*Heavy Sigh*

Patrick Stewart at Tenebra. His eyes closed.

He was a brilliant Shakespearean actor. He could play anything, anyone. 

Stewart played alongside some of the best Shakespeareans of his time, including Judi Dench and Ian McKellen. He was lecturing on Shakespeare at UCLA when his name came up for the lead in a new series of Star Trek.

"Don't do this, Patrick," he remembered McKellen advising him. "You're a very good stage actor. That's where you ought to be. Don't do it."

But Stewart's agent had reassured him that the show was unlikely to make it past the first season. As the actor recalled to NPR, he was encouraged to take what he believed to be a quick and easy job. "'Do six months' work. Make some money for the first time in your life and get well known. Get a suntan, and go home.' And I thought, 'Yeah, that doesn't sound too bad. I could live with that.'"

But Star Trek: The Next Generation was a tremendous hit. (source)

Instead of six months work, some quick bucks, and a suntan he did seven seasons, four feature films, and the series Star Trek: Picard (which I loved). And that’s just the Star Trek stuff. 

As Captain Picard he was, he became the wise, compassionate father figure that so many fans needed. Jesus he was a huge improvement, to say the very least, over that scene masticating ham who preceded him in the original series. Stewart made TNG.

The whole Borg/Picard story arc was absolute killer. This weekend, Jen, Oni, and I will have a little Picard mini marathon. Maybe the first of many.

Some wise words from our very good Captain:

Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again.

What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived. That is what it is to be human.

To say you have no choice is a failure of imagination.

History’s darkest moments can be a tipping point for change.

Fear is the greatest destroyer.

If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are?

There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders.

 It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness. That is life.

Somewhere in the Paramount vaults, there must be an outtake of me tottering onto the Enterprise bridge from the captain’s ready room and saying, “Tea is in the tapestry room, Your Grace.” Everyone on the bridge laughed, but our director had no idea what was going on and was none too pleased. Remember, we were not there to have fun.”
~ Patrick Stewart, Making It So: A Memoir

Engage

Randomosity

Daniel Abrahams

Jack Ohman

Rupert Fawcett

Tom Tomorrow

Dave Whamond

GOP Fiction 101

VP James Donald Bowman, James David Hamel, J.D. Vance (James David Vance), JD Vance, JDouche, really should have embarked on a career as a writer of cheesy, airport paperback thrillers. You know, the kind you read on a four hour flight and immediately forget about. With his wild imagination maybe he could have been up there in the bestselling realms of Harlan Coben or Dan Brown? This obviously mentally unbalanced fool, of all people, had the temerity to call Abdul El -Sayed a psychopath! 

“Abdul El-Sayed has claimed to be, and I quote, 'an immigrant from North Africa.' ​Why would you tell people that you were not from the community that you're actually from?"
~ JDouche campaigning for the pedophile supporting grifter from Florida who’s running against Al-Sayed in MICHIGAN’s senate race

Abdul was born in Rochester Hills, Michigan. J Douche is well aware of this.

Yesterday Douche Boy was trying to connect El-Sayed to the recent protests in Paris saying:

The scene of destruction in Paris may be an ocean away, but ask yourselves: are they really so hard to imagine here in the United States of America?” ... “And I guarantee you, if those rioters were burning down New York, or Detroit, the Hasan Pikers and El-Sayeds would be right there leading them and cheering them on.”  …  “What we saw in France – the hatred, the ingratitude, the desire to destroy rather than the desire to build – that exact same cancer is what has corrupted Abdul El-Sayed.” (source) 

That's quite the reach dough boy. 

Rithika Merchant

See? Old boy has quite intense imagination. I bet he sits up all night with a flashlight in his little blanket fort making up this shit and then high fiving himself. Probably wakes his brown-skinned wife up every time he gets a fresh inspiration for a new lie.

One day some kid at school will tell JD's brown-skinned child to go back to where he or she came from.

One day someone will inform this kid they will never be a real American.

One day someone will scream at them that they come from a shithole country and are a low-IQ eater of house pets.

One day JD's son, Vivek, will he attacked outside a bar by a drunken yahoo calling him a Muslim terrorist.

This is the America these kids' dad is building for them.
~ Ben Stephens  

Then there's the Not-So-Marvelous Mr. Measles — he went to Harvard you know. Obvs he got in on his family name and wealth alone. Boy clearly spent his school years shooting up smack, snorting coke off toilet seats, and indulging his every want versus learning anything real about the world. Must be nice to be born to astounding privilege. 

