and she lost.  Connecticut, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and DC are the states Trump went to that Hillary didn't and she still won.  Texas, Minnesota and Maine are the only states Trump went to that Hillary didn't and he won (or got one electoral vote.)

I'm trying to decide if it would help to put % in these figures, but there's the notion that it wouldn't make much sense since a lot of the numbers are about Hillary just not showing up, just as Biden is doing now.  Trump went to almost twice as many states for well over twice as many visits as Hillary did because he's willing to work.

□ [“South Carolina Furman University Prof Who Identified as Chicana Resigns After Being Outed as White"]

This is definitely a trait in leftism now, enough have been caught in just the last few months.  Intellectually one can understand claiming to have a different race because you've been taught to hate your own and the only option is to pretend to be one of the "oppressed" but how does one make that judgement to oneself much less anybody else?  Would she have gotten her Ph'D if she hadn't self-identified as non-white?

Crow Indian Tribe Endorses Trump As Do Even More Civil RIghts Leaders and Democrats
October 30, 2020

Facebook Removes Black Man’s Anti-Biden Ad
October 27, 2020

Now I am the ruler of the king's navy. I didn't we know we had a king and anyway, I wanted to run the Air Force!

I hadn't even realized that tomorrow was Halloween until I just got a text today from the state ordering us to not contact anyone outside of our own household.  That's the opposite of what Halloween is about but I guess they want to scare people into not moving.  I guess the demons are warning us.

It's just a day like any other. Someone shot me now!!!

Work continues on the "history project."  I've never worked on a task this big and it feels like I've barely started.  Just organizing the tons of info I have is what's taking so long.  My goal is to get through 1492 by Election Day.  Then I get to start organizing the last five centuries.  After that, I expect the work will be easier to deal with, although then I'll have to RE-organize.

I'm trying to put together a history of the world.  I'm not sure if I'm doing this for its own sake or because I just want stuff to work with when I have an idea about an essay.  Maybe both, maybe neither.  Good thing I've finished three books this year so I have time to spend on this.  I don't intend to start another book until we find out how this year's going to end.  I'm not sure what I would use even if I desperately wanted to do a new book by December 31.  I'm amazed at how much I've written on pop culture stuff in the last couple months but that still isn't enough for one side.  Eddie Van Halen only died three weeks ago and I had to add writing on him to the last book which already included several pages of material that hadn't been written when I ordered the proof copy.

Obviously I knew I'd run out of material to put in a book at some point until I wrote more.  As I said, I've got several hundred pages of stuff now and I know there's access to more stuff if I'm willing to type and edit all of it, but either consciously or subconsciously, my books are designed as stand-alone products.  I've always been able to go through what I'd written and know what needs to be included in the next one and what doesn't.  I was even able to put together Out of Context in 2018 just from stuff that had been written for ages but hadn't seemed to fit in any of the previous books.

So I'm taking a bit of time off to work on a long-term project and just to fill up more stuff that's written which I can go through for future books.  I don't know why I'm writing this now, it's not like I have any interest in publishing stuff written about the writing and publishing of my books any time in the future.  I dunno, maybe I'm just writing this now because I'm on a blog.  I wouldn't have done it on Facebook.

Anyway, headlines and comments from the day's events:

□ [“Joe Biden Heading to MINNESOTA on Friday to Shore Up Votes in Blue State the GOP has Not Won Since 1972 – Until Trump!"]

I'm too lazy to check, but I guess Minnesota was the state Reagan didn't take in 1984.  I think that's a good sign but there's also a chance that he expects to win everything so why not just stay with long supporters.  I certainly have no clue who's running his campaign or what they're expecting.  I really would like to see next week that Trump has won in such big numbers that only the most devout leftists - which is most of them - will understand it.

□ ["Watch: Liberals Complain Trump Made Their Tax Returns Smaller, Then Reality Shows Up"]

This is an example of the point.  Obviously if the government takes less money from you, they'll give less back in tax returns.  That's how it works.

[Still not used to how the font size and hitting return twice look on a blog]

I think that's one of the reasons I started moving to the left and I actually was getting a bigger tax refund.  In my first years of supporting myself, those refunds were almost enough to pay a month of rent for my apartment.  Then came the GWB tax cuts and suddenly I could pay for two months rent and still have enough left over to buy a pizza or something.  That made a big difference to me, yet I have never to this day heard a Democrat show any appreciation for the tax cuts.  No, they wanted them totally gone because they only look at people with more money than them.  I bet I wasn't the only one who saw a benefit to getting more of one's own money.  If my paycheck had been bigger from lower taxes in the first place, that would have also been helpful.

And of course Democrats didn't admit to what they were doing when, under Obama, they passed a bill that made 95+% of the tax cuts permanent.  That would be too much like wanting to help people with less money than them and that's not who their focus is on.

□ [“Brown University students in Rhode Island want Roman statues removed because they promote ‘white supremacy’"]

And now they're trying to remove all history and take us to Year 0.  A sensible person knows that human beings are too complicated for this stuff but that's not what they want.

□ [“Girl Scouts deletes social media congratulations to Amy Coney Barrett on Supreme Court seat after angry backlash"]

They're even trying to take down little girls for the crime of being happy about something-something successful woman.  There's no hesitation, there's no regret, just attack anyone who doesn't obey.  I've been wondering for a few years is legions of girls are going to be turning against them soon.  Probably not in my lifetime but I do think it'll happen.

□ [“Black Lives Matter Goons TORCH Vietnam Baptist Church After Philly Cops Shoot Violent Repeat Felon with a Knife — Because Racism or Something"]

October 29, 2020

Well, Vietnamese are white, aren't they?

Meanwhile, Trump gets endorsed by rapper Lil Wayne and golf legend Jack Nicklaus.  That's some range.

□ [“France: Attacker Shouting “Allahu Akbar” Beheads 70-Year-Old Woman in Church - Three Killed, Several Injured"]

October 29, 2020

Only a dirty liar would say it is what it is, it is totally NOT what it is

Obviously the concept "A is A" came from Aristotle in 369BC, but isn't the left's sudden opposition to Trump saying 'it is what it is' more than just them opposing anything Trump does?  This is what Ayn Rand was talking about all those decades ago and she was lucky enough to escape from the first successful communist takeover of a nation, one of the few times they've ever successfully taken over even with the use of force.

One of the reasons I've been referring to World War I as *THE* turning point in modern history was because of the Russian Revolution.  Hitler and Mussolini started out in communist parties which led to the sequel.  Marx isn't the main source, he died as a complete nobody and it was only over the next few decades that anybody learned anything about his work.  He married a rich woman and never had a real job in his life but now his supporters use capitalism to maintain his grave because they won't do it for free.

I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I've thought for a while that the French Revolution was the first real movement of leftism - I'm still looking for a better term, "communism" or "marxism" or "socialism" doesn't seem quite right and "leftism" just came from the French sitting together on the left side of Congress - and wanted to look into it but even there I don't think it's where the concept started.  I know there's a European writer from a century earlier who's generally cited as creating the basic concepts but event here I doubt he woke up one day with this brand new idea.  I suspect it's been part of humanity for as long as we've existed.  Nobody could get anywhere with it until the 19th and 20th centuries because of the lack of technology or the ability to spend time and energy doing anything but getting food and protection from the elements.  The feudal nobility was the only thing that could get any further and notice how that comes back as soon as leftists take over.

