"When You Ain't Got Nuthin...,"

NY Yankees Hall-of-Fame catcher and syntax butcherer Yogi Berra once said, "When you come to the fork in the road, take it."

As I look back, there was a time when I was facing the single most serious and important and gut-wrenching decision of my entire young life.  A time worth the retelling...  

I was in my young thirties, full of piss and vinegar, all anxious to play "catch up" for having so joyously wasted the first quarter of my life.  Playing pool for money.  And drag racing cars.  And playing poker.  And drinking all the beer I could find.  And chasing only girls of breeding.  And catching a lot of them.  

Like I said, joyously...

But then I got drafted.  And four years later, after almost single-handedly saving the world from communism, I was finally ready to make my mark.   And by the age of 32, I was making it.  I was the National Sales Manager of a fairly large medical equipment manufacturing company.  A company owned by Crane Carrier Corporation, a company that made...crane carriers!  You know those reeeely big cranes you see on the sides of buildings under construction?  They need crane carriers to carry them from place to place.  By highway, by rail, and by ship.  And CCC made them.  And they had a big footprint in the Gubmint.  And lots to lose if legislation concerning their sandbox ever went sour.

So I decided to quit my firm and join another which offered a faster path to promotion.  Fast track, remember?  So when the Chairman of CCC found out the star salesman from one of his companies had up and quit, someone he knew and admired, he had to strike; now was the time to form a lobbying effort in the District of Columbia.  In Congress.  In "The Swamp."  And he had just the guy in mind to make it happen.  Moi.  Who was now available without him having to raid a subordinate company and cause a big stink.  He thought gold had dropped in his lap.  

But wait, there's more!!!

I had just fallen in love.  With a gorgeous babe who had lonnng legs and interests that coincided with my own.  For a change (this was Wife No. 2).  She liked cars.  She liked guns.  She suffered through my madcap schemes.  And she was an R. N., and we'd had long talks about starting a medical services company using my sales and bizz talent and her medical license and early hemodialysis experience (rare back then).  And me heading off to "The Swamp" from Orange County, Taxifornia, would have ended those plans.  And likely our relationship. 

The Chairman of CCC was persuasive.  He really didn't want this star to escape his corp's orbit.  And so he made me what's called in the vernacular, a "handsome offer."  He offered me double what I had been earning, which was substantial.  And an office.  And a secretary.  And a staff.  And a car.  And all travel, lodging and entertainment expenses.  And bonuses and other stuff that made we wonder why I had to quit in order to get some damn attention!  

Incidentally, I learned that the average D.C. lobbyist's monthly expenses were running on average about $5,000 a month for a lobbyist.  Or about a year's salary for a postal worker at the time.  I was told a Representatives had to raise $10,000 a week to pay for their reelection expenses back then, from people just the CEO wanted me to be.  And that was nearly 50 years ago.  Just imagine what it must be today... 

I have never stewed over a decision so hard in my entire life.  I wanted to go, and spread my wings, and prove my mettel, and see my name up there in lights.  To prove that hustling pool for ten years taught me a lot about human nature.  And how to land on my feet.  But, as I said, I was in love.  And love is a mighty powerful motivator.   

The beads of sweat were forming and the day of the ultimatum was nearing.  I "rolled the bones" mentally and made my choice.  I turned down the Job of a Lifetime...

Elaine Fabiszewski, R.N., and I formed our own company instead.  And our own life together.  We wound up creating a brand new specialty called Mobile Acute Hemodialysis, Hemoperfusion and Therapeutic Aphresis.  We provided these treatments to hospitalized patients throughout Orange and Los Angeles Counties for more than 38 years.  We had more than 50 nurses working with us to keep really sick patients in hospitals near where they lived.  For the very first time ever.  And it mattered.  Our records indicated we had treated, and in many cases saved, more than 10,000 patients during our company's history.

We also produced four gorgeous, successful and patriotic daughters.  And they've brought in four handsome, intelligent and successful husbands to the party.  And together they gifted me with 7 fantastic grandchildren.  Who likely would not be here had I gone off to D. C.   Nor would Elaine, most likely.

Who knows?  Maybe one of those grand, grandkids will become President.  Or the Big Boss of some yuuuuge corp that endeavors to save the world.  Because God knows, it sure needs saving.

Oh yeah, when I anguished with Elaine over my decision during those fateful days, she reminded me that I'd been picked clean in the divorce from my "starter" wife.  So, she said to me back then, with a clear and even voice, 

"When you ain't got nuthin,' you ain't got nuthin' to lose."  

She was right.  I didn't.  And it spawned a mini-dynasty...  

"Billy Beer"

Way back when, then-Prez Jimmy Carter had a (in)famous brother named Billy.  

He was a "goodolboy" who hung out around the only filling station back home in Plains, GA.  And Billy was also something of a beer lover.  Lots of beer.  Morning, noon and night.  Every day.  And because his brother was now famous, and had network TV cameras following him into every liquor store, he decided to cash in on the America dream.  He was gonna' introduce his own brand of beer.  And so we were subjected to...

                         "Billy Beer!"

Yes, fellow Patriots, it's true.  Unfortunately.  So, I guess you can figure out that Billy Beer didn't last all that long.  Billy Carter was sent to dry out and Jimmy was sent packing by Ronnie Reagan.

Flash forward to present:

We now have a "Swamp Creature" in the White House.  A Swamp Creature who's only real job has been the Senate.  Since he was 29 years old.  If that's a job.  Followed by carrying Barack's briefcase for 8 years (that's why I've awarded him an honorary "O"), and then a couple of years as an Avatar for the man behind the TelePrompTer.  With a son who's even worse that good ol' Joe.  Joe's son Hunter is a piece of work.  Here's his "Cliff Notes" version:

Hunter entered the U. S. Navy following law school.  Having never matched up to his older brother Beau, Hunter decided to hide his inadequacies in a crack pipe.  And other narcotics and booze and whores when he could find them.  

When found out, he was summarily discharged from the Navy.  With a Bad Conduct discharge.  That's not a good thing.  Fewer than 3% of military inductees share this dishonor.  A BCD would keep a normal citizen from work at any Government agency.  Including any Agency that does bizz with the Gubmint.  Including as a lawyer.  

Except for his own law firm.  Pimping for his father.  The "Big Guy," as he's come to be known.  The Guy who gets 10% for just being Joe Biden.  And he's made $millions letting his crooked crackhead son pimp out his name.  To the tune of some $38,000,000 if recent reports prove true.  And once the Republicans take over the House, we should find out...  

And Hunter's spent $millions, too.  Usually on hookers and cocaine and crack and alcohol and hotels and guns and jewelry and cars and expensive mansions and anything else he could think of.  He actually had his father wire him $30,000 one night in a crack-fueled orgy and spent it before dawn the next day...

So Hunter was sad when his brother Beau died.  So sad he chose to screw his brother's dead widow.  Literally.  Oh yeah, and then gave her clamydia.  He divorced his first wife, moved in with a second, who was a "dancer," in a "gentlemen's club," knocked her up, she gave birth, and he bolted.  Only to disavow the bastard child and be sued by the dancer for paternity.  And lose.  And be forced to pay $20,000 a month.  Child support and alimony.  Without a job.

You kind of need a program to follow this s*it, don't you?  

Oh yeah, all while living in a rented house in Malibu, at $20,000 a month, with the Secret Service renting pricey homes all around him to protect his slimy ass.  Which we, The Taxpayers, are paying for.  Just like everything else these perennial leaches touch.

