Spirit in the Sky...

When I was in grade school, the mother of one of the kids I hung with was a religious nut job. After hanging out with him after school, I'd be heading home and I'd find a religious pamphlet or card in my jacket pocket. I'd stop and read them and frankly, some of them scared the shit out of the 10 year old me. One day I showed one to my mom. She went nuts, picked up the phone and gave my friend's mother a royal chewing out. My mom, at the time, was a Sunday school teacher at the First Presbyterian Church.

When I started confirmation, I asked a lot of questions and was told time and again I just needed faith, I quit. I un-churched myself at 12. When I explained my reasoning to my parents, they said okay.

Since then I've searched around, I was married to a Catholic, tried that for a while, Took a look at Buddhism, enjoyed the philosophy and meditation, then moved on. I was talked into going to a "Prosperity Gospel" Church for a Sunday service, it was appalling. Tried one of those hip christian churches, the band sucked and so did the lyrics. As an aside, have you ever listened to Christian Rock music? Imagine "Love to Love you Baby" only written about Jesus.

I read this by Stu Rothenberger the other day, he's hitting all the political notes, but...

"For many white evangelicals, their religious and political views are so strongly intertwined that it is almost impossible to separate them. When their views of religion and morality collide with politics, politics often wins out. That’s why it’s naïve to ask why so many white evangelicals continue to support Donald Trump or Roy Moore.

Remember physician Scott DesJarlais (R-TN 4), the pro-life, tea party conservative first elected to Congress in 2010?

DesJarlais admitted pressuring his mistress to have an abortion and acknowledged he had multiple sexual relationships with patients and co-workers. His wife had two abortions. And yet, the Family Research Council, which promotes “traditional marriage and family and advocates for policies that uphold Judeo-Christian values” (according to the Almanac of American Politics, 2016), gave the congressman a 100% rating for 2014. Even more amazing, voters re-elected the Republican in 2012, 2014 and 2016.

The congressman’s hypocrisy is obvious, but no more so than the political behavior of his conservative, evangelical supporters."

When I was a kid, (and as an adult) I noticed that people who were the most "Jesused Up" didn't behave like Jesus would want them too. I know from experience that religious broadcasters are more interested in fleecing their flock than promoting Peace and Love. I had a drink one night with a major market "Christian" broadcaster. After his 3rd whiskey he said, "All you need is an Evangelical in a white suit to front the station and a few cripples in wheelchairs to put the tapes on." His stations got busted for speeding up the tapes, so his white suited Evangelical could stick a few extra commercials in every hour.  The hypocrite had two houses, a collection of classic Rolls Royce automobiles and a condo on the beach. If there is a hell I hope he is burning in the lowest circle. 

A long time friend of mine "found Jesus" quit his job and went to work for Pat Robertson's CBN. The pay was so bad he asked Pat for a raise. Pat said, "let's pray on it." He didn't get the raise!

My friend Walt Wieder, a retired, PhD Unitarian minister, once told me "There is a different view you know."  I get it Walt, I get it.

H/T to Norman Greenbaum for the title...

"What's Goin On"

Interview with with a young "edgy" Nazi in suburban Dayton, Ohio...

“I think he was a guy who really believed in his cause,” he said of Hitler. “He really believed he was fighting for his people and doing what he thought was right.”

Just a normal everyday American with a wife and a cute dog...wears jeans and 100% cotton t-shirts. Yeah and the Auschwitz guards loved their wives and kids too and obviously didn't bring their work home either. 

....The New York Times, for God's sake...they tried to normalize the son of a bitch.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/ohio-hovater-white-nationalist.html

See the nice young man chanting about Jews in Charlottesville? The Aryan looking guy, He's right up front, you can't miss him. He whined that his fellow students ostracized him when he got back to school after returning from the little Nazi get together last summer. Too bad asshole.

Our president* said "There's fine people on both sides." No there aren't you dimwit.

I grew up knowing for sure Nazis were bad. Then again how bad could they be when their uniform buttons bore the inscription "Gott mit uns". In case your German is shaky it means "God is with us".

They were good Christians just like you and your neighbors. So how bad could they really be?

The guy in the Times story has a dog he loves, just like you do, obviously he can't be a bad guy can he? he's a dog lover, So was Adolf fucking Hitler!

This is not normal...you start with Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Alex Jones and you end up in the Storm Front sewer. And you end up with this guy as an Assistant to the president*? Of course he's been shit canned...but.

The medal on the right is his father's Nazi collaboration medal.

A final note...look and sound familiar?

I rest my case, I can't wait for the "yooouge" military parades, how about you?

...Thanks to Marvin Gaye for the title.

