Steppin' Stones

Woke up with Micky Dolenz singing (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone in my head. Christ on a melting clock, I loved the Monkees and was so disappointed to find out that they weren’t a real band. Mike Nesmith was a real musician and songwriter. So was Peter Tork (bass, guitar, banjo, keyboards, and French horn). Micky Dolenz was an actor who learned to play the drums for his part on the show. Davy Jones? He was a jockey who could sing. Behind the scenes, other songwriters wrote their tunes and session musicians covered everything except the vocals.

I was a kid when I found this out but it bugged the hell out of me. I wanted them to be a real band, songwriters, genuine wacky creative talents.

Similarly, when I found out that Art Garfunkel was getting songwriting credits on all of Paul Simons tunes in the ‘60s but was just contributing vocals, I was pissed. Yes, dude had a lovely choirboy voice. He provided a sweet voice BUT he didn’t co-write those poetic songs. I hated that my girlfriend Jean went all swoony over him – acting like he was more than a singer.

Mind you, being a talented performer is grand – Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra, Joe Cocker anyone? Just don’t try to put yourself out there as an original artist. Fer gawd’s sake.

Maybe it’s like it’s Patrick Stewart playing Oberon in a A Midsummer Night's Dream. I’m certain he was absolutely brilliant but he didn’t write the play – Shakespeare did. Stewart would NEVER in a zillion years claim or imply that he’d had anything to do with the writing of the play though.

The songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote a lot of the Monkees’ songs. Neil Diamond, Carole Bayer Sager, Neil Sedaka, Harry Nilsson, Carole King and her husband Gerry Goffin also wrote for them.

The teevee show was cancelled after two short seasons. Frank Zappa supposedly asked Dolenz (who, remember, had only just learned to play for the show) to be his drummer but I can’t believe this was a serious invitation. Either that or Frank was tripping his auditory cortex clean off. I mean, Zappa wrote compositions with time signatures like 7/4, 11/8, and 19/16. Yeah Micky, that invitation wasn’t meant to be taken so earnestly. 

An aside: One of Zappa’s drummer was Terry Bozzio who I had the unbelievable luck to see at a drum festival in Amsterdam. This was probably three million years ago when early hominids were first sparking doobies along the Leidseplein. Bozzio was massively BRILLIANT. His playing was fucking transportational. My soul soared into the stratosphere. Swear ta Bast!

This interview with Micky Dolenz at The Guardian’s  website reminded me of their movie Head. I saw that way back in 1980 or ’81 at some odd little backstreet cafe/movie house in Cambridge’s Central Square. Back then, Central Square was still gritty with The Red Bookstore (located near the Massachusetts chapter of the Communist Party), the Orson Welles Cinema (picketed by nuns for showing a movie portraying the Virgin Mary as a pregnant basketball player), and Mary Chung’s – the small, dark Chinese restaurant in which I regularly dined.

In any case, Head, I dimly recall, was a real trip and I’d love to see it again. It was written by Jack Nicholson. Apparently I can watch the whole thing on YouTube. Huh. Waddyaknow.

Mike Nesmith died from heart failure in 2021. He was 78.
Peter Tork died in 2019 from a rare cancer – adenoid cystic carcinoma – at the age of 77.
Davy Jones died in 2012 of a heart attack. He was just 66 years old.

In the dream previous to the (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone one, I was designing business cards for my company’s rebranding. We were no longer going to be an offset print and copy house. Nope. We were going to specialize in assassinations and demolitions of mega-corporations.

I was kind of stuck on the logo. The old one (a cartoonish English Bobby) just didn’t seem to fit the new biz identity. Huh.

Landlocked

I don’t think I could live in a landlocked state or country. I imagine this’ll come as no surprise if you’re a long time reader of this here blog. I’m kind of big on proximity to the water. I could do a  lake maybe but I really prefer to be on the coast – closer the better.

Here in Valhalla we’re one house back from the seawall. That’s about as far as I’m willing to go.

