Some Thoughts On Blogging and My Life In General

Originally posted this to my MySpace blog at 1:53 this mornin'.

I was, and still am, in a pretty shitty mood regarding a number of messages and blog posts there to which I'd received no response, and this essay reflects that.

It also reflects, I think, a long-standing sort of unease, cynicism and outright despair that I often have.

It can be very frustrating, as many of you out there already know better than I, just how disappointing life, on- or off-line can be, and just how tempting the desire to pack it all in, and say, in the immortal(and immoral)words of Eric Cartman, "Screw you guys. I'm going home."

It's tempting and easy to do, but it can't always be, nor shouldn't be, done.

Anyway, thanks to the people who responded to my post on "Random Thoughts Of A 42 Year Old Autistic Man", for the positive posts and the support. To the latter poster, I also want to say that have not forgotten you, and will send you an e-mail within the next several days. Again, thank you so much for posting your comments here. Now, if more people only had the interest or the guts, I'd be a happier camper than I am.

But, then again, maybe it ain't the quantity of the comments, but the quality that matters. Maybe. I don't know.

See what you think of the post below and decide for yourselves.

As some of you out there have probably noticed(I have very little idea myself), have been blogging quite a lot over this week almost past.

Most of these have consisted of link blogs.

Well, right now, and probably for quite a long time to come, am taking a break from churning out link blogs like their sausage counterparts.

Instead, this entry is a Helluva lot more personal, and concerns two subjects, the first being blogging, and Internet activity in general from my worm's eye view, and the second is a set of ramblings of how I feel about myself and the world immediately around me.

That said, let's have at it.

The rewarding thing about blogging, whether here or on my other blog, is being able to get the various thoughts, ideas, notions, whatever, in my head out without worrying about length, content, language or other restrictions, other than the ones stipulated in the various service contracts here on MySpace or at Blogspot.com.

It's my way of communicating with a world that is, whether I like it or not, largely ignorant of and indifferent to my existence.

I can share essays and pictures that would otherwise be seen by only a very, very few people, if at all.

Those are the advantages of blogging as far as I can see, and they are substantial.

The dis-advantages of blogging are that, for whatever reasons, my posts, of whatever sort, can be ignored, and, to me, that's even worse than someone posting a hostile response to a particular blog post of mine, because, unlike hostile posts, which means that someone has actually taken the time to read, or mis-read, a particular post of mine, and gotten emotionally involved enough to post a counter-response to it, indifference and ignorance can, in its very silence, say to me that either no one reads the bloody stuff I put up, or, if they do, for one reason or another, it makes little to no impact on them.

I find that quite discouraging at times, to say the least.

It also feeds a certain kind of nagging insecurity that I've had for much of my life that anything and everything I touch is doomed to fail, for one reason or another.

I had it when I did poetry here in town, and with other creative endeavours as well, including my pics.

So. Why continue to do them, you might ask????

The answer is, there are a lot of things, like poetry I no longer do, because I felt I wasn't getting the sort of positive reinforcement that I wanted, I felt alienated from much of the poetry crowd, just as later, I would feel alienated from much of the arts crowd here, and so on.

In fact, alienation has been, and will continue to be, at least for the foreseeable future, my lot in life, or at least much of it.

Some of this may be due to the autism, and to the rather hyper-sensitive physical and psychological reactions I have to external stimuli. In some respects, and, yes, I often congratulate myself on this, though perhaps for undue reason, on NOT having succumbed to a drinking habit or drug habit, aside from the nicotine that I in-take daily, and the prescription drugs I take under doctor's orders, years ago.

The temptations have been there, and are there, should I decide to do so.

I've thought of suicide so many times I can't even begin to count, though these thoughts are less and less as I age, and believe me, I am VERY conscious of aging, thank you very much.

I always have been, from the time I was a tot, until now.

Loneliness and I are old companions, as are frustration and I, and, for those of you who read my entry on advice to younger auties may have seen, it's a strong theme with me in my life.

I have often longed for the "Big Breakthrough", so romanticised in novel, poem, play and film, where, at a climactic point in the protagonist's story, he or she experiences a life-changing event, or has a tremendous, usually life-affirming, realisation of some sort, his or her life turns right 'round, like a record spinning right 'round, and, by the end, there is usually some sort of happy ending or another, unless, of course, one's going for the tragic effect, and it all just falls to shit.

Even biographies and histories follow this basic story-telling structure, and there's just one problem with it in my view-it is just so much complete and utter horse shit that, if it were real horse shit, it'd be decorating the bottom of a stable stall or corral someplace.

Life, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to realise this, doesn't fall neatly into those narrative conventions, especially when one is living it, period.

It's messy, tiresome, often boring, sometimes nasty and frightening, and isn't stuffed full of grand adventures and the like, at least for most folks.

But, it's also not completely dreary and dull, as some schools and works of fiction, like the old British "kitchen sink" plays and films, would portray it, either.

It is what it is, and we are, within our limitations imposed on us by genetics, raising, society, economics and history, what we are.

Yes, we can BE better than we might otherwise be, but that takes a Helluva lot of effort , time and energy, and, at times, can be weariful, especially when it seems to bear little or no fruit at all.

Being an arsehole mightn't seem to take as much time, energy, etc, and bear far greater fruit than the former. But, and here's the rub, Folks, it actually takes as much energy and time to be one as it does to even try to be marginally better than that.

Also, the rewards may be greater, but, and as an agnostic verging on atheist, am speaking of THIS life only, the punishments, even if only in terms of the growing number of regrets that one has as one gets older, are more severe, and severely dealt out.

But, that's entirely off topic of what this discussion started out to be, so, am gonna curtail that for the moment.

Whether blogging, e-mailing, or other form of on-line activity I've engaged in in the decade since I first got onto the 'Net, there have been times when I've been completely and utterly disappointed by the lack of responses to a particular post, picture, etc, and, especially if I'd high hopes for its impact, felt especially crushed by it.

There have been times on-line where I've been pleasantly surprised that anyone responded at all, and that the response was as positive as it was. It's been responses like that, however scattered at times they've seemed to me, that have kept me going.

That, and the feeling, often borne out by circumstance in my off-line life, that there really wasn't anything going on in that life to pull me away from the 'Net, and that is quite true now.

I've no substantial ties to the community, some good friends here, but no family aside from the Cats, am not a member, at least currently, of any local clubs, societies,etc, and, while I might want to be, am also on a limited income that I've to stretch out over the course of a month as best I can.

I used to go out much more than I have in recent years, and part of that was because I lived down-town, and had better access to bus transport than I do now, living here in Northeastern Vegas.

Also, there's the amount of time it takes to get to much of Vegas from where I live by bus, plus the problem drinking I did at some of the various First Fridays in recent years, where, on some occasions, I got into fist fights with people while in a drunken rage or two, and am quite lucky that I'm neither imprisoned, severely injured or dead as a result.

The last First Friday I attended, back in March, and I actually came well after 10:00 PM, when the official festivities had ended, and hung out until 7:00 in the morning at the Art Bar, drinking Coke the whole night, and had a decent enough time, all well and good.

My therapist once asked me, after my last fight, to analyse WHY I drank as much as I did at First Fridays. At the time, I was hard-pressed to give her an answer of any sort.

Now, I think I can give a partial answer, but, even then, I am suspicious of it being the entire truth.

It is an utter lack of social confidence, combined with loneliness, a desire to bond with other people, and to lose my inhibitions. Who knows, part of me thinks, I just might get lucky, though the overwhelming evidence from my life thus far says firmly otherwise.

All that said, those reasons might have barely worked, when I was younger, but, in fact, they never really did, and they sure as Hell don't work now that I'm in early middle age.

It may help for a short time to assuage whatever pain I'm feeling, or to boost my self-confidence, but, it's a chimera, a ghost, a spook, an illusion, and decidedly un-real, to boot.

Again, I've got off the original subject, but, this time, please bear with me here, because this, along with everything else, ties into what this essay's about.

Being on-line can and does help me cope with some of the loneliness and alienation that I feel, if, at times, even just providing me with a few hours of diversion by looking up subjects in which I'm interested.

In that way, it's far superior to drunkeness, I can tell you that.