And Hunter set about memorializing all of this drug-induced excess on Facebook, and Twitter, and Instagram, and anywhere else he could find.  Pictures of him snorting coke off hooker's breasts are all over the Internet.  And then he went and did something extra stupid.  He dropped his laptop off for repair.  While drunk.  And stoned.  A laptop which the Democrats turned themselves inside out to try and blame on "Russian disinformation."  And then dropped his gun in a supermarket.  A gun he'd bought illegally.  He'd sworn that he'd never been addicted to a narcotic substance on Fm 4453, that thing you need to fill out, under penalty of perjury, in order to buy a gun.  And he did.  He lied.  Which was...and is...a felony.  And then he sent his hooker buddy to find it and throw it in a wastebasket.  At the same supermarket.  

Is this some special brand of stupid, or what?  Is it in the DNA?  

Purchasing the pistol was a felony.  He swore that he wasn't addicted to an illegal substance.  He was.  He's going to jail if a real FBI ever gets in charge.

But until then, Jimmy had Billy.  And Joe, and all of America, and China, and Ukraine, and Russia, and who knows who the Hell else, has Hunter...

You know, it's got to be tough for the "Legacy Media" to avoid learning the stuff I just reported to you, right here, right now...

Nature Abhors a Vacuum...

Mother Nature has several immutable laws.

Among those are the fact that "A body in motion tends to stay in motion."  And "A body at rest tends to stay at rest."  And my all-time favorite, "Nature abhors a vacuum."  That means if something vital to a body's continued survival is removed, or negatively altered, it may in fact result in another force being attracted to fill the vacuum thus created.

Let that sink in...

Lemme' give you an example.   Remember a few years back when a dentist from Ohio shot Cecil the lion in a game preserve in Kenya?  Killed him dead, he did.  And killed his career, and his marriage, and his future with the same gunshot.  All for shooting a lion where he shouldn't have.  Dumbo!  

But what about that dreaded "Nature abhors a vacuum," thingie, Mr. Chuckmeister?  Sure, fellow Patriots.  And here it is.  Cecil's death caused an immediate drop in permits for visiting hunters to shoot lions as trophies.  And a loss of some $15,000 in revenue to the game preserve and the host country in fees.  And that meant no lions were shot in Botswana during those following two years.  So lions were permitted to wander around freely and reproduce and multiply their numbers and gobble natives.  To an out-of-control level.  So much so that during those following two years more than 200 villagers were eaten.  

Lions get hungry, you know.

Botswana came to its senses and restored hunting.  And added years to its villagers' lives.

Another example?  Sure.

The Hard-Left "Progressives" demanded that we "Defund the Police" in 2019.  And they banged that drum all year long.  Some are still banging it!  That means they want to remove the taxpayers' funding for police departments in America's cities.  All of them.  And then reinvest the money saved into "community activism."  Mental health screening and food banks and such.  Instead of cops patrolling the streets, they want civilians in those cars responding to calls.  So, when those dreaded "domestic disturbance" calls come in, the ones most responsible for cops being shot in the line of duty, they want bleeding heart Liberals to handle the problem.  

I'm guessing these lawmakers must own stock in funeral parlors... 

Well, fellow Patriots, as both a historian and a trained sociologist (and pool hustler and race car driver), let me share what I've learned on the subject.  Some 140,000 - 150,000 years ago, pre-historic, pre-homo sapiens sapiens hunter-gatherers began to shelter together.  They did this seeking safety.  They began building their lodgings together and building their campfires together and they appointed members of the group to provide safety for the others while they slept.  And that safety (First) enabled them to focus on foraging for and even growing food and growing their families instead of (Second) having to worry about personal safety.  

And that increased sense of safety available in communal settings after awhile became an expected benefit of moving there.  And pitching your tent with the others.  And then beginning to start farming and stop hunting.

So, follow me here, 'cause I'm going somewhere, And so, ancient cities such as London and Baghdad and Jerusalem, attracted hundreds of thousands of dwellers.  And that expectation of increased safety, stretching all the way back to prehistoric times, continued on to Detroit and Chicago and Baltimore and New Orleans today.  

Where you could now be shot to death before dark...

That sense of increased safety pushed out the sense of anarchy and fear and trepidation.  And replaced it with a sense of personal safety.  A sense one needs to work and perform and learn and enjoy and play and raise your family in order to fully experience the human condition.

A sense made even more believable by cops in patrol cars all over our streets, keeping us safe.  They're keeping the "fringe" at bay.  Those who would rise up and fill any "defunding" effort and instill anarchy.  So when we call, the police usually come within minutes.  To corral the perps and restore our sense (there's that word again) of safety.  And tranquility.  

But Then.................

Those fun-loving Chinese were losing the trade war with Prezzzz. Trump so they unleashed (luuv that word!) the Wuhan Coronavirus upon us.  And nearly One Million of Us Died (I certainly hope the Big Guy's monthly check wasn't disrupted!).  And what was the first thing the Left-Wing "Progressive" caucus of the House did?  They demanded that we "defund the police."  Yes, they're trying to rewrite history now, but that's what they've been demanding since early 2019.  And that's what their constituents in those Big Blue Cities did.  They "defunded their police."  And crime has gone through the roof!

Remember when Seattle wasn't a war zone?

After more than a 30 year decline in firearm murders, 2020 gun deaths nearly doubled in some cities!  And 2021 saw that trend continue!  Why?  The cops in the Big Blue Cities bolted!  They took their pensions and went to the outlying cities to work.  Probably with a raise.  While the Big Blue Cities they left turned into toilets.  The ones that weren't toilets already...

As the title appearing above states, "Nature Abhors a Vacuum."  When the Sheriff Wyatt and his brothers' arrived in Dodge City, Kansas back in 1855, the crime stopped.  Dead in its tracks.  Wyatt moved in, criminals moved out.  So it is with cops.  A city provides effective policing, the crime goes waaay down.  The cops leave, the Bad Guys come back to town.  Simple.  I don't know why the simpletons in "The Swamp" or their handmaidens in the "Legacy Media" or those "Progressive" gadflies can't quite get their arms around that...

You've been watching a sociology experiment play itself out in real time.  Remember this:  Our Open Society has always teetered on the razor edge of the laws of man keeping men law abiding.  Because, if for no other reason, to avoid the harsh discipline the law could mete out.  Today?  Very little "meteing."  And a whole lot of perp coddling.  A vacuum in policing always results in heightened crime.  A vacuum will always be replaced with something.  

We would hope in this case it's a few (thousand) good cops...  

Odd Musings From an Odd Muse...

As you can well imagine, those of enormous intellect such as I have been known to occasionally evidence, ahem, (I considered myself the smartest kid in school.  Others didn't...), have occasional fleeting thoughts that are sometimes worth jotting down.  And perhaps sharing.  So here goes a "jot" or two.  And a "share" or two...

     -  The Queen has finally taken some time off after 96 years.  Joe O'Biden takes time off every day.  In fact, fully 40% of his entire time in office has been spent...taking time off.  He spent his entire senatorial career commuting by Amtrak between Baltimore and D.C. every single weekend, and now he's just changed his home address.  The commute is faaar less, and the view is faaar better...

     -  Do you have to be "whelmed" before you can be overwhelmed?  Asking for a friend... 

     -  I'd like to know the average I.Q.'s of our Congressweenies.  Wouldn't you?  100?  Maybe less?  Far less? 

