Tomorrow is January 20th, 2025. It is inauguration day. Donald J Trump’s big return to office. It’s also Martin Luther King Junior Day. I’ll be celebrating the latter and not the former. I’m assuming Trump will do his best to attempt to blur the two events. As if a hack businessman who shills for actual billionaires over the needs of the average person and certainly the poor, is what MLK was dreaming of… Where is my evidence of that? I have none.

Today Tik Tok was turned off in the U.S.. apparently Congress has been concerned that the Chinese are exploiting the data in some dubious ways, and potentially weaponizing that data against America. It’s ok for U.S. businesses to exploit all of your data to sell you things or to supply the F.B.I. or C.I.A. with evidence, so long as they aren’t working against the interests of the U.S. at the benefit of foreign agents. I’m no expert on internet legal fine print but that’s certainly what is happening. Most of our data is for sale for whoever wants to buy it, and I’m sure there are some foreign bidders working through U.S. shell companies. Where’s my evidence? I have none.

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, have all tripped over themselves to get in Trump’s good graces. Big donations to his campaign and inaugural funds, promises to turn off algorithms that fact check or mute conservative messaging online because it is dubious or not relevant to the user. Whatever. Where is my evidence? I have none.

Look, I’m not going to do the work of compiling facts. That’s journalism. I’m blogging here, this is as close as it gets to hearing me think. There is very little filtering or editing, this is stream of consciousness at best. It wouldn’t matter anyways, the people who support Trump do not take facts, they follow their feelings. Like most con-men, carnival barkers, or populists, tomorrow’s president traffics in fear & fantasy. He ran a campaign on the terror of immigrants coming to murder your family and transgender people coming to force your kids into genital mutilation. The thoughtless masses determined that this would be a better bet for the economy than having a clear minded woman at the helm.

If these people were dealing in facts, there would be a very different incoming administration. The new president was the last and only president than lead an insurrection against Congress to try to illegally seize power after losing an election. His supporters still feel that election was stolen, because he told them it was. Where is their evidence? They have none. Not because they’re not journalists, but because his lawyers had none, inquiries from Congress had none. A bipartisan January 6th commission determined that there had been a carefully orchestrated attempt at a coup by Trump, his lawyers, senators, congresspeople and numerous state and city officials. That commission report it astounding, and terrifying. Nobody who should have watched it did, because their dumb dumb leader told them it was a witch hunt over an election that was stolen from him.

It’s not that he convinced his people that the election was stolen from him, he convinced them it was stolen from them. They are the ones who voted and lost, and Democrats snatched it away. That personal grievance, that shock of losing, the embarrassment of picking the wrong horse, it’s all wiped clean by the denial. You don’t need evidence for conspiracies, you just need anomalous data and a strong enough wish for a different cause to an effect.

Let’s face facts, in round 2 of this president, he has dumped most of the career politicians and is constructing his cabinet out of billionaires and media personalities. For someone who rails against the “main street media” his staff is they, at least the subservient members. The billionaires are adorable. Most have become rich by operating cut throat monopsonies (businesses which monopolize over both the consumer and supplier, squeezing both to maximize profit) which are all technically illegal if the antitrust laws in the U.S. were ever executed. At this point it won’t happen.

The government does not operate like a private industry. Often the government does work that is simply not profitable and therefore not desirable for private companies to do. The conservative dream has always been to sell that unprofitable work to third parties where they will manage it at a discount to the taxpayer.

How does a third party take work that is too costly to earn a profit and turn it into a business model where they can sell the service for less than it costs? Simple, by not delivering the service. Your local utility company is probably a private business, you wouldn’t have to look far to find it was like publicly owned in the recent past. Is it a good deal? Well, you probably pay about the same for the service when adjusted for inflation, but you’re tax dollars are likely also being spent on the upkeep or the system architecture because of the company had to cover all that, they wouldn’t earn a profit. So you pay twice so that they can stay rich. Do I have evidence? No, you’ll have to do your own “research”.