In response to Brainworm Bobby’s astoundingly inane racist, right-wing effort to bash El-Sayed — you know, the one where he claimed that Arabs don’t produce science or award winning literature — Journalist Mehdi Hasan pointed out that:

Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel in Literature in 1988. Ahmed Zewail won the Nobel in Chemistry in 1999, after winning the Wolf Prize. Omar Yaghi won the Nobel in Chemistry in 2025,” user Jordan Guy pointed out.  “Algebra is an Arabic word. So is algorithm. The math on this claim doesn’t work.” (source) 

Meanwhile, their fearless leader, the Liar and Pedophile in Chief, accused El-Sayed of being "a jihadist.” THIS from the man who authorized the bombing of schoolchildren and fishermen, and the ICE murders of innocents.

I'm so sick of this shit. 

Iceland Dreams

Just woke from a dream where I was attempting to apply for a gig at a high tech company. Doing what? Fuck only knows.

I was nervous as hell. I had hearing and full mobility but I was still my big old age and we ALL are well aware that it’s the exceptionally rare company that’s going to hire someone who’s:

a) in their late 60s and 
b) been out of the workforce for a good six or seven years. 

I should have rolled in with a gracious rock star air. I’m here. You may assist me now. Oh and I’d like a bowl of M&Ms but, be a dear, remove all the red ones.

Did I? Fuck no, I was broadcasting my insecurity loud and clear.

I walked into the lobby, approached the receptionist’s desk to ask her if I could see NAME in HR (I had a name!). All of a sudden an actual grey steel physical wall shot up. She spoke at me through a slightly larger than face sized window.

This young, smartly dressed, perky, blonde, young woman gave me a quick, disdainful glance, said “he’s not seeing people today, “ and walked off as I tried and failed to get out the words “can I leave off my résumé?” I was stunned by her snot-nosed, aloof, brush off. Also wounded. Yeah, I’m old but I’m still human. If you prick me, motherfucker, do I not bleed?

Then a slightly older (still younger than me but who isn’t) woman came out of an office. She’d witnessed my curt humiliation and briefly tried to make things better. She took my résumé, promising to pass it on to HR.

I was def grateful but as I was handing it over I realized that it was not two but three pages. WHY? The formatting had gone all off when printing it out. The font was too large, the spacing too wide, and some completely unrelated copy appeared at the very top of page one. WTAF?!!!

And scene. At that horrific moment I woke up.

What’s this dream about?

In a little under two weeks Jen and I will be going off on our first vacay together in about eight years. We’re headed back to Iceland 
for four days at the Silica Hotel with its private lagoon. Yes, this is an enormous splurge. After all we’ve been through over these past ten years, we so fucking deserve this.

Here’s the thing — I haven’t traveled since I’ve become more disabled.

When Jen and I picked these dates — about six months ago, I’d figured I would have much greater mobility by now. My rehab was going well — everything looked promising. I hadn’t anticipated all the problems with my left foot. You know, the persistent, recurring, painful infections that crashed my rehabbing efforts. 

What am I afraid of? Failing vacation? Yup.

I need to take this apart piece by piece. 

• I can request wheelchair assistance at the airports. That’s a thing. 
• Jen and I can get a cab from the airport to the hotel instead of taking the bus. It’s expensive but me getting onto a Greyhound style bus is just NOT gonna happen. 
• We were never planning on doing grand hikes in the lava fields anyway. Remember me? I’m the I HATE hiking queen. We’d always planned on four days of floating in the lagoon, reading, eating snacks, and otherwise being cats. THIS I can do.
• I CAN still walk (with my rollator) just not great distances. If we want to hit the restaurants nearby, that's doable. 
• We talked about postponing the trip but I believe it’s important, critical even, for me to get over/get through my fears. I CAN do this. It's about morale. Also fun.

Also, I already postponed my colonoscopy — scheduled for Friday — because I just could NOT deal with that on top of prepping for this trip. What’s involved in trip prep? Now that my foot is finally healing I need to try walking in shoes again. I’ve been wearing sandals with socks. I know, how terribly fashionable of me. 

So, prep is mostly walking. Wish me luck.

Brazilian Space Measles ... or something

Waddya know — leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won and right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro lost. It was a squeaker though. 

Oddly Prez Pedo hasn’t spewed his usual steaming pile of nonsense, fantastical fabrications, and all-of-this-is-Biden’s-fault ... yet. He has, however, sent out his son Pedo Jr. (AKA Butt-Head) to cry rigged/fixed election! Projection much, you bought and paid for Russian puppet? 