I can, and have, communicated with people in other parts of the world whom I've otherwise have not met.

I've got back in touch with old friends and acquaintances, some of them here on MySpace, whom I otherwise wouldn't ever have seen nor heard from again.

But, there are also times when I hear from no one, or almost no one, and the e-mail in-box and Friends Request section here are full of spam messages and the like, and there are no responses to the messages I send out, and I fucking despair of the whole thing.

It's not all at once, mind you, but is an acculmulation of small incidents and objects over what can be a very short period of time, and I struggle with myself, and struggle with myself, and struggle with myself, until I feel I can take no more, and then I have to find some way of letting off the building steam.

This is really the first time that I've deliberately tried putting down much of how I feel and why down in blog form.

I find this exceedingly helpful, even if only temporarily, in order to keep myself from launching myself into the waters of Self-Pity and eventually going through the Desert of Rage, and ending up in the Slough of Despond, as I have in the past.

Self-pity is, and can be, an exceedingly destructive emotion, especially because when I'm engaged in it, the temptation to play the martyr, the victim, the wronged hero comes right out, and it is as ugly as it is silly and farcical.

I often war with myself about how and what I should feel about this, that and the other, and that may be part of the burden I carry as an autie. But, then again, it may simply also be part of the burden I carry as a human being, who is alive and conscious.

The worst part about self-pity for me, though, is that, even in its depths, I can't escape the fact that I've not always been the ever-considerate, ever-responsive, ever-kind and capable human being I'd like to be in my day dreams, and I've a lot of day dreams, thank you very much.

I've not always been a complete arsehole, either. Just, more often than not, more of a procrastinator in meaning to get back to some people's messages, or meaning to do this, that or the other.

But, that is, however, un-meant, still inconsiderate, etc, and just as hurtful to those who sent me the messages in the first place as the lack of response from others is to me.

That's a lesson I'm still learning, and often the hard way, thanks.

I can't and won't say that, from this day forth, I will never procrastinate in sending a response to a message, blog post, whatever,ever again, because I probably will, at some or another.

What I can do is to limit the number of occasions on which that happens and to constantly remind myself of how I would feel if the situation were reversed. It's not a fool-proof formula, but it's the best I can come up with now.

Also, I do remind myself, even if it frustrates and angers me much of the time, that I may send messages, post blog entries, what have you, but there's no law stating that everyone I send the bloody things to, or who see the posts, etc, HAS to respond to my messages, posts, etc.

There's a sense of entitlement lurking not so far behind those sentiments that, "Goddamn it!!! I'm intelligent, sensitive, sophisticated, etc. WHY AREN'T people responding to MY messages and posts???!!!", blah-de-blah-blah, yakety-schmakety.

Well, the more reasonable, or is it, side of me says, "Who said they have to???".

Good point, I think.

No one, unless it's an official communication from some sort of governmental body with enforcement powers, HAS to respond to anything if they don't bloody well want to.

That goes for me, you, and the rest of y'all out there, and, while it often sucks dead donkey dicks by the pale moonlight, there it is, large as life and twice as ugly.

People respond, quite often for reasons maybe only semi-beknownst to themselves, to messages, posts, ad campaigns, whatever form of communication you care to name, because there's something about that particular bit of communication that grabs them enough to respond.

Name any field of human endeavour that involves communication, and you'll see that principle in action.

Advertisers and other professional opinion makers study the various techniques currently available for grabbing people's attention and keeping it, and, a good portion of the time, they work. Other times, not.

But, as much as I'd like to be in such a field, not advertising so much, as film, photography and similar forms of artistic endeavour, I'm NOT a professional, I don't know many of these techniques, in fact, I don't think I know any of 'em, and that's that.

I'm just a 42 year old autie, single with two cats, living in Las Vegas, Nevada, who tries, and sometimes succeeds, sometimes fails, and sometimes just muddles through in spite of himself, to do the best he can with what he has.

Yes, I want something more than that, but, I don't get out of the house very often, so my chances of that happening, particularly in a big way, are pretty slim.

I still hold out hope, and, if there's one thing that writing these personal blogs, as opposed to some of the more political stuff, and especially the link blogs here, has given me, it's something of a bit of confidence that I actually can write, and write well when I want.

It's not journalistic material, by any means. The sentences would have to be much shorter and concisely worded than they are in my writings here.

It's not poetry, of which I've little knowledge of and desire to know technical points like metrical forms and such. But, I use alliteration, repetition of words and phrases, puns, what have you, in my prose to spice it up, and, at the risk of sounding grotesquely pleased with myself, I often enjoy doing it.

In fact, even when writing a grimly worded political essay, if you were in my living room with me as I was composing it, you would often hear the sound of my laughing at a joke, or two, or ten, I put into it(Truly, the sign of a bad comedian is one who supposedly laughs at his own jokes. At the same time, if a comedian doesn't laugh at his own material, how does he know it's any good, if no one else's around???).

I've often laughed at my own jokes, and at other people's, in the various messages, blog posts, etc, I've seen, and especially in the last few days here.

Thank God.

I don't have to laugh all the time, nor to cry, which I don't often do, and is probably not good for me that I don't do so more often, nor to be angry, etc.

But, am glad I've those opportunities to, just as I am to get this sort of thing out, for others to see, or not, as is their fancy.

This doesn't mean that I've worked everything all out, and that everything will be all right from now on, because I'm feeling sooo much better, thank you very much.

There probably will be times I will fall into states like the one I was in when I started this essay this evening-turned-early morning.

So be it.

After all, I, like any other human being, am prone to changing moods which are, in turn, dependent on the varying circumstances I find myself in.

That's part of being a living being.

Remaining in a static mood is part of being dead, i.e, no damned mood at all, 'cos you're fucking deader than a stump. That, and rotting, but don't let's go into that now, shall we????

So, I'll continue to blog here, send messages and responses from time to time, and keep doing whatever the Hell it is I do here, because I feel like it, and, because, for the moment at least, I've no-where else better to go, and nothing better to do.

If y'all see something in this that strikes your fancy enough to respond, go for it. Nothing would please me more.

If not, well, it'll hurt, but I won't automatically drop you from my Friends list, either. Not for a relatively trifling bit like that.

Send me something massively personally insulting, racist, anti-Semitic, or flood me with spam messages;yeah, I'll drop ya, and like a hot rock in the middle of the Southern Nevada desert on a Mid-Summer day, too.

Those are good reasons, I think, for doing that, not failing to respond, however frustrating I might find it.

Just please remember, I ain't made of steel, just as you're not. So, if I fail, lemme know, OK???

Thanks for your time, and, if you've actually made this far, your patience in reading this. Much appreciated that you had enough of both to spare for this.

Be seeing you.

SCTV Is Back On The Air!!!!

Well, Folks, am back, yet again, after a prolonged absence from the 'Net that lasted around 2 months, from 18th April to around 18th June, thanks to my zigging when I should have zagged in trying to delete some Windows XP up-dates that I'd down-loaded to my hard drive earlier.

Thanks to a very good friend of mine, who was able to fix the various problems affecting the computer, have been up and running again for a few weeks now.

Sorry haven't been back here before, but, as a means of correcting this neglect, am re-posting several blog entries from my MySpace blog for y'all to see here.

These were written mainly over the past week and a half or so, and run a fair gamut of opinion from Yours Truly, I think.

As for piccies, well, I've got a few to post here, and will do so in the next several days.

But, in the meantime, hope you enjoy the op-ed pieces, and will be back very soon(I know, you've heard THAT one before. Well, let's make sure it happens, eh??).

Simon Says.... Disney is full of shit.

On Friday night, went into my Hotmail account, and found two messages, the first from a friend of mine, who'd just visited the Disney web-site, and found out about a live-action re-make of the 1960's animated series, Underdog, due to be released by Disney on 3rd August of this year.

Another friend of mine, to whom the same message had also been sent, posted a reply that stated just what his opinions were of the re-make, and, indeed, of the various tv show re-makes that Hollywood has seen fit to trot out over the past decade or more.

It is, I believe, a lovely little minor classic of American invective.

The last entry reproduced here belongs to my friend who sent the original message, and conveys his full reactions to "Underdog's" trailer, after having viewed it on the Disney site.

