Okay, I’m officially bored

I know, how is that possible with all the turmoil, yet here I am.

I’m completely over the constant diet of fear, tragedy, destruction, and protests.

I killed the Twitter account, don’t have FaceBook, hell I’ don’t even use Google. I’m not paying for Apple News or Apple TV+. I avoid the CNN, CBS, MSNBC, and ABC free streaming services. Having long since cut the Cable. 

Scanning the various online newspapers around the country is monolithic, they all say the same thing. Riots, Burning, Looting, Police bad, police defunded, White people racist, Orange Man Bad, Corona gonna get ya, social Distancing, wear a mask as a symbol of solidarity, blah, blah, blah.

At this point it’s all so bad it’s depressing as shit.

For the first time in many years, I’m glad I don’t live closer to cities. I’m 2.5 hours away from San Diego, 90 minutes from Orange County, 90 minutes from LA and that’s just fine with me. The only thing cities give me is a place to work, drink or shop. Since all that is in the shitter… Burn it all down,  or don’t, I honestly don’t give a shit anymore. 

Our nation has become something that could have been in the pages of a prequel to Orwell’s 1984, or Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

I’ve had quite enough.

I feel bad for the Police, I feel bad for those few friends that may be in the middle of it all. But my empathy is running dry. 

It’s all become noise, I choose not to listen. Come up to my house wanting to cause trouble and we’ll see how that goes. If I win, you go home in an ambulance or a body bag, If I lose then I’m dead and none of this matters to me anymore either.

I’m tired of the battle.

Go do whatever you want to do just don’t drag me into your dramatic bullshit.

One thing that does astound me is that I’ve always attempted to be egalitarian. What’s good for me is generally good for you and vice versa.

Obviously I missed the memo telling me that it was okay to be a complete asshole. Gee, I could have had all kinds of fun, had it not been for my damn moral compass.

You know the compass that was set with basic principals? The one based in the biblical 10 commandments, the one that assumed the founding principals and subsequent amendments to the principals of this country were sound ideas. Things like inalienable rights and freedom to pursue happiness, little concepts like that.

Add into that basic mix the concept put fourth by the poem “The Hangman” by Maurice Ogden, and I’ve taken action throughout my life to step in, and step up, against wrongs when I encounter them. Mix in a little classical Greek literature and some SciFi wherein the writers imagined how wrong things could go as cautionary tales and you end up with someone like me.

Someone who believes in a basic premise of; do no harm, make few enemies, be loyal and true, be honorable, treat everyone equally but with a hint of suspicion (because not everyone is honorable,) live well by the sweat of your own labor, ask for little, be helpful, honest, and kind.

And yet, after living my life to those standards and being a law abiding (Okay, I speed), do right kind of guy, now suddenly I’m a bad guy for no other reason than I’ve worked my ass off to have nice things.

Obviously I’m a fucking moron!

Hindsight being 20/20 I should have literally, and figuratively FUCKED everyone I encountered, pressed every advantage and made no choices based on morality, kindness, or ethics.

God knows, had I done that, I’d be a lot better off financially than I am. My dick would have seen a lot more action to boot. I wouldn’t have much soul left, but I could be eating $40 bowls of ice cream not worrying about how I would pay my bills for the month.

When confronted with someone like me, the highly educated elite academics say that I still had white male privilege I’m therefore automatically guilty, even if I didn’t use that privilege.

Yeah, you get no credit for not using something, you’re damned because you had it from the get go.

I guess it’s like the concept of Original Sin. You just have to take it on faith because someone in authority says it’s so. Don’t forget, you’re not allowed to call into question the source of someone’s authority.

It’s against this backdrop that not only am I bored as shit of all this, I’m actively avoiding technology of almost any kind.

Voice messages, texts, emails, all accumulate on various devices and I’m simply not interested.

I find myself reading books if I’m not outside doing something, (or trying to do something,) constructive. 

The latest of these is The AR-15 Complete Assembly Guide by Walt Kuleck with Clint McKee. No, I’m not going all survivalist. I couldn’t buy ammo anyway, as I have zero patience to navigate asinine gun laws living as I do, in California. I’m surprised I could even buy the book here.

I figure if I need one, I’ll go buy one in South Central LA, or San Diego near the border from one of the cartels. I can probably pick up a couple thousand rounds of ammo too. Oh, don’t get your panties in a knot. I use that example, as a way to highlight just how stupid the California gun laws are. 

Think about it, in order to exercise my Constitutionally protected right to own a firearm, the easiest way to get one, is the same way criminals get one. Illegally! Cash & Carry, who knows, I might be able to buy one from the Fast and Furious exercise in stupidity.

Anyhoo, I just was curious about these “mysterious, scary” machines. How better to learn about them, than by reading about how they’re assembled? It’s better than the daily newsfeed and remarkably less violent or depressing. Another advantage is that it’s a physical book with pages and diagrams.

There are folks who’d say, “You’re just not reacting well to change,” They might be right, if this was change. Increasingly, this is feeling more like we’re all in a bad movie trailer. 

When the statistics for Covid from multiple sources don’t line up. When some college students demand easier grading for persons of color, (Which by the way is racist as hell,) and no-one calls them out on their hypocrisy, when the statistics about who the police are more likely to kill during apprehension don’t fit the narratives, when average police feel the need to lay down on the ground, or kneel, out of some sense… of what? Guilt?