Part of it, I think, is human nature.  Joe Biden's never had a real job in his life.  John Kerry did a semester in Vietnam and married two rich women, the second much wealthier than the first.  Obama said the words and then ran off to hang around rich people, even when Americans were under attack on the anniversary of 9/11.  He flew off to Hollywood, leaving Hillary to go home and not take any calls until the next morning.  Since then, slavery has been a normal part of Libya and liberals don't mind.

I'm a little off the track of human nature, I think we're all far too complicated to understand in such ways.  Even leftists, much as they pretend otherwise.  It's why communist nations are ruled by people who do nothing but agree with each other (and still find things to fight about) and send men with guns to enforce their master's will on the people.  They freely admit that the entire world needs to go along with them before it'll actually work.

I think that's part of the discussion/argument/battle between God and his adversary.  God will win although that doesn't make it any better for those of us here.  Whether it's part of his plan or just a reaction of the infinite to a non-infinite adversary, I think that's why he let Ayn Rand do her thing.  A super-intelligent atheist female enacted his goals a lot more than she'd ever understand.  God can do that anywhere with anybody, that's why he's God.  Leftists never want such a thing to happen and have to be pushed against their will to accepting anything of the sort.

And now the end is near, and so we face the last election / my friends, I'll state it clear, I am totally not a Texan

Woke up this morning to the results of another snowstorm, even bigger than yesterday's.  This is not normal.

Well, there's less than a week to go.  Four years ago, I was saying the country was over regardless of who won.  I didn't say it would immediately end, so I have an excuse, but nothing has shown me wrong yet.  I'm still trying to figure out what the new civil war will be about and how it'll work, like I haven't been pondering that for the last sixteen years.  What are the odds I'll come up with an answer before the fighting starts in the open?

I have been feeling more optimistic lately and it must be about Trump's victory because my life isn't going anywhere and I don't do anything so what else would I be optimistic about?  Obviously there's no evidence that the optimism is based on anything, but it's there.  I have been trying to look up when we learned that Hillary had cancelled her victory celebration the day before the election.  I don't remember if she ever gave a reason, maybe it was just too elitist, but I've always suspected that it was really because the votes were already coming in and she had already lost so why waste the money?  No word of Biden even thinking of a victory party.

Massive pro-Trump rally in Beverly Hills brings together black, white, gay, straight Americans – where’s the media?
October 28, 2020

Looter Calls Philly Police to Report Looting After Fellow Looters Steal His Car
October 28, 2020

“Get the F**k Out! Get the F**k Out!” — Black Lives Matter Screams at Jews Who Joined Their Philly Protest (VIDEO)
October 28, 2020

Turkey’s Erdogan Calls For Boycott Of French Goods Over ‘Islamophobic’ Response To Teacher’s Beheading

It's rather interesting to note that for the last four years, the media hasn't given much attention to what's going on elsewhere in the world.  It's like they aren't remotely interested.  Maybe if it helped Democrats they would pay more attention.  Turkey has been moving back to Islam under Erdogan after its change a century ago.

Hunter Biden Pictures of Himself Disrobed and Exposed With Certain Minor — Joe Biden Is Lying 
October 28, 2020

Hillary whines she was “born” to be president, “can’t entertain the idea” of Trump winning

This was posted yesterday and I must admit, it's quite amusing.  She will end her entire life without ever doing what she was born to do.  She should have just been aborted and she'd totally agree that the government should pay for it.

[Well I wasn't going to use the word "erection" to rhyme in the title, what sort of a person do you think I am?]

You don't need me now, why would anything be different when you're 64?

Not something I normally do, I decided to listen to music tonight.  I had "Nowhere Man" in my head for some reason, then followed it up with a couple other songs and it was obvious I was in a 'Beatles' mood.  Who woulda thunk it?  I had to look up which album "Nowhere Man" was on and could not remember the title "For No One" even though I still had all the lyrics still in my head.  How does that work?

Anyway, asking what to listen to, I decided to straight to the top, Sgt. Pepper.  It deserves the recognition as their best album even if the songs aren't the best.  For one thing, music production had become a whole new thing just in the few years of their recording career and they were in front of this as in many other ways.  Just the way all the different sounds were things that couldn't have been dreamed of before.  Obviously they started moving away from this pretty quickly, only a few more tracks on Magical Mystery Tour and then going their own ways with the White Album before trying to get back to the old style with Let It Be and finally putting it all together for Abbey Road.

It's definitely Paul's album.  John was tired of the Beatles-life and was surrounded by subordinates enough that he didn't see any need to keep going.  George had never been someone who wanted to be in charge and the sudden change from not having to spend day after day touring around the world was a brand new lifestyle for them all.  Paul was still young, energetic and aspiring to get further so he had the best of all possible worlds.  I've said it to this day that I'm still impressed by this guy who keeps writing, recording and releasing new songs because that's been what worked for his whole life and there's no reason to stop.  He's pushing 80 at this point, but that's the price of being Paul McCartney.

Anyway, most of the songs are his.  John enjoyed taking a rest and wasn't really in the mood to work on anything and most of his contributions show it.  Even "A Day in the Life" which is possibly the greatest Beatles song before or after doesn't come off that well, he was just reading a newspaper and writing a song on it.  It was the sudden change to Paul's bridge and the orchestral overload with the overall production that really demonstrated how music had changed since they'd cranked out a bunch a songs in one day for their first album.  Then it adds the ending, overlapping a bunch of sounds that was intended to repeated itself on the record until you got up to turn it off, obviously a design as an album.  This was the first album that was truly designed as an album which even predecessors like Frank Zappa couldn't cite as an example.  It works because the album was conceived as a complete creation even if there isn't any deliberate intellectual connection between the songs.

George couldn't contribute anywhere near as many songs to an album as Lennon and McCartney and most of the songs were Paul's.  He makes his typical melodic ballads and adds orchestral arrangements since there's no chance of playing them live any time soon.  They're all very catchy and very nice without a trace of hard rock in them.  I found myself singing along with "When I'm 64" which doesn't usually happen.

It's possible that this is what makes the album work as a whole, occasionally breaking up by George's "Within You, Without You" or John's "Benefit For Mr. Kite" (based on a circus advertisement from 1843 that he'd recently purchased) just to do something different.  The weakest songs are towards the end but that's pretty typical for making albums.  The Beatles are just one of the rare bands where even their worst songs have always had a lot of fans and John/Paul were very good at writing pop-rock even as they had started moving in new directions.

And that's why it works so well.  The White Album just goes everywhere and there's no way to keep it all together without a lot of drugs and by that point the group was starting to split up.  Abbey Road was very straightforward even as it included everything that had got them to this point, put George up as a songwriter and its second side pointed the way for art rock in the next decade, but it couldn't have been done without all the previous albums.  It's my favorite Beatles album so I'm not knocking it by saying this.  Rubber Soul and Revolver were where they started going everywhere with modern production abilities and stood out for their new directions for the second half of the 1960s.  And their earlier albums were just collections of songs, regardless of the merits.  You could put their first six albums together and play every song alphabetically and only a major Beatles fan would have any clue which song came from which album, much less explain why.

