Medium Well

 There was a couple years there where I used to stand around in my living room with a plastic guitar strapped to my chest as I flicked a control bar with my right hand and maneuvered my left across a series of colored buttons. I was pretending to play guitar. 

I have mentioned here before how much I enjoyed Guitar Hero.  

On Medium. 

Like so much of my video game experience, I don't feel like I need to push myself needlessly to extremes. This was also the case with my masquerade as a guitar hero. Every so often a guest would appear in our living room and ask if they could dial up the difficulty. "Go right ahead," was my response, and I was frequently amazed by their prowess manipulating a toy guitar and following those rainbow dots that came streaming across the screen. On all those occasions, I never met a single "real" guitar player. Friends who played "real" guitar scoffed at the charade I had made my avocation. 

It was all a vast conspiracy created to get pikers such as myself the vague feeling of playing loud music, becoming a facsimile of a rock star in the comfort and privacy of my own home. Wish fulfillment in the most clunky possible way. 

Which is pretty much how I feel about AI. Like going to an improv show and having the performers ask, "Okay, give us a situation." Then, "Alright, give us a couple characters." Finally, "Now give us a bunch of funny things to say and do." 

Creating amusing videos to fill up your stream? Memes that you were too lazy to create yourself? How about give that bit of imagination you have an extra creative shove? No matter that the end product is the result of every funny bit created before it, but we'll just call that homage.

Not theft. 

My wife and I will soon be marketing our own version called "Novel Hero." Right from that same living room where you once pretended to play guitar, you too can be a "novelist." Don't have the time or energy to push yourself to near madness looking for that perfect sentence? Don't worry. Artificial Intelligence has your back. Heck, half an idea is better than no idea at all. And if you're more inclined to the visual arts, coming next fall, "Paint Hero." You don't have to be a Picasso, especially since we've already got all his best bits right here in a box. 

On Medium.  

All Over Again

 As this school year winds down, I have been asked by numerous friends and acquaintances how I feel about my decision to call it quits after the upcoming year. 

"Are you starting to count down?"

"Do you find yourself thinking, 'This will be my last summer break,' or stuff like that?"

Well, yes. And yes. It's pretty difficult not to hear the clock ticking when so much of what we do in Elementary School is counting up, and then counting down. The hundredth day of school is a big event. I have no recollection of this being the case when I was a  student at Columbine Elementary, but it not only serves the very practical purpose of giving kids a sense of what one hundred feels like. It also lets teachers know that they have rounded the corner of your standard one hundred eighty days of instruction. Upon the return from any three day weekend or extended break, students and staff are equally curious about how many days until the next interruption. 

I have a very salient memory of our former cafeteria manager, commenting on the days leading up to Christmas Break. Before she retired, I was in second place longevity-wise at our school. She reminded us all, "You'll wake up and it'll be January." Initially I flinched at that reckoning, but I can now see the wisdom of her assessment. Thirty years at one location will give you that sense of being on a merry-go-round. Another trip around the sun, as my older brother has often pointed out about birthdays. 

But to come to that point where getting off the merry-go-round is a real possibility is becoming very real. This past Saturday, I went over to the school to join students, families, and staff for a morning of painting a mural on the wall adjacent to our playground. It was a highly organized affair, and we were done with the big patches of color before noon. It wasn't the first time I have splashed paint on and around the school where I work. Leaving my mark in some mildly permanent fashion has a mild appeal to me. 

I was there. 

Soon, I won't be. And one day I'll wake up and it will be January. 

All over again. 

Does Not Work And Play Well With Others

 The convicted felon continues to abuse women. Mostly reporters at this point. He took the opportunity to rail on Norah O'Donnell about a 60 Minutes interview back in April while talking to his lapdog Sean Hannity. He began to answer Seanity's question about progress in talks with China, then began to wander. See if you can catch where things went off the track: “Yeah, I mean, it is progress, but I also tell people that, you know, I was in an interview with a very bad, you know, stupid reporter. She works for CBS. You saw that ’60 Minutes.’ Stupid person. Just an average person. You could take anybody off the street, and it’d be as good as she is. You know, just, very average.”