This is a big win for the people of Brazil. Sane people and governments recognize this.
~~~
I was reading about the USSR’s Venera program this morning. This was the Soviet Union's series of missions to study Venus. It went on from 1961 to 1983. Of 28 spacecraft launched, 13 entered the atmosphere. Eight successfully touched down on the surface.

Actual pic of surface of Venus

Venturing to Venus between 1975 and 1978, several of the cameras on these probes failed, usually due to their lens caps not coming off. But nonetheless, a few managed to take and transmit the very first images from the surface of our solar system’s second planet. (source) 

DOH!

Then we have Saturn. There aren’t any pictures of Saturn's surface of course. Dude’s a big-ass gas giant made up, mostly, of hydrogen and helium gas — there’s no solid ground. OK, wicked cool but I want to see it!!! Can NASA get a camera in there? I’ve found lots of amazing shots of Saturn’s moons — what about inside Saturn's atmosphere? Not possible??? 
~~~
Best, most on point slams of the week? Without question:

“He seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV,” Obama said of Trump’s over $900 million worth of White House construction efforts. “What’s with the gold? … He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”

 “Remember that whole thing about drain the swamp? The only thing that got drained was the Reflecting Pool in the National Mall after some no-bid contract got it all messed up,” Obama said. (source) 

Christ almighty, I miss having an intelligent, witty, sane, compassionate, NON-felonious President. Ya know, one who was actually qualified to do the job.
~~~
Trump’s disease boosting Health and Human Services anti-vaxxer clown, who’s bragged about snorting cocaine off of toilet seats, has done a bang-up job vis-à-vis measles.

"We’ve seen more measles cases during this report than we’ve seen in the last quarter century — combined,” Noel Brewer, a professor of public health at the University of North Carolina, told POLITICO this week. Brewer served on a key vaccine advisory panel to the CDC before Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted believer and spreader of anti-vaccine conspiracies, overhauled the committee.  (source) 

More than 1,300 cases have been reported since April alone and that’s just in Pennsylvania. ONE state. 

If Stephen Nosferatu Miller’s ICE squads don’t murder you, if Kegseth doesn’t turn the military on the populace, we can always count on Brainworm Bobby to murder us with easily prevented diseases.

Sad Peacocking

A woman on Threads was called names for being, ya know, an opinion having female type human. Yes they were ridiculous, tired, worn out, unimaginative, adolescent vulgarisms. They came from MAGAts — it’s to be expected.

What were they thinking ? Did they honestly believe that the women they were intending to destroy with these, in-their-minds-only, soul withering slams to “fragile” feminine sensibilities, were going to do anything other than laugh? These eternal incels put their astonishingly underdeveloped middle school minds on center stage, under the bright lights all while thinking they’re peacocking great cutting wit. Aaaah ... no.

They’re doing nothing more than showing off that they’re less than bright or mentally agile enough to carry on a debate with a ham sandwich.

The first was “thunder cunt” and the other was “treasonous vagina.” Dudes probably thought they were just so edgy and erudite coming up with those! FYI, thunder cunt’s not a new one — that slam's been kicking around for decades. 

Gotta say though, these would make for great, memorable band names.

Thunder Cunt might be a fierce hardcore punk band or maybe death metal. No sexy Hollywood-ready frontwoman — à la Debbie Harry or Joan Jett. Nope. The group would have someone more like Patti Smith or Poly Styrene.

Treasonous Vagina would either be a cutting edge experimental ensemble or a speed metal band crossed with an art house burlesque troupe. Either would totally work.

For the former, we’d need an avante garde type like Laurie Anderson. For the latter, an over-the-top performer like Siouxsie Sioux or Wendy O. Williams.

The online losers have been emboldened by their unhinged, desperately and deservedly insecure, increasingly dementia ridden hero, the orange imbecile — Donald Pedophile Trump.

Seems like it won’t be long before people just start laughing in his face after he throws one of his inane, childish hissy fits at a woman reporter who dares to do her job. Daily he makes himself an increasingly ghastly florid fool. When I think it’s not possible for him to say something even more stupid he proves me wrong by saying shit like, Denmark gave him Greenland or that there are “five states where your child goes off to school as Tim and comes back as Tammy, three or four days later.” Yes, he really said those things. 

Is he stupid and delusional? Does he honest and true believe what he's saying? Quite possibly. Is this dementia? Maybe. Does it really matter whether he believes his own fantasies or it's a gold-painted baroque con job to snow the rubes? The result is the same — carnival barking lies, told by a huckster in badly applied, gaudy tangerine makeup, sporting a sadly dyed. cotton candy combover, wearing baggy, cheap, unwashed suits, and cheap shoes with lifts.

In not reining him in, the GOP has truly shot themselves in both feet. If we can manage to dump the sycophantic weasel turds who are happily destroying the country and elect a sane House and Senate, MAYBE we can all take a deep breath and get busy with the giant job of stanching the country’s bleeding. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!!!

A Cornea By Any Other Name ...

I saw my cornea specialist, who I absolutely adore, yesterday.

