Trying to be worth it
I'll be doing something to contribute to other people's lives on Saturday. I helped Tara's mother publish her daughter's book of poetry and arranged for a reading and speaker on schizophrenia. There really, truly, are more important things in this world. If we can't do something to make it a better place for someone else, we're throwing our time away.
Photos from the event
It was so rewarding, a great turnout, and the epitome of being of service.
The Weekly Readlines June 16
From the Editor’s Desk: “The rest is gravy.” I don’t remember where I heard that phrase, but it’s always stayed with me. It means that life has many difficult moments, many trying periods and eras in our lives, but when we can meet them with grace and even some degree of humor, “the rest is gravy.” I feel that way today. I may not tomorrow, but for now I’ve managed to step back and readjust my perspective. The failure of the military parade to instill fear, while rightfully making us laugh and almost (but never quite) feel sorry for the man who needed it to validate his greatness, helped tremendously. So did seeing an estimated 4 million people say, “Oh no, you don’t,” in protests across the country.
There are plenty of reasons to be dispirited in these times, but America has survived many fissures, many fractures. We will survive this. We will have elections. We will have the opportunity to repair at least some of the damage being done. But this regime and its godhead have shown themselves again and again to be not just paper tigers, but tissue paper tigers. A little rain, rows of half-empty bleachers at an embarrassing military parade, an elderly man falling asleep at every presidential event he attends. Seriously? This is what terror looks like? Not today.
BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S STOP STORIES
Democratic Lawmakers Murdered in Minnesota
No Means No: No Kings Protests Draw 4 Million
Posse Comiwhat? Trump Plays Dictator in L.A.
Parade Flop: Low Turnout at Trump’s Best Birthday Ever
Wondervox Narrates ‘Wishful Doing: An Inside Job’
First they hated television because it was going to destroy society, then they hated CDs because they were going to destroy the record business, then they hated computers, then they hated streaming, then they hated the internet, then they hated AI. I embrace all of it. I'm a one-man production studio with no budget, so I'll use what helps me create what I need to. I won't "write" a book with AI, but it if helps me increase my output and offer synthetic narration for my blog posts, I love it! It's gotten so good. Why would I not enhance what I'm doing with the tools available to me? Anyway, that's where I am with it.
Wishful Doing: An Inside Job
“The challenge is not to be perfect—it is to be whole.”
—Jane Fonda
It’s not the thing the emotion attaches to, it’s the emotion.
It’s not the person or event the anger attaches to, it’s the anger.
It’s not the thoughts around which the confusion swirls, it’s the confusion itself.
When I’m consumed by an emotion, even something as simple as anger aimed at another driver on the road, it’s the emotion that generates my state of mind, not the other driver. So many people have a need to be angry, or even enraged, without ever comprehending that the object of their rage is not the issue: it is the rage, and the need for it, that lies at the heart of the experience
Made my day
My new mantra in the age of MAGA: "Here's my bag of fucks." - Heroic man responding to cowardly masked thugs. T-shirts please!
Crazy Horse lives
This video is on Bluesky, this is just a screenshot. “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.” This woman nails it. “You’re not of this land … you’re skin’s as brown as mine, fucker.” That’s how it’s done.
Comedy in the time of fascism
Laughter may soon be the only medicine left.
When America had promise
Thank you for letting us be ourselves, Sly Stone, and for reminding us at this most perilous of times in America that we can take a different path. And how appropriate that it’s summertime.
Another happy client
Phil took my writing workshop and asked for help with his book. I don't make much, and sometimes nothing, because it's not about that for me. I'm helping people find their passion and creative spaces. I'll take being a worthy person over being rich any day. Money doesn't buy anything in the grave.
Hold my non-alcoholic beer, queen
Boos and drag queens greeted Emperor Cretin as he entered an American arts institution he’s destroyed. Smiles!
The Twist Podcast #296: Cuckoo for Cosplay, Posse Comitater Tots, and Rick’s Interview with Dr. Elijah Nicholas
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we rate Kristi Noem’s costume changes, ponder the military intervention in L.A., and enjoy Rick’s interview with Dr. Elijah Nicholas.
Today’s parting shot …
Well said, Mark!