When my friend Susan, who grew up across the street from a beach on the Cape, moved to Minneapolis, I was stunned. HOW could she possibly live so far from the water!!!

Well, as it turns out Minneapolis contains 22, count ‘em, 22 lakes. 13 of those babies cover at least five acres too. So, Susan’s not on an ocean but she’s definitely not far from water. 

There are 27 landlocked U.S. states. Seven of these border the Great Lakes though. Nebraska is most landlocked of all the states as one must pass through four states, minimum, to reach an ocean. Sheesh.

Kansas, by the by, is the only US state without any natural lakes. Any that you do see, should you find yourself there for some strange, unfortunate reason, are man-made. Kansas has three rivers though. Whoopee.

Oklahoma has some small oxbow type natural lakes but any others you might come across there are man-made. 

Utah, Wyoming, Iowa, Montana, Missouri, and West Virginia are pretty damn dry and far from oceans too. I wonder if that’s a contributing factor to MAGAtism. Wouldn't be surprised.

Texas has just one natural lake but the state's on the Gulf on Mexico so, for all it’s myriad sins, at least it’s not landlocked.

I realize I’m one of those folks who’s just innately tied to the ocean. Well, the shoreline anyway – I'm not a boat person. Some people are bound to mountains or forests or desertscapes. To each their own and shit.

Here’s the thing though, being far away from the ocean can be inconvenient. You’re not close to major ports. Very little is manufactured in the U.S. at this point so if you’re in Bumfuck Iowa, your iPhone, car parts, lobster tails, real Champagne, viagra and ozempic all come into coastal ports and are put on a plane or truck before they make the journey to your landlocked state. The cost for the extra miles of transportation is added to your bill. Also, how fresh and tasty do you think that frozen seafood is compared to what I can get down the street at my local pub? (That is, IF I ate shellfish which I do NOT. They look like giant bugs, fer gawds sake!)

I was looking at a map of Africa yesterday, as one does, and realized that the continent has a LOT of landlocked countries – 16 in total. Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, and Eswatini to name just three.

There are 16 landlocked countries in Europe as well. Switzerland, Czechia, and Belarus fer instance.

15 in Asia, including Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, and Nepal. All these names spark up my wanderlust. If I had the money and was physically robust, I’d love to take a year and do a slow tour through all these countries.

South America has just two landlocked countries – Bolivia, Paraguay.

Of all the places I’ve visited, and I’ve not been to nearly enough different lands, the most beautiful, diverse and perfect for me has been the Isle of Skye. It’s on the ocean, there’s woodland, the craggy mountains of the Black Cuillin are brilliantly majestic. The Quiraing has to be seen, hiked, embraced to be believed.

What would make it absolutely ideal would be:

A)  If it were more remote so there were fewer (less?) tourists.
B)  If Doc Plotkin and the rest of my NF2 pit crew (surgeons and other assorted neuro specialists) were located there too. Hey, I’m sure they’d love the place! Alternatively, maybe they could install a Star Trekian transporter beam and just beam me back and forth from Skye to MGH every couple of weeks.

Medicare will cover that, right? RIGHT?!!!

Ruby Slippers and Mother Wounds

Jen, Oni, Kevin and I just finished the third season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I’m just heartbroken that she’s been kicked off Shy Baldwin’s tour. Shy is the Johnny Mathis/Harry Belafonte/Nat King Cole-esque character who Midge has been opening for during the U.S. portion of his 1960 world tour. She’s booted just before they’re to leave for the European leg.

Why? She was incredibly nervous before her set at the Apollo. She’d gone up to Moms Mabley after her set to meet and praise her. Mabley’s manager broke in and dragged Midge because, ya see, Moms should have been the comic directly opening for Shy in Harlem at the Apollo – not some white girl.

Midge feels horrible AND scared. How is she going to win over the audience. Reggie, Shy’s manager, suggests Midge talk about Shy and the upcoming tour.

She does but in true Midge over-the-top, foot-in-mouth tradition, she goes too far, focusing on his love of extravagant fashions and fabrics. She even mentions Judy Garland’s shoes. *cough* Friend of Dorothy *cough* Inadvertently? Thinking only of how beautiful and sparkly they were? DOH!

