Oatmeal La La Land

You haven't seen me here a few days. I hate to say why, exactly, but I owe you something. I've just been so seriously strung out I haven't been myself. I couldn't think. I barely knew my own name. I forgot everything I care about, including this blog.

Even now it's coming and going -- I could black out at any moment -- but I'm fighting through the blank spots, and using what I have left of "my legendary discipline." That's right -- even if it seems an eternity ago -- I had legendary discipline. Now, I'm wasted. Nearly shot. Haven't even got the discipline to---- sorry, drawing a blank.

The sad truth is, I'm addicted to oatmeal. God, it feels good to admit it publicly! Of course the biggest problem with oatmeal is they came up with a way for a quick fix. Used to be it took 45 minutes or all the way up to 3 hours to cook a decent batch. I blame the microwave oven industry, because they made us impatient. In the old days, I'd cook a batch, eat it, and pass out before I could cook another. Now it's bang bang bang, three batches and one massive jag of craziness.

So I was almost out of oatmeal, OK? And I was already hopped up on two batches. It was 3 in the morning. I went out and couldn't tell, in my haze, if the grocery store was open or the lights were just in my head. I sat there hunched over the steering wheel, when ... Dammit! ... two or three guys identifying themselves as cops -- they had red lights -- pulled me out of my car.

And I lost my cool. I was all up in their face. "What gives, assholes?!" and it went downhill from there. They could tell I was out of it, but why? I told them the honest to God truth, "I'm an oatmeal addict and you got me ... looking for another fix."

"Oatmeal," the mean-looking one sneered. He and the other mean-looking one talked it over. "Obviously slang for some narcotic, but which one?" These geniuses were talking it over and I saw nothing but haze. Even their talk was haze. They radioed in, then a TV crew showed up and I stripped naked and was gang-tackled by all three mean-looking cops in the ditch. "Give me oatmeal!" I cried as they roughed me up.

Later, I woke up and saw the insides of a hospital, and these mean bastards were there to make sure I didn't snap the gurney straps. The doctor was running blood tests. He said my sorghum and honey counts were elevated out of this world, sweeteners of choice, and that, yes, I indeed had oatmeal in my system.

I couldn't control myself. I went from docile to manic to feverishly crazed in seconds -- the oatmeal high oscillated between utterly flabby weakness to concentrated super human powers. And I felt the powers kick in. Everyone backed up as I eviscerated that hospital room; thankfully, the cops didn't know if they should open fire in a hospital zone.

Going down the hall, my back flap open to the breeze, I made it most of the way to freedom, and was rounding the corner when the meanest-looking cop hit me with a poison dart, hit my butt, piercing one side then crossing over and piercing the other. A double whammy of poison! I woke up two days later, confined in a treatment center.

A Nazi psychiatrist -- this is how Hitler got his start -- swore his way up one list of deities and down another to compel me to talk. "Vhat ees dis 'ottmail' you be smoking!?" "Smoking Ottmail?" I asked, confused, the haze a constant. I passed out and dreamt a beautiful dream, of a Willie Wonka-like world, with rivers of oatmeal (beautiful), but also quicksand bogs (ugly). When Hitler himself appeared, his mustache disgustingly soaked in drippy cinnamon oatmeal-- I woke up.

I blinked a few times, very refreshed, my mind completely detoxed off oatmeal, and vowed to live a clean life. When they took me to breakfast and ignorantly served me oatmeal! Immediately hooking me again...

Using my powers, I killed everyone in my way, stole an armored car, and crashed the gate. Then at the grocery store, instead of parking, I crashed the car through the front windows, craving another box of oatmeal -- and this time -- Damn the World! --  I would eat it with whole milk!

Now I'm home and on my eighth bowl. I'm writing this -- maybe the final post ever on this blog -- with the bastards even now at the door. I fear I'll have to shed even more blood before I'm able to enjoy my oatmeal supper and retire for the night, perchance to dream.

