Month: March 2017

I was going to post this tomorrow but then realized people might think it’s an April Fool’s joke, so I’m doing it today.

Pretty much everyone has private things that have happened to them that they don’t want to discuss publicly. Well…this is mine.

Many years ago I had a television series on the air called “Space Cases.” And I made a lot of money that year. I mean a lot. And I had a ton of money sitting in my bank account ready to send to the IRS on April 15th. It was all good.

And then the day that I was going to send the check, I swung by the nearest ATM to withdraw some cash and was astounded to see that half the money in my account was gone. Why was it gone? Because my then wife withdrew it in order to pay for a divorce lawyer, which was how I found out my marriage was dissolving. So the money never went to the IRS because I had to use the remainder to hire my own attorney.

Over the years, I never managed to land another project that would pay me that much. I had lots of people make promises–I even did the work for some of them–and none ever came up with the money. Meanwhile I tried to make payment arrangements with the IRS but they didn’t last, because throughout the year I’d send in the payments but then on April 15 I had no money to pay the income tax because I’d already sent them all my spare money.

Then they seemed to just forget about it. Which was great.

Except recently they now seem to have remembered. And they want all the money, plus penalty and interest, or they are going to financially destroy me.

How much? $88,000.

So I’m asking you guys.

I’d love to say that we want the money because we want to repair the house, which is in desperate need, but that’s not the case. Every cent is going straight to the government.

Is it possible? Well, I have 5000 Facebook followers. If they each sent $10, that would get me halfway. I have over 13,000 Twitter followers. If they each sent $10, I’d be in the clear with money to pay any taxes due on the new income.

My Paypal account is padguy@aol.com. Don’t use the donate button on this site; that will send the money to the Heroes Initiative.

Do you want to get something for the money? Fine: Send a check to my PO Box, PO Box 951, Bayport, NY 11705 along with books of mine and a SASE and I’ll sign them and send them back. That’s something, I guess.

I’m sure that there are people out there who will be overjoyed that I’m having financial difficulties, but I’m hoping the rest of you will not judge me too harshly and help me out.

PAD

I’m really relieved that April 1 is tomorrow so that people won’t read this and think that I’m just making stuff up.

1) Call Me Doctor Science–Have you ever heard of the White House Chief Technology officer? He had a staff of twenty-four people. Currently it’s down to one. Trump has not bothered to hire anyone yet for the posts, which is consistent with his total disregard for science. There’s no telling when or even if they’re going to be filling the posts. More likely they will simply shut down the office entirely. Then again, it may not matter in the long run because…

Continue Reading “Freak Out Friday – March 31, 2017” →

My my my, it’s been quite the week for the Trumpster. Started with a great deal of turmoil over healthcare and then went completely off the rails.

1) Time and Again–Remember how everyone seemed to enjoy making fun of Obama because he spoke so slowly and with hesitations? The reason for that was because he was clearly considering every word he spoke before he said it, and mentally edited himself so he wouldn’t say something stupid. Trump doesn’t possess that capability, and his tendency to say remarkably stupid things was on full display in this week’s Time magazine. The quote that is most making the rounds is this: “I’m a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right. Hey, look, in the meantime, I guess I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m President, and you’re not” I think someone should sit him down and tell him a couple of things. First of all, his instincts are typically erroneous. He makes snap judgments in press conferences, in interviews and on Twitter that range from flat out wrong to libelous, and when confronted, his instincts cause him to double down. Second, the fact that he is president has nothing to do with his instincts and everything to do with a two century old institution called the Electoral college that has disenfranchised Democrat majority vote winners twice in this century, and the century is only seventeen years old. And third, yes, he’s doing badly.