Well then folks, I’m not interested in playing anymore.

I, like a lot of Americans am voting in November a straight Law & Order ballot. 

I’m sick of the bullshit! All these people think times were tough the past few years, wait till they get a load of what things look like when the pendulum swings conservative.

I’m gonna take a little break. If you don’t see anything here, or I don’t answer your email or text or call instantly, don’t worry I’m just fine. I’m on a break and the tech is turned off.

 

Gotta Love California! (NOT)

1894964978-gun-control-cartoon.jpgOkay, so I’m unemployed. I have been since Aug. I’ve also been beating the bushes to find something new.

Covered California – Health Insurance tells me my insurance will be 1400 dollars a month. I was only getting 1800 a month in unemployment. 

Leaving $400.00 to pay mortgage, car, utilities, food, and gas.

So obviously that wasn’t going to work.

I applied for MediCal. That was denied because 1800.00 a month in unemployment was making too much money to qualify.

Let me be clear, I have nothing wrong with me, aside from slightly high blood pressure. Literally no issues. 

Covered California sent me a notice today reminding me that I’d be fined 700.00 in 2021 for not having insurance.

Let me see… $16,800 per year that I don’t have, versus $700 that I also don’t have.

Any moron would like to have health insurance. But only a moron would move into a tent at the side of the road to be able to pay for it. Foregoing transportation (to interview for a new job), food to be strong enough to work the new job, or utilities to power the technology necessary to look for a new job.)

Yeah, California! The STUPID is strong here.

I gotta get out of this place!


Update 3/27/2020

Unbeknownst to me, the other half brought this insanity to the attention of our State Assemblyman.

Within 2 hours, I was speaking with a representative from Covered California.

Turns out that the records were a little messed up, which no-one had told me previously.

Once those screwups were corrected, and because I am no longer receiving unemployment suddenly my cost for insurance is less than $100.

Really?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to pay what I can and is reasonable given the level of care I actually need. I’m also happy to be on track to have health insurance.

I found myself asking this question though… Why did it take a call from an State Assemblyman’s office to get this resolved?

Any hoo now if I get sick, I’ll be able to go to the hospital.

Used to be a saying, “You can never find a cop when you need one.”

These days I suppose that may still be true. 

Personally, in my misspent youth i never had any trouble locating the police. More properly, they never had trouble zeroing in on where I had been. Usually by the time they got to the location, I was already gone. There was that one time when I took a page from Briar Rabbit. For some reason police don’t like trekking through swamps at 3am…

Go Figure!

Today, Lawyers are much worse than the Police ever were. They’re in everything we do. Funny thing about it is what happens when you’re actually calling a Lawyer and offering to pay them.

Over the past year, I’ve tried to engage no less than six lawyers and None of them have returned my call(s). I guess lawyering means that you don’t have to worry about income and you can afford to blow potential clients off.

Good for them, I guess. 

Bad for those of us stuck in an ever increasing web of rules, regulations, law, and general bullshit.  

Lawyers have a great scam going, they’ve complicated things to the point that they’re indispensable on the government side of the equation and then charge us obscene amounts of cash to provide guidance out of the mess.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but they’re about as specialized as doctors. Now you not only have to engage a lawyer, but you have to know which speciality of the law they practice.

GREAT! just what we all need, more complexity!

To illustrate the point, have you noticed that when you deal with an insurance company, or a utility, or virtually anything else lately, you get read a long assed list of terms & conditions that two sentences in, start sounding like the teacher in a Charlie Brown cartoon?

“Blah Blah Blah”

Even renting a damn car there’s page after page after page of bullshit.

All of this bullshit is legalese and cannot possibly be comprehended by at least 25% of average people. Hey, read any newspaper in print or online and you’ll see that even ‘educated’ people, you know, the people who insist they’re our betters, can’t write worth a damn. We have people in professional positions that don’t know the difference between there, their, and they’re.

Given this, how can you possible expect ‘less educated‘ people to fully understand what the hell they’re signing and agreeing to after a barrage of several pages of legalese?

My Dad used to say that the best thing we could do for this country was put all the lawyers on a cruise ship, sail it out to the middle of the Atlantic and sink it.

I think his comment was based on two factors. 1) Lawyers complicate things. 2) Our government is rife with lawyers. 

Dad was always fond of the “Twofer”, and of doing business with a handshake. His word was his bond and to my knowledge he kept his word. There may be evidence to the contrary but let me keep my childlike illusions.

As a kid, I knew two things. Avoid entanglement with the law, and avoid, as much as possible, drawing the attention of the government:

Pay your taxes, don’t screw around with too many deductions and play it straight enough that the IRS, FBI, or any government agency didn’t come snooping.

Capone was our cautionary tale. Xaviera Hollander added a little color to my minimalist philosophy as I reached adulthood.

With rules, regulations, laws, and all the other complications in our lives it’s made me start to consider the following:

To play it straight, is automatically more expensive. To play the game loose and fast, keeps money in your pocket, and gets you to your goal faster.

Being a stand up guy means you’re going to get screwed. Nice guys don’t get shit except being shat upon, and honest people increasingly are being seen as fools.

So where does that leave us?

It leaves me considering coloring outside the lines. 

A quote from Captain Reynolds in Firefly or Serenity really rang true with me;

“Come a day there won’t be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all.”