Sgt. Pepper was the first album to get past that and not be broken up for other releases and changes were made even there after the record company took "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" away for a single, which almost by definition meant they couldn't be included on the album.[Which makes no sense, who would refuse to buy a dozen new Beatles tracks if they'd already bought two of them with the single, but that's literally how record companies thought back then.]  Whatever their record as originators, this is where the Beatles did not push themselves.  The Rolling Stones were already flying to the best studios in the world while the Fab Four just went down the street to a cheap studio that was originally a townhouse before being set up to record movie soundtracks.  Abbey Road, their last recording, was the first time they were even able to use an eight-track recorder.  Just imagine what Chinese Democracy would sound like if Axl Rose had gotten to use an eight-track for six months like the Beatles did for that one.

Anyway, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is still music and it's still wonderful.  Haven't heard many things like that come out in the past few decades even though the Beatles made it possible.

Before I post, I've decided to throw "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields" into the mix since I haven't heard them in a while either.  The former is just another great ballad like Paul always makes.  It's always said that these two songs were where John and Paul truly showed how different they were.  Paul's doing a bright piano number singing about people he sees and a trumpet plays in back, John's is much flatter and dingy, singing self-absorbed lyrics and his vocal track had to be replayed at a different speed to be in tempo and key with the orchestra.  But at least he buried Paul, it would have been a shame to leave the corpse out on the street like that.

It's closer to the first day of Autumn than the last...

Keith Raniere, leader of sex cult Nxivm, sentenced to 120 years in prison
October 27, 2020

Now there's a name we haven't heard in a while.  Boy, this 2020 has been tough for everyone to get through, how did he get out of the public eye?  I don't think I'd have even recognized the name if they hadn't added NXIVM, although that may be my own reading/memory problems there.

Meanwhile, Another Teacher Gets Caught Lecturing an 8th Grader About How 'Racist' Trump Is

In Seattle.  These may be the most obvious examples of what the left is now, they're in charge, they can say whatever they want regardless of whatever their actual job is.  They must be obeyed.

I think this was the first time the teacher was someone who self-identified as male, that's a new one.

I also suspect I'm not the only person who's thinking Trump will definitely win.  What little media I pay attention to (internet sites and that's with my reading problems) seems to be more confident about it.  Just the fact that Trump is out doing stuff, multiple events in different states every day, shows why that's happening.  He's willing to work as hard as possible and that's rare, given his age and wealth.  He still has to deal with his cabinet and bureaucracy - I've always wondered how the POTUS does that during election year while Biden is basically not doing anything.  I read somewhere today that he said he actually did put in long days and they were in meetings on the internet.  Really?  And this is the first we've heard of them.  His wife actually goes out to different places to campaign, his VEEP candidate does the same.

Even if Trump wins, I don't expect 2021 to be a better year for anybody.  But 2020 isn't over yet.  I live in a state that gets almost no snow at all through the whole winter and this morning had the biggest snowfall in the four years I've lived here.  It wasn't a huge snowfall by my standards but I'm from Nebraska and can still remember the late-90s October snowstorm and other big ones when I was a kid.  The ten years I spent in Kentucky, the Army base would probably shut down for this because many people had to go out and drive in very big hills and this was roughly as bad as the snow got there.  Now I live in New Mexico and this isn't common.  And it's only October.

I'm sponsored by Rococo Coffee. Or Finster's Coffee or one of those brands, I can't keep track. I don't even like coffee.

Joe Biden Calls a Lid and Hides in His Basement with 9 Days Until Election Day
October 25, 2020

How is that even supposed to work?  How could anybody think this is a good idea?

Obviously I don't pay attention myself, but I've heard from people who do watch the few Biden events that exist that he's looking very bad these days.  I do wonder about that, if the nature of the presidency actually brings that out in people.  Every candidate before has been expected to do stuff and get busier the closer the election gets.  Even Hillary did that and she was the most inactive candidate I'd ever seen.  And now Biden's kicking her ass the way Obama did in 2008.  No wonder she can't win.

I have also wondered if this is a deliberate approach, to not do anything the voters can see because the voters aren't the important ones.  And it only seems to be Democrats who think that's a good way to go, wonder why.

Senate Votes to Confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court

On the one hand, it's a victory, but I've also noticed that right-wingers on the Supreme Court always seem to move left and so do left-wingers.  Particularly the women.  This may not happen but it's worth noting.  I also have to wonder if leftists are going to try to assassinate her any time now.

“Trained Marxist” and BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors Signs Warner Bros. TV Deal
October 25, 2020

They do love their high-paying corporate jobs, don't they?

Text Messages Show VP Biden and His Wife Colluded to Suppress Hunter's Actions With a Certain Minor
October 26, 2020

And this keeps coming out.  I doubt it'll go anywhere.  I will admit that I'm feeling more confident that Trump will win, it's just that my confidence hasn't been all that great this year.  I do think that Biden can't win without several tons of vote fraud and I've been wondering about that since around 2017 when California had to drop around 1.5 million voters who were either dead or had long moved out of state.  Is it possibly that any of them had voted for Trump in 2016?  Right there was half of Hillary's supposed popular vote majority against a candidate no one thought would win, although to be fair, no one wanted Hillary in the first place.  Obama beat her and Bernie Sanders was a lot more successful than an unknown person could have been in a healthy political race.

History, Herstory, Itstory...

Chelsea Handler: I Had to Remind 50 Cent He's Black, So He Can't Vote for Trump
October 24, 2020

China’s GTV Releases Videos of Hunter Biden Sex Tapes while Smoking Crack

At least four videos of this and other sex-exploits came out yesterday.  GTV is a Chinese tv network, it's not clear why they'd be releasing it.  Of course there's no way to know if any of this is real.  They can't continue blackmail if they release what they're using against the target.

But this is a good example of why aristocracy is such a bad idea.  The general saying has been along the lines of 'the hardworking man takes power and knows how hard he had to work to get to the top, the son saw his father's rise and can understand what it took to get there, the grandson knows nothing of the sort and takes power and influence as a given.'  Of course it's helped when the aristocracy doesn't really have much control over everyone else's lives so we can just go about our business on our own.  In free societies we can rise as individuals.

But that's not what Biden wanted.  There's no reason to think he was in on this but he'd be fine with his kids doing it.  He's been showing himself more and more to be the sort of dictator who will follow the mob just to stay in power.  This won't end well even if he does manage to steal the election.  There are anecdotal reports that Trump is still winning but we'll see if that happens.

Bernie Bro with Van Full of Guns and Explosives Plotted to Assassinate Biden. Media Buries the Lede, as Usual

It's also noteworthy that this is the sort of mob that such wanna-be dictators have to follow.  This is why it won't go well, they'll see themselves in power and know that they can get away with anything as long as they suck up to the person officially in control.  That is how nazism and communism works out, the leaders keep their mansions and get surrounded by applause, the next few levels of power can do anything.

It's been pointed out that Germany was a military tyranny through WWI, but it was specifically restrained.  The police and military were as restrained as the public and would be punished much more harshly if they broke any law.  That would be a right-wing tyranny.  Hitler - who started off with the communists although not as much as his big influence Mussolini - and the commies themselves would never work for such a notion.  That's largely why I refer to WWII as a 'sequel,' because what we're still dealing with really came out in earlier version, they just had more technology and media to promote the leftism that got its first big break in WWI.

Still working through the history project and I've noticed a few similarities to this were going on in the 14th Century.  Not enough that I can go into any depth in the matter - my focus is still on the initial processing I've been doing for a year at this point and frankly two or three years if I really get into it - I just wanted to make myself a reminder that I saw parallels in the 1300s so I can get back to it when I really get started.