Her act is well received. By the end of the show there doesn’t seem to be any blowback – no tabloid gossip columns rumormongering about how Shy Baldwin is not just Black, he’s a *gasp* homosexual! I expect the fallout may be coming in season four unless, now that Midge has been ditched, Baldwin’s story arc is over. We'll see.

This ep was set in 1960. The Stonewall riots were nine years down the road. In 1960, homosexuality was still listed as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. Baldwin’s career as a crooner would be over if the papers found out and blew up his personal life (and they would).

Here in real life last week, Prez Pedo and the evil Heritage Foundation machine behind him, had the Pride flag removed from the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village. The flag has since been re-raised. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer proposed making the Pride flag a congressionally authorized symbol (meaning such flags would be safe from removal countrywide).

"Rights that are not secured in law can be threatened and symbols that are not protected can be stripped away. The flag that lies here is not decoration," Schumer said.

House Rep. Dan Goldman will sponsor it in the House.

In other Maisel character doings – I’m falling farther and farther out of love with Midge’s mother, Rose. When she left her family and went off to Paris to have her own life, unencumbered by bourgeois trappings and rigid mores, I thought, “YEA Rose! Such brave growth. What a hero.” When she rejected her misogynistic, hidebound male relatives and her trust fund (controlled by them), I cheered her bravery. THEN I watched as she callously condescendingly, snootily even criticized Midge’s comedic aspirations and performances. In last night’s show, she actually juxtaposed Midge’s stand up comedy routines to prostitution!

That, mes ami, went over the fucking line. Ya see, my own mother did that to me. In fact, she accused me of being a hooker in front of company in our house. Why? It came out that I was an art major (which she should have known. I mean, I made no secret of the fact that I changed my major from music to art) and that I took life drawing classes. These are figure drawing classes where the student draws from a live, usually nude, human model in order to study anatomy, proportion, and form. In fact, I modeled for a lot of classes myself. Why? I needed the money for books, art supplies, food and clothes. Plus, I was socking away dough so I could get out of town as soon as I graduated.

In case anyone is at all unaware, there’s a HUGE difference between the sort of nude modeling that’s done in art schools and the kind that’s done in bordellos or by a certain, current First “Lady.” Modelling for art classes does not involve sex. Mostly it's about numb limbs from sitting in one position for hours on end. Also, boredom.

So, Rose is dead to me now. Mother wounds – do those fuckers ever heal?

Movie, Movie, Movie

Tell me WHY I was awake at 4AM thinking about movies I’ve loved and haven’t seen in years. You know, if I were to have a library of film, these would NEED to be included.

Two by John Sayles – I imagine he’s made a bunch more brill flicks but these are the two I’ve seen and gotta have in the Maderer Memorial Film Library.

The Brother from Another Planet – Joe Morton is an escaped mute, space alien, slave trying to find a new life on Earth. His spaceship crash lands on Ellis Island and he ends up in Harlem. He finds work, community, and tries to avoid the slave catchers.

Return of the Secaucus Seven – seven friends spend a weekend together in New Hampshire. It’s a reunion of college activist chums plus an extra or two. Relationship dramas, basketball, skinny-dipping, a dead deer, an overnight in jail – a winding story ensues. 

The Big Chill was the glammed up, big money, nostagia-soundtrack, Hollywood, rip off of this.

Daughters of the Dust – an astoundingly beautiful movie by Julie Dash.

In 1902, a multigenerational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off of South Carolina—former West African slaves who carried on many of their ancestors’ Yoruba traditions—struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore while contemplating a migration to the mainland, even further from their roots. (source) 

Liquid Sky – I don't recall the story line at all BUT the movie resonated heavily because it reminded me SO much of a night I spent at a bar/club in Chicago. It was summer of 1978 or '79 and my second season with a traveling carnival. That summer we mostly traveled from neighborhood to neighborhood on the South Side with occasional forays into the suburbs. One night, after the show shut for the night, one of the ride jocks and I went to the punk club O'Banion's. Swear to god, whoever dreamed up the sets for Liquid Sky had spent a few nights at O'Banion's.

