Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars

Blacks are Responsible for Their Own Problems

Black Lives Matter is a rent-a-mob of the Democratic Party, organized, funded and controlled at the highest levels of the Obama administration. The goal of BLM is to drive law enforcement out of black communities so as to turn over the streets to black gangs. This is all a rerun for me.

I lived through the epidemic of gang violence in Brooklyn during the crack era. The city of New York turned over the streets to black gangs. Same sort of agitation in the 60s by leftists led to this surrender of the streets to thugs.

It was a nightmare which I will not describe in detail here.

I find it almost impossible to believe that we're headed toward a repeat of this nightmare. How is it possible that people did not learn from the last go round?

60 years of constant weeping and gnashing of the teeth over blacks has driven us all nuts. We've beatified blacks, simultaneously exempting them from any responsibility for their own lives and problems. White kids have been taught for generations to devise the most tortured explanations to pin the blame for any problem blacks might encounter on whites. That's what nice white people are supposed to do.

This shit has devolved into insanity and farce.

The ideological foundation for this attempt to drive law enforcement out of black communities was already in place when I was a kid in the 60s. I was taught in my undergraduate courses by white lefty professors that cops were an "occupying army" in black communities. What was supposed to take the place of a police presence was never quite explained.

But the cops were evil and racist... that was for certain.

My college indoctrination also taught me that white racism was responsible for the fact that black men dominate the prison population. In fact, I was taught that holding blacks responsible for their lives was a form of racism.

BLM is the expected outcome of this indoctrination of our kids. Several generations of black kids have been told that whites are responsible for all their problems. White kids have been beaten down into apologists and flagellants. Nobody has the courage to say to blacks:  "That's enough. Back off. You don't get any more."

I'm not a political activist. I'm not going to do anything more about this insanity than write this bit. But, I want to be the first to say this. I'm retired, financially secure and I don't have to fear blacklisting.

The time to say No! to blacks has arrived. Blacks are responsible for their own problems and their own lives. They must obey the law, and humble themselves before law enforcement, like everybody else. Injustices happen to members of every group. Blacks don't have some special claim here.

The outcome of this capitulation to the rent-a-mob BLM will be black gang control of the streets of many of our major cities. I know because I lived through the last episode.

I live now at the end of a dirt road on top a mountain in the forest. The violence and chaos is unlikely to reach me or my family. What the hell! I will only be an observer as New York City sinks again into the madness of black gang control of the streets.

Worried Airlines Pic

Why worried? Dunno. Maybe because I'm moving. Certainly not moving back into the urban ghetto. Moving into another rural paradise... a garden apartment on top of the mountain.

Leaving behind my home for 26 years. Leaving behind just about everything left of Myrna. Which is a good thing. It's time to let it all go.

In a couple of months, I'll be getting un-Woodstuck!

Leftists Worry About My Dick

We can now apparently add sexual inadequacy and a tiny penis to the causes of disagreement with a leftist. Racism, of course, is to be taken for granted. Below, a nice sketch from DeviantArt.

I've been encountering this theme with some frequency on Facebook and other web sites. Some lefties become so obsessed with the size of my dick that they can't talk about anything else.

Feminists online have been obsessed with this issue for years. My loathing for feminism is, of course, proof that I "hate women," a hatred which must have been borne in my fury over the size of my member.

Racism pimps joined in with the penis fantasies some time ago. 

"You wouldn't be talking that way if you were face to face with a black person!" lefties like to say. "You'd be too afraid. Your problem is just that you've got a tiny dick."

Telling the lefties that I'm not going to show them my dick doesn't do a bit of good. I'm not the kind of guy to take a dick selfie and put it up on the web. I'm not sure that that's really proof anyway. How would I prove that the dick in question is mine? 

Lefties have always enjoyed imagining that their ideology is proof that they are free spirits with wide ranging and hot sex lives. I've lived in Woodstock long enough to know that that is mostly bullshit. Lefties get divorced, experience failure in relationship and change partners frequently. No doubt about that.

Drama and failure give an illusion of spicing up one's sex life. The toll from that sort of life adds up over the years. By one's 30s or 40s, a constant parade of partners ceases to seem glamorous. It's simply dreary failure.

I guess this "tiny dick" thing is an elaboration upon the "angry old white man" bit. My backward political thinking, so this theory goes, originates in my fury over my obsolescence and minuscule dick. Eat shit and die, old white guy!

I've always been happy with the size of my dick. Perhaps I'm fooling myself, but I can't recall spending any time fretting over this issue. 

And, no, I won't show the damned thing to you either. You'll just have to take my word for it. The damned thing is YUGE!

