The Next Insurrection

We're all getting dumber. Intentionally.

We're about two weeks away from coronating our new Fuhrer. What happens after that is anybody's guess. Literally. Because like half the country, many of us have decided to eschew any news or headlines or, god forbid, any video clips of the accordion-playing shit-for-brains felon/rapist. 

The epaulets have not even been pinned to his weak, rounded shoulders and Shit Show Two, The Reich Redeaux, has already begun. 

I've stayed away from any Trump news but couldn't escape the news about Matt Gaetz. The forehead challenged legislator from Florida, the anti-Mensa Capitol of the World, was nominated to be the Attorney General of the United States of America -- the highest law enforcement officer in the country. 

That was before the House Ethics Committee, perhaps temporarily remembering their half oath to the Constitution of the United States, released their findings about Matty's ingestion of drugs, his dabbling in prostitution and his oh-so-insignificant statutory rape and pedophilia. 

Given the wall-to-wall coverage of Hunter Biden's exploits, again, not an elected public servant, you would think Gaetz's store-bought bacchanalia would merit its own media frenzy. And still be in the headlines. 

It has not.

As mentioned above, I have sworn off all mass media -- TV/CNN/MSNBC and even Fox News, to see how the other half drools -- and suspect the suggested appointment of Chester the Tall Molester, to the highest office in the Department of Justice, would keep journalists jumping. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure I'm right. 

Even the Old Grey Lady, who would blush and turn pink covering the shenanigans of Florida's favorite son, has eschewed its responsibility to point out the fatal judicial appointment. I know, I checked. Not one word in the A or B section. I haven't got to the Opinion section of the NY Times, but given the complicit zeitgeist, I suspect there's nothing there either.

Perhaps the blame can placed at the feet of the Internet. Or the corrosive curse of social media. Or just the laziness of Americans who fail over and over again to inform themselves regarding the politics of the day. But here's what I cynically know about all this -- it is being exploited and leveraged by billionaire tech bros and their Manchurian candidate.

And as a result, we're all getting dummer.

A Pasadena Right of Passage

Welcome back. Happy New Year to my 8 loyal readers and to the occasional passersby who come here for a bit of snark, pathos and failed attempts at humor.

I'm sure you're all happy to be back at work. I know I am. Albeit as a Fractional Creative Director, emphasis on the fractional. 

Sometimes infinitesimally so.

Many of you, if the patterns hold true, have resolved to lose weight, exercise more and be healthier this year.  I'm making it a point to maintain my weight, be healthier and maybe exercise less, as of late my rigorous routine has taken its toll on my bum hip and lower back. Like you I probably won't be able to keep this promise I made to myself, due to my aerobic obsessive compulsion disorder.

And my Strava overlord.

I'm also determined to continue on the unchartered path of "doing new things." 

To that end, I began 2025 on a high note, by joining Ms. Muse and her friend JJ, on a midnight jaunt up Orange Grove Avenue to experience the Rose Bowl Parade floats before they are unveiled to the 330 million hungover citizens of America on New Year's Day. 

I should preface this by saying -- not in a curmudgeonly way -- that I'm not a parade person. They are to me what clubs are. I don't want be part of any that would have me as a member. 

The exception being the St. Patty's Day Parade in NYC, which was a seminal event in my misguided youth, mostly because it was an opportunity to engage in low cost binge beer drinking. 

We would drive in from the suburbs at 10 in the morning. Park our asses at a Brew Burger or a Beefsteak Charlie's and partake in their $7.95 Cheeseburger and All You Can Drink Beer Special. Which on several occasions became not-so-special to the restaurant manager.

"You boys leave, now. You drink too much. Go."

I digress. The New Year's Eve stroll up and down Orange Grove is quite the ritual. It might even be mandatory. They are very particular in these parts. There's a lot of Foothillian lore I'm still being acquainted with. 

The night was a blast. It had all the revelry of a Times Square Celebration (which I have never attended) without the drunks, pickpockets and Pizza Rats. 

Should the opportunity present itself the night before 2026, I will certainly be there again.

Here we see yours truly and Ms. Muse, braving the frigid 47 degree Pasadena evening night air with our not-so-surreptitious cocktails...