Old man take a look at your life...

It seems appropriate to revisit this post from 2017.


When I was a young (26) manager in the radio business we had a Junior Achievement program at the station. I ran some of the sessions with the 12 kids in the program. There was one girl, 17 years old, who was incredibly attractive and sexy beyond her years. A few weeks after the program ended, she showed up at my office one afternoon with a Thank You card and a small gift. She came around the side of my desk while I was looking at the card and the gift and laid a wet kiss with plenty of tongue on me. I didn't return the kiss, I was shocked. Then she said "we should go out sometime," I told her no we shouldn't.

Later in life, I told a woman I knew quite well about the incident, she agreed that I did the right thing and added, "Of course if you had taken advantage of her, you would have never told me about it." At first, I was insulted at her response, but the more I thought about it she was right. Then I told my friend for the longest time I had wondered who was taking advantage of whom. She thought about for a bit and said, "Doesn't matter you were the adult in the room."

I know a guy who lost his wife over an affair with their teenaged neighbor. He was in his 30's, the relationship started when she was 16 and lasted for two years. He cultivated her for a year before the physical stuff started. He seemed to be extremely proud of it. On the surface, he appeared to be completely normal and a bit of a little fuddy-duddy harmless guy. He wasn't.

Another guy told me about being seduced by a mutual friend's wife, they carried on the mutual affair for a year or so. One night while having dinner with the wife and her husband in New York, the husband told the guy how much he enjoyed watching him make love to his wife. The husband had watched through a louvered closet door. He then proposed a threesome. I was stunned. I really couldn't believe it. Did the threesome happen? It did, more than once.

When I was single, living in Boston I used to play wingman for a lipstick lesbian friend. She was a very attractive woman and some of the lines guys used on her made me ashamed to be a man, some were clumsy, some were funny, some were stupid and more than a few were out and out threatening. That was an experience.

Another friend's son came out of the closet when he was a senior in high school. His parents were devastated, then they were mad, then they blamed themselves. When they finally came to their senses, I suggested they have their son talk to a really good man I knew who happened to be gay. Know what the older gay man told the kid? Stay the hell away from older gay men. Find some friends your age, hang out, go to movies, shoot hoops, play pool, arrange flowers, have some fun until you figure out who the hell you are. Just stay away from old guys looking for "chickens". Good advice if you're gay or straight.

I know plenty of men and women who've had affairs, some of them have repaired their relationships, some haven't. The one thing that got them all, in the end, was the lying. Lying to their partners and to themselves. The couples who put it back together stopped lying, the couples who didn't break up.

Life is full of bullshit, when I was in college I was sleeping with a girl who would always say, "we have to stop doing this." Right after she'd say it, she'd start things going again. I hope she has been able to unload that psychological burden after all these years.

What I cannot imagine is what goes on in the mind of a guy who thinks to force a woman to kiss him, or exposing himself or masturbating in front of them or groping them is going to get him. I read somewhere it's not about sex it's about power.

I could write a book about this stuff, but I won't. Thanks to Neil Young for the title.

A Few Things I'm Sure of...

Some guys are disgusting pigs and not just famous powerful guys either...

I know more than a few who look at women as mere objects, guys who have done and said incredibly disgusting things to and at women. An example, I worked with a guy who crawled on his hands and knees into a news booth and fondled a woman while she was reading the news on the air, on the number one station in the market. With tens of thousands of people listening, she calmly pressed the cough button, slapped his face and told him to get the hell out of the booth. She reported him and nothing happened. His excuse? "I was drunk."

I know for sure he is a disgusting son of a bitch.

I've watched guys in bars hit on woman after woman using the same cliched lines on each and everyone one of them as they worked their way around the bar. Did some women buy the bullshit? Probably a few.

I know for sure the evening didn't end well for either one of them.

When I was younger did I participate in misogynistic discussions with other guys? I sure did.

I know for sure I don't anymore, I'd like to think that I've done some growing up after all these years.

When I was single, I was so laid back around women I was asked by one on our third or forth date if I was gay.

I know for sure I'm not gay and so does she.

Have I ever been a disgusting son of a bitch? I have, I cheated on my first wife. I ran through all the the stupid guy excuses, running the gamut of "Everybody does it." to "My wife doesn't understand me." On the the other hand I never pushed the other woman into a relationship, I was an asshole, but nice about it. Not much but it's something, maybe?

I know for sure I regret it. My first wife and I had enough problems without me throwing gasoline on the fire.

Are there females who are disgusting? Yes, I met one, I fell in love with her within a couple of months. After a few more months she told me she was married. It's an ugly story. A movie could be made.