So media personalities and billionaires will be our leaders. My bet is that these people will not be competent in these roles. Billionaires, believe it or not, are not smarter than average people, they just have an unquenchable thirst for wealth that would give normal people pause. Media personalities? They’re primarily driven by ego, they will drive whatever they believe will make them look important or intelligent. There are very few actual skills in this bunch and I suspect that we’ll see horrible ideas, fail to launch for 4 years. That and they’ll break things that people don’t want broken, and tell you that you’re better off for it. (Spoiler alert, you won’t be.)

I’ll end on this. I can get very obsessive with politics. Many of us can. Do yourself a favor as this all unfolds. Either get politically active, or stop following the news. If your plan is to track the play by play constantly, but make no effort to enact actual change, you’re wasting your time and happiness. Turn it off and be happy. Or, if you truly want things to turn out better, get up and go out, and meet your people, and talk to your politicians (no matter how local), and help your community, and complain to people in power, and protest, and send campaign contributions, and move the needle. You can do all of that, you can do a tiny bit and it can accumulate when others follow suit. Learn how to engage, teach your neighbor and your friends. Be a part of the solution rather than idly watching everything come undone and wallow in helplessness. Pay attention to the least fortunate, to those who have little money, or little political power, or who are being scapegoated against. Protect the immigrants, the people of color, the LGBTQ people, the indigenous people, the public servants, the students, the veterans, the poor, whoever might be on the losing side of justice.

It’s probably what Martin Luther King Jr would recommend but I don’t have any evidence of that. So maybe tomorrow you can dig through some of his writings and reflect.

Wishing you all, a great Martin Luther King Junior Day.

One day you wake up a middle-aged dork and everything you do is soft. Somewhere along the way whatever edge you thought you had has obviously dulled.

This is how I feel on day 18 of my dry January. For measure, I cut out sweets and fried food as well. I feel squishy. Tame. This is what low testosterone feels like. I’ve never tested but this must be the feeling.

I’m certain that a little whisky would be like a leather strap to a butter knife. Throw in some chicken wings and it’s a grind stone for an axe. I’d be on edge, rowdy, belligerent. I would feel like a million bucks.

Old men don’t push each other through walls. They don’t scream in the face of strangers. They don’t throw bottles at moving trains. They don’t fuck in public places in broad daylight. They aren’t agents of chaos for the sake of chaos. Except, I’m certain I’m wrong. There are men like this, their lives are horrible though. No stable relationships, jobs, money, health, wrecking balls are rarely kept polished.

So this was how I felt when I had to put my phone down and stop writing. I wasn’t sure where this topic was even going to take me, but I was writing it in my car, and then I went to overindulge in Korean BBQ before going to an event in Baltimore called “Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club”.

It’s funny how just going to something wild, rejuvenates the darker side of my personality. I won’t give away what Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club is, it wouldn’t be fair to anyone who would want to go for the first time. It was my first time, and their 14th annual, so the audience was surprisingly familiar with what was going to take place.

Quaaludes are a big theme of the show, as are comedy, Elvis, toilets, burlesque dancers, perfectly orchestrated fights, nudity in general, drag queens, music, puns and other awful jokes, and crowd participation and enthusiasm.

Laughs, violence, sex, pleasure, absurdity. I felt a million times better when the show let out.

🔪 🪓 🔪

When dealing with all things people, it’s best to watch how people behave and not what they say.

Charismatic people are great at swaying opinions or getting people motivated, but it doesn’t reflect on whether they have any follow through or even care about the things they discuss. 

There are very inarticulate people who are masters of very intricate or complex work. Who might not be able to talk through a problem or solution but somehow always deliver fantastic results. Sometimes people who communicate poorly are also horrible at their work as well.

There are people who say nothing, who primarily observe and take notes.  These people sometimes are struggling to wrap their heads around what is being worked through, and sometimes they step in at the last minute with a direct plan of action and notes on all that was discussed.

From what I think I know, it is impossible to sort out a doer from a talker through words alone. It’s not until the first deliverable is expected that they start to sort themselves out.