He Puts His Pants On One Leg at a Time

Oh, the terrible agony I'm facing! Two nights in a row I haven't been able to sleep. Two mornings in a row I'm up before 4 a.m. That's no good.

I'm there in bed -- laying or lying -- tossing or turning -- and nothing works. Prayer, meditation, counting naked women. I thought I'd surely hit on the right combination, five women and two prayers, something, but none of it was good.

Then my mind turned to the phrase, "He puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us." This of course led me to Goebbels and Hitler, and the obvious fact that if they put their pants on one leg at a time, like the rest of us, and if it could be demonstrated historically, that'd mean the rest of us would have to change, since you don't want anyone calling you a Nazi. I certainly don't.

And yet -- I suppose the NSA already knows, I may as well make a clean breast of it (there's another phrase) -- up till today, I have indeed done the pants putting-on-thing one leg at a time. But today I tried it two legs at a time, which isn't really all that hard. You just have to be careful not to let one foot get ahead of the other. If the feet come out the bottom at the same time, there's your payoff.

Then there's one-legged men, who, whatever they think about the Nazis, have very little choice. I'm certainly going to say very little about it. I'll turn a blind eye to it, one eye at a time, like everyone else. What do I care, really? I frankly don't buy into the whole "Nazis did it" argument. If you take that to the extreme, we'd all be breathing with air tanks and eating through our ears. Obviously we're stuck breathing and eating like the Nazis. That doesn't mean I sympathize with them, but I understand; how else were they to eat? Even if they ate with a feeding tube, it's got to connect to the same ultimate place, somewhere between the neck and butt.

Not being able to sleep, naturally I got up and did about 10 minutes research on one-legged men, two-legged men, and pants. This was blind eye research, since I wasn't really reading it, just getting a sense of it. One thing I can definitely report, the topic of putting your pants on one leg at a time, like the rest of us, has been covered. I saw newspaper reports back to the 1930s that it was done that way. Generally it takes the form of a famous person -- an athlete or politician -- even though he's famous and in some ways different from the rest of us, at least being the same in how he puts on his pants.

The research also shows that the phrase became more common, I'll say around 1968, then was used through the '70s extensively, the '80s somewhat, the '90s rarely, the 2000s more rarely, till we get up to 2013. Since I didn't see any newspapers from 2013, I think I can draw the conclusion that we don't use the phrase anymore. Of course in 2013 we do stuff online, newspapers are on the skids, cut off at the legs, without a leg to stand on. As for Naziism, it's now more the domain of people with extremely short haircuts, right to the skin. They're no longer that concerned with legs.

The article -- you see the headline above -- about the men fined for taunting a one-legged man ... That's from a newspaper in Jamaica, 1928. The incident was covered in the magistrate's court news in Bethel Town. The one-legged man's name was Lionel Graham. "The case of trespass and assault between Lionel Graham, a one-legged man, and Hines Goslin, Hamilton, Solomon, Graham Ramsay and another -- eight accused in all -- was heard. They pleaded not guilty." I'm having a hard time with that report. That Hines Goslin and Graham Ramsay were involved or not is clear. But who's Hamilton, Solomon, and another? And how does that add up to eight accused?

Anyway, they pleaded not guilty. Mr. Graham, for his part, informed the Court "how he was taunted and jeered by these young men and that they assaulted him. His witness corroborated his evidence." So what response do we get from the accused? "The accused stated that they were all innocent, yet strangely they admitted singing a song about a one-legged man. Their witnesses did not help them so His Honour imposed a fine of 15/ or 10 days on each."

Lionel Graham, the record tells us, was a one-legged man. That said, I won't be singing a song about his condition. Not only is it politically incorrect, he being differently advantaged when it comes to legs, but I'm afraid "His Honour" might come back and fine me 15/, and I haven't got 10 days to waste in jail. His Honour was a very powerful man but he used to put his pants on one leg at a time, probably. Not saying a thing about Hitler.