     -  Minimum wage in Taxifornia was $15.00 an hour two years ago.  It was $7.75 two years before that.  Now it's whatever the employer has to pay to get some pimply-faced loser to put down his video game and drag himself out of his mom's basement and trundle on down to the Choke 'n Puke.  Where he can pick up $20.00 an hour asking, "Would you like fries with that?"  While our new Army recruits are earning $15.00 an hour risking their lives.  Our greasy Boy Guv up there in Sacramento can justify that, how?

     -  Whatever happened to customer service?  I mean, you call someplace and a real live person answers?  And then directs you to your desired individual.  Or extension.  Or simply answers your question?  Is that so hard?  It seems now, the bigger the business, the harder it is to actually get to a homo sapiens sapiens to help you.  I actually called my Primary Care Provider's office at 11:30 yesterday morning and every single extension had one of those, "We'll call you back within 24 to 48 hours."  Damn!  You could die!  And had your ashes spread by then!

     -  When I was young I was scared of the dark.  Now, when I receive my electric bill, I'm scared of the light!

     -  I dunno' 'bout chew, but before the Chinese Wuhan Coronavirus was "unleashed," I just naturally assumed that most of my fellow man (all inclusive term) were of average intelligence.  With the occasional dumbo thrown in there, of course.  But not too many of them.  But then I began seeing clips of my fellow Patriots being dragged off little league fields for not wearing a mask.  And ordinary, presumably room temperature-I.Q. folks riding their bikes and wearing a mask.  Or driving in their cars, windows rolled up, wearing a mask.  A mask that does not work for virus-ss-ses (they're designed for bacteria, mucho largero than viri!  Like 50 x largero!).  But they've bought the bulls*it hook, line and sinker.  That means completely.  They're probably the same folks who watch CNN(LOL) and MSPMS...  

     -  So far, some 5,000,000 illegal aliens, or "newly-arrived asylum-seekers, who will not qualify for asylum," have become wards of America.  Without America having chosen to invite them.  Or, rather only a small fraction of "America" invited them.  Just a few Ivy-leave pukes in "The Swamp" invited them.  Those who are trying to replace the used-to-be-Democrat voters who are now running like scalded dogs to the Republican Party.  5 Million.  That's the population of Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.  Combined.  Who are now where, and are doing what?  And to whom?  

           Remember, any one of them who tries to work has to get a Social Security card first.  And doing so is a FELONY! 

     -  Notice fewer ads for weight loss programs on TV these days?  That's because with raging Bidenflation, one cannot afford to eat.  Let's see now, put gas in the tank so I can get to work, or give the Little Lady the same $80.00 for groceries?  Hmmm...

     -    I hope my fellow 'Muricans remember when they go to the voting booth that the Democrats have been in complete control of all the levers of power for the past three years!  The Presidency, the House of Reps, and the Senate.  Plus all the committees.  So, whatever joy you're feeling, chalk it up to them.  And pain?  The same.  Place the blame where it belongs; the Democrat Party and their Avatar, Joe O'Biden.  

Nomsayin'?...

     -  I don't need to win the lottery.  All I need is to have the Plexiglas distributorship when the next pandemic comes around...

     -  You'll be (dis)pleased to know that we've been giving phones to all the illegals as they cross so we can keep in touch with them.  All 5,000,000 of them (we paid for 5 million phones?).  So we can know where they are.  So we can go scoop them up if they get rowdy or don't show up to the cattle call when ordered.  That's what they've been telling us.  

Well now, turns out the $80,000,000 contract we let with O'Biden's cousin's company (just guessing) to monitor the illegals in their various travels (hope they're living their very best lives!), are explicitly prevented from using GPS to locate them!  You read that right!  The only reason I can figure for this "little" exclusion is so that they cannot be located.  Go ahead, you simpleton guards, you!  Try and find those illegals with a blindfolds over your eyes!

     -  Right now, there are 1.5 firearms for every 'Murican.  Some 435 million of them, according to that same FBI that does its best to put Conservatives in the hoosegow.  And they are owned, according to the G-Men, by 100,000,000 of us.  One Hundred Million of us!  One out of three!  I wonder if those folks who are working overtime to deprive us of what's left of our liberties know that?  And if they also know that if they squeeze us too hard, we just might respond too hard?    

So now, fellow Patriots, I've vented my spleen to a level not seen in modern times.  No more to vent.  All gone.  See you when the spleen fills up.  Gotta' go.

Buh bye!

DIVORCE! (Part Deux)

So we've thrown down the gauntlet, you and I.  

All us Patriots have informed the elitist dweebs that we have irreconcilable differences, and we want a divorce.  No more counseling, no more cooling off period, we want out!  

So now it's time to divide up the assets.  You know, she gets the China, he gets the poodle, that sort of thing.  But in our case, it's the proceeds of 246 years of growing and doing and being.  And so let's get started...

     -  Let's give them the "Legacy Media."  You know, that Constitutionally-protected "Fourth Estate" by way of which you and I are supposed to get unbiased information (Ha! Ha!).  And then know how to vote.  Except of late it's been anything but unbiased.  Put plainly, it's been reporting only one-sided, Left-leaning claptrap for decades.  To be honest, and God knows we are, the "Corporate Media" is nothing but the communications arm of the Democrat National Committee.  And everybody SOUTH of I-70 already knows it!  So they'll think they're getting something Big, and we'll know they already had it!  Yes, they're not all that bright...

     -  We'll take the United States Military and the National Guard.  They're pretty much Conservatives anyway, so the Democrats know they won't be losing many votes.  And we can use their world-class firepower when it's time to fend off those brand-new, and fully-armed, IRS agents.  All 87,000 of them.  Can you see it?  A shoot out between guys in cammo with AR-15's and Ivy League grads in Brooks Brother suits, all armed with 9mm's.  I'll take the Military...

     -  And speaking of those IRS agents, we'll give them the IRS.  And all their armed bookkeepers.  They'll all become unionized soon, and they all vote Democrat, so nothing lost, nothing gained...

     -  They certainly get Hollywood, and all the miserable, neurotic, self-absorbed pukes who live there.  Think about it: they get up every morning and prepare to read lines written by others, even more screwed up than are they!  And they get paid $Millions for doing so.  Because others seeking a little release from life's problems, will pay to go sit in a darkened and watch them perform.  That's another area in which psychiatry and psychology might be of help.  

But anyway, since you could hold a monthly meeting of the Hollywood Republicans Club in a phone booth, if there's one left, not too much lost here.  They already have the Left Coast, so it's best to just let these sleeping dogs lie...

     -   We'll take the Police, and the Firefighters, and all the other sworn officers in uniform throughout 'Murica.  like the Military, they're pretty much all on our side anyhoo, so no biggie.  Annnnnd, since the Dummass Democrats chose to try and "Defund the Police," the cops all over the Fruited Plain who did lean a little bit "Left," have come to their senses.  Now?  They'd like to smack the s**t out of those commie pr*cks!

     -  Oh yeah, they get all the Federal Drones, who hopefully won't have a job once a Republican President retakes the Orville Orifice.  There's more than 250,000 of them, just around "The Swamp" in D.C., doing who knows what, so there's gonna' be some pain.  Not for them, though. They're probably unionized, so they'll get 8 years of pay if they get fired..

That oughta' do it.  With the dissolution of community property having now been dispersed, let's just now call this period in our history just like I call my first wife; a Good Start.  So let's go our separate ways, just like we did from Britain.  Who, I might remind you, is now our biggest and best friend!  We might actually become friends if we just get divorced!  But until then, we know they hate us, and we don't believe a word that they say.  So seems like a good ending to me...  

