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Happy Hemp Day

It’s 4/20, so I’m obliged to make a bunch of weed jokes, right? Whatever.

Where’s Waldo?

You entertain people who are satisfied. Hungry people can’t be entertained – or people who are afraid. You can’t entertain a man who has no food. ~Bob Marley

So, just to put things to bed quickly, here’s the history of 420 and whatever it has to do with marijuana culture.

I don’t use illicit substances or alcohol. It’s unlikely that I would start using marijuana even once it’s legalized. I can’t be bothered.

As much as Bob Marley is an icon of weed usage, he was about something a lot more important than spliffing.

He saw injustice in his country and made music to confront the issue at the time.

Unfortunately, we’re getting to be like that here these days.

We’ve got a pernicious class of haves. They not only want to have more, but they would prefer to have it at the expense of everyone else.

The idea that a rising tide lifts all ships is utterly lost on them. They’re selfish, spoiled and privileged in the extreme.

As a lot of Marley’s songs say, this eventually leads to a big fall for folks like this.

As we head toward what is likely to be a devastating midterm election, they’re doing their best to drive us into a ditch before they lose power.

The senile Clown in Chief is predicting food shortages, not only in war-torn Ukraine but here as well.

It would be easy to dismiss this as one of his many doddering, mumbling bits of nonsense but we’re observing that having Ukraine out of circulation at the beginning of the planting season will definitely be causing a shitstorm worldwide. The commotion, sanctions and trade embargos will also limit the availability of nitrates used for fertilizer.

Gee, what a shame we couldn’t have had a fair election so that the guy who gave us 4 years of relative peace and energy independence could have prevented this crap.

Gee, what a shame that a senile sock puppet with a vested interest in making sure that all traces to his dirty dealings in Ukraine were conveniently wiped away by an impromptu invasion got to be the President instead.

Gee, what a shame that the DOJ is so politicized that we can’t even hope that some of the most in-your-face rampant corruption would actually be properly investigated, prosecuted and duly punished.

Gee, what are the chances they’ll pull some absolute fuckery in November to ensure that they don’t get the drubbing they have coming?

If it didn’t threaten to put us in such dire straits, it would almost be amusing to see all the crap they pull out of their bag of nasty tricks in the coming months.

Unfortunately, this stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

The fact that Creepy Uncle Joe predicted food shortages seems to point to that as a desired outcome of his administration’s policies.

He promised to shitcan fossil fuels and gas prices have nearly doubled since he took office. The greenie meanies think that’s great, but it’s making the cost of everything go up.

Throwing imaginary money around in unconscionable quantities has driven inflation to unsustainable levels. This also makes the cost of everything go up.

When people can’t afford the basics and everyone starts going broke and even bankrupt, what do the smartasses in DC plan to do about that? Debt forgiveness for everybody? I don’t think so.

They couldn’t afford to, even if they wanted to.

As the world starts turning away from the American dollar as a reserve currency, it’s going to be worth less and less.

Great job, assholes. You broke the country. Hope you’re happy.

Hungry people aren’t happy and they’re going to know exactly who to blame for their misery.

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

Bob Marley and the Wailers: them belly full lyrics

🦇 Batmania 🦇

Why THE BATMAN Is A Masterpiece

So, I saw it. I enjoyed it. It was good, but I’m not sure I can give it “masterpiece” status.

I guess if you’re a hardcore film nerd, it might qualify.

As a basic Batman fan, it was okay.

They went more film noir with it and Batman was more like he was in the Golden Age of Comics.

The Penguin even threw out the “World’s Greatest Detective” title in a disparaging way.

Actually, that’s a fair jab.

Batman and Alfred had some advanced information gathering tech and skills but he wasn’t exactly a great detective.

He did seem to be pretty quick to figure out Riddler’s riddles. He came across like an emo Adam West, solving those riddles in a heartbeat.

What the movie did bring for me was an excellent character arc.

Batman had a reputation and he commented on the utility of this reputation as the movie opened. He rips through the clown gang like a stomach virus and delivers his tagline from the trailer, “I’m vengeance.” Very cool, very Christian Bale, very Batman.

Unfortunately, this turns against him at the climax of the film and he realizes that he needs to be less Christian Bale and more Adam West.

I wonder if that means he’ll have Robin in the next movie? A kinder, gentler Batman might be the way this franchise is headed. Guess we’ll see.

I did catch the Hush reference during Riddler’s takedown of Thomas Wayne’s legacy, but here are a bunch more Easter Eggs for those of us who like to geek out like the presenter of this video.

THE BATMAN: Every Hidden CLUE You Missed About The Riddler’s Master Plan + More Easter Eggs

A Moment Of Pleasure

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.
~Dale Carnegie

That’s the point of all this.

I enjoy making these stories as much as I enjoy sharing them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my Holiday Season Serial Romances if you’ve read them over the last couple of years.

I hope you’ll enjoy my Sentinels series once I get it finished and published. Right now, I’m still formulating.

The Snowflake Method has been a big help in getting me back on track, but my work schedule has not.

I started off the year with a massive amount of work to do.

This is good because it helps me to pay the bills and invest in tools and resources for my publishing endeavor.

It is, however, putting me way behind schedule.

Add to that the eye surgeries and a variety of other matters that have kept me from being productive (namely, being tired), and you have a story that isn’t getting told.

I believe I’ve settled on a starting point and I have a vague idea of what I want to use for the major plot points, but it’s been difficult to concentrate.

Even when I have a free moment to think about writing, I’ve got the guilty feeling that things that have already dragged out too long at work or at home are demanding to be done before I get back to writing.

It’s not writer’s block so much as it is a nagging sense of priorities. It’s as distracting as it is exhausting.

So, I keep on trying to align my priorities to allow for work on the Sentinels and I keep on failing to get to it.

The nice thing is that I know I can really crank out the words when I know I’ve got the time mentally allocated.

I was able to crank out Holly and Ivy in a fairly short amount of time. The bit that took a while was creating all the graphics for the daily posts.

Since those won’t be needed for a story that’s going to be released exclusively in prose novel form, all effort can be devoted to getting it cranked out, edited, formatted, covered and submitted for publication.

Getting the last few steps done requires a bit of skill building. I’ve already published the Holiday Season Serial Romances on Amazon, but I’d like to “go wide” and publish on a variety of platforms that indie authors have been using.