Hitler Loved Vegetables ... But I Digress

Well, folks, you may remember me saying it, my annual physical's coming up, next week. And like any test worth taking, I've been cramming for it. I started in May, eating right and getting regular exercise. I may have tapered off on the exercise, since it's so extremely boring, but I've kept up on the eating. Cold turkey, I dropped ice cream, all desserts, cookies, bacon, sausage, etc., and I've been 99.9% successful.

So when next week gets here, and I go in there fit as a fiddle, I'll be happy. The doctor will tell me I have 40 years to live (I'm now 60), and I'll come home happy. Really, it's then that I'll face the true test, how much I'm able to keep my present discipline. In some ways, eating my vegetables seems like the most natural thing, and in other ways, it's a real challenge. It's definitely hard to keep them fresh. Even in the fridge, they wilt and turn weird colors, and get slimed over. Like everything, they're in the process of rotting, which is very hard to staunch.

Speaking of vegetables, you know who loved vegetables? Hitler. Which is something to think about next time you recommend them to someone. You'd think anyone so into butchery would be carnivorous. I just learned it this week, Hitler was a vegetarian, a nonsmoker, a teetotaler, and more or less abstained from sex. I think I heard he was missing a chromosome, so maybe that governed some of his choices, as well as his general unruliness. Definitely not a guy to mess with...

I've long known he was a badass from way back, I just didn't know the extent of it. But his mind was rotten, and now I think I know why: Poor refrigeration of vegetables. They were going bad and he was eating them anyway. It's tough enough with modern refrigeration. What'd they do back then? They had to wait for the iceman to bring a chunk of ice. And since Hitler was so afraid of being assassinated, by the time the iceman cleared security it was melted. But I digress.

Anyway, my physical's coming up. And I've always thought my doctor is a hard guy to please. He barely knows me, for one, which is my own fault -- if I weren't generally so healthy I'd be in there more often. So every year when I show up, it's like we're starting from scratch. We've never been able to form any kind of relationship. I'm sure he reviews my file, then comes in and acts like he basically knows me. We've just never gotten close.

It kind of reminds me of John Wayne, really. I'm thinking back to the '50s. John Wayne had a wife he couldn't get along with, maybe he didn't know her well enough when they got together. One thing led to another and they ended up in divorce court. By now she had developed expensive tastes, being married to a Hollywood star, and naturally she thought she needed some big alimony, something like $9,000 a month! Which was huge money back then, even if it's chump change now.

The judge, as the story goes, looked at her somewhat askance. "You say you need $9,000 a month?" I'm making up the quotes, "I find for the plaintiff in the amount of $1,100 a month, case closed!" Well, John Wayne got a big grin on his face, and his fans, packing the courthouse, erupted in applause. His wife, Mexican by the way, was downcast. But I digress.

As far as my physical goes, you're probably dubious that I had such a strong will that I was able to stop eating desserts and all that. Yet, it's true. But I'll admit, it's hard. One of my favorite places to go is DQ. It's so easy. They've got the soft serve and all. I love it, and just writing about it's giving me a craving. A big old ice cream cone -- I like the vanilla ones dipped in chocolate, a large. I try to savor it, which works for a while, until I can't stand it anymore, and it's quickly down the hatch!

I was thinking of this just yesterday when I drove by the lake. I remember a crazy story, which tells you something of how the earth works. You might remember, Florida has some crazy sinkholes. A few months ago the earth gave way and swallowed some guy, him, house and all. Well, the same thing's happened with entire lakes! This one was sometime in the '70s -- remember it? It was Lake Grady -- a sinkhole opened up right there at the bottom of the lake and drained the whole thing! Afterwards, they said it looked like a desert!

That'd be insane, if you were out on Lake Grady in a boat at the time. You might actually end up going down the hole like a bathtub drain. The only way you'd escape is if you had enough hair on your head to stop it. More likely, you'd be headed toward the middle, then realize, "A sinkhole!", and start up the motor. Which would be a great time to have a good motor! Definitely, if you own a motor, you want to keep it in good shape. It's like a car engine, it can go bad. And you never know when an ounce of prevention might save a stitch in time. But I digress.