The entries are separated by a goodly amount of space between 'em, and are proceeded by their original titles. This includes this post's title, which's taken from the second essay's.

Will give a brief comment or two of my own on this topic towards the bottom of this post.>

-D.


There's no need to fear....

The Underdog movie is here!

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/underdog/

Due to come out August 3.

Although I love Underdog (actually he's probably my favorite superhero of all time - to me, he was more human than most 'human' superheros), I think the idea of portraying him as a live, speaking beagle wearing a cape, in a live action movie, is a bit absurd. It looks like a step down from the original Underdog. And too bad they won't have Wally Cox to do the voice.




Simon Says.... Disney is full of shit


What else from this "film" will we see?
A real German shepherd with a bad New York accent saying "Get im boys!"
or a large poodle (wearing a wig taken from Eva Gabor's rotting corpse) that sings "ohhh where has my underdog gone?"
There is a great need to fear as we did with the Bullwinkle movie, or Mr Magoo or Dudley Do-Right films , just to name a few.
Not to mention all the other failed old-tv-shows-turned-into-movies that they keep on doing.

I thought they would go the way of Iceage or happy feet to appeal to kids and their parents who remembered the show as kids as we did.

As imdb reports they have Simon Barsinister as the villain (of course being live action)
And James Belushi... did he do enough enough dog pix with the 18 K-9 films?

What's next?
a live action film about 2 gophers in Arizona chased by a John Wayne coyote and his "bully!" colonel?
"Aaa..ba...ber....aaa..ba.aa..ber"
"what did he say?"
"Him say new underdog film stinks from gopher shit!"



RE: Simon Says.... Disney is full of shit


I viewed the trailer of this so-called movie and it majorly
SUCKS.

First of all, much of the charm of Underdog was Wally Cox's
voice. In this film, Underdog's voice is done by a totally
nondescript, Middle American voiceover actor, complete with all
the lame "clever" jokes and "hip" comments you can imagine, like
a watered-down Bart Simpson. They've eviscerated Underdog's
character, and replaced him with the generic, sarcastic "young
white male" protagonist which Hollywood deems is easiest to
identify with for the majority of the brain-dead American
moviegoing public.

Truly pathetic.







Speaking for myself here, I can't say that I've seen the trailer for "Underdog". Visted the link given in the first message after I got it, but the damn site was taking too long to down-load on dial-up for my taste, so I gave it a miss.

However, I'd have to agree with my second friend's general contention about tv show-inspired film re-makes over the past decade and more.

It's not just that the producers, directors and writers of these are solely monkeying around with beloved, or at least somewhat well-liked, television properties of past decades for fun and profit(Well, mainly profit, I think).

A re-interpretation of a classic film, tv series, novel, etc, if well-done, with careful attention paid by the producers, director, writers, and performers in a re-make, to the qualities in the original, such as writing, direction, musical score, etc, that made it work to start, can be quite good, and bring a new life and audiences to a property that might otherwise fade away.

That said, most re-makes tend to rather awful, precisely because most of the elements that went into the original tend to be either ignored or given damned short shrift by those behind the former.

Oh, the character names and the most basic of the original's plot situations might be kept. However, much of the rest is simply either discarded, or watered and dumbed -down by the re-make's production crew in order to make the property seemingly more "relevant" to to-day's audiences, and, hence, more salable.

What often results is a film that might do well enough at the box office on initial release, and perhaps even better in DVD, cable, satellite tv, and overseas releases, but, in a few years time, dates far more badly than the original property that inspired it, and is, at best, mediocre, and destined to be forgotten.

So, why are film studios like Disney, re-making these properties to begin with????

Well, for the same reason that just about every film production company and studio makes and distributes films in general, to make as much money as they possibly can off of it.

But, over the past twenty-five to thirty years, the costs of making a mainstream motion picture in Hollywood have increased enormously, and especially in the last fifteen years.

Just the very fact that a film that costs $60 million US to make can now be considered to be a "medium-budget" film should give some indication of just how much the costs of Hollywood major studio film-making have skyrocketed since the mid-1970's.

They include the costs incurred from the start of a film's pre-production through all stages of production, including post-production editing, advertising and marketing, and the sheer size and scale of these costs, which happens for a variety of reasons it'd take far too long to ennumerate here, will generally tend to discourage investment of money, time and other resources on relatively un-tried, novel, or experimental stories and approaches to film-making, in favour of the safe and familliar.

This has, in one form or another, been generally the case with commercial feature film-making world-wide since the early 1900's.

But, film budgets in the past were generally much lower than to-day's, even taking into account general cost inflation and currency devaluation, and there was generally at least some greater amount of room for stories and film-making approaches, at least within the limits imposed by studios, production companies, and censorship of various sorts, than there has been for around thirty years now.

In that span of time, Hollywood's emphasis has turned to making either enormously budgeted blockbuster films designed, and, so the producers and studios hope, and guaranteed to get arses into seats, or to re-makes of older films and tv shows that have, however dimly, a name-brand recognition that will, again, get arses into seats.

All fine and dandy, except that when such properties become the majority out-put of any film industry, sooner or later, the public, or at least a fair portion of the film-going, video-or-DVD-buying or renting public, etc, eventually starts to tire of that sort of film, because the product starts to look, feel and sound as much alike as a batch of aluminium cans, fresh out of the factory.

Now, it's not that the public then goes looking for "art-house" films or anything of that sort. But, they at least want something, however inchoate the audience's desire for it might be, that they can emotionally connect with, spend a couple of hours being amused and entertained by, and that doesn't insult their intelligence overly much.

If studios and production houses keep on offering the same old mush in spite of the public's desire for something newer and better than the former's current offerings, they will have no one but themselves to blame if and when the public simply stops attending, buying or renting their products.

People may indeed get used to a particular item or way of doing something, and certainly do crave the familiar whenever possible. But, they are also curious beasties, and, eventually, will tire of anything familiar, especially if it's served up more often than even the most conservative person would like.

That's why film- and television show-making are, and will remain, crap-shoots, no matter how many focus groups, surveys and such are done by studios, networks and production houses, and an over-emphasis on the tried-and-true, just as much as a greatly radical subject matter and film-making approach, will not necessarily make an audience take the time, trouble and incur the financial cost of getting to a movie theatre and taking 90 minutes-two hours out of their lives to watch any given flick.

Playing it safe, especially when the qualities that have made a familiar property work in the past are either greatly reduced or gone, hasn't, doesn't and won't guarantee box-office success, especially over the medium-to long-term.

There has to be room for new sorts of film and television stories, and for new approaches to film and television-making. Otherwise, even the most conservative audiences in the world will eventually tire of the products being offered them, and simply stay away in large numbers.

As well they should.

Over-familiarity, especially with mediocrity, can definitely bring contempt, and it's a lesson that Hollywood and other film-making centres, would be well advised to learn.

Here endeth the lesson.

Be seeing you.

A Few Bits Of Advice To Young Auties From An Older One

Have been doin' some thinkin', in however disorganised a fashion, about what I might say to any young Autistic about what to expect about livin' on one's own in the Big, Bad World, once he or she leaves home, if that's possible.

The following's a distillation of a combination of advice I've read and heard from some Neuro-typicals(so-called normals, for those of you who've never seen this term before) and folks with other disabillities, whom I've known over the 42, nearly 43, years I've lived, as well as bits and bobs I've cobbled together from my own experiences.

I don't claim that the following applies equally well to every autie on every occasion. They don't. Every autie, like any other human being, comes from a wide variety of backgrounds, and has his or her own temperament and range of experiences to deal with.

These are only my opinions, and don't necessarily apply to everyone and every situation.

One other thing: I can't say that I've always lived this advice, or that I've done it well. There are many occasions where I've not, and there will be many occasions, I'm sure, where I won't. I'm a human being, not God, and only Deities live their lives with a 100% consistency rate, unless they're Greco-Roman deities, who are as vain, capricious and nasty at times, as any human being.

I, on the other hand, am a human being doin' the best he can with what he has, and sometimes, that just ain't enough. Sometimes, too, I fail, just as anyone else can, and I think that anyone proffering advice of any kind has the obligation to say something like this. Otherwise, they're either lying to you, themselves, or both.