Let's start today.  Write your Congressweenie and let them know your feelings.  Let them know those pukes in Martha's Vineyard need to start looking out for themselves.  No more being propped up by those "Suthennn" heathens.  We'll now take our toys and go home.  

But don't come a callin' if and when you need our help.  You know, from the police or the fire or the Army or the Marines or the Air Force or the Coast Guard or the Space Force or the people to sit in a darkened theater and watch Jen and Ben love it up.  She's been married four times, and he's been married three.  Two now to her!   A shrink could set up shop in their bed room!

Mic drop...

"NGO's"

I kept on hearing about those "NGO's" in relation to our Border Protection folks.  

You know, the "Non-Governmental Organizations."  The ones our Border Guys and Gals and "Others" send those newly-arrived Illegal Aliens to after they've written down their names.  Or whatever names the illegals choose to give them.  All 7,000 of them a day.  Not including the so-far 750,000 "got-aways."  Those who would prefer not to be "welcomed."  

Perhaps they harbor nefarious intent?  Like those who flew planes into our Twin Towers, perhaps?   

Yes, it seems there's so many illegals streaming across our completely open and unguarded southern border, by O'Biden's order, that our guards must turn them over to what they call "NGO's."  We have only 22,000 total Border Guards.  And so far there's been 2,000,000 illegals invade our sanctity.  This fiscal year!  So far!  With one more month to go!

Not Joe O'Biden's sanctity, just our citizens' sanctity.  And our sanity... 

NGO's?  What's an NGO and what does it have to do with illegals?  I thought you'd never ask.  So I did a little digging.  I always do a little digging.  Sometimes more than a little...

That's what you pay me for, right?

And what I found shocked even me, the totally cynical-ized old reprobate who has lived through too much of this liberal horsepucky to be surprised at much of anything anymore.  Get this:  We, the Taxpayers, you and me, but we're only half of the population, remember, spend more than $139,000,000 a year on NGO's!  Hundreds and hundreds of them!  From Catholic charities to sanctuary city shelters and programs, we spend $139 Mil, but those Deep Blue Cities spend hundreds of millions more!  Remember, there are 239 Sanctuary Cities!  And all, I would say, at cross-purposes to our immigration laws.

In other words, those NGO's, funded by the Taxpayers, are aiding and abetting illegal immigration.  Remember, they get paid by the illegal!  So the more, the merrier (and richer)!  Just like the  Mexican cartels, who charge each poor migrant $Thousands, so do we.  Except we, the taxpayers pay our NGO's by the migrant!  

In other words, we get screwed both coming and going!  They come across our border illegally, forcing us to incur all those costs, and then we pay the NGO's to give them what they don't legally deserve, adding addition $Millions to the Taxpayers' burden.  

These NGO's give these illegals cell phones, and transit papers, and "arrest" warrants with which they can fly or take a bus.  For free.  And food and water.  And shelter.  For free.  And rent abeyance.  For free!  In Estados Unidos!  The Big Enchilada!  Our veterans living on the streets, and we're putting illegals up in ritzy hotels.  Bizarro World?

America is the Black Hole, drawing in illegals from 180 countries so far!  Illegally!  And if you can make it to NYC, and you now can, for free, they'll give you free healthcare and a coveted spot in Cardinal Dolan's private - and expennnnsivvve! - Catholic school system for their kids!  And once again, FOR FREE!  

(Psssst!  Memo to Cardinal Dolan.  There are a lot of Catholic families in New Yawk who can't afford to put their kids in your fancy friggin' schools.  For an average of more than $10,000 a year!  Yet you give those spots to illegals?  For free.  Why should they stay Catholic, again?)

I suggest we all just drive to Tiajowanna, walk across the Border, add a "Z" to our last names, smear some coffee grounds on our faces to get that "south-of-the-Border" tan, and wade back across the Rio Friggin' Grande.  You'll be welcomed by our Border Folks as a newly-minted 'Murican, with all the goodies and bennies Joe O'Biden can offer.  Courtesy of your neighbor.  Who will be pissed he didn't join you...  

But if he can't, his (our) NGO's will still be on duty, awaiting the next arrival!

It used to be that if you could make it in New York City, you could make it anywhere.  Now?  Think of this:  Regardless of your level of education, or whether you can speak English, or your intellect, or even desire, if you can make it TO New York City, you've already made it!  

Who The Hell Permitted This Crap To Happen?

A DIVORCE IS IMMINENT!

They don't like us.

We don't like them.

Time to do something about it.

Ours has been an explosive relationship.  It began with a bang, back in 1776, and is apparently now ending with a whimper...

I dunno' about you, but I think the time is finally right for a...

                            ...divorce.

Oh, I've intimated about it before, but it's obvious that our "Nawthen Elites" just won't play nice.  

These folks have looked down their noses at us for way too long.  They've considered us second-class citizens.  The "Great Unwashed."  The Proletariat.  The Peons.  America's "Uyghurs."  Those who live to serve...them.

And they, and their handmaidens, the "Legacy Press," which controls our information flow from a six-block area in mid-town Manhattan, who are the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat National Committee, which rule from their 55 square-mile "Swamp" in D. C., have treated us like Red-Headed Stepchildren.  They consider us "flyover people."  Those inbred folks who live between the Hudson River and the Sacramento River.  And do so, in their opinions, poorly...  

Those pickup-driving, beer-swilling, flag-waving, baseball-loving, sub-100 I.Q. Whitebread unfortunates who continue to drag down our Hard Left Liberals in their efforts to fully "Progressive-ize" America.  To turn it into what they've always wanted it to be; Cuba.  

Well now, fellow Patriots, I'm pretty sure you're just as tired as I'm am over this treatment, and just as anxious as I am to bring it to an end.  And I think I know how...

Picture Europe.  Europe west of the Eurasian Continent hosts an astounding 29 separate countries.  In a land mass that would fit comfortably Texas!  Think about it: Texas is 600 miles wide.  So is Western Europe.  

Count those countries if you doubt me!  Think France and Germany and Italy and Spain and Holland.  These countries have warred with each other for millennia.  France and England have been at war with each other for over 1,000 years!  Remember the "Battle of Hastings?"  Back in 1066?  No?  Too much "Equity, Inclusion and Intimidation" training?  Lemme' help you out... 

Think France and England.  There was no Internet back then, or TV, or even newspapers, so I think they considered it sport!  Something to allay boredom!  Yet now, today, they reside next to one another in (relative) peace.  

So it is possible, even between countries as ideologically opposed as France, and say England.  And as "cheek-by-jowl" up next to one another as is say, Belgium and Luxembourg.  They are at peace.  Or maybe they're just worn out from being at war... 

I propose a similar arrangement between the Northern States of America and the Southern States of America.  I propose the dividing line between the two to be roughly Interstate Highway I-70.  It runs from approximately Baltimore, Maryland, to the western edge of Utah, and then it blends into a series of state highways. 

However, everybody knows that our western tier of states, Washington, Oregon and California, are as Blue as Blue can get.  They really should get together and form another nation.  They are filled up to the very brim with Liberal "Progressive" Leftist pukes who live to co-opt OPM (Other Peoples' Money).  So there's no dealing with this Cabal of Commies.  They are beyond help.  So just forget about where I live and so many other "normal" people live.  We are beyond help.  Like those who lived in East Berlin, behind...The Wall.  Except our "wall" is where no U-Haul trailers available because they're all rented out.  