I personally don't like living dangerously, which is why I schedule an annual physical. That way, if the doctor finds anything that needs to be addressed, we'll take care of it. So I'm expecting good things, for sure. And even if there's something wrong, which wouldn't likely be much, since I feel so good, we'll fix it.

I know some people like to live dangerously, so they take the bull by the horns. You hear of all sorts. For some, they even make it their profession. Like tightrope walkers. We had the guy a few weeks ago who walked across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope, or tightwire. He was praying to Jesus, who was telling him, "Yes, I hear prayers, but don't be an idiot ... I've given gravity the final word in these cases." Thankfully, the guy made it.

It's an old profession, tightrope walking. I looked it up, and found a reference to a guy way back in 1905. "Reno, The King of Wire Walkers!" On that occasion, they strung a wire between the two tallest buildings in town, in Muscatine, Iowa. Reno was going to walk it with wooden shoes, stand on his head, and ride a bicycle across the chasm. Just the thought of it gives me the willies. Although I take some relief in the fact that it didn't really matter if he made it, because obviously by now he would've been dead anyway. But I digress.

This Is The Signal

The world waited. There was a kind of hush all over the world. A million men in uniform did all the things a million men in uniform do. The officers were at their mess. They exchanged many indecipherable whispers. Those at the higher echelons polished their medals with trepidation. One man paced his humble quarters alone.

This one man was the great man, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, answerable only to the president of the United States, which he himself, unknown at the time of D-Day, would one day be. If we could mash time, you could say he was ultimately answerable only to himself. But that wasn't his concern. He wasn't thinking of future political attainments, although it could've been in the back of his mind.

Ike, alone out of all men, knew the signal that would launch the massive D-Day operation. Although let me back up a bit, someone else needed to know, or it wouldn't make sense ... a guy in a lonely communications shack, just him and Ike. The world's hope over the tyranny of Nazism hung on a shared signal between those two men, the great man and the humble man, who might've had a heart attack and all would've been lost. (That's why we suffer the tyranny of the Republican Party today: Bad hearts from too much junk food and not enough exercise; no one's getting the signal to destroy these SOBs.)

Well, OK, what was the signal? Ike picked up the phone and said simply, "Dead dog." Just like that. I almost hated to say it, it sounds so trivial. But that's the way it is with signals -- they're not always what you'd expect. You keep them secret, like your password for online banking -- mine is "abc123" -- so no one can steal your money. In the case of Ike and the other guy, that was all it took -- "Dead Dog" -- and our soldiers went floating in and wading in, attacking the Nazis like rabid banshees; it was not a pretty sight.

The signal can be a nod, a handshake, or just a glance. I've given a few glance signals, and the other party knows exactly what I'm saying, "Let's get out of here. This party is dead." Or, "The service here is terrible." Or, "Hit the mute, these UPS commercials suck!" Not to pick on them, most commercials suck. But how do you like that one where the guy from Seinfeld is saying, "I'm happy." And everyone else says, "I'm happy," individually and repeatedly. That is so vastly sucky I've only heard it once. The other times have been muted.

Had I been in the meeting for planning that piece of crap, I would have said, "You're either kidding or you're trying to sink the whole company, in which case, congratulations!" Finally, had they taken me to task despite my impeccable wisdom, the signal that I was resigning would have been my extended right middle finger while my left hand would be making the "crazy" twirl at the side of my head and my legs would be advancing toward the elevator, after I had pissed in their coffee and all the plants. "Are you happy, now?! God knows I'm happy!" Happy, happy, happy.

A signal has meaning. We've communicated. There are inner realities, vast and minute at the same time, where these operations and their signals come together in concrete reality. At least concrete subjective reality, which, as has to be obvious, is actually the same thing. But it's worth making a distinction for the sake of clarity and perhaps discovery on the part of some, like me. If I were to look within -- wherever that is -- I could very well flash the signal and end up turned inside out. Break through to the other side. A regular retrojerk moment, although, unlike Jimi Hendrix, I would still be around.