'Nuff said 'bout that.

Here we go.

1. When you find out, whether from your folks, a doctor, or whomever else, that you are autistic, have Asperger's Syndrome, Tourette's Syndrome, or any of the other "cousin" diagnoses, learn as much as you can about what they are, how they work, and they affect you and your individual circumstances. If you don't want to find out that much, just be aware that they exist, that you have one of these conditions, and accept those facts.

It also means accepting yourself for who and what you are, especially because this means that you have a harder row to hoe ahead of you than others, because you are going to have to deal with the fact that, in some areas, you aren't going to able to process some aspects of livin', especially social interactions, as well or readily as others.

It also means accepting that many people whom you'll meet, may, once they learn you're autistic, may consign you to the "Freak, Geek and Retard Squad". If so, bother as little as you can with them, because they aren't worth your time, energies and effort to try to change or have them understand you and who you are. They've their ideas of the world, humanity, and how both should be, and you don't fit into their those preconceptions, save as some sort of object of fear, ridicule, derision and scorn.

Such people's brains are closed off at the spinal column(am speaking only figuratively here), and only the information that they expect and WANT to hear, see and otherwise experience gets through to them. Therefore, best to have as little to do with 'em as possible, if you've anything to do with 'em from then on.

Arguing with 'em and trying to get 'em to see your point of view are complete wastes of YOUR time, energy, talent and emotion, and cause you more grief and anxiety than they're worth, because their minds are like a bank vault's doors on a Sunday mornin', firmly closed shut, and that's that. You've better things to do than to try and pry open such mental doors.

The most important part is that YOU accept yourself for who you are, and that you do your best to live your life as well as you possibly can. Anything that distracts from this is utter foolishness.

2. With those, whether autie, neuro-typical, or have another form of disability, and who love and accept you, please don't drown 'em in an information over-load about your being autistic, having Asperger's Syndrome, Tourette's Syndrome, or any of the other "cousin" diagnoses, or even about your latest hobby, enthusiasm or obsession, as even the most patient person will eventually, whether in their body language, or with their mouth, start saying, "Yeah, Uh-Huh, Sure. That's very interesting, but can we talk about something else, now, PLEEEAAASSEEE???!!!".

I know it can be supremely irritating, especially when you're on a roll and feeling real red-hot about a subject you really, REALLY like and care about. But, not everyone else in the whole world is gonna feel the same way you do, nor should they. This means that you have to work that little bit harder to read the other person's body language, facial expressions, and to listen to both WHAT they're saying in response and HOW they're sayin' it, which is something most auties aren't generally known for being terribly good at.

It's a problem I've often encountered in dealing with others in my life, and still very often do. But, it can be dealt with a good deal of the time with some work and observation.

Otherwise, you just end up irritating, annoying and eventually alienating others, when you don't have to.

3. Got this bit of advice from a friend of mine with Cerebral Palsy who works for the State of Nevada Psych-Social Services Department, and while it's really more of an observation than a piece of advice, it makes sense to me, and has given me both a sense of perspective and hope that I didn't have when younger. It's that, when one is disabled, a lot of the major life mile-stones, whether that first good job, or at least half-ways decent one, first Sweetie, what have you, are gonna come a lot later in life than they do for neuro-typicals. There are a variety of reasons for this, not all of which I know, but the basic fact is that they are gonna come later for you than for many of your neuro-typical peers, so don't punish yourself by constantly comparing yourself and your situation to others, as that just only wastes your time and energy, and embitters you emotionally towards yourself and others in the process.

God knows, I have, and still do, a lot of that kind of crap, and I can tell you that it's hurt me in any number of ways. Am trying to cut it out as much as possible, but the habits of a lifetime can be difficult ones to break, so, if you can, please try not to fall into that habit. You'll find yourself a Helluva lot better off for it, I think, and, when and if these mile-stones come, you'll be able to enjoy them as fully as possible.

4. Many auties, so I'm told, have a problem with free-floating rage, which can manifest itself in incredibly violent bouts of temper. Me, I've not met that many other diagnosed auties in my life.

In fact, I've met damned few, other than myself, so I've only reports and my own experiences to go on here.

I know I have it, and I also know just how difficult it is to try and express one's anger, disappointment, fear, rage, what you ya, in a "socially acceptable" manner.

Many of the therapies and behaviour modifications prescribed by many psychiatrists, psychologists, etc, haven't really worked for me, and this is a problem with which I'll always have to deal in one way or another, 'til I'm dead, cold and rottin'.

That said, one thing to remember, if you can, is to pick which battles to fight and which ones not to.

For instance, if some son-of-a-bitch is threatenin' you with physical violence, and there's neither any way you can talk 'im out of it, or leave the physical situation, then you fight, as hard as you can, as much as you can. Kick, bite, gouge, punch, whatever. Just do whatever it is you have to do to get the son-of-a-bitch off you, so you can leave the room or wherever this is happening, and get yourself to the nearest authorities, or to someone who can otherwise help you.

But, that's a damned extreme situation, and not applicable to most of the crap that most people, at least working-class and above in the developed world, have to put up on a daily basis.

Using jiu-jitsu, savate, or various kinds of kung-fu moves on a particularly annoying boss, supervisor, co-worker, neighbour, or hostile acquaintance just ain't called for by the situation, and causes far more trouble than it's worth, especially for Y-O-U. So, they're right out.

So, what to do??? Good question. If you can, ask them, in a polite and reasonable manner, with a non-threatening tone of voice and body language, what the problem is, and why they're expressing that problem the way they are.

Sometimes, this works, because, one, you've caught them completely by surprise by responding to their provocations not in the way they might've expected, but in a manner that not only doesn't threaten 'em, but actually asks 'em something about themselves. If there's one thing that just about anyone, disabled or neuro-typical, loves to do, it's talk about themselves, sometimes at overly-great length.

If the person responds to this, you and him or her can then begin to hash out exactly what the problem is, how it can be fixed, and how the both of you can find a mutually satisfactory solution to the problem between the two of you.

Mind you, that's not always gonna be the case, particularly if there's already a strong current of dislike, if not outright hatred, between you and the other person, but, it's ideally the best possible approach to conflict resolution that I can think of at present.

But, if that's not the case, simple avoidance, or, if you have to deal with the person on a fairly regular basis, keeping conversations short, simple and all business with none of the usual bits of chit-chat and other social interaction are the next best courses.

That means, if you have to, and the situation's bad enough, either walk out of the room after saying that this present conversation's over, or, if need be, without a damn word spoken to your antagonist.

You may still get a bit of grief about that afterwards, but, you won't be in as dire a spot of trouble for either having told someone to go fuck themselves up the arsehole with a pogo stick, or physically assaulting 'em, and that means that you can go home at the end of the day to your usual routines and comforts instead of jail or the unemployment line.

Even then, particularly if you have what I like to call a delayed-action temper("Delayed-Action" comes from the term "Delayed-Action Fuse", which describes a kind of fuse that doesn't immediately ignite or start a detonator on an explosive, but is set on a timer that sends a electrical or mechanical signal to the rest of the explosive at a given point), which I've also noticed I can sometimes manifest, and that's where you're in such a state of shock, fear, etc, at the time, that you DON'T get angry at that precise moment, but later on, especially after the antagonist has gone, DO NOT, under any circumstances, take your anger and frustrations out on any living being, human, animal, insect or plant, that wasn't a party to the aggravation you've had.

One, they don't deserve your wrath, as they've done nothing to contribute to your aggravation, and two, doing that fucking well hurts them, for reasons that they can neither help nor have ANY responsibility for, period. In turn, this can lead to their getting very justifiably angry at YOU for treating them so rottenly, and this can lead to a whole new set of problems for you and them that none of y'all need, period.

If you have to, take a really long walk, or set of walks, around your block, drive your car, motorcycle, scooter or bicycle around town, pray, meditate, practise boxing or other martial arts moves, if that's what you're into, go out to the farthest possible place you can and scream your bloody head off, or find something else to occupy your mind, body and soul, until such time as you can better process whatever the Hell it is that's drivin' you 'round the bend at that moment.