You can spot a liar by their many promises and their very few contributions. You can spot a lazy person by the half hearted output that comes only after many proddings. You can tell the overburdened by their abundance of good results but always past their deadline, and their failure to ever say no.

I find that when it comes to behaviors. People are amazingly consistent. The connection between say and do, that is the biggest tell in a person. They tend to behave consistently, even if they take many different approaches to what they say,  how they phrase things, or even if they’re lying.

I don’t know how other people think. Often people seem caught off guard by something someone said, even if that person is consistently problematic with what they claim they will do, and what the outcome turns out to be. To me, that is consistent but many people often seem surprised.

It’s difficult to change habits. Even when you spend months curating a new habit, and you finally make it routine, a single vacation will cause a lapse, and before you know it, you’re back to old habits and didn’t even notice the switch, you forget to remember the more disciplined choice. Output is habitual.

I try to keep promises tidy. I try to keep to my word. I am an overburdened person. I try to say yes to far more things than I can manage and I do my best to manage all of them. I want to stop this behavior, I want to say no to more things but it’s difficult. I want to do the things.

To be accurate with what I can deliver and when. Is a goal that I would like to accomplish. It would be nice to tell people I can’t do that at this time, and have them trust that, or that I would love to get it done by Thursday and it is indeed shipped by Thursday.

Heartbreakers will break your heart repeatedly. Overthinkers will not complete projects. Liars will make no attempts. Writers won’t write if they don’t write.

“Your food is getting cold” is being yelled at me from the dining room and I said I was coming to dinner. This is the honest to god ending of this post.

My “social network” feeds… You know, that phrase doesn’t make sense. My “advertising network” feeds (that’s better) sprinkle little motivational memes throughout the day. At first I thought friends were doing this but as I’ve looked closer, most of the content on my feed is delivered by algorithms sharing suggested people to follow and not even friends. I assume, to displace my friends messages even further.

Just trying to write all of this reminds me of how clunky internet culture and systems are when it comes to nomenclature. It’s almost impossible to digest because everything is named so poorly. A lot of the elements of the internet seemed to have been named when the expectation was high that they operated in a public or social interest. Some useful purpose of the technology that has been lost. To be fair, they work really well as an obituary service. Deaths seem to make it through the algorithm most of the time. Baby and marriage announcements are spotty.

To summarize my point. The internet machine, shares motivational posts from people I don’t know, who likely were given these memes in their own feeds. Sometimes people I actually know, also share these same memes. The memes are motivational, do more, travel more, eat more, fitness more, love more, and then sometimes they tell you to take a break and to not judge yourself. I’m assuming these memes are highlighted by the algorithm because most changes require a purchase, and when paired with advertising for shoes, events, gyms, food, makeup, boner pills, it helps seal the deal. When you share these messages, you’re doing the pain reminding work of selling.

Sales in a nutshell – highlight and emphasize pain until the entity recognizes they need relief. Tell them the solution which not only solves but promises a better future altogether. These memes are just the pain piece, the advertisers have the fix in the queue already.

I’m not exempt from marketing, nobody is. I try my best to look at a pitched future and just say “that would be nice” and move on. The last boner pills I saw advertised promised to work in 15 minutes and last 36 hours. 36 hours of hair trigger boners, I can’t even imagine the horror.

I’ve been going to the gym for 2 years. A friend asked me to do some long distance runs so for the past year I’ve been long-distance running a bit. I learned to row (sculling and sweeping, 4 and 8 person boats) over the summer. Me and my partner lost a car and decided to stick with one. I try to ride my bike most places in the warmer months. Two years ago I weighed 265 pounds, today I way 260 pounds. They tell me I’ve gained muscle and lost fat but it’s not all that recognizable.

There was a point in my life where it was easy to put socks and shoes on my feet. I didn’t have to hold my breath as I bent forward. My feet were much closer to my hands. I didn’t concern myself with the strain or fear of heart attack or stroke during these what used to not be painful contortions. This is what motivated me to go to the gym. The gym is $400 a month. For nearly $10,000 I’ve been trying to improve my ability to put my socks and shoes on.