I'm convinced -- convinced, I say -- that nothing is really apart from anything else. Which means even when we're in the gutter we're still in the fullness of the divine. But to experience it positively in this daily grind, there's a signal (or trigger) somewhere, not necessarily known to the ego but still 100% encoded in the consciousness, the consciousness being understood as described in Sri Aurobindo's "The Life Divine." Hear it, notice it.

Now, in case you don't know how it worked out for Eisenhower: The guy in the communications shack did not have a heart attack. D-Day came off as he and Ike planned it. The Allies stormed the beach, a bunch of them got killed, but enough of them made it through to retake Europe, finally leaving Hitler like the steaming pile of shit he was in a lonely bunker.

Adolf got the signal that the jignal was up, enjoyed a quickie wedding with Eva Braun so in the end he wouldn't be living in sin, ate some cyanide and died a terrible death, his 1000 year reign truncated, from his point of view prematurely.

The New Valentine's Day -- Adolf Hitler's Birthday

If you like Valentine's Day on February 14, enjoy it while you can. Because I see a day coming -- and the way the world is going, with lots of hatred, etc. -- when everything might change!

The problem, like I said, is hatred and love together. They're getting mixed up. Or maybe it's always been that way, but people have been too dishonest to say so. They certainly don't love one another. They don't even like one another. It's sad but unfortunately very true. Not everyone, but many.

OK, Valentine's Day, Febuary 14, is a day for telling your supposed love one how you really feel. But, according to the new honesty, you might say, "I really don't love you. It's all been a sham." It's harsh, I agree, but the advantage of saying it on Valentine's Day is that the general spirit of the day, a day of love, cushions the blow. She or he thinks, Maybe it's a fluke, maybe it's a joke. But, no, it's no joke, as you reiterate the negative sentiment, with finally a torrent of hate-filled invective pouring forth from your mouth, by now a non-stop stream of poison.

You can see what would happen if enough people did that -- and they're aching to, for sure. It wouldn't take long until the cushioning effect in general was worn away, because the day would be known for so many break-ups. By then, the spirit of the day would have changed entirely. It would become a day known for domestic crimes, murders, harshness, people flipping each other the finger, and so forth. If it happens it will give the phrase "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" a whole new meaning!

Eventually, then, the day being completely ruined for love and becoming a day representing total hate, those who still want a day for love will cast wide (and fervently) for another day. But what other day is there? They're all basically occupied by something, and you can't have too many holidays right in a row. You need a buffer space so each holiday can have its own niche. Certainly the adherents of other holidays won't want to yield to the orphaned idea of a day of love. Christmas? Arbor Day? Columbus Day? Never! So there will be troubles all the way around.

Then someone will think, what about Hitler's birthday? That's a date, April 20, that's long been more or less kicked off the calendar. I know when the day comes around, there's a lot of hushed tones. Everyone goes, "It's Hitler's birthday, damn it!" No one calls in sick because they want an appointment with the many therapists out in force that day, counseling those who have terrible issues with Hitler. So they decide, Why not rehabilitate Hitler's birthday? It's not good for anything anyway. We could have Valentine's Day then!

In fact, it's perfect! It's long been known for the hatred of its namesake! Why not claim it as the day of love, and completely turn it around? With the hearts and candies and everything that we used to associate with Feb. 14 simply transferred over. I know, it's close to when Easter sometimes is. But Easter, being a nomadic holiday, is always going to be in the way until it finally settles on when it wants to be.

So that's it. That's the future. It sucks, yes, to have to change. If everyone decides to keep Valentine's Day a day for love -- and drop the honesty business -- then maybe we can avert this alternate future. But if you actually do feel like pouring out your true feelings -- I hate you, darling -- then just know we have a fallback date for the true lovers.

Now it's known as Hitler's birthday -- BOO! -- but it wouldn't take much to make it a day of love!