I know for sure that it taught me a lesson, A lesson I should have learned years and years earlier. It set me on a better path in life.

I've always had women friends, friends in the best sense of the word. Friendships that have endured over the years, some of them have lasted from childhood. I cherish them all.

I know for sure a man can have a relationship with a woman that isn't based on getting laid or trying to get laid, know what I mean? It's a nice thing to have in your life.

“If I had 5 dollars, Ralph had $50.”

The summer between the 8^th and 9^th grade I was a partner in a popcorn stand with my boyhood friend Ralph Thomas. We paid $50.00 for an old popcorn wagon. We cleaned it, we painted it. We bought 10 gallons of coconut oil, a bag of popcorn salt and 2 50 pound bags of popcorn. We bought boxes of candy bars, cases of pop and we learned how to make cotton candy and caramel apples. We parked our stand in the parking lot of a roadside market owned by Ralph’s dad. The rent for our space, we had to work in the market during the day. We sold watermelons, corn, locally gown vegetables and I learned to work the deli counter. To this day I can wrap meat better than the guys at our SoCal grocery stores, thanks to Ralph’s dad, Ralph Senior.

Our location was brilliant; a quarter of a mile from the “Starlite” drive in theater. The Starlite’s popcorn cost 50 cents a box. We sold the same box for a quarter. Ralph and I killed them. In an era when the minimum wage was whatever you got paid. Ralph and I were making 75 to a hundred dollars a week selling popcorn, candy and soda. In a few weeks we paid off the startup costs and pocketed the rest.

The business was Ralph’s idea. From that summer on he never stopped. Not for a minute.

Ralph grew up in a boarding house, his mother renting rooms and cooking for strangers. As Ralph said, “I never knew who we were going to eat dinner with.” How far did Ralph go from that boarding house in Grand Forks? A long, long way, here’s an example, Ralph, his wife Carolee, Jan and I had dinner at Spago in Beverley Hills. Wolfgang Puck sat with us over after dinner drinks. Wolfgang wasn’t a stranger to Ralph and Carolee.

Ralph dropped out of school, he joined the Marines. Later in life, we were having a drink at a LA hotel. Ralph told me, he was dyslectic. He said he could never figure out why it was so hard for him to read. In those days, dyslectic kids were rarely diagnosed, they were considered slow or just dumb. The only way he could get a C was to literally memorize every word the teacher said.

Ralph got out of the Marines armed with his GED and a burning desire to be successful and he was. He went into the car business with my dad’s help. In a few years he was a sales manager and it wasn’t long before he owned his first car store, a tiny Chevy dealership that he, Carolee and his brother Pat staffed. Soon he had another, another and another. 30 years ago he sold all but one of his dealerships. He told me it was time. He held on to one, Gateway GM in Fargo. Why would a guy who had owned and operated dealerships in major markets go to Fargo? As he told me it was all about location. General Motors likes to have dealers operate in a market area with population base of 100-125 thousand. Fargo has a population of just over a hundred thousand, but the marketing area has well over 250,000 people. The closest Chevy dealer north of Fargo is Rydell’s and as Ralph said, “Who in their right mind is going to drive a 160 mile round trip to buy an Impala?” At over 500 cars a month, he was right again. It was the popcorn stand all over again.

When he left the car business, Ralph got involved in real estate investment and development and many other ventures. He got back into the car business again when he built Metro Auto Auctions in Phoenix and Dallas. First class operations and successful enough he sold them a few years ago to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway. Ralph’s philosophy was if people are buying 13-15 million new cars a year, that means there are a lot of used cars around and used cars are where the money is. Then he told me he learned that from my Dad.

I’m going to miss Ralph, his intelligence, his counsel, his friendship.

I’m going to miss his incredible memory as well, one afternoon driving back from lunch in Phoenix, he quoted the entire pitch of the barker for Margie the Wham-Wham Girl’s cheesy strip show at a carnival we went to in junior high…part of it went ”She shakes it to the North, she shakes it to the south, she shakes it from the east and to the west aaaaannndd she shakes it where it shakes the best.” Ralph turned to me and said, “What was that damn song they played?” I said, “Preston Epp’s “Bongo Rock”. We both laughed like adolescent boys.

Ralph died yesterday in Scottsdale.

Hefner is dead

Hugh Hefner is dead at 91.

I remember the first time I saw a Playboy magazine. I was 11 years old tagging along on a fishing trip to Lake of the Woods with my Dad and his friends. One of them brought a Playboy. They were drinking and playing poker on one of the nights we spent at the Trail’s End Resort and I snuck a peek at the magazine. Diane Webber was the Playmate of the Month. Diane was 25 years old at the time of the photoshoot. (She died a few years ago in Santa Monica. After a few roles in movies and doing Middle Eastern dancing and instruction, Diane worked as a law librarian for Santa Monica Law Firm.) Her pictures were very innocent by today’s standards, Diane was certainly a beautiful woman and for the first time in my life I began to imagine the possibilities.