2) Healthy, Wealthy, and if you’re not both, screw you–“After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!” That is what Trump declared recently on Twitter. Except not so much as recent studies of the new plan indicate that more than 24 million people will lose their health care, and meanwhile everything from maternity leave to hospital stays is targeted for cut backs or elimination. Meanwhile a recent poll indicates that only 17% of those surveyed approve of it. We can assume that one hundred percent of Democrats hate it, but 17% would have to indicate that even some of the die-hard Trumpers are realizing just how thoroughly screwed they are if this goes through. But Trump has taken the ideal stand to deal with it: He insists the GOP, who postponed yesterday’s vote because they knew they couldn’t get it through, get it done immediately or else he’s going to abandon the entire plan. Of course he is: He has come to the realization that Obamacare may not be perfect, but it’s far better than nothing and also miles better than what the GOP has been coming up with. It’s kind of astounding. The guys who criticized Obamacare for it being “rushed through” over a period of months with discussions held behind closed doors are now endeavoring to do the exact same thing only in weeks. Not to mention that they’ve had seven years to come up with something, yet they haven’t. All the GOP has done is establish for once and for all that their party has no worthwhile ideas to put forward for governance, but instead exist only to try and stop the Democrats from accomplishing anything. This is the party of Lincoln? What, Lincoln, Nebraska?

Did he do anything right? Uh…not so much.

PAD

So I did not go into Iron Fist, the newest Marvel Netflix series, with high hopes. Early reviews were vicious. They criticized the writing, the directing, the acting. I was worried I was going to be wasting thirteen hours of my life with a total snorefest, borefest of a series.

So far I am four episodes into it.

What the hëll is everyone bìŧçhìņg about?

It’s a perfectly fine series. It isn’t remotely slow, it doesn’t drag, the writing is fine, the acting is fine, the directing is fine. Is it up there with my favorite, “Jessica Jones?” No, but on its own as a series, it’s entertaining and engaging. Now for all I know, it falls apart by the end, but this far, it’s good. So again, why are so many people slamming it.

I hate to say this, but I’m forced to conclude that their own prejudgements are warping their insights. I think their mindset is that this dámņëd well better be the best program that was ever created in the history of television. I don’t think that any TV series, no matter how good it is, could stand up to the standards that fans have for it, consciously or otherwise.

As everyone knows, Iron Fist has been the subject of endless internet assaults because Danny Rand, who is a blonde Caucasian male in the comics, is being portrayed by a blonde Caucasian male in the TV series. Fans are angry because Marvel didn’t toss out the history of the character and cast an Asian actor to portray him. Why should he be Asian? Because he knows Kung Fu, and apparently if his thing is Kung Fu, then he should be Asian. Because…well, I guess because Kung Fu is only something that Asians are allowed to practice.

Which would be news to my Kung Fu instructor, who is Greek.

And only Asians can be martial arts heroes, I guess.

Which should come as news to Chuck Norris. And Jason Statham. And Jean Claude Van Damme. And Dolph Lundgren (he has a black belt). And Steven Seagal. And Jeff Speakman. And Cynthia Rothrock. And Ray Park (well, he’s a villain, but still.) And, hëll, Keanu Reeves.

I’m not going to comment on the grand literary tradition that gave us Tarzan and Danny Rand and every powerful Caucasian who comes into a situation where he’s an outsider and masters his environment because he’s the best around, other than to say this: It is, to my mind, absurd to hold the creations of decades ago to the standards of modern day. Because if we are, then we should all boycott Casablanca because at one point Ilsa refers to Sam as “that boy playing the piano.”

PAD

The contestant had whittled the puzzle down to this:

A STREETCAR NA_ED DESIRE

He decided to spin again in order to try and up his total. It landed on $600. And what letter did he call out?

“K!”

Yes, apparently he had never heard of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Or maybe there’s a pørņ version that I’m unaware of, but I suspect not.

I almost feel sorry for him. He’s going to be ribbed by his friends forever for this. Even if he goes on to win.

Christ, he just did it again. In the subject of “Sticky,” three of the words were spelled out: FINGERS, NOTE and RICE. The remaining word was _ICKET. He guessed “Picket.” When it was, of course, “Wicket.” Holy crap, how did he get on in the first place?

PAD

When I first started working on this week’s Freak Out Friday, I thought the week was going fairly well for Trump. But it rapidly deteriorated and by the end it has been a crap storm of trouble. Started out okay, though.