It's quite possible that my books have been based on larger projects at the time, or at least that's how I worked them out.  I had nothing else planned when I did Life and Polonia but very quickly into the editing process, I started thinking about all the other material I had that could be printed and decided to add two books, Double and Revolutions.  Both would include most of my remaining fiction that I thought was publishable (and had access to) while the former would focus on my "pop culture" essays and the latter on history.  This is obviously where I came up with dividing books into an A-side and a B-side, which I had done for the first book but not consciously.

Putting together the second and third books made me realize there was way too much material so I had to add President Present and New Fun to the mix.  By the time I'd finished those books, I knew full well that this is what I was going to do with everything I could but I was leaving the Army and it was almost a year before I knew where I was going to live and work.  The year after that I did four books that could get through most of what I written that I thought could be published and also left stuff out to make the four book the following year and even that was building up to Big Fish, my one book in 2019.  And even then I was still going around the basic historical ideas that I'm still working on now, having finished a third book in 2020 and finally working on the history project I'd been slowly thinking about for a few years at that point.

There are times when I wonder if I'm doing some of the most important work on the planet and wonder if anyone will ever know it exists.  Hey, I've gotta fill up time with something...

This nose for you. You can keep it, I've got more.

Black Lives Matter Goon Punches Woman Driver in the Face – Another Keys Her Car During Mob Street Protest in San Bernardino (VIDEO)
October 24, 2020

San Francisco: A String Of Drug Stores Close After Shoplifters Strip The Shelves Bare
October 24, 2020

We're getting there.  I've wondered if the left will openly attack before the election even happens.  Probably not, but there does seem to be a chance anyway.  Their troops don't seem to be the type to understand proper military discipline and their commanders will have no choice but to go along because they'd be nowhere without them.

Israel Destroys Another Cross-Border Gaza Terror Tunnel
October 24, 2020

They're going at it as well.  How many leftist leaders are working with Hamas?

There's also a few articles about the stars of old tv shows getting together again to support Biden.  Happy Days is one of them and that's made me wonder, Ron Howard and Henry Winkler did the same thing for Obama and I wonder if Happy Days was supposed to be a model for future generations.  It started in 1974, shortly after Mash which was also set in the early 1950s, which was when the television age really started, being a mass media and a babysitter for new children whose parents had to get through the Depression and WWI/II.  The 1920s was an earlier version of it but this one could be brought right into the living room over dinner and anyway, the people from the 20s are all dead by now.

This show was a more populist version of George Lucas' second movie, American Graffiti, which also had Ron Howard who started off his stardom in a couple episodes of Dobie Gillis and The Andy Griffith Show after that.  Large corporations had figured out how to deal with kids and controlling them was foremost in the left's mind.

I'm not sure what that all means specifically but it seems a worthwhile clue to follow.  It is the same theory I've had about Guns'n'Roses.  I'm not sure what the connection is, but they were moved along the same path in the same direction for the same purpose.

Also a bit of good news, after all this nonsense, Amazon has finally gone ahead with printing the next book.  It shouldn't have taken so much work to get past, but there you go.  I can finally start on the next one.  Now I'm stuck with a crappier cover but there's always a point where I don't care, I just want it done.

BILL AND TED'S MISERABLE ADVENTURE

See Bill.  Bill has written a book and designed the cover.  See Ted.  Ted is a printer.

See Bill upload the book and the cover and pay Ted to print a proof copy.

See Ted print the proof copy and send it to Bill.  Good job, Ted.

See Bill edit the proof copy and upload the finished version to Ted.  See Ted print 150 copies of the finished book.  Yay!

See Bill do this with more books.  Bill likes making books.  Ted likes printing them.

See Bill decide to fix one typo in the sixth word of the second sentence of the second paragraph on page 28 of his fifteenth book.  Bill doesn't want to print new copies, he just wants to fix one typo.  Bill fixes the typo and uploads the book to Ted.

See Ted say the cover is completely wrong and the page numbers must be fixed.  What is Ted talking about?

See Bill ask Ted what he's talking about.  Ted says the covers and page numbers must be fixed or the book cannot be printed.

See Bill look at the book.  The cover fits Ted's Print Previewer as it always has and the page numbers are exactly the same as they were before the typo was fixed.  See Bill tell Ted that there is no problem with the book.

See Ted disagree.  The cover and the page numbers must be fixed or the book cannot be printed.

See Bill ask Ted what the problem that must be fixed is because the problem does not appear on Bill's computer or Ted's Print Previewer.

See Ted not answer the question.  Ted tells Bill to fix the cover and page numbers or the book cannot be printed.

Bill is now confused.  See him ask Ted's Customer Service what the problems are that must be fixed.

See Ted's Customer Service not answer the question.  See Ted's Customer Service tell Bill he must fix the problems or Ted cannot print the book.

See Bill ask Ted's Community.com what the problem is.

See Community.com not answer the question either and tell Bill to obey Ted without question or the book that has already been printed 150 times plus a proof copy cannot be printed.

See Bill decide this is wasting time which could be better spent on making the next book.  See Bill work on the next book.

See Bill upload the next book and the cover and pay Ted to print a proof copy.

See Ted print the proof copy and send it to Bill.  Good job, Ted.

See Bill edit the proof copy and upload the finished version to Ted.  See Ted print 150 copies of the finished book.  Yay!

See Bill work on the book after that.  See Bill upload the book and the cover and pay Ted to print a proof copy.

See Bill edit the proof copy and upload the finished copy to Ted.

See Ted say the cover is completely wrong and the page numbers must be fixed.  See Bill look through Ted's Print Previewer and not see any problem with the cover or the page number.

See Bill remake the cover multiple times.  Ted keeps saying it needs to be fixed.  What was once grey text directly on a design of black, red, orange, yellow, white, and purple on the proof copy now has large white spaces surrounding black text.

See Ted say yet again that the cover needs to be fixed, as do the page numbers cited by Ted's Print Previewer which have not changed from the proof copy or any of the previous books.

See Ted's Customer Service tell Bill he must fix the problems or Ted cannot print the book.  See Ted's Community.com tell Bill the same thing.

See Bill.  Bill is not happy.  Bill cannot work on a new book until the last book is approved by Ted but Ted and his Print Previewer and his Customer Service and his Community.com are not helping Bill at all.  They can't even point to the problems they claim Bill must fix in his latest book.

Bill cannot see a problem with the book.  Bill can only see the cover and page numbers that were exactly like all the other books and proof copies which Ted printed with no problem.

Help Bill.  Don't be a Ted.  Or at least be like Ted was six months ago.

You could be mine but you're way out of line. Oh well, can't have everything.

Just a note on something I noticed just after pushing 'publish' on the previous entry:

□ ["Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy And The Conspirators To Release New Studio Album In 2021"]

So this'll be his second solo album since G'n'R reunited and it's been less than four years since they announced that Slash and Duff were back.  Barely two weeks ago Slash even made comments that he's worked on a new G'n'R album this year and obviously that's not going to go anywhere.  Axl gets nothing done even without his bitch slap-rapping or his cocaine tongue.