Criminality Actually Compliments The System

A few of you wrote in after my post yesterday on "My Upcoming Life of Crime" expressing concern about my plans. You had basically two objections:

1) The "bad example" I was setting for young people.
2) Concerns for my reputation.

Of course, I'm thankful for your concerns, and I understand what you're getting at. But with my new-found burgeoning criminal mindset, I must say, "Mind your own stinking damned business!" Nervous Nelly types aren't wanted here, even if you've been faithful readers all these years! My advice to you is keep your mouth shut before I come over and mess up your face...

But let's say I were to take your objections into consideration, just for laughs. First, I'm setting a bad example for young people. I seriously doubt I have that many young readers. But if I turn to a life of crime, I could argue I will finally get some. Because they're more excited by dudes living on the edge, much more so than by normal average old fuddy-duddies. I might get a younger demographic and finally get back to making Google Ads profits, maybe three figures. And as to my reputation, I gladly trample it underfoot! There's nothing more overrated than a reputation. The only people who care are spineless wimps also concerned about their reputation!

There is, however, another way of looking at things, something to note. Maybe your objections aren't taking in the full picture and all its angles. This takes some thought. Because maybe -- think about it -- going for a life of crime actually pays a compliment to the great system of law and order we have in America. As I said yesterday, my turning to crime (and it is after all only a fictionalized thing), was inspired by the writer Jean Genet's criminal choices. So I'm looking at it the way I perceive he looked at it. And therein is an interesting reversal...

In Genet's travels from France around Central Europe (cf. p. 124f of Edmund White's biography of Genet), he made his way into Nazi Germany. When there, he wrote, "I'd wanted to steal. A strange force held me back." What was the strange force? The weird revelation that Germany was "already outside the law," that is, that in Germany crime was institutionalized, the very spirit of Nazism. "It's a nation of thieves,"  Genet said. "If I steal here I will not be performing a singular action that can better realize my nature: I'll be obeying the normal order of things. I won't be destroying it. I'll commit no evil, I'll disturb nothing. Scandal is impossible. I'll steal in a void."

See that? Because the system there was so corrupt, it made little sense, if Genet wanted to stand out, to be a criminal. But in my case, because I am in America, where decency and justice reign supreme, to commit evil and to create scandal, will be a meaningful act, albeit fictionally. All that to suggest that the American system is actually complimented by thieves, who recognize in it a good environment in which to be bad.

Were I to be in the Ukraine or somewhere where corrupt officials and a general lack of civic virtue prevails, like Genet with the Nazis I'd probably find greater fulfillment in continuing to follow my normal lawful ways or even establish them myself as a reaction. But because the United States is so darned good, I have no recourse, if I want a scandal to result from my choices, but to be evil. And I plan to disturb a lot of people!

Admittedly, I am limited by the efficiency of today's police, as Genet was limited in his criminal enterprise in Central Europe, driving him back to France where the police were crap. And they're no doubt a lot more efficient today than they were in the '30s, with all the greater law enforcement technology they have. It's going to be a bastard, me trying to get away with anything, but I'm going to give it my best shot!

Triumph Of The Will

I finally got the opportunity (and took it) to watch the old Nazi film, "Triumph of the Will." I saw a documentary about Leni Riefenstahl 12-15 years ago, so I knew about the film from then. But it's always been one thing or another that kept me from getting it. But seeing it on Netflix as a streaming selection simplified it, so I wouldn't have to actually buy my own copy and have it on the shelf forever.

In case you don't know about this movie, it documents the Nazis' 1934 Party Congress, a big get-together they had. They had just taken total power in Germany in 1933, so this is close to the beginning of them. And it definitely seems to record that they had total power by this time.

When I was watching it, I was also thinking of my parents, since my dad was born in '33 and mom in '34. I could picture them back here in the States, little babies, at that point oblivious to Hitler and his madness, but of course they would soon enough have his negative influence in their lives growing up.