I tell myself we’re getting there.

I scour my advertising feeds for a product or motivational message that will help.

That’s where I saw that you passed away.

The title above is what was written on my digital tickets for the event. The venue was the elegantly named M&T Bank Stadium. I could write a whole post about what I think about corporate naming of public venues. I was blown away to learn recently that Times Square in NYC has been named Longacre Square but then the New York Times built their headquarters building there which they cleverly named “Times Building” and very badly needed an address to match, so Longacre was changed to Times and they counted their building as address #1. Very humble indeed.

This post is about American football. I’ve been to 3 games to date. I went to a pre-season New England Patriots game 16 years ago, I went to a Baltimore Ravens game 5 years ago and last night I went to a playoffs game, which I believe is post season? To be honest. I’m not a sports person. It amazes me that capable people watch other capable people play games for entertainment. I try to make an exception for rare events, and for seeing sports in person, because spectating is sort of a sport in itself and if you’re like the gentleman in front of me last night who spent most time trying to get back to his seat from stadium security because when he was at his seat he had to scream “Pittsburgh fucking sucks! Steelers are losers! You’re a fucking looooooser!” to a quiet gentleman wearing a winter cap with the opposing teams logo registered all over its surface, you take spectating not only seriously as a sport, but also as an art form.

So I’ve been to these three games. This one I was on time for, in fact we were multiple hours early. I purchased ridiculously close seats to the field, third row. I say close and not good, because I’m not sure what type of person could even describe what “good” means in this sort of environment. The people around me did not sit. The entire section of seats did not sit, for 5 hours, we stood, overlapping in proximity, strangers drunkenly and incidentally huddled for warmth, with only the 30 degree air and the occasional beer flying from a mittened hand, splattering against all who are unsuspecting.

This morning when I woke up, I told my partner that football was a spectacle, that it would be the only way to describe what I had seen. My partner called it pageantry. Technically, it is probably an “extravaganza” which would be a hybrid of both words meaning an elaborate visual display or ceremony. Except it isn’t only visual. It is a bombardment of many senses, eyes, ears, touch, taste, dignity, safety, etc. To be honest, the food was the only dull element to the evening. Beer, hot dogs, crab cakes (Maryland), chicken fingers, Dippin Dots, it’s the same basic food as any event.

The event is fuel for plebians. The common man. The target audience of this event, was definitely the lowest common denominator of humankind. My partner disagreed thinking maybe its aim was for another type of mammal. I think dogs would hate the crowds and certainly the fireworks, but if we’re talking about a chimpanzee or maybe a crow (go Ravens!) she might be on point.

The event is saturated with corporate sponsorship, advertisements of all sorts and propaganda. Moments for the military, firefighters, police, security guards. Chants based around Under Armour clothing and Ford F150 trucks, alcohol, American and Maryland flags, if there are proponents trying to mold minds, they were present and the minds were fully in the molds already. People were into it. People screaming fuck Pittsburgh. I’ve lived in Baltimore for over a decade and Pittsburgh is a lovely four hour drive with beautiful scenery and delicious perogies. Their football team, doing the same exact work that ours was, except these people had traveled all the way to visit ours, spend their tourist bucks, to have people scream “fuck you loser!” directly into their face and the game hadn’t even begun. It’s not that it’s upsetting to me I love a good public outburst, just the people doing it seemed more respectable than me, and delivered it for far less cause than what I would reserve my own outrage for.