Eventually, you'll haveta process whatever angered you and why, and, talkin' about it with family members, close friends, mentors, therapists, priests, pastors, rabbis, friendly neighbourhood bar-tenders, or any other person whom you know and trust enough to talk about this can help you get through this, and get a greater sense of perspective on your situation.

But, if not talkin' about it, at least for a while, is what helps you, then do that. Just so long as you find some other, better way of gettin' through that anger and all the associated emotions that go with it, other than verbally or physically, especially physically, givin' your antagonist sheer Bloody Hell on a Popsicle Stick.

Ultimately, however you decide best, find some way of dealing with that anger in a manner that will benefit you and yours greatly and minimise any possible harm to y'all in the process.

By the way, if you're thinkin' about takin' some sort of revenge on the arsehole-motherfucker-cocksucker-cunt-Sack of Wet Shit on Two Legs that is your opponent, my advice is, either do it right then and there, or not at all.

I don't care what the Sicilians, Corsicans, various former Yugoslav peoples, Albanians, Arabs, Israelis, Afghans, Chinese or others have said about taking revenge on some arsehole, no matter how long it takes, either do it immediately or not at all, because you will otherwise end up consuming yourself with hurt, anger, rage and all the rest of that crap, wasting time, energy, effort and resources that you could better use to make your own life, and other people's lives, better and happier, and making yourself good and miserable, and for what???? Bullshit, horse-shit, dog-shit, and fly-shit, if that.

You've got enough to do as it is, and besides, the societies I've mentioned above either have, or have had, at one time or another, social arraignments that either condoned taking revenge, or at least didn't mind it. That ain't the case in the US, Canada and the rest of the so-called developed world, and even in some parts of the so-called developing world, where social, legal and economic institutions generally tend both to frown on that sort of activity, and have some pretty tough sanctions against it.

In the end, the best revenge, as my long-time therapist puts it, is living well, and that means living the best way you can in a manner that you and yours find as satisfying, both in your needs and wants, as possible.

All the rest is just so much doodley-shit.

Am gonna stop here, 'cos I've pontificated enough on this topic for a while. However, I will return to this topic fairly soon in the future, because there are a few more items I want to say something about, and because I've a big, fuckin' mouth, too, which I love shootin' off, even if no one else likes it when I do.

I can guess that some of you out there, especially parents of autistic children and teens, might object to the barracks-room and prison-cell language often on display here.

That's your right.

But, for me, I like, Hell, love, expressing myself in this manner from time to time, and the fact is that autie kids, like the rest of their contemporaries, hear and use a fair amount of obscenity, blasphemy and other bits of oral and written naughtiness from parents, peers and a good deal of the media, so most little one's ears, at least much past kindergarten age, aren't all that virginal.

Also, the language, like the advice, presented here, isn't necessarily for every autie from every background and for every situation.

Whether kid, teen or grown-up, each and every autie is free to chose whether or not this advice makes sense to them and to accept, to decide that it's complete nonsense and ignore it, or somewhere in-between, and the same goes for its presentation here.

Whether you accept it or not, act on all or part of it or not, is up to y'all.

I put this here because I wanted to, and these are my opinions.

Take 'em for what'cha will.

Be seeing you.

This Land Is My Land, This Land Is My Land....

For the 4th of July, the fest of Americaness, Americanism, whatever you wish to call it, here's an entry on a current topic that goes, I think, right to the heart of what the Hell it means to be a American, Amerikan, Amurrican, or whatever you want to call us anyway.

That is the current brouhaha over immigration, and especially illegal immigration, which is just yet another part of a recurrent cycle of debates, discussions, screaming fits and pogroms for Fun and Profit that we've had throughout our history.

There are so many reasons thrown out by the partisans of the various sides of this issue, some economic, others cultural, political, linguistic and historical in nature, and their nexus is, in a question posed by the old Firesign Theatre character George Leroy Tirebiter in the classic sketch, How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All, "Who am us, anyway???".

Well, that all depends on whom you ask at any given moment, but there seems to be a kind of unspoken default definition of what an American is, and that's a kind of a off-brand Englishman, who speaks English, and ONLY English, thank you very much, reveres all the proper national symbols, of course, and generally, whatever the original European ethnicity from which he or she comes, lives, works, worships, eats, sleeps, screws, and otherwise practises everything in his or her life in a proper American-modified Anglo-Saxon, Scots and Scots-Irish, slightly adulterated, but not too much by little bits and bobs from Irish Cat'lick, Eye-Talian, Froggie, Jew-Boy, Polack cultures, etc, manner.

While the brand of English spoken here can include loan words and phrases from a wide variety of languages, like schmuck and putz from Yiddish, gung ho from Mandarin Chinese, kamikaze from Japanese, amok from Tagalog, etc, etc, etc, best not to actually speak a language other than American English at home. Otherwise, you're some kinda Goddamn no good, greasy, baby-poppin', lazy, job-stealin', wage-depressin', Pope-worshippin', Wop-Chink-Gook-Kraut-Polack-Mick-Flip-Yid-Jap-Kanaka-Redskin-Camel Jockey-'Rican-Beaner-Porch Monkey son-of-a-bitch, who's out to collect our welfare, drive down our property values, stink up our neighbourhoods, and, God Forbid!!, marry our daughters, or at least give 'em a good, proper, non-Anglo-Saxon screwing.

The prospect sickens, or at least, thickens.

After all, the proper way that the universe should be ordered is that we Americans, and ONLY we, should be able to go to other people's countries, monkey around with their economies, social systems, etc, fuck, though not marry or bring fiancees, or worse still, fiances, home to meet Mater and Pater, who will promptly drop dead of massive cardiac infarctions on the living room floor, post-fucking-haste, for-ever and ever, Amen.

That, Me Buckos, is an aspect of American culture at its very worst, because it encompasses all of the traditional religious, ethnic and racial prejudices found in American and Western culture in general, combines them with a bit of nasty imperial sentiment found in any number of imperial, post-imperial(present-day Britain and France are good examples of this in action) and aspiring imperial sentiments, where only those who belong to the dominant culture, and especially those who are members of the governing and business classes within that culture, are the only valuable people around, and everyone else is just plain shit, no foolin' no kiddin', no Goddamn nothin'.

Mind you, very few people put all this quite as plainly nor crassly, at least outside of the confines of their own minds, their circle of intimates, or certain social and political segments, like the Far Right, and especially the Racist Right.

Nope, there are usually at least slightly more sophisticated rhetoric and arguments to cover all that with at least a fine layer of pancake make-up to render the Ugly Underneath a lot more palatable than it might otherwise be, if taken straight, no chaser, thank you very Goddamn much.

But, at the core of these arguments and rhetoric lies the same, ancient impulses towards stranger-fear, territoriality, and lust for power and dominion, if not outright domination, over other people.

Fear of cultural change, linguistic change, which is heavily intertwined with the former, economic competition, of being sexually and genetically swamped by the "Other", whatever and whomever the Hell he or she might be, and just plain good old fashioned fear, just like Mother used to make, drives all this, as it does so much of the evil being practised in the world, and it's no less evil just because we practise some form of it.

Fear is an emotion, like any other, and has its place. But, to use it as a decision-making and policy-setting tool, especially on a large scale, outside of contexts where a healthy amount of it is called for, is to commit a supreme social idiocy, one that can, if taken too far, result in lots and lots of dead bodies scattered hither and yon all over the local scenery.

It's not that every immigrant who comes to this country, or indeed any other, is automatically some kind of Simon-Pure saint, pure as the driven snow on a Siberian winter's day, always kind to his or her mommy and daddy, loves small children, animals, and long walks in the park, etc, etc.

There are a fair number of arseholes who beat their wives, lovers, kids, etc, get drunk and fall down in public, have overly-long and loud parties that keep the neighbours awake at night, smell bad, get into fist fights, and otherwise act like complete and utter nincompoops with heads stuffed so full of shit that their eyes, if not brown already, should be brown.

Fine and dandy. But, there are any number of good ol' Yanks, of whatever background who do all those and worse, as well.

Best to keep that in mind afore sayin' that such-and such and so-and-so members of any immigrant group should "go back where they came from", especially as, and you don't have to go very far back in American history to see this, your ancestors, grand-parents, and even parents might have been described in roughly the same terms, if not worse, as the ways in which many immigrants, especially illegal ones, are to-day, and treated accordingly by many members of the majority society.