Axl has been on 18 songs released in the 21st Century, the 14 on Chinese Democracy, three songs he sang on with Sebastian Bach in 2007 and appearance on a recent Looney Tunes cartoon in 2018. [Which doesn't sound like a place you'd expect Axl Rose to show up, but by all accounts he was there.]  Add "Oh My God," "Sympathy For The Devil" and apparently there's something called "Ain't Going Down" on a 1994 G'n'R pinball machine, that's his entire output in the last 26 years.

Great, now I have to look up that last one.  A Youtube news video says it was cut from the Illusions album.  Another Youtube video has an instrumental track called "Ain't Going Down No More" and says it was recorded in 1986.  Looking a little more, it seems that was on the Appetite For Destruction re-release with all the extra tracks except "One In A Million" so I've heard this before.

Ok, searching through more Youtube videos, I think I've found it and was able to compare it to the 1986 track.  Both are pretty generic hard rock tracks and sound pretty similar so that's probably it.  The first version has better production, but it was probably taken from the AfD rerelease while the second version was made for a pinball machine and probably recorded on someone's phone to put on Youtube.

Since 2010, Slash has released four studio albums, a movie soundtrack, four live albums, another two sets that were probably live but don't qualify as albums for whatever reason and guest-starred on several more songs.  Axl has released nothing except the extra songs on the AfD rerelease which were recorded closer to the foundation of Sun Records and Elvis' 16th birthday than to today and most of them had been released before.  "Shadow of Your Love" is literally his only release in the last decade and it was first released in 1987.

I've been developing a theory that Axl Rose's basic life has all been to set an example for humanity on what not to do.  Sort of an expanded version of the Rolling Stones.  It's not like I stop listening to them.

The Beyonder's favorite blog is back!

Trump Announces Normalization Deal Between Israel, Sudan; CNN: A “Significant Foreign-Policy Accomplishment”

Well, there's another impressive accomplishment.  Funny how last night was the "Foreign Policy" debate and apparently there was no discussion whatsoever of foreign policies.  You'd think Biden could be asked if he's going to get Muslim nations to not recognize Israel's existence as they'd been doing for decades - and it was an Arab League meeting in Sudan in 1967 that officially declared this - but that would be too Presidential for him.

This is not going to be a fun two weeks.  As I've said, I totally expect the next civil war to be out in the open after that, I just hope it's while Trump is President.

Otherwise I work on the "history project" and argue with Amazon over printing my latest book.  It has the same format as every previous book of mine they've printed and all the books printed by CreateSpace but suddenly they can't understand basic things.  I put "150" at the upper right corner of every front page so I can number which copy of the 150 books I print this is and they somehow have the insane idea that it messes up the page numbers.  They waited until my 17th book to even have this complaint.  They could have said something in April 2020 about my previous book or in May 2019 about the one before that or the four in 2018 or the four in 2017.

I haven't been happy for a while about some personal issues but this is the one that's really bothering me at present.  We're all having a miserable 2020, this is part of mine.

I have been trying to continue with Secret Wars 2 but I think I'm going to give up.  Partially the book has all the crossovers so it's just big and heavy, not something I like laying on top of me before I go to bed and partially the lettering is just miserable to read.  Yeah, it's still my own reading problems, but horrible dialogue and captions aren't helped by such tiny letters that cram up panel after panel.

So really I only made it through the first issue and flipped through some of the crossovers.  It was still ridiculous, but now the characters are on Earth and around people.  The Beyonder is infinitely powered but he has no knowledge of anything and to compensate, he goes to Earth because of superheroes.  It's basically as mindlessly childish as the previous series but now it's trying to explain all of human existence in the bargain and the guy making this happen has almost nobody who can say 'no' to him.  A few executives at Revlon, that's about it.

The rumor is that this first issue was a parody of Steve Gerber but I'm not so sure.  His lawsuit against Marvel for Howard the Duck had ended two years earlier and he'd left comics to work on tv cartoons by then.  The character "Stewart Gadwell" does vaguely look like him but it just seems off and not only to avoid getting sued again.  He specifically refers to wining a Shazam Award which Gerber had never done (yes, I looked it up just to be sure) and he couldn't have been the only comics writer doing stuff for Hollywood at the time.  I dunno, maybe it was him.  Apparently the character was, I dunno.

I haven't put the book away, it's possible I'll try to read further, but who knows?  I would guess that it's the high point of Jim Shooter's life and his desire to spread it to the rest of the world, as icky as that sounds.  And for some reason, John Byrne did the cover.  This was printed in 2009, years after he'd left Marvel permanently, so why the hell would they want him to do it?  If I hadn't seen his name on the credits, I would never have guessed it was him.  The cover has no originality or creativity, it's totally generic and the Beyonder appearance looks horrible.  Maybe it would look better without the computer coloring but not by much.  Obviously he had to work within Marvel's limitations but I've made similar complaints before about his cover for Secret Wars 2 #1 and at least that looked slightly better (and didn't have computer coloring!)  Whatever, it's not like it ended his career.  It didn't even end Jim Shooter's and that's actually a surprise.

I'll try to post better today.

Ratings for Game 1 of the World Series Crash 25%, Viewership at All-Time Low

That's a sign of where our attention is these days, or at least where it isn't.  I'm not a prime example, I'm not a sports fan and haven't had a television since 2005, but I didn't have a clue there was even a baseball season this year, much less that the World Series has already started.  I barely glimpsed at the article so I don't even know who's playing, but still, there's a lot of people who are more interested and apparently fewer of them are paying attention either.

Hunter Biden in Possession of Large 2.8 Carat CCP Diamond From Now Missing China Energy Tycoon
October 22, 2020

I'm not paying too much attention to this scandal but something like this sticks out.  In court it was said to be worth $80,000 but Hunter said it was only $10,000.  Maybe he got it cheap from a desperate guy the Chinese government was after?

The Deposition of Jeffrey Epstein’s Alleged Madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, Unsealed Today – Male Perpetrators’ Names Redacted – Under-Age Female Victims’ Names Not Redacted
October 22, 2020

Another scandal I'm not paying close attention to.  It'll go nowhere unless Trump is re-elected big time and it hasn't really gone anywhere in his first term.

The media is avoiding coverage of either of these two things, Democrats are avoiding both.  Nancy Pelosi refused to answer a question about Hunter today.  I've been going on the theory that the left is actively working for elitism for themselves.  They can get away with anything, others can't.  Hunter was getting naked for a 14-year old on Facechat [I think that's where it was] and nobody is remotely offended.

I am wondering if Biden is actually part of the leftist conspiracy in similar ways to what I've just complained that nothing will ever be done to bring justice.  His first wife died after he had been elected to the Senate but before he took office, could that be a cover-up for the sort of conspiracy theories that only a B-movie could be made of?  I'm starting to have that theory when a Hollywood star dies, particularly a young one, that it wasn't what ever the news says, they were sacrificed for their masters.  Or maybe they just moved to outer space and this story was concocted to fool the peons.  Biden has always loved feeling up little kids and his son undoubtedly followed that standard.  He was trained at as a Senator by the KKK Democrats and was always the clown in the Senate but that may have been part of the job.  Why the hell would Obama pick him for Veep?

Obviously we'll never know the truth about this stuff.  It's what 2020 has been for all of us.