The cheerleaders, the announcer, the enormous LED screens in all directions. Digital rings of fire occasionally wrapping the entire stadium in wrap around screens. The digital crows flying through animated cubes of debris, what is it? Why is it so enormous. The theme of intimidation. A hundred people with cameras running, sitting, leaning, crouching, in every direction. The brief interruptions of royalty heavy samples of familiar music used to fuel chante. The noise meter. Fireworks. The “Celebrity Band” for half time (All Time Low if you know them) playing from what I can, mostly covers of bigger celebrity bands. Two Chains (celebrity rapper) was there and spoke to the giant Orwellian screen, not sure if he could be heard on television in person there was only music. The Marching Ravens band, again, drowned out over other music and people scream “fuck the Steelers!”. A “realty tv star” from the tv show The Bachelor and one from the competing reality tv show “Love is Blind” both introduced to the deafness of the arena. A woman came out of the smoke of an evil looking Ravens tunnel, the same one the athletes emerged from, playing a violin over heavy metal. (My favorite part of the evening). Later a mysterious celebrity from the same tunnel, maybe a former Raven player, maybe a celebrity? Maybe Nelly himself since he emerged to the song “Hot in Herre”. I have no idea, regular announcements or music didn’t allow his sound in. Maybe for the home viewer.

The lights constantly dimmed, went, out, flashed. The music and announcements were non stop. Very little seemed synchronized to the action on the field. Often I was being distracted with laser lights and music only to look up to find I had missed half of the play. The giant screens which show the action up close of your angle or distance is bad, even they seemed to miss the tracking of the game over the other show elements. More than once I noticed the scoreboard was not even accurate or current only to be corrected minutes after the error was spotted. It’s just so much it’s impossible to track. If this was a dish, prepared by a master chef, at the request of the NFL lords, it would certainly be a beer battered and fried pizza, covered in hot dogs, cake, and ice cream. Being Maryland, it would have been Smith Island cake.

This over abundance of everything, truly, is overwhelming to anyone who would stop to analyze the situation. People often speak of Caeser and the Gladiators of the Colosseum when they speak of American sports. Often talking of the bread and circus and the pleasing of the crowds to keep Americans blind to politics. This was that and a million other basic tricks of simple pleasure and mind control. So obviously presented that people don’t just embrace, but crave it. I would call it perfected but it was all so stupid. Fuel for plebians.

We had a great time.

Go Ravens!

(Editor’s note: the violinist was Lindsey Sterling https://youtu.be/aHjpOzsQ9YI?si=3f3Thtif1P0BhyjG, the gentleman who came out to “Hot in Heree” was none other than Ray Lewis)

My partner picked up this thought process where she reassures herself she is both confident and competent. These two words are often phrased together in textbooks, where the multiple authors are trying to reassure the student that the book is quality enough to deliver those two metrics. I don’t know if she had any greater exposure to thoughts on this pairing or it’s a cliche she has just chosen to embrace.

It’s seemingly simple though. If you can hold both traits in your day to day, what could go wrong? Your competence informs your answer and the confidence allows you to press it against anyone with a competing answer that has less confidence. Or maybe you’re light on confidence so you’re more open to the competence of your rival. Either way, one guides the other.

So which one is more important? Which do you start with? I say confidence. Always.

Competent people without confidence often do not share their knowledge. Especially when risk is involved. If a ship were sinking, and the only person with knowledge on how to keep it floating was not confident, they would allow people to scramble and try all other solutions before opening their mouths and mentioning that they know how a repair could be made. Why would they do this? Because if their solution doesn’t pan out, they wouldn’t want to be blamed for being wrong. Seems insane because lives are at stake, but that’s exactly why they would do nothing. The risk is too high.

If you’re doubting this, you likely have not operated in a high risk environment. These behaviors occur at all levels of risk to be honest. They become more apparent with decision makers whose choices lead to loss of money or life, or status. Often at those levels, no decisions are made. Confidence, even here can make up for the vacuum of competence, even to the point where incompetence thrives.

Confidence allows you to demand that others provide the competence. What is the pertinent information? Bring it to me, so that we can evaluate it together, and make decisions by committee. Group decisions appear to have no ownership, even though they belong to the chosen leader. A good leader, will use the least confident people in the committee as scapegoats when the results turn horrific.

Confidence allows those leaders to skate from business to business, leading teams to make incompetent decisions, and to not take any personal responsibility or acknowledgement that they are an agent of organizational destruction. These people do much better financially and enjoy much higher status in life than those with competence.