Which, for the adjudicated rapist is mild compared to his treatment of another woman reporter who dared question the doubling the size of an already unnecessary ballroom. MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner was the target of the Orange Worst's most recent outburst. Most of the exchange has been jettisoned in order to show the misogynist in Chief in all his gory glory. Here is the question Ms. Gardner asked in advance of the spiteful response from the "alleged" pedophile: “You wanted Jerome Powell fired for cost overruns,” Gardner pointed out to Trump, referring to the Fed’s ongoing renovation project of its Washington headquarters. “How is that different than your ballroom and the reflecting pool?”

If you haven't visited our nation's capital recently, you may have missed the terrible mess his pool guy has been making out of the reflecting pool located between the Washington and Lincoln Memorials. He's got a bunch of confused individuals spray painting the bottom of the pool "American Flag Blue," according to his bulginess' wishes. It is quite a sight. 

And besides subverting the calm aesthetics of the original architecture, in comes the former game show host's "vision," the kind that tends to paint things and attach gold bric-a-brac as costs go unchecked. All the while, a war rages on in Iran in spite of the insistence that there is a somewhat meaningless cease-fire. Gas prices climb ever higher as the Worst's approval numbers reach historic lows. Which might explain his continued frustration with the press, who seem to be aware of this. Of course, this does not keep him from making the following statement: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody."

With that one possible exception. 

What a stupid person. 

Typical

 If you've been reading this blog for more than a little while, you are probably familiar with my more than a little mild antipathy for jury duty. From the moment I pull that summons out of the box, I become anxious and feel put upon for the request by my government to help fulfill the Sixth Amendment. I am not one of those who crumple up that piece of paper, daring the local authorities to come and find me. After all, I like voting, so I will accept the call.

Begrudgingly. 

Contrast this to the choice made by Elongated Mush last week when he chose to skip out of his own trial, the one he set into motion with a lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup OpenAI. Mister Mush testified in an Oakland courtroom, perhaps one of the very same in which I have cooled my heels waiting to be called up, back on April 30. At that time, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asked the parties if there was any reason to hold Musk in “recall status,” meaning that he should be available to testify again if called upon to do so. OpenAI lawyers said, “Yes.” The judge instructed him: “OK, Mr. Musk, you are not excused, but you can leave for the day.”

Which is odd since Mushie packed his valise and hopped aboard Air Force One with his frenemy the Orange Worst. They went to the other side of the world to curry favor with the powers that be in China, a fourteen hour flight away from Oakland. While these Mister Mush grovels in front of the world's biggest consumer of electronic components, the one hundred thirty-four billion dollar lawsuit he filed against his old pal Sam Altman may remains unsettled. Jeffrey Bellin, a law professor at Vanderbilt University and an expert in the rules of evidence suggests, “A typical witness would not leave the country if they were subject to recall."

Sorry, Mister Bellin. You fail to see the internal fallacy of your assertion. Elongated Mush is a lot of things, but "typical" is not among them. Go ahead and try to conjure up the image of Mushie standing in front of his mailbox, frowning at the jury summons. 

I'll wait. 

On The Clock

 I know. "We've only been at war for," checks watch, "seventy-eight days." 

Pragmatists will tell you that the United States has been at war with Iran since November of 1979. That's when sixty-six Americans were taken hostage by Iranian militants. Many of those same pragmatists will suggest this is why Jimmy Carter failed in his bid for re-election, especially since the kidnappers chose the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated to release their captives. This was such a great story that they gave Ben Affleck another Oscar for it. It is this kind of animosity that has been held mostly in check by our two countries for forty-five years, only for some doofus to come stumbling along and start up the bombing and the shooting and the killing. 

Thus far, no one has suggested that any trophies should be awarded to the convicted felon who has threatened an entire civilization. 