Not in the mood, just a couple headlines

VP of Flint, MI City Council Endorses Trump: “Mr. Trump would be the best thing for poor folks”…”Obama said our water is fine…ain’t nothing wrong with drinking lead!” [VIDEO]
October 21, 2020

Giuliani Gives Hunter Biden’s Hard Drive to Delaware State Police Over Photos of Underage Girls, Inappropriate Texts
October 21, 2020

I'm getting close to done with the next book and I still can't find a sane printer to publish the new book

I'm just annoyed at the moment.  I''m still having problems with Amazon on printing the new book and I've started looking at other internet printers but so far, they're always coming up with something that hasn't gotten me anywhere.  Blurb requires covers to be sent in as PDFs, but how do you change a JPG to a PDF?  I've asked them and they haven't responded.  Lulu says some of my fonts need embedding but they all look fine to me and there's no way to actually see what needs to be fixed, if anything.  The pictures in this book are all within the pagelines, the colors are all standard, there's nothing else about this book that's any different from all my previous books and after weeks of trying I still haven't gotten anywhere.

Why has this all of a sudden become impossible?  There weren't these issues in April when I did my last book?

Anyway, I'm not sure I'll have any more to add here beyond some headlines.

Family With Trump Sign In Vehicle Fired On By Biden/BLM Supporter In Maryland
October 20, 2020

Spencer Davis, Veteran British Rocker Known for ‘Gimme Some Lovin’,’ Dies at 81
October 19, 2020 - the day he died, not the date of today's article

50 Cent Endorses President Donald Trump After Seeing Biden’s Tax Plan
October 20, 2020

Well, he's not black anymore, at least that's what Biden says.

But what about "Secret Wars 3"?

Finished Secret Wars.  The ending was stupid but at least I got there.  Other than that, the last issue wasn't as bad as the rest of the series  I still liked the full-page spread of Thor's hammer breaking in on Doom as we learned that the heroes had all come back to life.  That's not much different from the climax of Avengers 4, it just cost a lot less money and time to make.  Comics have regularly done stuff like this for decades.

Anyway, the main reason I'm posting this now is because, in the little internet looking I've been doing, I did find that apparently Zeck was being slowed down because of all the redrawing Shooter demanded which was why he hadn't draw #4 and 5.  Bob Layton filled in for those issues.  When Zeck returned, he was just following Shooter's layouts.  Shooter has called himself a good artist, it's just that it would take him all day to make a single nice picture and ages to draw multiple panels on a page, multiple pages, which was expected of professional artists of the day.  At the very least he'd be able to lay out what he wanted on a page (and possibly being paid for it?) and Zeck would be able to go for that first instead of after repeated panel redraws.

Now you know that.  Thank a Congressman.  I am thinking of trying Secret Wars II next, I'm just even more doubtful of finding anything to enjoy.

Am I still sponsored by Rococo Coffee? I have no idea. Oh God, why have you abandoned me?

CBS: Biden Campaign Calls A Lid … Until Thursday Night

This is getting ridiculous.  Obviously this has nothing to do with the debate, which I assume won't happen anyway because even though it's the "Foreign affairs" debate, they've suddenly changed it to have nothing to do with foreign affairs, what with Trump's Nobel Peace prize nominations and Biden getting all that money from China, Russia, elsewhere.  As this article points out, if Biden's not prepared to do a debate after all his decades in the Senate, preparation for the next few days isn't going to help.  This is just hiding out and hoping no one will notice him.  A dead dog could do that and would make fewer idiotic public comments.  And get as many Democrat votes.

It does seem to be coming out that Trump's victory is more assured.  Obviously there's no way to know for sure and, if Democrats have anything to do with it, we won't know ever again, but anyway, that seems to be an increasing sense of things.  As I've said, Trump would win easily if this were a normal year but it's becoming too obvious to everybody what Democrats will do to beat him.  The next Civil War is ready to start officially now, I just hope Trump remains in office when it starts.  After that, who knows what'll happen, but that's what I'm hoping for.

Facebook Suspends User Jamie Allman’s Account After He Posts Video of Hundreds of Black Trump Supporters Chanting “We Love Trump!” in Washington DC

It has been known for a while that if Democrats don't keep the black vote where they've always kept it, they have no chance of winning.  I'll also point out that I've ditched Facebook just in time.

I'm almost done with Secret Wars.  At the moment, I don't have any comments on the story itself but I've flipped through the latter pages of the collection and was interested in the original pencils by Mike Zeck for the first issue.  I gotta admit, I thought the art looked a lot better that way.  It obviously couldn't have been printed in Marvel's 1984 style, but you'd think inker John Beatty could have done a better job on it.  Yes, I know that inking is technically the most important part of the visuals since the pencils are just erased afterwards and the inker is the one making them but still...  The characters look different panel to panel and their facial expressions are barely comprehensible.

Anyway, Zeck did better pictures than what ended up being printed, sometimes completely different than the final version.  Better layouts, better panel designs, more detail.  That last is usually preferred by the audience although artistically many find *less* detail to be better, every line has to contribute to the picture as opposed to just cranking out a bunch of noodles.  Anyway, it looked nice in these pictures.  Then Shooter wanted changes.  One has to wonder if he thought those changes were any good or it was just that he's in charge and the way to prove that is to demand changes.

The other main detail was that Kitty Pride was present which I guess was amusing considering her absence from the finished story was a big deal, at least for Colossus.  I also wonder if that was Shooter's idea.  Or perhaps Zeck had just been told to include the X-Men and had no reason to think Kitty wouldn't be there.  It's not like most of the characters were required to do anything other than fill up the space.  Kitty appears in a few random panels and either erased or redrawn to be someone else.

There's a panel on page 15 where it must be her but the drawn character looks very little like Kitty, but I can't figure out who else it would be.  And the second to last page ends with a picture that showed Kitty holding Lockheed and started building up to the final page which was entirely redrawn in a much less creative manner.  Actually the whole page was redrawn.  One or two panels might have been copied but it's otherwise completely different, the heroes dealing with Dr. Doom who flies off and setting up the final page where the other villains attack.  Some of the other panels in the original version are somewhat different but that may be the work of the inker and/or Shooter demanding changes for whatever reason.  But this page is entirely redone and not for the better.

The heroes interact with Doom, he blasts them and flies off in the final panel with the group watching him, Kitty on the left holding Lockheed and the Thing in the center obviously making a snarky comment.  All that is gone.  See Doom, he fires a laser and "Moments later" they are recovering.  That's when he's flying off and the remaining two panels in the story prepare for the villains attack, 'to be continued.'

Obviously these comments are less about Kitty than just the bizarre changes.  I could understand it if the artist was creating the story and changed his ideas partway through, particularly if he was doing the inking, but this seems like an editorial decision to be as bland as possible, which was kept through the whole series.  I also wonder why Kitty wasn't included.  Shooter intended to break off her relationship with Colossus so that's a reason.  Claremont was developing the New Mutants and it would be easy to believe he had long intended to set up the storyline where she's kidnapped by the White Queen and the X-Men can't do anything because they're doing Secret Wars so the New Mutants have to rescue her.  It's even possible someone else contributed to this idea.  Yet somehow it didn't get down to Zeck before he drew the issue, although I would assume he did it months earlier than other artists working on regular series.  Shooter would want that much extra time to make all his changes.