(What's that sound you hear?  It's the roll-up door on the back of a U-Haul truck slamming shut as it readies for a journey East to Anywhere Else on the I-10...) 

Remember the movie, "Escape from Los Angeles?"  Snake Plitkin doing his best to remove himself from this once-Golden State?  So is everyone else with the means to do so...  

I think we should "Build That Wall!"  But in addition to building it between America and the Rest of The World, we should also build it between America and These Three States.  And then try our best to keep them in.  I see it all now: Border patrols guarding the gates, checking your passports, as some try to enter California from Arizona.  To visit Disneyland.  For some unknown reason... 

Or leave.  I can predict a line of miles and miles as you try to leave.  Notice the traffic from Mexico and the Triangle Countries is all headed...North.

This rather extreme measure has been made necessary because almost all of our Constitutionally-protected news-gathering and dissemination services spew nothing but socialist dogma.  And that wouldn't be so bad, except about half of America watches nothing else.  As the Administration keeps on lying, to our faces, while they sanguinely report it.  Pravda would be proud.  

So, a corrupt Media, coupled with an ignorant sub-set of America which refuses to become enlightened, to consider any perspective other than whatever Joe says is bad, spells doom for our Representative Republic (no, Joe, we don't have a democracy).  Yes, it's an emergency.  The time to act...is now!

In the coming days I'll write about how we divide up the assets between the NSA and the SSA.  But this is enough for now.  Its enough to say we have difficulties between us, and those difficulties are not being resolved.  And nothing but a divorce will resolve them.

In the meantime, just pay no attention at all to the incessant harping of the "DNC Media."  They're only spewing Democrat talking points to Democrat listeners anyway.  Those who refuse to listen to reason.  Vacuous twits.

Nomsayin'?

(my favorite word) 

He Went Ahead and Did It...

I wrote a week or so back about our greaseball Boy Guv and how he just might sign the new "FAST Food Act."  

That's the one that gives control of Taxifornia's 600,000 fast food workers to an unelected, 10-person group of appointed bureaucrats, with only five of which necessarily being from the food industry.  And with the power and authority to set the minimum wage of those fast food workers.  Amazingly.  And unlike anywhere else in America.  

Or anywhere else outside Russia, and North Korea, and China, and Cuba.  

Let's see now... Is it socialism that owns the means of production, or is it Marxism?  Hmmm...

So, in case you haven't been paying attention, CA's min-wage was $15.00 two years ago.  It is now $17.65.  Or whatever the employer has to pay pimply-faced teens to flip burgers.  Buuuut, this new group of Marxists may now just wave their manicured hands and juice the MinWage up to...wait for it...$22.00 and hour!  All by their lonesome!

And just as a reminder, the starting wage for a new recruit into the U. S. Army is...$15.00 an hour.

So, let's look at it like this for a change.  A potential McDonalds franchisee must pay a fee of around $250,000 simply for the chance to sell those delicious (!) Quarter Pounders.  That's just the franchise fee.  And another $250k for the land and building and fixtures to get ready to open.  

And for that?  If his store is open 24 hours a day he can expect to earn about $250,000 a year.  Before taxes.  Or, a pre-tax profit of about 3 - 4%.  

With this new law?  His profit will be entirely wiped out.  The increase in his employees' wages, all announced and controlled from without, beyond his control, even though HE'S the employer, would entirely eliminate his profit.  I have the feeling the value of MickeyD's franchise will soon drop to about...ZERO!  And so will the values of all the other franchises here in Socialistville.  

Hey, dummies!  Here's a reminder.  Just because you CAN do a thing, doesn't mean you SHOULD do a thing...

Oh yeah, and just to prove that this wasn't a one-off, shoot-your-self-in-the-foot moment, San Fran Nan's nephew Gavin Newsom, a guy born or 3rd base and thought he'd hit a triple, decided to make California Abortion Central.  He just announced "abortion.ca.gov."  That's his new little website that advertised absolutely FREE abortions to anyone, IN THE WORLD!

And on top of this our Boy Guv just put up 7 billboards in Red States advertising to their citizens the availability of a quick and dirty abortion.  Just hop a plane and, "Come on out to the coast!  Have a little fun!  Drop that unwanted weight!"

I don't recall any convo about the use of Taxpayer Funds to pay for this boondoggle.  Especially the funds of those who believe that abortion is murder and a sin against God.  That's okay, says Gavin, because there is no God.  No harm, no foul...

So now your Happy Meal, which cost $5.99 two years ago, and costs $9.99 today, will be $15.99 after these bureaucrats get through tinkering with it.  But even though you won't be able to afford to eat one, you'll be able to get a free abortion.  

So there's that...

The Last Time I Played Pool for Money...

As many of you may know, I was a professional pool player in my yout (what's a yout?).

Actually, I should say I played pool professionally.  There were no real "professional pool players" back then.  Just hustlers who made their living convincing others they weren't very good with a pool cue.  But I was never a hustler.  I'd simply walk into a pool room and place my cue case on the nearest table.  While all the pool room toads were intently focused, I'd take out my cue, hold it high in the air and announce, firmly, "I'm the best you've ever seen.  And if you don't believe me, bring me the best you've ever seen, and let's play..."

At which point I'd begin to drill balls into the pockets, and wait; wait for a hustler to appear magically out of the wallpaper a few minutes later.  And we'd play pool for money.  Sometimes lots of it.  And sometimes all night.  And this is one such a story...

                    +++++ ////  \\\\ +++++

I discovered at the age of 13 that when I picked up a pool cue people automatically gave me money.  Bushels of it.  Oh, I had to work like a rented mule for years to acquire that talent, but I was the best I'd ever seen by the age of 16.  And on the road by 17, "Touring" dirty dive bars (my favorite kind!) and seedy pool rooms all over the upper Midwest.  Would-be pool hustlers all across Kansas and Missouri and Iowa and Arkansas and Illinois learned not to answer the siren call when The Chuckmeister came to town...  

I keep getting asked, "What did your parents have to say about all of this?"  My answer: my Dad was the 1927 and '28 Missouri State pool champion, and so he understood that the DNA doesn't fall too far from the tree.  He convinced Mom to just let me be, as he was pretty sure I'd land on my feet.  Just as he'd done.  

And I did.  In spades (can I still say that?).  After a few scary years.  I was making money hand over fist.  I made $65,000 in 1963, as I recall, when the average postal worker was knocking down about $5,200 a year. 

A brand-new car cost $2,500.  Think about that.

You might therefore understand why I had great difficulty paying close attention to my college professors, who were making barely a third of what "The Chuckmeister" was knocking down.  My professional nom de plume.  That means moniker.  

And thus, the name of this unassuming little blog many years later.  Ahem...

Anyway, I played professionally for more than 10 years.  I even played in some tournaments, just for yucks.  I won the Ohio State Snooker Championship in 1961, for example, with a prize of a yuuuge trophy, a new Balabuska pool cue, and the chance to play 17-time World Pool Champion Willie Mosconi on television at the Grand Opening of the Olympic Lanes in St. Joseph, MO. 

What a trip!  I was a 17 year-old kid, sitting at the seat of my Pool God!  Given the chance to match wits with the absolute pinnacle of our sport!  Well before I was worthy.  I actually broke out in hives!  This was a enormous deal! 