In a land like this one, but not exclusively this one, by any means, built upon conquest and annexation of various forms, the descendants of the conquerors, much less those of those who came in their stead to work on farms and in factories, have damned small genuine reason for sayin' who can enter and who can't.

One of the biggest differences, so we like to tell ourselves, between the US and the rest of the world is that our national identity isn't built around belonging to one specific ethnic, religious or racial group, but around a kind of shared consensus from members of many different groups about what who and what we are and aren't.

Too often in our history, that's been honoured more rhetorically than in actual practise, and, while there has been considerable improvement in how we view and treat each other since the beginnings of the American Republic in the 1780's, what's disturbing is just how quickly we revert to the default setting of "I'm a Goddamn White Man With A Gun. So, do as I say, work when I say, or get the Hell out, 'cos if ya don't, I'll kill ya."

At the heart of this sentiment is, as I said before, lotsa fear, but also a lust for domination that rooted in a whole set of social relations and their underlying assumptions, like "Hard Work's great, and so's bein' Rich, but gettin' someone else to work hard while I get Rich is even better," the sanctity of private property rights, and that no one with a dark, or at least yellow, brown or red skin, has any rights that any self-respecting White Man is bound to respect.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think that all that is just so much horse-, bull-, and dog-shit, and it's about time, in fact, it's long past time, that we leave that kind of thinking in the dust.

It never was worth much, if anything, to start, and has only resulted over the years, decades and centuries, in an incredibly sheer waste of time, talent, resources, and human lives for what is, in comparison, just so much Goddamn piffel.

This doesn't mean that the Mexican and Central American, as well as various Eastern European and Asian governments, business classes and general societies don't have problems that they'd Goddamned better address in an effective manner that will create the ability for their people to make a decent living at home, if that's what they want.

That also means that the US government, as well as those of the so-called developed world, had best start creating and implementing policies that will actually, at the very least, ensure that their governments and businesses will actually help ensure that ability on the parts of the peoples of the so-called developing world through trade policies that opens up a greater portion of the former bloc's markets to goods and services from the latter.

If the so-called developed world can't do that, it should at least stay the Hell out of the way if the peoples of the so-called developing world decide to throw out their political and business elites, and re-make their societies and economies in manners that they sit fit to make.

No more sendin' the Marines, the Royal Marines, the French Foreign Legion, or any other military or paramilitary formations to make the world safe for American, British, French, German, Italian, or any other country's business interests.

No more political interference with other countries' political systems, just so a relatively small group of elite politicians, investors, etc, continue to have their way at everyone else's expense.

No more propping up corrupt, inept and thieving elites just because they "play ball" with our political and economic elites.

It's conditions like these that help create political, economic and social messes that result in loads of peoples heading from their respective parts of the world to ours, simply to be able to make an honest living and live out their lives as best they can, and we, along with the rest of the developed world, as well as many elites in the developing world, are responsible through the decisions they make, the policies they set, and the actions they take.

It's crap like that, as well as the often shabby ways in which we treat many immigrants, as well as our "native" working class and poor, among others, that puts the lie to, or at least leaves a damned sour taste in the mouth of any thinking person who hears, our rhetoric about being a "Land of Liberty", "fairness" "democracy" and all the rest of the extravagant praise we heap on ourselves on days like to-day, and on practically every other day of the year.

Let's either actually, effectively, work to make this the country that we are so proud of boasting about, or shut the Hell up about it, and admit to ourselves and others that we're no better than the rest of the world.

Bashing immigrants, legal or illegal, whether rhetorically or physically, is a sign of societal failure, not success, and we'd best not forget that.

That's a point to be remembered, not just on the Fourth of July, nor Memorial Day or Veterans' Day, but every day of the year.

20th Century History On Video

Spent much of last night, this morning, and a little bit of this evening down-loading various video excerpts from Soviet, Albanian Communist, 1970's American television news, and German Nazi and Social Democratic films.

Why??? The short answer is, something to do, ain't it???

But, that doesn't tell the reasons why.

For me, it's a chance to see, albeit in truncated form, films and video footage of people and events that I would otherwise never been able to see.

These help bring people and events that I've read about to a kind of life that can't really be conveyed by literary accounts and still photographs.

To see and hear these historical figures, or rather their celluloid and magnetic tape ghosts, moving and speaking can, in a way, help tell me and others more about what figures like Lenin, Enver Hoxha, the Albanian Communist leader, Hitler, Norodom Sihanouk, the King of Cambodia until very recently, and other, more anomynous personages from history, in a way that neither texts nor still photos, which have their own sort of power, can.

That said, it has to be remembered that these images and sounds were, at the time of their original releases, shaped and used to manipulate public opinion, in their home countries and abroad, and so, they should be viewed, as should any media presentation, with a certain amount of scepticism, and, of course, critical analysis.

But, then, that can and should be said of any form of media expression, whether it be a lavishly mounted multi-media campaign spectacle, or the simplest of newspaper ads and flyer postings.

Each presentation reflects the world-views of its creators, both conscious and unconscious, and the assumptions, needs and desires, not only of those creators, but of the cultures of which they're a part.

In the case of one of the Enver Hoxha videos that I down-loaded from a French Communist site, the video, which partially depicted Hoxha's trip to Moscow in 1960, where, along with the Chinese Communists, he split off Albania from the Soviet-run portion of the Socialist bloc, the excerpt shows, both in its spoken narration and visuals, an argument line that emphasises, through its mentioning of difficulties between the Albanian Communist partisans and their British military advisers during World War Two, that Albania, and specifically, the Albanian Party of Labour(the name of the old Albanian Communist Party that ran the country from 1944 to 19920, would never, ever give up Albanian independence nor sell out what it considered to be the true principles of Marxism-Leninism, which, in the Albanian case, was really a form of hard-line Stalinism.

It also emphasised a fundamental distrust the Albanian government of the day had when the video documentary from which the excerpt came was shot(probably between 1981-84, as Hoxha died in '85), of foreign alliances of any sort, whether with the British and Americans, the Soviet bloc, or, after 1976, when the Albanians broke with them, the Chinese.

It also, of course, emphasised the supreme role of Hoxha, as leader of both the Albanian Party of Labour and of Albania proper, and his determination to retain both Albanian independence and Marxist-Leninist purity, as he saw it, and the excerpt features plenty of footage of Hoxha, whether still photo or motion picture, engaged in public speaking, presiding over rallies and the like, and so on and so forth.

This excerpt, and the documentary from which it was taken(haven't seen it, except for the excerpt mentioned here, but I think I can hazard something of a guess as to its general content and lines of argument therein from the excerpt), were made to show Hoxha and the Albanian Party of Labour in what both considered to be their best possible lights, both to convince the Albanian population at home, who would have been the primary audience for this, and whatever supporters they had abroad(the documentary's narration is in English)that Albania had, and would continue to, pursue its struggles for national independence and to create its "true" form of Marxist-Leninist socialism, without foreign interference of any sort.

Of course, what such a presentation would tend to leave out would be such items as the various, viciously bloody Party purges, the appalling prisons, the forced labour camps, and other bits of unpleasantness done by Hoxha and the Party of Labour.

But, similar accusations can be made about any government, corporation or institution, and, in many cases, they'd be at least partially right.

The manners in which the current Administration in this country has tried to block, co-opt and manipulate the media, and especially the "mainstream" media, and, in many case, has done a bloody good job of it, while in others, has completely muffed it, in regards to the Wah On Tewah(Heh, heh, heh)and the Iraq War, provide another example, or should I say sets of examples, of how institutions, and especially governments, can attempt to put the best possible faces on themselves, their leaders and their policies, while overlooking, denying, obfuscating, or just plain lying about inconvienent facts.

But, this current Administration isn't the first, nor will it be the last, in American history, to have engaged in media manipulation.

As the recently revealed CIA "family jewels" papers have shown, the Kennedy Administration, which has been regarded by many in the Democratic Party as a collection of liberal saints, happily engaged in plots and plans to use the CIA to fund, run and carry out paramilitary operations in a variety of countries in the early 1960's, and often did so in the most cavalier of spirits and manners.