Filling Up the Dumpster

The real estate agent told me to get rid of all the piles of stuff before he shows the house. So, my son-in-law towed the dumpster over, dropped it off in my driveway and I'm filling it up.

I've owned my house in Woodstock for 25 years. So, the junk is piled high. 

Stuff I absolutely had to buy has been gathering dust under my bed for a decade or more. Guitar stomp boxes, computer cables, etc.

I have a couple of bookcases full of programming and software manuals that are obsolete. At least I made money reading those books. 

Twelve years after Myrna's death, I'm finally throwing away the last of her affects and possessions. Her pics will be stowed away in boxes. Time to close the books on that chapter in my life. You can't mourn forever.

Well, you can, but what the hell good does it do?

I might put one of our couple pics up on the wall in my new in-law apartment.

I'll be cleaning out my closets and tossing all the clothing that doesn't fit me that I'll never wear again. Might drop that stuff off in the Goodwill box instead of dumping it.

I'm finally free from the pain of surgery and I can lift heavy objects again. Trying to slowly get back to my exercise regimen. 

I'm deep cleaning the house as I toss stuff out. Lonely old widower that I am, I've fallen into the usual male trap of settling for superficial cleaning. My girlfriend nags me constantly on her weekend visits to adopt her standard of cleanliness, but lifelong habits are difficult to change.

The attic is the tough hack. Spiders take over any space not regularly swept clean and I don't go up in the attic often. Out here in the Catskills, spiders constantly threatened to take back any human encroachment on their territory. I routinely sweep the walls and ceilings of their webs.

That stuff in the attic is the really old junk. Some of it even predates buying my house. I don't know why I dragged that crap up there. Should have simply tossed it.

I'll still be living at my house for another 3 to 6 months. The real estate agent thinks my house will sell quickly. But, it still takes a while to go through the process of showing it and dealing with the legal and financial issues of selling.

I Support the Police Sign Near Woodstock

This sign, spotted on Route 28 just before the turnoff to Woodstock, is a little defiant. My far left community is deep in cop hatred and apology for black gangsterism. I'm surprised one of the local lefties hasn't defaced it.

I also support the police. They're our thugs. It takes thugs to fight thugs, and I know this from experience.

I moved from San Francisco to New York City in the late 70s. Much to my dismay, I found myself and my family living in Brooklyn in the midst of the crack epidemic. At the time, I was a conventional leftist, true to my college indoctrination.

Black gangs controlled the streets in Brooklyn in those days. Two successive mayors allied themselves with the gangs. This was the result of the same sort of leftist agitation against police in the 60s that you're reading and hearing today... that police are pigs and racists who deliberately shoot and hassle poor innocent black people.

Dumb hippie that I was, I actually believed that crap.

Brooklyn cured me of that. My family was constantly harassed and threatened by black racists. Chased down the street quite often in broad daylight.

The cops had abandoned the streets to the gangs because the political leaders of the city had abandoned them. So, the black gangs owned the streets. When I complained to the cops after one assault on my family, one of them told me:

"There isn't anything we can do about it. You've got to be crazy to live here. If you're going to live here, you'd better start packing. The only thing we're going to do is pick up your body."

The great leftist dream had come true! Those "colonial oppressors," the despicable cops, had been driven from the black neighborhoods and blacks could "take care of their own" as black radicals like to say. The result was chaos, an epidemic of violence, burglary and murder, and streets that were unsafe for my wife and kids to walk down at high noon. 

I had knives and guns pulled on me as I walked home late at night from the subway. Hard to say how I escaped being murdered. Thugs followed me down the street cursing and threatening me.

The final straw... my wife was damned near kidnapped at high noon on a busy street corner in our neighborhood. A group of black thugs tried to push her into a van. The cops, usually nowhere to be found, happened on the scene and everybody ran.

I got my family out of Brooklyn ASAP to save our lives.

Mayor Giuliani was elected by New Yorkers who were fed up with black gang control of the streets. He defied the liberal wisdom of several decades and resumed enforcing the law in black communities. The bad guys were thrown in jail en masse. The gangs were broken. Peace returned to the streets of New York City almost overnight.

So, I stopped buying all the leftist horse shit. Yes, blacks can be, and quite often are, vicious racists. Cops are the good guys. Well, at least they're on our side against black gangs.

I didn't care much how the cops took back control of the streets. If they fudged a little to get a murderous gangster off the corner, good for them!

Yes, I support the cops, too.

Electoral Fatigue

This presidential election has been exhausting. Damn thing has been going on for two years. As I long ago stated, I'll vote for Trump. That's about it. I'm not a campaigner. Here's my long, tedious essay explaining why I'm voting for The Donald. Not much has changed since I wrote that bit.

The furor on social media over the election wore me out a few weeks ago. Maybe being sick had something to do with that. 