Dr. Jacobs is a specialist who has cared about my whole eye health. She’s appreciated the struggles I’ve had to be heard and not treated me like a widget on a hospital assembly line.

I went through no fewer than five neuro eye docs at Mass Eye and Ear before I found her. She’s the only one who’s come close to the care I received from Dr. Simmons Lessell, who died in 2016 (the same year I lost The Amazing Bob).

Fabulous post-exam news — the scarring on my orbs (a result of unavoidable nerve damage from my 50 bazillion brain surgeries), which I’ve been dealing with/combating for a couple decades or so now, has cleared up. WHAT? HOW? Likely a combination of things but definitely the piece that seals the deal is the chemo drug that my main neurologist, the amazing Doc Plotkin, put me on four-ish years ago.

This med has slowed or stopped the growth of most of my brain and spinal tumors AND it’s shrunk a benign motherfucker that was hanging out in my liver too! How d'ya like that! Better living through chemistry and shit, eh?

Yes, there have been some rather inconvenient side effects *cough* GI issues *cough*  but … worth it!!!

So, I no longer need to see her thrice yearly and can now just have annual appointments. EXCEPT … she’s retiring as of October next year. I figured this was coming — we’re around the same age. You bet I was dreading her leaving but she’s referring me to someone she likes.

She’s hooking me up with a new cornea guy who’s in a Mass General office that’s actually much closer to me (meaning, I won’t have to deal with the horrors of 93N, Charles Circle, and MGH traffic) and she says he's compassionate. This is key. His name is Dr. Austin Meeker. 

I only mention it but my new-ish PCP’s name is Dallas Miller. WHY would parents name their children after Texas cities? I guess, if you figure that both docs are at least 35, they were born when Ann Richards was governor. Texas was still a fine state, if rather strange, back then (aren’t we all though — strange, that is). Considering the times, I suppose I can understand the affection for the Texas town names. Sort of. Governor Gregg Abattoir, his chief crimer, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and the prepoderance of MAGAts however, have made the state a toxic joke.

Do parents name their kids Boston or other random city names? Is Pittsburgh Johnson going out for soccer this season? Did Birmingham Smith get signed up for Little League today? Can Detroit Williams come over for a playdate this afternoon? Did Sturgis Wilson get into grad school?

Dunno … if I had a kid and I HAD to name them after a town or city, I imagine I’d choose Marrakesh, Berlin or Tangier. Why? For the wildly rich histories of the places and the way the words sound.

Back to Dr. Jacobs — I’ll have one last appointment with her next year. It’s hard to let go and I was NOT ready to say goodbye yesterday. Honestly, I can only think of a couple of times in my life when saying goodbye and me have been properly aligned. 

Walter understands. 

Paywalled

Vanity Fair has a hot new article out that I think I absolutely MUST read. That’s happening a lot lately. BUT ... This story is for subscribers only. *SIGH*

This one’s about how the Slim Reaper, AKA Jared Kushner, reportedly had a secret Dubai bank account holding hundreds of millions of dollars from Azerbaijan. He allegedly used it to pay for a warlord, a mercenary, and a former hit man. Da fuck? I mean, I’m not really surprised but CHRIST ALMIGHTY!!!

In late spring 2020, a source I knew to be reliable called me with a story. The Dutch government had hacked into Jared Kushner’s phone and monitored him as he accessed a Dubai-based bank account. What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan. Most importantly, Kushner appeared to have transferred significant amounts of money from the Dubai account to other individuals, including a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man. The story sounded preposterous, I told my source. And yet. (source)

This story is for subscribers only.

Remember, Kushner’s in real tight with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) who approved the kidnapping and dismemberment of Washington Post journo and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. THEN MBS invested $2 billion in the Slim Reaper’s new private equity firm after Kushner helped push a $110 billion weapons sale to Saudi Arabia. It’s all pretty fucking hinky isn’t it? 

Life’s pretty damn cheap when you’re a billionaire, I guess. Other, less monied people’s lives are cheap, that is.

FUCK!!! I’m suffering from knowledge interruptus here! I’m gonna get blue brains and you all KNOW how painful that can be.

On top of this, The Atlantic has Choose Your Overlord/Musk vs. Bezos By Josh Tyrangiel in their Battle of the Galactic Overlords issue.

The Adriatic has been crossed by Odysseus and Caesar, by Venetian fleets and Napoleon’s navy, by countless men bent on dominating the world. It has seen its share of courage and folly. But one day in June 2025, off the island of Cres, it witnessed something genuinely new: a man worth $240 billion standing waist-deep in bubbles on the deck of a $500 million yacht, wearing a white bucket hat.

The man is Jeff Bezos, and the woman photographed in the string bikini next to him—hugging him, rubbing him with bubbles—is his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez.

Two subscriptions won’t break me, right? What I totally need to do is make sure that I keep track of which publications I’m subscribed to and what my logins and passwords are. Easier said than done. It’s way too easy to go over the top, subscribe to a zillion different mags and only read one or two articles out of each and only on occasion.