It's odd that these are the things I think about, even after all this time and with other stuff going on in the world.  I'm still having problems trying to get Amazon to print my new book, I'm also trying to get used to the next step on my "History project."  In all this time, I've never had to do a lot of thinking about how I'd do the second step because there was so much work to be done before I get there, but now I need to work that out.  And I'm still getting used to not posting on Facebook but instead doing everything on this blog.  I'm generally doing just one post a day but I've feeling obligated to write stuff out for it.  I have to admit, I preferred posting many times a day on Facebook and writing as much or as little as I felt like on any detail, but that's not how they wanted to go.  So I'm here.  Why are you here?

Mostly headlines from the last couple days

Boston University exempts Black Lives Matter events from COVID size limits

This is how we know they aren't serious about the virus, they're using it for power.  If you agree with them, you can do what you want.  If you don't, you'll be forced to stay at home doing nothing.

Federal Judge Allows 21 Businesses to Sue Seattle Over Harms Caused by CHOP

Do you support the people who provide jobs, taxes, food, homes and more to the citizens or the people who destroy those?  Well, it is Seattle so the result is pretty obvious.

Biden Blows Up at Reporter Who Finally Dares to Ask About the NY Post’s Story and Hunter
October 16, 2020

Biden Campaign Manager Tells Supporters Not to Be Complacent as Joe Biden Takes the Day Off to Rest
October 17, 2020

Saudi Foreign Minister: *Now* Would Be A Very Good Time For Serious Negotiations On Palestine
October 17, 2020

Well they don't want to, so nyah!

Well, that's enough.  Back to the "History project" and Secret Wars.  Plus I haven't been keeping up the next book this weekend, but I have been having problems with Amazon printing my most recent.

If it takes too long to think of a title, I'll just crank out something like this and move on. Now you know.

I just finished the very long first step of my "History project."  Maybe someday I'll be able to describe it.  Now I'm talking a few minutes off to put down notes I made while continuing Secret Wars last night.

First of all, it's annoying that more and more pages each issue keep getting taken up by repeating 'the story so far' which is already done on the top of the first page *and* footnotes that tell us what issue had something being mentioned at the moment.  That's just annoying.  Even in the early 80s, comics didn't sell more with every new issue so there wouldn't be a lot of new readers partway through the series.  This has always annoyed me.  Even if there are new readers, the point is to make what they're reading now interesting.

I'll cite my favorite example which I don't think I've used here, but the first issue of Preacher that I read was in the final storyline before the climax.  In this issue, there's an interaction between two minor characters, Hoover and Featherstone.  In a three page sequence, Hoover breaks up over how much he's always loved Featherstone but has been scared to tell her.  He gives a long speech that is rather goofy and entertaining but is obviously part of his character even if this was the first time I'd ever seen him.  Then she looks up from her desk and says she hadn't been listening, what did he say?  It's very hilarious, especially his shocked appearance and the last panel has him in a liquor store.  "I've come to find out about drinking."  "You've come to the right place."  It was a great scene and a good example of what interested me in that comic and made me want to read more.

So I started enjoying Preacher.  As the series was over by this point, I picked up the collections but had a specific intention to pick them up out of order and save the final book for when I had read the rest of the series.  Soon before I got that final book, I decided to read this issue again just to see how it looked now that I knew Hoover and Featherstone worked for the main badguy, Herr Starr.  Hoover had obviously carried out his puppy love of Featherstone and she had done the same thing for Starr.  So as I read this issue again, it was obvious that Featherstone was staring at a picture of Starr and that's why she wasn't paying any attention to Hoover.  A scene that I had already enjoyed became more meaningful after I had become familiar with the series and the characters.

Then I read the final collection and it turned out that just before this scene, in the previous issue Featherstone had made a similar speech to Herr Starr who had shot her down brutally and that's why she had been focusing on Starr's picture so much.  All of this enriched the one single comedy scene which didn't require footnotes to explain on first reading.

Preacher also had a similar event in the Salvation storyline where main character Jesse is spending some time as sheriff in a small Texas town and is stopped by his deputy from using his superpowers against the storyline's badguy.  Afterwards she has to give him a lecture on how a police officer should behave and ends it with 'and what the hell was that you were doing?' about his power.  He tells a completely blatant lie about his powers before going on to apologize, she's totally right, he'll try to do better, and so on.  The scene ends with her laughing about the blatant lie and how ridiculous it was but that power and its sources is the main plotpoint for the entire series!!!  That's not an explanation, he's just covering for himself in that scene, but it's all that's needed to get through where the characters are now and what they're doing.  There's no way that including the truth would help the story, much less the characters and Jesse having to make up to Cindy for what he had been about to do.

This is how storytelling works.  Focus on the story, not needless intervening details to explain everything immediately!

I will say that Shooter was coming from a different place than Garth Ennis and I don't just mean England.  Comics were almost 50 years old at that point and for most of their history, they had been about explaining everything in as short a manner as possible.  Preacher had gone on for around 2000 pages before the place I started reading and that would have been almost unthinkable before.  Shooter came from a field where maintaining the established characters was the priority and it had to be taken for granted that even the shortest story in some book was the first for some readers so they needed to be told everything.  I don't think kids were that stupid but the people making comics did.  They had been stupid enough to think that no kid dreamed of being Batman, they only dreamed of being Batman's sidekick, which basically explains where their minds were at but I won't get into that now, I'd rather get back to, uh, notes on Secret Wars...

There's just no sense of believability on these characters.  They're always being stated as hundreds if not thousands of miles apart, yet they can cross these distances instantly without effort.  Volcana has mindlessly fallen in love with the Molecule Man for no reason, I really think Shooter was trying to do something but I can't imagine what or why.

The villains are basically useless.  I think I've mentioned that, but now I've realized that only two of them, Doom and Ultron, can even fly.  Wasp, Captain Marvel, Thor, Iron Man, Storm, Rogue and the Human Torch can all do that, and Rogue's the only one of them who doesn't have long-distance powers.  Spidey can swing, Hulk can jump long high distances.  For long distance, Cap can throw his shield, Hawkeye and Cyclops can shoot from a distance, Xavier has his telepathic powers, then there's Magneto...  The villains mostly have strong fists, nothing more.  Doc Ock stands out by having longer cybernetic arms.  There is no sense of competition so all that's left is personality and Shooter isn't good at that.

We see that with how he treats the X-Men, throwing away everything Claremont had brought to them.  If Storm and Cyclops argued who should run the X-Men at the moment, it would make sense, but Xavier says he's doing it and he's working with Magneto, their arch-nemesis.  Are they taking this conflict seriously or not?

I will admit that I liked Rogue's bit of self-doubt.  She was still new to being a hero and that's actually a good thing to do with a character.  She's contributed nothing else to the story but at least there's that so in a sense, she's handled better than most of the others.  But that's how low the standards are here.

At the moment, that's all I have to say.  I'll see if there's more tonight.

"1984" is not supposed to be a training guide!

Van Halen Zero Demos

I'm sure these have been bootlegged for decades but I've never heard them before.  This is what the band did for Gene Simmons in 1977.  The first song, "I'm On Fire," sounds great.  It also seems to sound a lot like it was very inspired by Montrose.  If it's not the greatest guitar playing ever, Eddie is already way up there and I've always assumed that this was why the band was looked at so much.  Even if they fall apart, EVH can still be hired as a guitarist somewhere.  I think Sammy Hagar was even tempted to hire him at one point.

David Lee Roth is great even with his limited singing ability.  He's giving a fantastic performance and knows exactly how to do it.  "Woman In Love" shows that off.  Meanwhile Mike and Alex are perfectly fit in.  Most people probably didn't expect them to become hugely successful but they've all got a great style and are trying to do well-paced pop songs.  The third song even shows off making the band sound like a car horn, who could do that?  The bridge is great too.