Oh yeah, he won, if you have to ask.  But not by much.  We were playing 14.1 Call Shot.  I opened with a run of 16, then played a fairly good leave.  It wasn't fairly good.  He ran out to 125.  I mean, HELLO!  I was 17 years old and he was 67!  Unfair, much?

Anyway, I subsisted by living at college dorms, hiding from the draft to maintain my 2-S Deferment, buying new cars every six months, drag racing on a professional schedule to keep me from getting bored, playing poker in my spare time, chasing only the very prettiest girls, and doing whatever the Hell else I wanted, whenever I wanted.  Except attending classes, and studying.  Basically, I didn't attend college, I lived at college.  I mean, a guy has to have standards!  

And lemme' say again, I was 17!  I thought my feces had no odor!    

So you can understand I grew accustomed to being incorrigible.  And getting my way.  And winning gobs of money from room temperature I.Q.-types.  I told them to consider it tuition.  To the College of the Chuckmeister.  I don't think they appreciated my advice.  Or even understood it.

Anyway, to the-then present:  I parked my near-new black, 1965 442 Oldsmobile in front of the 12th Street Pool Hall on a Spring evening, just as the sun was setting.  My traveling companion "Little Dickie" Robertson (Hi Dickie, if you're out there!) and I went through the revolving doors and into the dim light of the aging pool room.

Revolving doors, I learned, because it had at one time been a hotel.     

And this was a glorious place.  It held about 14 pool and billiard and snooker tables, lined up one after the other, all the way back to end of the room.  So dark, and so smoky, one could hardly see the back end.  But we knew it was there.  You could hear it!  

As per usual, Dickie and I followed the noise.  It led to a 9-ball game.  One we quickly entered.  And one in which the stakes quickly escalated.  And the time passed.  And the players dropped off.  So that by about 11:00, there were only 3 of us left; Dickie and I, and one other miscreant.  Our mark.  Er, rather, opponent.

The normal way we played 9-ball back then was to put the money $stakes on top of the pool table light.  Then, after each game, the winner retrieves the stakes and the loser replaces them.  And the game goes on.  

So Dickie, on que, drops out.  And the "mark" and I continue on.  As I slowly "oooch" up the stakes.  By talking the mark into higher and higher bets.  I do so, I'm almost sorry to say, by belittling his talent, and sometimes his parentage.  And once the bets got to $100 a game, which was yuuuuuuge back then, and I was $2,800 ahead, I knew things were going to get "sporty."  

I started making "leaving" noises.  My yawning and stretching and shuffling my feet was supposed to let the mark know I was on my way out.  But the "mark" was having none of it.  When I finally said, "I'm going,"  the "mark" said, "Look around you.  Those guys all work for me.  And they'll rip your ass apart  unless you either give me back my money, or let me win it.  Your choice..."   

I'd broken the First Rule of hustling.  "Keep note of your surroundings."  And while I'd been concentrating on winning, about a dozen guys with motorcycle jackets had begun surrounding me.  You know, the kind with about 100 zippers on them.  Each.  And they all looked like a pack of wolves, just waiting for the chance to pounce.

Rule Number Two is, "Discretion is the Better Part of Valor."  That means, a strategic withdrawal is often wise.  As in, running like a bandit is a-okay.  Quite within bounds.  In fact, Rule Number Three is, "Running is great cardio.  Especially if it's away from a would-be assailant." 

So, I gave the raised eyebrow to Dickie and started making losing noises.  As in, I was going to start to lose to this sucker as he'd commanded.  But remember, I said this was an ex-hotel.  With a revolving door.  So, pocket full of cash, I gave the signal and we bolted.  I made it through the door first, then Dickie, who put his foot out to stop it from revolving further.  This caused about 12 guys to mash into a space normally occupied by about 8.

I ran to my car, opened it, reached under the front seat and pulled out my Model 29 Smith & Wesson .44 mag revolver.  The Big Boy.  The Dirty Harry gun.  The one if you ran out of ammo you could use it to beat them to death.  

I had several pistols sprinkled throughout the car, including a .359 S&W Highway Patrolman in the glovebox, but this one was closer.  And bigger.  Bit it was all about close.

I reached through and unlocked Dickie's door and rolled down the window.  I yelled for Dickie to come, and fast!  He gave up his blocking position at the door, ran to my car and dived through the window.  All at once there was a clot of humanity coming our way, dead-set on making us dead.  I laid my revolver over the roof of my 442, cocked it, and pointed it center mass at the lead "zipper."  And just as loud as I could, I shouted, "Take another step and I'll open you up like a can of tuna."  

Now, I don't know where exactly that came from, but at my threat, the cretins skidded to a halt.  It was a Mexican standoff, and all we had to do was find out which of us were the Mexicans.  

I couldn't tell you how long it took.  I remember thinking that even though I only had six shots in my revolver, being a .44 Magnum, I could could on each bullet taking out two, or even three guys.  I was actually calculating where to point to get the highest body count.  

It seemed like an hour before the Lead Cretin, the guy with the most zippers on his jacket, said, "Okay then, you son of a bitch!  But if you ever come back here, we'll kill you!"  I thought to myself, don't worry, I won't.  I seldom if ever revisit the scene of any of my crimes...

That's Rule Number Four...

And at that, they slowly melted back into the pool room, mumbling loudly under their breath as they went.  The Lead Cretin frequently looking back over his shoulder to try and intimidate me...as he did the walk of shame.

Dickie and I fired up the car and left a longgg strip of rubber as I put some miles between me and the pool room.  We said not a thing.  I doubt we could speak.  I don't know about Dickie, but I was shaking like a dog sh*tting razor blades.  I kept saying over and over again under my breath, "never again."

And then, when I found a friendly street lamp, I pulled over and parked.  I then opened the door, leaned out and projectile vomited.  For minutes.  Until there was nothing left to vomit.  Until it turned to bile.  Green bile.  Because I was was so fu**ing scared!  No, not afraid that I'd get killed.  No, afraid that I came ever so close to blowing that fu***r away and spending the rest of my life in prison!  

I had the hammer cocked.  I had my finger on the trigger.  I was more than capable of doing it.  I'd pulled down on a few others before, and knew if the cheese got binding I was ready.  And I was only his muscle twitch away from my life undergoing a major change.  His life, a big change for sure.  It would have been over.  But I'd be the guy the spending 23 hours a day in a 8' by 12' cell...

He could have zigged instead of zagged.  He could have blinked.  He could have have breathed wrong.  He could have just given me a dirty look!  But he didn't.  And he lived.  And so did I.  Barely.  Barely!  And so, that's the last time I played pool for money! Or had the slightest inclination to do so.  

I got "scared straight" that evening.  Oh, I've since trained others how to play, but I never again put my own money down on a game.  I found other pursuits in which to invest my time and attention.  I put the cue down after more than 12 years.  It was a demon that controlled my life for so very long.  I was addicted as if to an opiate.  Imagine, winning every time you play and rolling cash.  But for how long?  I barely escaped that life.  And earned a new one.  One with a wife and kids and a career and a life.   

But that's a story you already know...   

A Machiavellian Conspiracy?

Is it just me, or should we be concerned about the long-term consequences of O'Biden's recent legislative actions?  

Follow the bouncing ball:

Those in power have been hipppmotizzzed by the highly educated idiots amongst us to believe that "Global Warming," or "Climate Crisis," or "Climate Change," or whatever they've poll tested to call it now, will be the death of us all.  Unless we radically change our habits and go back to the horse and buggy.  I say "we" in the imperial sense, like the Queen (God rest her soul) used to wave her little gloved hand as she glided past the assembled masses in her gilded cage.  