But, for so long, and I think that, in part, it can explained by the early deaths of both John and Robert Kennedy, as well as the media campaigns about them and their families presented in their lifetimes and posthumously, these two have been idealised as noble figures, models of political and moral rectitude, and so on and so forth, that it generally hasn't been until in the last twenty-odd years or so that a much different, darker view of the Kennedys and the JFK Administration has appeared.

The point is, ultimately, that the primary reason for both critical analysis and a certain amount of healthy scepticism regarding any media presentation, whether big-budget, "mainstream" ones, or no-budget screeds like the one you're reading now, because, even if with the most careful attention to facts and details, there will be those that are left out, minimised, or otherwise gooped over in one way or another.

The "mainstream" media is often quite full of various kinds of shit, but, so is the non-"mainstream" media, in many cases.

The biggest differences between the two can be summed up as budgetary, access to large numbers of minds, and the assumptions and biases, stated and unstated, that they have.

But, each and every one of these outlets, large, medium, small or extra-dinky, is the product of at least one human being with a particular set of views about the world, and reflects those views, baldly or subtly, depending on the intended audience and the skill, or lack thereof, of those outlets at presenting their respective cases.

Some outlets come closer to giving a broader, more nuanced picture of the universe than others, but, in my opinion, NONE give an entirely "fair", "balanced" and "objective" total view of any given issue one could care to name.

That's why I think it's important to get one's info from as wide a variety of sources as one can, though, to be honest, I generally don't go onto far right sites, because I don't like the world-views presented on 'em.

Shame on me, I guess, but, I am a human being, and not God, after all, and, like any other human being, I've my biases and prejudices, too.

Still, even so, every now and then, I occasionally find an article or an opinion from such sources that may, even if I completely disagree with and loathe the assumptions and statements otherwise given by the particular outlet, comes what I think may be fairly close to the heart of a given matter, than others I've seen.

That said, I've generally found that to be a pretty rare event in my experience.

The totality of human and universal experience can't be summed up by any one explanation or set of explanations, I think.

That's why it's important, in my view, to do one's best to read, hear and view as widely as one can from a variety of sources, and to do so as critically as one can.

Even then, there are no guarantees that one still won't be taken in by a particular line of argument and rhetoric that proves to be invalid, if not an outright lie.

But, it can help one to not fall for at least some of the most obvious ones.

Please remember, and I say this coming from a city and state founded on fleecing suckers, that anyone can be taken in, especially if they want something to be true badly enough.

Please also remember that the minute one says to oneself and others that one can't be suckered, that that attitude will only set oneself up to be suckered, and hard.

Believe what you will, but make sure that you keep your mind open to other ways of explaining the universe.

You don't have to like, love, hate, accept or reject 'em out of hand, if you don't want to.

Just be prepared to be wrong on some occasions, and to have enough grace to admit that to yourself and others, when and if it happens.

Here endeth the lesson.

Be seeing you.

Random Thoughts of a 42 Year Old Autistic Man

Have been meaning to write a blog about this for quite some time now, and now that I'm in the right mood, i.e. semi-depressed and self-questioning, it seems the appropriate time, if not the place, to do just that.

So, what possible thoughts, etc, can a 42 year-old autistic bachelor living with two cats in Las Vegas, Nevada, have to offer beyond the merely dull and commonplace???

Here's an honest answer; I don't know.

To be honest, I've no idea where my life's headed, and whether or not it will be a continuation of more of the same, or worse(one of my biggest fears), or if it will get better.

Some of that is, to be sure, entirely dependent on what I choose to do, or not to do.

Some of that is dependent on circumstances that once may have been within my control, but are no longer. For instance, due to a bad case of Senioritis, which, at nearly 18 years, may well hold the world's record for such a case, I essentially took a GPA of over 3.0 and managed to get myself academically suspended for about 3 years from UNLV, and managed to graduate in 2003, only because it was decided to suspend the mathematics requirement for my graduating from that institution.

Add on to that two separate misadventures with maxing out credit cards, and defaulting on student loans because I couldn't afford to keep up the payments, and the only reason that the creditors aren't still hounding me, is because, at least on the student loans, because I'm on Social Security Disability, and they can't touch that.

My work history has been, and is, quite spotty, with my having held many jobs for very short periods, and a few for longer, though the longest lasted only nearly two years.

While I've more skills than I used to, they aren't of the necessarily rare kind that might help pull me out of poverty into something a bit better, and, to be honest, I've not looked for work, since completing a work experience programme at the Nevada State Museum nearly three years ago.

The reason I ended up not working there was because the Museum's management would've had to go to the State Legislature to get authorisation to hire me as an assistant, as the State was in the midst of a budget freeze at that time.

So, no dice on that.

My interpersonal skills are a mixed bunch at best.

I can be on occasion charming, and a fairly good conversationalist, and make a fairly good acquaintance, it doesn't always translate into deep or long-lasting friendships, though sometimes it does.

I try to be a good and loyal friend, but I can also be critical.

At the same time, there are times I don't always tell friends what I think they might need to hear, rather than what they want to hear, which isn't good, either.

My personal grooming's, at best, spotty, and, oft-times, when I don't go out of the house(which is especially true towards the end of the month when I'm very low, or out of money), it can go straight to Hell.

My interests are far from the norm, yet I don't always feel comfortable with so-called "nerds", etc, because, and I think after having been marked as different, and not in the best sense of the word at that, for much of my life, I tend to be very uncomfortable with that.

In many areas, as a kid, and, I think, even now, I always wanted to be a combination of Prince Charming and Captain Kirk, etc. You know, the kind of ever-capable, intelligent Man's Man, who could always beat the Bad Guys, get the Girl, or as many girls as he wanted, and all the rest of that good garbage.

Well, I didn't end up that way, and, at times, one of the reasons I can drive myself so fucking crazy is because of anger at, and disappointment with, myself that I didn't turn out that way.

If anything, the way I am now would have been, when I was younger, one of my worst nightmares.

I mean, being poor, powerless, and relatively ineffectual, isn't exactly a turn-on, even for the person who has those qualities.

If anything, and this is where I agree with George Orwell when he described the effects of long-term unemployment as essentially kicking the psychological stuffing out of many people, it can lead to a great deal of self-loathing, as well as self-pity, and God Knows, I've had to struggle against the latter a great deal in my life.

I've tried various answers to many of the questions I've had(religion and such), in the hopes of finding a sense of purpose, community, meaning, and, on a far crasser note, Miss Right, or at least Miss Right Now.

As for sex, well, let me just say that what I've had has been generally sparse and unsatisfying, and masturbation, while a daily ritual 'round here, has become so boring it isn't funny, at least to me. To an outsider looking in, it might be quite amusing indeed to see me going at it.

I've had crushes and more on any number of women, including good friends, whom I've found attractive, but have either not acted on that, frozen up when the time came to act, acted awkwardly or inappropriately at the wrong time, or the attraction simply wasn't mutual on the woman's part.

There have so many times that, like a tom-cat of my acquaintance many years ago would do when rejected by a woman and go "Mreeow, mreeow, mreeow!!!", before climbing into the water heater closet, closing the door and going to sleep, that I've bewailed, bemoaned and generally be-bitched my sad lot that it's very droll, in retrospect.

Believe me when I say that am still quite capable of going "Mreeow, mreeow, mreeow!!!", albeit with a greater self-awareness, irony and sense of humour about it than before.

In short, to steal a Brendan Behan line about the availability and brand of tobacco in prison from his play The Quare Fellow, and translate into the availability of sex in my life, it's the Three Nuns, none to-day, none to-morrow, and none the next.

Some of that, and quite probably much of it, I now attribute to my own social ineptitude and desperation, which, despite what the movies and tv might say to the contrary about it, is about as un-sexy as can be.

Some of it could be attributed, as well, to the general level of poverty for the bulk of my teen-age and adult life thus far, and how that tends to play Hell in dating and other forms of social interaction, and much of the rest, well, I'm far from the worst-looking human being, but, I started going bald at 17, and was pretty much bald by my mid-20's, and that can also play some Merry Hell with a fella and his mating activities, or attempts at such.

There are probably also other factors involved of which I'm either unhappily ignorant or semi-ignorant.