So what about confidence and competence? If you have both traits, where do you land? You’re confident enough to offer your own ideas and competent enough to be open to other people’s solutions whose ideas might be better. You open yourself up to thoughtful dialogue and communication and you seek the best options and push to implement them quickly.

How do these people fair in the world? With confident but incompetent leaders above and competent but unconfident contributors by their  side or below? They push in both directions for what seems to be the best decision but they’re pushed back against from both sides. Good leaders know that these people are blockers of cheap progress, as they waste time and resources making meaningful yet costly decisions and they upset the doers of work with their persistent burden of process change.

With confidence and competence you can be successful in this organizational vice, only until you find that decision that becomes a costly mistake. 93% success, 7% catastrophic incident. Likely your competence will allow you to recognize the mistake as your own, and your confidence will allow you to be honest about it. You’ll earn yourself a walk out the door and a reputation for being the person who blew it.

Or will you? Is that the irrational fear that drives business people to avoid calling the shots? Or is it rational? I like to think of myself as a confident and competent person, and the people I work for who avoid decisions all have significantly more and more expensive education than I possess. Do Ivy League schools have this data? Have they crunched the numbers and determined that being a decision maker is a fools errand? To always plan a scapegoat and an out to protect your reputation? What is more efficient? Making or skirting responsibility? Which is a better driver of growth? Risk vs reward? Am I too old to go back to college? Would they let me in?

Be competent. Be confident. It sounds reassuring until it doesn’t. I don’t know how else to attempt to be. Let’s hope the battles are worth it.

The pilot mumbles.

Act two, sing-songs rules and jokes.

Bing! Clear for takeoff.

This is where I’m calling out God specifically. How bout it pal? Did you use up all your ideas, or is the vault full of unreleased hits just waiting to be unleashed into the vastness of existence?

Did you think to even make yourself into a god? It’d be wild if the creator of all things hadn’t even remembered to gift themselves the power to create or rule over the things you’ve created and rule over. You’d just be like the hole inside a volcano. Built an island full of inhabitants but don’t even get to claim the stone walls or magma below. Just the unthinking orifice.

I’ve read some books attributed to you. Orifice work for sure. Don’t worry, I’ve never believed in the divine guidance of those works. Divine inspiration, sure, guidance? Nah.

It’s funny how many people could take offense to even thinking about these things. I know atheists that would rather go to church and cringe through a sermon than to listen to my out-loud thoughts on wondering how people believe in something so obviously problematic.

Not that you don’t exist. It’s just I have questions about some assumptions my fellow mammals have created. Unlike the initial question I raised. There are significantly more creation stories than the ones breathed into by my ancestors. The problem with humans, is we give greater value to old ideas than new ones. It’s why we prefer the first of most products. Harvard, Coca-Cola, Monotheistic books loaded with contradictions.

I’d prefer new tails of a religion. Not in like the go see it at the cinema kind of way but in a, here folks, worship this tale of tales. It will make you a better person. You’d be a better person to write a book than read a book. Both types of people can be like the volcanic orifice but one spews a new platform to stand on and the other takes ideas with them into the abyss.

So here’s what I want. If there was a chance, that there are more uncreated wonders than created wonders, I’d like to see something positively shocking for once in my life. Doesn’t have to be now but you know, at one point. I feel everyone typically gets to see just enough horrors to know that the world is a shockingly dangerous and indifferent place but so rarely are we shocked by something beneficial.

Maybe it’s just we take everything for granted. All the amazing things we already have. Maybe our God is only a god of entropy and the only options are really fast decay or moderately slow decay and that’s really all they check for in prayers. If people want faster or slower entropy.

People probably aren’t even thinking about that possibility.

If true, it would make a load of difference to not only pray for slower entropy but to pray correctly. In the unique way that this god requires to receive and respond.

Burnt offerings always were the best prayers. Burn the goat so that the gods can devour the smoke and the rest of us get mutton. Vegan options available in 2024.

Anyways, I think that’s it. We need to know. Someone should write a book.

At some point.