However, it is worth noting how creative the Second Trumpreich has been with the naming of their "excursion" into the Middle East. Most of you remember Operation Epic Fury, which made one think somewhat abruptly of "Epstein Fury." That one lasted until those babies on side of the aisle started complaining about some "obscure" article in the U.S. Constitution that doesn't allow armed conflict to go on in foreign countries for more than sixty days without Congress having a say in such matters. But those folks in the bunker with their Fuhrer are so very clever, they decided to put a new name on the mess that they created, thereby in their tiny little minds a totally new conflict. So while the ghouls counted the dead and weighed their options during a "ceasefire," they looked for new names to label the ongoing "notawar." This episode fueled by the former gameshow host insisting that Iran's ceasefire agreement was "a piece of garbage," and the lull in hostilities was "on massive life support."  An extremely gruesome image for a peace process. 

Which is why he felt compelled to rally his distraction forces around, drumroll please, Operation Sledgehammer. Without any sense of irony or offer to pay Peter Gabriel royalties. Keeping in mind of course that his one is only good for another sixty days since Congress seems to have no real intention of making things really difficult for the orcs in charge. 

Stay tuned for the next exciting and very expensive episode!

Fifty-One

 Anybody else out there wondering how Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia are doing?

It seems like a war ago that the U.S. Armed Forces invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president. Compared to the quagmire that has become the "Expedition to Iran," the military operation in Venezuela seems positively quaint by comparison. Sure, shots were fired in anger, but no girls schools were harmed during that incursion. 

Now the convicted felon is musing once again aloud about how he believes that Venezuela would make a nice fifty-first state. Assistant press secretary Olivia Whales announced on behalf of her boss, "As the President has said, relations between Venezuela and the United States have been extraordinary. Oil is starting to flow and large amounts of money, unseen for many years, will soon be helping the great people of Venezuela."

Oil and money are flowing. Don't you worry your pretty little heads about economic and political stability. 

Which raises certain questions for me: Does a military invasion count as a path to statehood? If this is the case, how worried should the citizens of California and New York be about Federales rolling into their historically blue settlements? Or if the adjudicated rapist follows through with his plan for Venezuela will he just be guaranteeing yet another blue headache? 

Of course, all of this requires some mild forward thinking and planning. The quagmire in Iran suggests that this is not the strong suit of the current administration. Running out of missiles and time, the oil and money in that corner of the globe doesn't seem to be flowing in the direction the twice-impeached Orange Worst had in mind. And all of that Venezuelan money and oil doesn't seem to have found its way to the American consumer, who are experiencing the worst inflation in three years. 

Meanwhile, former president Maduro and his wife are living a life of relative calm and safety in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn until their case can be tried. As for that whole fifty-first state fuss, the rules concerning that sort of thing are laid out in the U.S. Constitution. Which, for this group of idiots, means that they don't have to worry about the details. Not right now. 

We've got a ballroom to build!

On The Timeline

 In this spot twenty-one years ago, I wrote about The Worst Sunburn I Ever Had. If you have a penchant for remembering such tales, then you probably recall how I went out to a baseball game while my wife waded through those last hours of labor. The sunburn of song and story came as a result to sitting my lily-white thighs out in the California sun as I spent the last few hours of being a child before having one. 

Now that baby is all grown up and facing his own transition to adulthood. This has included becoming ever more responsible and buying himself a second motorcycle. When I turned twenty-nine I had begun to believe that relationships were things other people had, and I was going to spend my golden years visiting friends who had gotten married and had their own kids. I would be Uncle Dave to the world, and I was on my way to unconditional surrender to this idea. 

Then I fell in love. And got married. And my dad died. And there was a parking spot in the world's lot available. My wife and I decided we could test our own freshly minted adult skills by growing an incipient grown up all on our own. 

We needn't have worried. The support we received from those around us was instantaneous and amazing. When I say "we" I mean my wife who is primarily the one that seeks out and creates community. Left to my own devices, I might have stopped instructing our little boy after I instilled in him an appreciation for Bachman Turner Overdrive. When he was less than a year old. 

These days, I am happy that I didn't stop trying to give him life lessons. That mild commitment has had the slingshot effect of having him return the favor. I know what a hemi powered drone is. And the secrets of mustard-fried burgers at In 'n' Out. 

Every so often, my son broaches the subject of becoming a father himself. This fills me with pride and sends me into flights of speculation, imagining what adventures await him and his progeny. I look forward to hearing the story of the worst sunburn he ever had. 

Happy Birthday, son.