1) He Should Send Rachel Maddow a Nice Fruit Basket—Having created a Twitter storm over her statement that she had Trump’s tax returns, it turned out that she had exactly one, from 2005, in which he really did pay a reasonable amount of taxes. This of course was a major kneecap to his foes and a huge “Glory, Hallelujah” to his supporters. Apparently having forgotten Trump’s own assertions during the debate that he didn’t pay taxes, putting yet another lie at his doorstep, the Trumpies declared triumph in the ongoing debate over his refusal to release his tax returns. Of course, the fact that a single return was released proves nothing, and the fact that returns of more recent vintage, including those that might well prove various connections to foreign powers remains hidden away, likewise goes past them. But hey, on train Trump, you seize hold of whatever triumphs you can get.

Continue Reading “Freak Out Friday – March 17” →

Remember the whole “He’s so presidential” thing that anyone with a memory said would dissipate in less than a week? Yeah, pretty much.

1) Obama? Seriously? Jesus.–As I’m sure you’ve all heard, without a shred of proof, Trump accused Obama of cavalierly breaking the law and ordering wire taps on Trump tower. Apparently because he heard some rantings on Breitbart and took them to be true. Even most of his own people are basically admitting that there’s nothing to back this up, but that doesn’t deter Trump from demanding congressional inquiries into the non-story.

You know what? I want to do this, too.

Trump has syphillis.

It makes huge degrees of sense. He stated that back in the 1980s he was quite the horndog, and the latter stages of syphillis typically occur thirty years after first coming into contact with it. It would explain the strange discoloration of his skin. It would explain his mood swings, his insomnia (he tweets at all hours of the morning), and the brain damage that has clearly occurred that causes him to lie incessantly. It could easily have gone undetected because syphillis is often undiagnosed since its symptoms mimic many other diseases. I think that a Congressional inquiry should be made and Trump subjected to blood tests to determine whether the most powerful man in the world is in the throes of an STD that can screw up your brain and eventually kill you.

If you agree, repeat this everywhere. Put it up on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, everywhere. Contact your representatives and insist they put forward a full investigation of Trump’s health. The only testimony we have to that effect is from his brainless numb nut doctor who couldn’t handle a round of “Operation” without killing the patient. Make #TrumpHasSyphillis the new trending topic everywhere. If he can say whatever he wants and expect results, so can we.

2) Here we go again–Apparently not intimidated by the sheer chaos of his first travel ban, Trump on Monday signed a new one into effect. He is also seemingly unintimidated by the fact that the United States is losing billions of dollars in tourist trade. It seems that foreign tourists simply don’t want to be bothered going into a country that might reject them for whatever reason flits through the mind of the syphillitic president, and merchants from hotels to restaurants to airlines are seeing a spiralling downturn in tourist money. Which you might think would concern a guy whose entire claim to fame is being a businessman. And now we start to see just how he wound up driving business after business into bankruptcy.

3) There are no words for this–Ben Carson, in addressing the no-doubt stunned employees of HUD, stated, ““There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships who worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream, that one day their sons, daughters, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness.” Uh…no. They were not immigrants. They were slaves and they were victims of kidnapping. They only had two dreams: to be free, and to go back home to the friends and family from whom they were stolen. If the man who said this was white, he would be decried as a racist. Carson is black, so I guess it’s not racist; just idiotic. And of course conservatives are allgegedly digging up video of Obama doing the same thing, because as always, the way to excuse one of their people doing something dumb is to prove that the man they despise did it too, so that makes it okay.

Did he do anything right? : Well, no, but his staffers did. They are stating that they do not want the health care act referred to as Trumpcare. He doesn’t want to attach his brand to it. Smart move. This thing is being pilloried by Democrats, Republicans and even the Tea Party. Granted, he did say he supported it, but if he wants to distance his name from it, that would be a really bright thing to do. Especially if Bernie Sanders gets his way, the government stops providing health care for its elected officials, and he ends up needing help for his syphillis.

PAD