In the 50’s the covers of men’s magazines and detective magazines all seemed to be devoted to bondage shots, rape fantasy and other misogynistic themes. I remember looking at those covers at the Bike Shop’s news stand while buying comic books when I was a little kid. Widman’s Candy’s news stand carried them too. I didn’t like those covers at all. Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine changed that, the Playmates were natural, girl next door types for the most part, cute, clean and All American sexy, like women you’d see on the street or in school. As strange as it may seem now, that was a big, big change.

When I was a young kid, those Playmates seemed out of reach and distant, more like my Mom’s friends than girls I knew. When I was a junior in high school that all changed with Christa Speck’s appearance as a Playmate and later as Playmate of the Year. Christa was 18, only two years older than I was. Men my age all remember Christa. (Christa later married TV Producer Marty Kroft) She was one of us.

I worked with a guy who had a long relationship with a former Playmate of the Month. She was a nice, smart, gorgeous woman. They broke up, he was an idiot and she wasn't.

I did read the articles, some of the monthly interviews were great reading. The reporting, the fiction, the music commentary and of course, the joke page were usually all good reads.

Hefner made it okay for all of us to be more open about our sexual nature. He dealt in fantasy for the most part but, he opened the conversation that it’s okay for women to be open about enjoying sexual relations. He opened men’s minds to understand that you have to give to receive and that it’s okay for women to ask a man for what they want in in an intimate relationship. He was outspoken on AIDS and Gay Marriage. He integrated Playboy early on by featuring black Playmates and Asian Playmates

I have no idea what Heffner was like in his personal relationships. I thought he was crazy not to marry Barbie Benton, I thought it was sleazy to devote damn near an entire issue to photoshoots of his fiancée, Kimberly Conrad. On the other hand, he bought the house next door to the mansion and gave it to her after their divorce, so he could be close to his children.

Hefner handed the reins of the corporation to his daughter Christie who has been the CEO for years.

The Hugh Hefner story, like the man, is complicated. The last 20 years or so he was strange in so many ways. Google Holly Madison. Read excerpts from her book for some insight.

Somebody once said, “The only reason Playboy has the articles is so guys can get them in the house.” Probably true, but the articles were almost always as good as the pictures. And the pictures were always good.

History by Sir Winston

I’m re-reading Winston Churchill’s “A History of the English Speaking Peoples”. I’m halfway through volume 4 at the moment. The series begins in 55BC with the Roman invasion of the England and covers the highlights up to the beginning of WWI.

Sir Winston was not a professional historian, he was a true student of history. Churchill like all great, thoughtful and astute leaders understood, maybe more than most, the lessons of history and the guidance history can provide for future generations.

When you read Churchill’s work, you get an English-centric view of history. It is good to get a view from the other side of the Atlantic of the emergence of our country during the revolution and the events leading up to our civil war. All of it grounded in real, unvarnished historical fact. Good reading for any American.

As I re-read the books I was again astonished at the bloodshed, carnage and chaos created by religion in England, France, Spain and other countries and regions all over the world for centuries. It is no wonder our Founding fathers wrote “freedom of religion” into our constitution, I only wish they would have written “freedom from religion”.

Churchill had a great interest in military history. His telling of how we won our revolution by winning so few battles against the English is refreshing.

Churchill lays out why the North won the civil war, not only because the North was on the right side of history, but because of the geographical and industrial advantages that doomed the Confederacy from the opening days of the conflict.

Churchill writes the South had arrogantly expected Britain and Europe to come to their aid and he reminds us that no foreign power recognized the Confederacy during the conflict.

Churchill’s thoughts on Robert E. Lee point out that Lee was conflicted at the beginning of succession and even after a long consultation with President Lincoln where he was offered command of the Union Army, Lee made his choice to resign and go home to Virginia to become a traitor to his nation and his entire, illustrious career as a soldier for the United States of America. Churchill felt Lee lost his chance at greatness the day he rode across the Potomac.

In earlier volumes Churchill writes of feudalism’s roots in the Roman system of government in every part of the Roman Empire.

He writes of religion’s caustic effects on civil society across the world.

He writes of  beginning and growth of the rights of average citizens to have a say in the way they are governed in English Common Law and how the American and French Revolutions spurred that thinking world-wide.

“A History of the English Speaking Peoples” is well worth reading. If for no other reason than it reinforces :

“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” ― Edmund Burke