Truth is, I'm feeling pretty jolly. No cancer! Yay! I'm going to live a little while longer.  But, I'm not entirely likely to live through the next president's term. If he/she goes to two terms, my chances are dim indeed. 

Bloodlust crept into the electoral process this year. Everybody's itching for a fight, and lots of people are ready to bust heads and shoot people. What in the fuck do I need with that shit?

I'm just an old Mr. Mom grandpa. It's no longer my business to fix the world. Maybe my grandkids can do that. 

I'm trying to focus nowadays on what's really important and relevant to me. Politics is pretty far down the list. No matter who's president, I've got a good (if not that long) life ahead of me. I'm going to be teaching and playing with my grandkids and bundling them off to school in the morning. 

I'll be moving into my new in-law apartment with my daughter, son-in-law and grandkids within a few months. Might wait until I sell the house in Woodstock. Might not.

My remaining time is short. Gotta focus on the important things. I'm looking forward to getting un-Woodstuck.

Getting Un-Woodstuck

Got the OK from the doctor to resume my normal physical regimen. Good thing! I was going nuts sitting on my ass after 3 surgeries in two months. The good news is... no cancer! The other big news is that I'll be departing Woodstock, although the date for that is not yet set. I'll be getting un-Woodstuck.

"Woodstuck" is a term the locals have always used to describe somebody who moved to town, excited by living in the most famous small town in the world, only to become stuck with no way to get out. 

I got Woodstuck over 40 years ago. Immigrated to the burg to immerse myself in the music scene, and to put my kids in safe schools. Got stuck. Long after there's any reason to be here, I'm still here. 

Not moving very far away. Less than 20 miles, on the periphery of Kingston, but still out in the country and atop a mountain. A shorter mountain.

I will, however, be moving to an entirely different universe. I'll be living in an ordinary small town with no claim to fame, populated by people with a lot more sense and much smaller egos. No flocks of tourists.

The reason? I'm going in with my daughter and son-in-law to buy a house. They need all the help I can give them to care for my three grandkids, and I'm retired and happy to play the role of Mr. Mom. So, we'll be building an in-law unit in the basement of the new house for me. I'll be selling my house in Woodstock.

I've never lived in the town of Woodstock. That's too damned crazy. Town is full of rental houses for the transients, and shops and amenities for the tourists. The transients are artists, usually musicians or painters. An entertaining but addled bunch trying to continue to live the hippie dream.

No, I've always lived in isolation in the forest in the mountains to the west of Woodstock. That area belongs spiritually to Woodstock, isolated from the melodrama and mental illness. Every crazy artist and burned out far leftist must live for a while in Woodstock.

Another reason for the move is that I need somebody to look after me. I'm headed toward 70. No serious health problems, but living in isolation out in the mountains will soon be too much for me to handle. And, if I fall down or have a serious health problem, I will need to have somebody nearby to help me. 

While I'm still completely independent, capable and mobile, I am old.

I'll be Woodstuck until my house sells. Might be a year or two. Or might happen in a hurry.

I'm ready. God has blessed the final chapter of my life... He has given me these beautiful and fascinating grandkids and He's given me a big role in rearing them.

I'll be commuting to my babysitting gig until the house sells. Then, Crazy Grandpa will move into the basement apartment. Happy days ahead, indeed.

Grandpa Summer Vacation! Whee!

Grandpa Howling' Steve will have 10 weeks off from daily babysitting of the grandkids starting next week! Yay! While I love my little Munchkins and enjoy my time with them, I need to recharge. (My daughter is a school teacher, so she gets the summer off.) What will I do?

I'll be taking a week long road trip to Chicago with a stop in Detroit. In Detroit, I'll be meeting a Facebook friend for a trip to Comerica Park and a Tiger baseball game. In Illinois, I'll be visiting my soon to be 90 year old mom and taking in a Cubs baseball game at Wrigley.

I considered continuing out to Colorado so that I could buy some 420 from a retail store, but that's a long way to go for a 1/2 ounce of pot. A lot of wear and tear on my 2011 Ford Ranger pickup, too!

The grandkids will still be very much in my life. My 3 year old girl has made it clear that she wants picnics in the backyard with chocolate ice cream. That's fine with me! My back yard is a great place for my one year old twins to play, too. You couldn't find a quieter, safer place. No traffic noise. Only the birdies and the deer.

And, I have no doubt I'll be called on for spot babysitting.

Unfortunately, I have another surgery scheduled for this summer. What can you do? I'm old, as my toddler Munchkin so often tells me. My body is starting to break down. The surgery will hospitalize me for a couple of days, then I face a month long recovery.