But what I mean to say, is "you."  

The folks who ride around in limos and take private jets want you to stop using an SUV to get from place to place.  That's waaaaay too much freedom for them!  For you, I mean.  Too much freedom to ride around all willy nilly.  All hither and yon.  Go just anywhere you want, freedom?  What's up with that?  I mean, shouldn't you have to ask someone?  

They want you to use public transportation.  Or, preferably, ride a horse.  And be sure to clean up after...

Or, walk.  Mucho better.  Just walk...

It's John Kerry on steroids.  His fingerprints are all over this.  All of this sturm and drang we're now suffering through is part of a demonic plot by John Kerry and his cronies to keep all of "them" living in high style while "we," the Great Unwashed, the Proletariat, the Peons, the people who are breathing "his" air, start riding the bus.  And the train.  Standing up.  Holding onto a strap.  Whether we want to or not.

And we don't want to.  As in, F*ck You, Johnnie!

You knew he shot himself in the leg to get out of the Viet Nam war, didn't you?  The cowardly pr*ck.

So, a group of these overeducated, two-dimensional socialists get together in the Faculty Lounge at Yale and come up with this;  

     1.  They elect a guy (Joe O'Biden) who's dedicated to ending oil and gas drilling and leasing and usage.  Because they think oil is all "dirty" and should be outlawed.  Because they're scared the Earth will come to a fiery end in 8 or 10 or 12 years, and they want you to suffer for it.  'Cause it's your fault.  For driving an SUV and not raising your thermostat during the heat wave!  It's you, you Troglodyte!

     2.  This guy then stops all drilling and leasing; cuts off the Keystone-XL Pipeline, eliminating a future 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day into America, when we're currently only 400,000 barrels a day short; ends almost all offshore oil and gas leasing; stops all oil and gas exploration in the ANWR in Alaska; then greenlights the Nord Stream Two Pipeline to kiss Putin's ass and expedite Europe's Winter of Discontent.  Who does this bozo work for again?  

They'll be rioting in the streets over this come January.  Mark my words...  

     3.  His Party then passes legislation without a single Republican vote to give $7,500 of taxpayer's money to buyers of electric buggies.  Which cost, as of today, an average of $67,454.00.  Almost exactly twice as much as the average gas-powered car.  Car manufacturers love them because they're so profitable (20% of the parts, 20% of the time, and 20% of the labor to manufacture).  Except their 2,000 lb. batteries require "rare earths" to make, and those rare earths come from...China. 

That's ONE TON of batteries! 

     4.  Since half of America cannot afford a grossed-up electric golf cart like Joe and his Sycophants demand you drive, tax credit or not, they'll be forced out of their gas-powered cars sooner or later.  Most likely sooner.  Which means they'll be riding busses and taking the train, and even walking, whether it's safe or not, and whether they want to or not.  Which will entirely remake our relationship with our employers nationwide (Can't get to work?  You need a different job!). 

Those condescending, unappreciative elitists!

     5.  Automatically, almost over night, half of America will be forced onto public transportation.  Which is not ready for that increased ridership.  Within 12 years.  That's an eyeblink, historically speaking.  And some of that "half," like in California, which was built around gas-powered cars, will not be able to conform.  Lost Angeles is not Chicago!  L. A. is 75 miles wide and 125 miles long!  And neither is Salina, KS, or Rifle, CO, or Albuquerque, NM, or Centralia, IL.  Or Butte, Monfriggintana!  You could be miles from a bus or a train station, even before you try to board it!  And then maybe get knifed in the process!

     6.  No problem.  Can't get to work?  Just go on welfare.  Like your cousins in Chicago.  And Baltimore.  And in Philadelphia.  They've been living that "company town" lifestyle for generations.  You're easier to control that way.  And the new laws, plus their 87,000 new - and armed - IRS agents, will go about the business of extracting enough money from those evil rich people (employers) to pay for it.  Welcome aboard!  

You like that thinking?  That level of "Progressive" planning?  The way they intend to grab ahold' of your miserable little life?  And then never, ever let go?  And then most likely blame the "Ultra Super Fantasmagorical MAGA Republicans."  Well, lemme' tell you something they may have forgot to remember.  Our half of America is armed!  Heavily!  455,000,000 firearms!  And if pressed, presumably willing to use them! 

I will be subsequently writing about how Nature Abhors a Vacuum.  In this case, post "defund the police," I predict that vacuum will be filled by militias...   

What was it that guy said?  Oh yeah, "The Best Laid Plans... 

Education in the Dark Ages...

Waaay back when I was a kid, back in Medieval Times, there was a fork in the road when you got out of high school: you went to college if you were smart, and if you weren't, you didn't.

And if you didn't, you were thereafter confined to a morass of mediocrity.  

There was no choice.  No other options.  Except the military, of course.  Or the family farm.  Or perhaps the ministry.  But for all other occupations, you went to college if you were too smart to "work for a living," or so they thought. To shoe horses, or fix cars, or install HVAC systems, for instance.  The "underclass."  The "less well educated."  The forever condemned, is what they meant.  People looked down their noses at these folks.  The folks that made possible their standard of living.  The folks who brought gas to their cars.  Who brought food to their tables.

The folks that were earning a full-time, $Big Bucks paycheck while the others were learning all about Medieval Lesbian Poetry.  On a Gubmint student loan.  Which qualifies them for...nothing.  A loan that can never be discharged as a debt, even if they die.  Lemme' say again:  You cannot bankrupt yourself out of student loan debt!  

Now do you wonder why banks are crawling all over themselves to make these loans?

I think I went to college more out of fear for what might happen to me if I didn't.  In fact, I had recurring nightmares for months, even after I was out of college, that I had overslept and missed my finals.  I hadn't, of course, but even having nightmares over such a thing for so long should give you an idea how important it was back then to have a degree.  

In short, there were two kinds of people:  Those who'd graduated college, and those who hadn't.

And your "major" mattered not.  I had a double-major, for instance; Psychology and Economics.  Aren't I smart?  I planned to teach, hopefully at my home town high school, until I learned how much the job paid.  Bupkis.  With this degree I'd be qualified to ask, "Would you like fries with that?"  

Back then?  I was welcomed with open arms by a recruiter who just happened to be in the search firm I'd chosen that day.  As it happened there was a guy there from Pfizer Phamaceuticals looking for a newly-minted graduate just like me.  Or any warm body that looked semi-presentable, could fog a mirror and put a few words together.  And after a short interview, I was hired as Pfizer's newest "Pharmaceutical Manufacturer's Representative."  Not a single question was asked about my education.  Only, "When can you start?"

All of this happened while the ink was still drying on my diploma.  I could have left my car idling by the curb...

From that inauspicious beginning of trying to convince doctors in the plains of Kansas that my stuff was better than the other guy's stuff, I moved on up the corporate ladder until I was recruited  by another firm.  And yet another.  But after awhile, I had vacuumed up enough knowledge from all available sources about how to start and manage a corporation, that I started and managed a corporation.  And it worked out.  Famously!    

I have suggested forever that kids join the military immediately following high school.  Men or women, makes no difference.  They are kids when they go in, they'll be full-baked men and women when they get out.  And they'll travel the world.  And learn all kinds of new and wonderful stuff.  And make new friends.  Of all races and religions and nationalities.  And when they get out the Gubmint will pay for their college.  Which costs and arm and a leg.  So why not make your neighbor, the one who hates the Army, the one who has a Tesla you paid for, the one who thinks America sucks, now pay for your kid's college?