Since I'm not actually a huge Van Halen fan, so far they haven't played any songs I'm actually familiar with and if I don't catch Roth singing the title, I have no chance of recognizing it.  The third song is actually doing a great job as an updated version of a pop song, verses, chorus, the bridge, just going all over the place with its guitar.  ["House of Pain"]  The 'car horn' sound is used at the end and becomes the intro for "Running With The Devil," the first song I do recognize.  It's been ages since I've heard it, but obviously that's one of VH's best known.  Since it's been so long, other than Roth's vocal and possibly a slightly faster speed, I'm not sure if anything else is different from the final version.  The guitar solo definitely sounds the same.  Maybe they played everything a little faster to fit it into a half-hour demo, maybe they played it like this all the time in their concerts and it wasn't modified until an actual producer wanted changes.

Then they go into another song I don't recognize but I'm still impressed and I'm barely halfway through the tracks.  I guess it's "She's the Woman" but anyway, they were obviously keeping in one style.  Where else could they go?  It's where EVH was and no-one else could do anything about it, even if they wanted to.  I assume it was also their youth, bands tend to stay in one place when they start.  If nothing else, that gives them more gigs.  Bands like Queen who played in different styles from the start probably came from Art Rock and I doubt they really got started on it until they were in the studio.  The Beatles did different styles from the beginning but they had an excuse, they were English and the first to approach an American type of music.  They also did that as songwriters, very unusual for any rock band at the time.  John and Paul could think of doing something like Elvis, then Chuck Berry, then Buddy Holly, then a Motown band, then a different Motown band, then a country song, and so on, and this was all before they started writing totally original songs.  After the Beatles, bands were expected to come up with their own songs, but at the time they were expected to have professional writers provide their material.  Chuck and Buddy were unusual that way, obviously Elvis and Motown singers had little to do with the songs except showing up to record vocals and then leaving.

"Let's Get Rockin'" and "Big Trouble" just pass by.  They probably did their best work first and now it's just filling up the space.  That's not a complaint, it's natural to go for the best first.  That's how VH did their first few albums when they had several dozen songs to work with, picking the best for the first album, then the next best for the second album, then the remaining best for the third album.  If possible, maybe a more commercial song was kept for the next album's single, but a decision like that wouldn't ever be made public.  I did recognize "Somebody Get Me a Doctor" (appeared on the second album) but I've never been been a fan of that song.  Then there's "Baby, Don't Leave Me Alone" which does sound fine but what I really like are the vocals and back-up vocals.  Unless it was renamed, it didn't show up on any of their albums ever.  Nor did "Put Out The Lights."  This is where a big VH fan would be helpful, they might actually know if these songs were ever used again.

But this was great.  Why wasn't the band immediately put on the fast-track to success as soon as people heard this?  That's probably another issue that the public doesn't get to learn about but based on this, it's almost impossible to figure out.  They were ready to go, it's possibly that they weren't easy to deal with and it might have been hard to figure out how to promote them as a pop-sounding hard rock band.  AC-DC was doing the same thing at the time but they were from Australia, they sounded different by nature.  Van Halen was from LA and in addition to the guitarist, DLR was already the front-man we know him as today.  And a better singer.

I've also been working on my reading ability again, this time with a comic that you'd obviously expect me to go to, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars.  I've wrote about it earlier [see Double, page 76] but that was over ten years ago.

As I write this, I'm through the first four issues and under the same effect I've had for decades.  First of all, it's totally horrible.  Even the art isn't very good with the characters constantly looking different and never showing any sense of real behavior.  Even in the backgrounds, the heroes' base looks different on the first panel of page 77 than the last panel of page 76 and there's no clue if another artist was involved.  The base is seen from the same angle in almost every panel it appears in and the shame is roughly the same but more or less detail is added.  Of course it was destroyed in the fourth issue and very little sense of what's in there except for giant hallways and stairways.

There's very little to the characters.  Captain America, Thor, the Fantastic Four, Wolverine and maybe Spider-Man are the only ones who stand out at all and only that comes from being slightly different from the rest of the cast.  The FF are a team and always react differently to each other, Wolverine's a violent idiot with nothing else to go on in his life.  Possibly someone who read Iron Man at the time might know that this was Rhody in the armor, not Stark, but that doesn't show up here.  Yes, at some point by the end of the series, Rhody will take off a glove and whoever is nearby will see he's not white, but that's it.  At least Storm and the one true Captain Marvel are obviously black just by looking at them, but that's how Marvel rolls.  The villains don't even have that much personality.  Dr. Doom, the Molecule Man, the Enchantress, Doctor Octopus and the Absorbing Man are the only ones with the slightest bit of personality and the latter two only stand out by having reaction to anybody else.

Then there's the story itself which is mindbogglingly bad.  I'm trying not to recap what I wrote about it ten years ago, but it's just that bad.  Most of Marvel's big name heroes are kidnapped to another galaxy which is then destroyed except for one planet and they land there.  So do a handful of Marvel's villains, most of whom are generic and all carry large hammers or other tools.  I noticed that almost none of them have the slightest bit of long-range powers.  Cyclops, Storm, Iron Man, Human Torch, Captain Marvel and Hawkeye could have taken them all down from a distance with ease while the other dozen heroes sat around doing nothing.

The fight scene that starts at the end of the first issue and lasts a few pages in the second had the same effect.  The villains lose, several are captured and the rest just run in fear.  Thor or Wolverine could just follow them and keep in touch with Professor X or Reed Richards to drop in and finish the battle, easy as that.  Of course Thor, Wolverine and Captain America are all trained soldiers so maybe they would never think of that like I did.

Then there's the use of the X-Men and Magneto which I suspect was Shooter trying to use Claremont's characters while simultaneously confirming that they're owned by Marvel and Claremont has to go along.  That's just a guess, obviously there's no way to tell what's going on other than being so lousy.

Magneto was probably being moved towards the hero's side.  Claremont did make long-range plots and I think Secret Wars was his first appearance since X-Men #150 in 1981 where for the first time he'd actually been given slightly-more complicated personality than he'd had since Lee and Kirby created him in 1963.  This may have been Shooter going along with Claremont's ideas.  Magneto quickly ditches the heroes in #1, then attacks their base in #2 with an unexplained plan that he quickly gives up on and decides kidnapping the Wasp is a better alternative.  There's a bit of interplay between them which actually does make sense but Jan is obviously faking it, and then the X-Men show up to join Magneto, again for reasons that make no sense.  Yes, they're totally willing to ditch the heroes' side to join their worst enemy because...  Well, skin color, gender, sexual orientation are all not happening, what else is there?  Muties!!!

Then the Wasp escapes and I know she'll get a plotline for the rest of the series - rare for even the heroes to have an actual individual plot - but this whole thing was otherwise pointless, unless it was about the mutant viewpoint, which is sounding more believable now that I think about it.  And that came from Claremont.

Anyway, I'll probably write more on this later.  It's just so bizarre that this was considered so popular at the time and there's no resemblance of reality for people, stories, places, dialogue or anything.  Superheroes are unrealistic, comics and fiction are made to show non-real people doing non-real things, but it's still possible for them to behave in ways that actual humans can believe in.  This isn't anything of the sort.