I'm still recovering from two surgeries over a month ago. Yesterday, I did a full set of yoga for the first time since those surgeries. I was afraid to go all in. Now that I have, everything feels better and my outlook has improved.

The picture above is from Uncle Grandpa, one of my favorite kids' TV shows. The grandkids do not appreciate the sublime humor of this show. They prefer The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Princess Sofia and P J Masks. I do love Minnie and Mickey, but a summer off from the endless reruns will do me some good.

Most of my great Grandpa Summer Vacation will be spent at home, doing what my dad called "puttering around." Bicycle riding, softball in the backyard, tending to my yoga regimen, playing, writing and recording music, and sketching and painting. My house needs some minor repairs that I can manage, too.

My time with the grandkids is already running out! I've been babysitting them almost full time during the school year for three years. Next year, it's off to pre-school for my toddler girl, so I'll only see her half days. In two more years, my baby twins will also head off to pre-school. Within four years, all the kids will be in school full time and grandpa will have to find something new to do with his life.

Paranoia Strikes Deep

Of course, this line is from the big 60s hit by Buffalo Springfield that evokes the atmosphere of that era of street protests. 

In the aftermath of the Orlando massacre, paranoia has taken over. Facebook is full of horrifying accusations, with every political faction trying to pin the blame on their opponents.

The need for a scapegoat seems so deeply embedded in the human psyche.

I wish I had answers, but I don't.

Part of the explanation for the paranoia that took over the anti-war movement in the 60s was that so many people were experimenting with acid and sex. LSD produces good and bad outcomes. Those outcomes are dependent to a great degree on the psychological stability of the user. Sexual experimentation also provokes deep seated fears.

I speak from experience.

The rebellion against authority and patriarchy in the 60s also left people feeling adrift in a sea of random waves. There were no longer any rules or loyalties. 

That rebellion against tradition, order, morality and authority continues to this day. In fact, rebellion has become a mass movement, a brand. Woodstock is the dominant symbol of that brand.

On the left, the paranoia over sexual identity drives people to wild extremes. The shame that people feel for their perversions and experimentation must be somebody's fault. That that shame might originate within the individual because of what he is doing seems unacceptable.

This sexual paranoia provokes bitter hatred. In Woodstock, it is an article of faith that the rubes out in the styx want to kill the perverts and homosexuals. I grew up in small town Republican Illinois and I can attest that that is nonsense. Nobody cares that much.

My life is very peaceful. I'm out here at the end of a dirt road in the forest in the Catskill Mountains. Should I even care about this outburst of paranoia and hatred? I'm retired and out of the fight of life. Should I just ignore the madness?

Myrna believed, correctly I think, that humans become consumed by bloodlust during times of peace. Peace equals boredom. The desire to blow things to hell begins to creep into our consciousness, particularly among the young who lust for action. The desire for revenge against our enemies begins to consume us.

Is the internet a global single consciousness?

If so, that single consciousness is infected with madness and bloodlust, the desire for revenge and paranoid hatred of imagined and real enemies.

Clean Up Day with Betty Boop

The house is a mess. I'm a lonely old widower with a part time girlfriend. Things get kinda backed up. Waking up to the aftermath of a "swell party," as Betty Boop does in this 1937 cartoon, is only a memory for me.

The girlfriend is coming up from the city for the day. Not that we'll spend much time at my house. Today is the big combined birthday party for the grandkids. My twins just celebrated their first birthday. My toddler girl celebrated her third birthday on Friday. The big party will be held at the pavilion at the park.

When you factor in my month long struggle with health, including a couple of surgeries... well, house cleaning has been at the bottom of the to do list. It's pretty funky around here.

I try to stay off the social media on Sunday, and I'm thinking about extending that to the entire weekend. Political argument and controversy on the web doesn't do a damned thing for me. It's a non-productive annoyance. My weblog long ago ceased to be about political argument and controversy, too. There is an unending and unendurable supply of that shit out there. What could I possibly add?

So, my weekends are normally spent in silence. Haven't been getting out much any more.

Four years of sitting up here in the woods in my cabin in the Catskills. I've enjoyed it. I lived such a chaotic, adventurous, tragic, comic and outrageous life for 60 years that the rest was needed. I haven't missed work at all. Don't know if I'll ever want to go back to office politics and dealing with people I don't even want to know.

I just struggled through the first major illness and hospitalization of my life, not to mention two surgeries. Life narrowed down to babysitting the grandkids, heading home for dinner, taking the opiate pain meds and sleeping until the next morning. Another more serious surgery coming up in a month or so with a month long recovery period afterward.

Rainy day here in the mountains. Windows encircle my front room. They're all open. It's as if I'm sitting out in the woods in the middle of the rain.

It's time for a serious clean out of the house. Time to throw a lot of stuff away.