Either way, it's not a happy position for Yours Truly to find himself in.

All that said, there are some parts of my life with which I'm contented.

One of 'em is that I've a family and good friends, who, even if not physically present, do care about me. Have been lucky in that regard, even if relations between us haven't always been the happiest at times. There are many, especially here in Las Vegas, who can't claim to say as much for themselves.

Number two is that I've two very loving cats with which I share my life, and which I prize greatly. They are incredibly affectionate, funny and generally good souls, and I could think of far worse companions with which to spend my life.

Number three is that my time, and access to me, are generally within my control.

I don't get a lot of phone calls, and sometimes, especially on holidays and such, that can be a whopping heap o' sadness and self-pity.

On the other hand, outside of a number of spam advertising calls, when I do hear from someone, I usually hear from someone I WANT to hear from, which many people also can't claim.

My time, and yes, I waste tonnes of it, is generally my own, for good, ill or somewhere in-between, and that's yet another thing that many can't claim.

While I hope to make my photography into a career, even if it doesn't become one, I at least have an artistic outlet that I generally find satisfying, and that helps bleed off some of the pent-up energies I have.

I've a place to live where the cats and I can keep warm, dry and cool, depending on the season, and which is ours for as long as we want.

Thanks to the 'Net, I've also access to a far wider world than before, in many senses of the phrase, even if I don't always take as much advantage of it as I possibly could.

My life is, at least to a certain extent, my own, and is generally not under someone else's heavy, cold thumb, and that's definitely something that many around the world cannot say for themselves.

In summing up, my life's, like so many people's are, a mixed bag of failure, holding my own and success, and that's something I wouldn't have entirely thought how this essay would end on.

So much the better that it has, I think.

There is so much about it that needs improving, and I will give it a go. But, I won't even attempt to claim 100% success in those attempts, because I don't believe that there generally is such a thing as 100% success in any human effort.

There's always some failure, or at least not achieving quite the level of success that one might have hoped, in any endeavour.

But, it still beats doing nought at all, I think.

I still don't know how my life will end up, and how well or badly it will work out.

Well, perhaps it's better that way. I don't know.

All I can do is do what I can with what I have, make the improvements I can, learn from my failures, and enjoy the successes I have.

So be it.

Kellogg's Variety Pack Of Stuff

Well, have been absent from posting here for a bit, while doin' other, less creative things off-line.

In fact, Dear Readers, one of you even left a comment to that effect about a couple of weeks ago or so.

Well, despair no more of seein' new stuff on here, 'cos I just got through postin' a buncha new, or at least generally new to you, stuff ri'cheer.

So, scroll on down the page and have a look-see or two, or twenty, or whatever.

Hope you like what'cha see.

27th January Anti-Iraq War Pics

Yep, here are some more protest pics, only these come from the 27th January, 2007 anti-Iraq War demo sponsored by the Las Vegas chapter of MoveOn.org, as well as Food Not Bombs, Nevada Workers Against The War, and so on.

Some of these pics were included because, like in the second and seventh pics, they featured friends of mine who were there, while others, like the third, fifth and sixth, featured either colourfully dressed demonstrators, or had unusual aspects to 'em, like the Dubya doll with its pants on fire attached to the sign in the latter two.

The last pic in the series features two counter-demonstrators(there was a third fella present, but he held no signs and seemed to not really be participating in the counter-demonstration), who were across the street from our location at the Federal courthouse in down-town Vegas.

Well, hope this gives ya a taste of what that particular demo was like. If ya wanna see more pics from it, just go over to http://lasvegas.staughton.indypgh.org/news/2007/02/6640.php
to see the rest of 'em.

Never Mind The Bollocks!!! Here's Johnny Rotten!!!

What's that you say, Pilgrim??? Can't believe yer eyes that the fella on the right and left respectively of the two pics below is the REAL John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols fame????

Well, believe it, mate, 'cos it's true!!!!

Now, how did Yours Truly, who almost never leaves his cats and the comforts of his cave, manage to get, not just one, but TWO pics of a couple of friends of his with one of the seminal popular music figures of the late twentieth century???

Well, Bunky, it's kinda like this; on or around 11th February of this year, I got a call from my friend, Stan "OJ" Armstrong(the fella on the left in the first pic), who teaches over at CCSN and UNLV as an instructor, and is also a local documentary film-maker, who specialises in makin' docs 'bout the Civil War, sayin' that he was gonna be interviewed by the Sex Pistols(it later turned out to be just Lydon), for a tv documentary that Lydon and company were makin' in a few days, and would I be interested in meetin' 'em.

"Sure", I sez, even though I don't know that much about the group, and only became a punk fan in my mid-twenties, which is startin' out pretty late in life for that sort of thing.

Two days later, I get another call from OJ, tellin' me that they were gonna be at his place 'round 6:00 in da Pee Em, or so.

Well, at first, I was gonna take the bus down there, but then I decided to give my friend Joe Tangredi(the fella on the right in the second pic), who knows both of us pretty well, and told 'im about it, askin' 'im if he could gimme a ride down there, to which he replied "Sure".

Hey, 't'ain't every day one gets to meet one of the people who changed Rock 'N' Roll from what it'd become in the mid-1970s, so gettin' to meet 'im was a pretty decent incentive for Joe to give me a ride over there, no???

Anyway, we got there a little after 6:00, while they were in mid-interview, and tried to stay as quiet as meeces when a cat's nearby(something about which Mr. Lydon joked a bit at one point durin' the interview).

Anyhoo, eventually got to talk a bit with 'im about this and that, an' the other, too, and generally had a good time with Lydon and the crew.

It was also during this process that I dragged out my camera and got these shots of Lydon, who was also in town to judge a Battle of the Bands contest then goin' on, as well as doin' the interview with OJ about African-American participation in the Confederate war effort(the reason they were interviewin' 'im).

Joe got a few of OJ, and one of me with Lydon, and OJ in turn(natch)got some of Joe and Lydon as well, I think.

You might say that it was the kind of picture-takin' orgy that inevitably ensues when obscure people, or relatively obscure ones, meet famous folk, and you'd be right on the money, I think.

Now, I gotta go send these pics to OJ and Joe, as well as Mr. Lydon,at www.johnnyrotten.com
'cos I'm more than a bit overdue to in doin' that.

Hope you like the pics, Folks!!!!

Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force Figure Pics

Did these back in February, when I took a Dragon Models Japanese Self-Defense Force infantryman figure out in front of the ol' Radio Ranch(i.e. my domicile), and fired away at 'im with the new Polaroid and Kodak EasyShare cameras I got this year.

The first two were taken with the Polaroid, while the latter two were(I think)taken with the Kodak.

Take a look for yourselves, and decide which of the lot you think came out the best.

These were also the last action figure pics that I've taken thus far, which only goes to show that I need to start workin' on the lil' suckers again, and soon.

17th March Vegas Anti-Iraq War Demo Pics

These pics were taken at an anti-Iraq War demo held at the Federal courthouse in down-town Vegas on 17th March of this year, aka St. Paddy's Day.

It was put on by a coalition of various groups, including Nevada Laborers Against The War, the local chapters of MoveOn.org and Food Not Bombs, Veterans Against War, and others.

The pics below are a sample of the eighteen(!!!)pics I got at that demo.

The first one is of a discussion I saw between some of the demonstrators and Immigration and Customs officials(in the black fatigues)and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police(in the yellow and black get-up)that was in progress when I got to the demo, and, no, never found out what it was about, 'cos I didn't ask, like a silly ninny.

The second's included here to give y'all a sense of the size of the crowd present at the demo, while the third, featuring the lady in the straw hat with the vintage protest sign, and St. Paddy's Day beads 'round her neck, I included because of the sign, and 'cos she was so colourfully dressed(Incidentally, that day was the first bloody time I'd ever seen St. Paddy's Day beads in my life).

The last two are included for pretty obvious reasons, because I thought they were damned cute, and their faces wouldn't break my cameras, so there, nyahhh;)!!!!

You can find the remaining twelve piccies on a page at the following addy: http://lasvegas.staughton.indypgh.org/news/2007/03/7320.php.


So, g'wan over and check 'em out if you like. I ain't gonna stop ya.