The commie pri*k!

Did you know that you can earn more than $100,000 a year as a lineman?  Or a fireman?  Or a cop?  Or a pipefitter?  Or more than a dozen other trades?  Many requiring no more than a high school degree? 

Did you know you can earn more than $250,000 a year as a farrier?  That means, "the guy who drops by sometimes and shoes horses."   

Or they could join the Peace Corps.  Or convert to Mormonism and go on a pilgrimage.  Or take a job painting those infernal yellow stripes down the center of the highway.  Just do SOMETHING to grow up!  Find a way to get from 18 to 21 without killing themselves or someone else!  

Or, they could go off to college, gain 15 pounds, get drunk or stoned all the time, flunk out, and blow a bunch of money, perhaps THEIR money, or their PARENT'S money, on student loans.  Like I did.  Your choice...  Or your kid's choice.  Except they're not smart enough to make that choice until they've reached the age of majority.  And they won't get there without making this choice.

Proof God has a sense of humor... 

I can say that everything important I now know I've learned since I got out of school.  Life experience is the very best teacher.  And the only way to get life experience is to live it!  To take chances.  To be daring.  To jump into the deep end of the pool...  

I did.  And I wish the same for you.  Good luck!

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

It hit me while I was watching the Telly the other day.  One of those smack-yourself-in-the-forehead sort of moments.

          "What we have here...

     is an infestation of lawyers!

We've been inundated by a invasion of attorneys!  They are everywhere!  Even on TV.  It seems that each of the talking heads that spew their particular brand of news to each other, and us, are law..yurzzz!.  Attorneys!  Barristers.  People who engage in highway robbery in broad daylight, without a mask or a firearm.  

Did you know there are more lawyers in Orange County, Taxifornia than in all of Canada?

They pick our pockets without consequence, every day of the year.  Because in our highly litigious society, anyone can sue anyone, at anytime (and often do!), so you just might need one of these leaches to keep your finances semi-secure and your ass out of the Graybar Hotel.  

Who else do you know that can look you in the eyes and charge you... 

             ...$700.00 an hour?  

The folks who somehow put together the bucks and the loans to get through law school, any law school, so they can now tell us plebes the way things now are, or they think ought to be.  As if they now have some special insight into "the answer" after having spent the past several years with their noses in a law book.  The answer, truly, is... "don't become a lawyer."  

I've often said that my best friend wouldn't be my best friend today if he hadn't been my best friend before he went off to law school.  They turned him from a fun-loving, little rolly-polly, Big City Jew, as he called himself, into regimented proof that "The Body Snatchers" movie was true!  They inhabit normal lawyers' bodies, who thereafter work overtime to change America into a socialist plutocracy.

Whom else do you know when asked a question their eyes go out of focus and they begin to read from the inside of their foreheads some law or obscure rule or regulation that controls our puny, insignificant existences?  Questions that only they know the answers to, as if in some not-so-secret "club."  A "club" of overeducated, underexperienced Democrats (85% vote that way!) who seek to even more fully control our insignificant little lives.  

And since they're doing a pretty good job of it so far, they have every reason to expect continued success...  

Oh yeah, they just got $10,000 of their student loans forgiven.  By that cranky old reprobate in the White House.  His action is unconstitutional, of course, and he'll get sued, of course.  And lose, of course.  But that'll be next year, well after the Election's over.  He'll have already gotten the political benefit from the "promise," he's given even though later unkept.  Like almost all of his promises.  

The commie puke. 

The joke's on him, however.  They were gonna' vote for him anyway...  

You remember that black and white movie, "The Body Snatchers," don't you?  The one I referred to up above?  The one where you were overtaken by the forces of evil if you went to sleep?  Thereafter you became one of..."them."  And the threat the movie implied was that soon, these soulless ghouls would overtake us all and replace us with automatons.  Those who would do the bidding of "Them."  Presumably your basic space aliens.  But maybe just "Swamp Creatures."  And I was finally struck by the fact that they have...won.  Some of us, the attorneys, are now them...

Even that cat Shakespeare in his "Midsommer Night's..." thingie that "...the lawyers should all be lashed together and marched into the sea."  "After first beating them to within an inch of their puny, worthless little elitist lives.  And then sending them an invoice, itemized in five-minute blocks of time for our efforts.  Like they do."  Or something to that effect.  

You get the idea.

Anyway, when we discovered that we had a pandemic of virus-ses, Trump developed an vaccine.  All by himself.  Or something.  Now that we have a pandemic of lawyers, shouldn't we come up with a suitable "innoculation?"  And just what could that "antidote" be?  

Think about it:  These bozos have gone to school for years learning how to fleece us like a Christmas lamb.  Shouldn't we all learn how to fight back?

Now, I don't recommend violence.  Usually.  No, that would never do.  We're far too civilized for that.  But perhaps a low-flying little Cessna 152 to drop some nerve agents or something.  Designed after secretly collecting the DNA of lawyers so the vaccine can be customized.  Individualized.  Quick, incapacitating.  Perhaps only removing their ability to speak.    

What, did something happen?  

Or maybe we could open gulags, like the Soviets were so famous for.  And hunt them down and put them to work painting those yellow stripes down the center of the highways.  The one down the middle of Death Valley, preferably.  In July and August and September.  Or better yet, "Reeducation Camps" so we can reverse the effects of their cultist training.

Or, maybe we start treating them like we treat our doctors.  Make them see patients who cannot pay, and then pay them one-third of their rates for seeing the indigent patients.  Fair?  

And then make them keep on seeing them under threat of a lawsuit.  How about we force lawyers to see clients for one-third of their hefty hourly rates?  Or even for free?  Just to pay us all back as a society for their having previously conspired to overcharge us all, just as we're now presuming to somehow now pay back Black people because their fore-fore-forebears were enslaved by those awful Whities?

You see the slippery-slope we're now headed down?

And now look at this:  A bunch of lawyers conspire and get the "PacAct" passed, which will pay to clean up the water around the Marine's famous Camp Le Jeune, SC.  And they've found a way to now sue the Federal Gubmint via that Act, that would be you and me, the Taxpayers, for any harm caused by that water, over several decades.  And all you have to do is watch the TV commercials and see the number of law firms which have gotten together into a cabal and started fishing for those of us who are hungry for some Uncle Sugar $'s.  Ukraine's getting it, why not them?  Pay attention.  I've counted 9 separate law firms paying for "call me if you're sick" commercials.  So far.  

I suggest that since we now have an oversupply of lawyers, just as we now seem to some to have an oversupply of White people, the Gubmint should now be forced to hire three non-attorneys for every future ambulance-chaser.  Or maybe six.  Or fourteen.  Sort of a reverse anti-discrimination law.

Maybe give everybody but lawyers a five-point bump on their tests like we used to give Blacks.  The "Great Society" in reverse.

Unfair to lawyers?  I recall winning a lawsuit I brought against a hospital who'd stiffed my company for a big chunk of $Change, and then my lawyer took about 20% of it.  For no more than four hours work.  And when you replace "20%" with "$14,000," it makes you sit up straight.  $14,000 and you And begin to ask, wha...?

About this time you may be asking yourself, "Does The Chuckmeister have a personal vendetta against lawyers?  Why yes, yes I do...

So, in the final analysis, are all lawyers bad people?  Ask Joe O'Biden, are all Republicans bad people?  The answer would most likely be the same...