Meanwhile, back in Germany ... The movie is usually praised for a bunch of technical reasons, all the super camera angles and interesting film perspectives the director got. She seemed to have carte blanche, since she was personally taken on by Hitler to do the film and he was the dictator at the time. There are indeed some great shots, like when the Nazis are packed in there thicker than jam and Hitler's up at the podium talking. There's some great symmetry.

To me, though, mostly it's a very sad film, because of the craziness of Hitler and the Nazis. And if I'm actually there, I'm definitely seeing it as an essentially hopeless situation, because you figure once these guys get entrenched, there's nothing that's going to get rid of them. So there's swastikas and militaristic bullshit everywhere. Even the labor corps are marching around with their shovels over their backs like guns.

I'm currently reading a book on "The Coming of the Third Reich," by Evans. It's got some extensively boring sections, although of course it's important history detailing the personalities, groups, and stats before Hitler took power. It's boring to me, because I can't remember that. But it definitely lays out the case that the time and circumstances were right for Hitler in Germany, although it wasn't all foreordained. But he and the others took advantage of the circumstances and so there they ended up.

On the positive side, in the film when Hitler's rhapsodizing about the Nazis being in power for thousands of years, it's nice to know in hindsight that they've got about another 11 years. It's still unbelievable to me that the world was somehow able to get rid of Hitler in a few short years, when the guy had an army, navy, air force, etc. By contrast, it's taken us forever with Iraq and Afghanistan, and the folks over there had nothing, comparatively speaking.

One of the most famous things about Nazi Germany is their straight armed salute. You keep watching it, as I did, and it becomes farcical. You'd think a few thousand years of jutting our arm out at every whip stitch, Germany's going to have the strongest right arms in the world! Fortunately they were defeated and so spared the horrendousness of big arms that would make them tip over. It was a crazy looking custom! But they all did it with such earnestness, with Hitler leading the way. By the way, the guy was no bundle of laughs. What a sourpuss.

The whole thing is a big praise fest for him. A couple of times the speakers, of course being a bunch of suck ups, say, "Germany is Hitler, Hitler is Germany."

For the most part, the film is fascinating. It wouldn't bear repeated viewings. There are some boring bits, as in the continuous parades and marching bands. But it holds your interest because you realize this was all true. A nation really did give itself over to this monstrosity and his henchmen.

There would be some cautionary tales in it for us today. By and large, just looking around, people still seem to be easily led and quickly deceived. I'm thinking of the whole Fox News mentality, where you have (otherwise) intelligent people parroting talking points and believing lies. My mom used to say things about us having the truth and not letting the things of Hitler ever happen again. But you can see the Germans weren't people so different from us as to be alien. The same psychology they had is in the rest of us. Just look how the Tea Party movement is so easily swayed by corporate interests, and they think they're just doing the good work of common folk!

Tweets - 08-06-2009

'Dance of Doom' or not, I'm going tomorrow night.

I'm sorry Twitter went down today, right when I was trying to txt updates. It seems the Grange Brotherhood wants to play rough, take me out.

It's a tough responsibility, having the ends of the earth devolving upon you, being at the center of existence, but it beats being ignored.

-----------------

I didn't do much with Twitter today because the site crashed. Plus I have a tiny handful of followers and I didn't want to overwhelm them with my conspiracy theories, messianic complexes, and plans to go to the dance Friday night.

To have actual readers (let's say they read what other people write) is a very inhibiting thing. In an odd twist, to me it's more liberating to scream your lungs out in an empty warehouse. Then you go home, take a shower and forget it.

That's why Hitler went bad, you know. Because he didn't know what to do with all his followers except continually up his game. So the more followers he got, the worse he had to be.

Because of Hitler's defeat we haven't been able to completely explore outer space. Let me explain. Had he conquered the Earth, his followers would've demand he become worse and worse, you see. So he would've stepped up the space program, having all the world's scientists under his control. By 1958, when the Russians were screwing around with one measly Sputnik, we would've already taken total war to the Martians, the Venusians, and the Klingons.

Hitler perfectly proves my point. Having actual followers is a lot of pressure.