Big Night - in the 1950s, two Italian immigrant brothers on the Jersey Shore run a restaurant which is not thriving despite its great chef. The brothers arrange for a big night as a way to boost the restaurant's profile – a five course free banquet with jazz/swing celeb singer Louis Prima as guest of honor. Food porn, joy, drama, and comedy follow.

God, what a great flick!

Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean – this is the movie where I discovered, and fell in love with, Robert Altman (yeah, somehow I missed everything he did before 1980 – go figure) and found out that Cher can really act. A James Dean fan club in a small West Texas town reunites after 20 years. 

I saw this movie when it came out 44 years go and it still comes to mind as a true classic.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen – who doesn’t love a Terry Gilliam movie? I mean, really now. This is Baron von Munchausen’s surreal journey to save a town from defeat. He’s swallowed by a sea-monster, takes a trip to the moon (whose King is played by an uncredited Robin Williams), dances with Venus and escapes from the Grim Reaper.

I TOTALLY need to see this again. All I’m really remembering now is how visually dazzling it was.

Run Lola Run – Lola’s boyfriend, who’s a bagman, is on the U-Bahn on his way to deliver big money to his dangerous bosses. He loses the loot and has 20 minutes to come up with replacement dough (or the original) or he gets offed. Somehow it’s up to Lola to save the day. Three different possible scenarios are played out with much running. 

Just watching this, I feel like I get a good cardio workout.

Stop Making Sense – yes, I know I can’t hear the music anymore but, Jesus Psycho Killer Christ, the energy levels, the visuals, the drumming! As with Lola, watching this, I feel like I get a solid cardio workout.

Fellini's 8½ – question: WHY is it always referred to as Fellini’s 8½? Was there another 8½? Ya know, Kronbachl’s 8½?  Stawarski’s 8½? Leichenberg's 8½? 

Marcello Mastroianni (swoon) plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project – an epic science fiction movie – is collapsing around him, as is his life. I remember surreal humor. FABULOUS. My absolute favorite Fellini film.

Derivative pedophile director, Woody Allen ripped it off to make Stardust Memories. Yes, yezzz, I know it's usually called an hommage. This was my favorite of the kid fucker's movies, back before I knew of his extreme heinousosity.

Léon: The Professional – who doesn’t love a flick about an assassin who’s good with kids and plants?

Blade Runner – of fucking course!

Alien Resurrection – the best of the series, in my opinion.

Zardoz – oh C’MON! It was the early ‘70s and it was awesome.

All About Eve

To Sir, With Love

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Wings of Desire

Smoke Signals

Truly, Madly, Deeply – I went to see this by myself after Kevin died. Good thing and smart that I went to an early matinee on a weekday. I ugly, sloppy cried AND laughed throughout. God, I was a mess but WHAT a good movie.

Good Morning, Vietnam

The Fisher King 

There's so many more that I want to see again. Put me in a darkened room in a comfy chair with snacks, cranberry juice and a way to order in/order up the flicks and I may never come out. 

And now for something completely different

It’s Saturday. Valentines Day. The temperature in Valhalla MAY actually rise above freezing today!!! 

It’s a fine day to engage in some self care. Ya know, NOT doomscroll all damn day. At the very least, I'll severely limit my news reading. I can start a new book instead. The Librarians by Sherry Thomas just popped up as available on Libby. I do love murder mysteries. 

I’ll get back on the damn elliptical later too. Yesterday I was a complete and total slug – some days are like that. The trick is not beating myself up about it. It’s okay, a good idea even, to take a couple days off each week. I think what gets me tense is that I’m  afraid of falling victim to Newton's First Law of Motion. The part where an object (i.e. ME) at rest stays at rest. I can absolutely see myself doing just that. In my last life I was, undoubtedly, an exceedingly pampered, lazy house cat.

So then, here’s a boatload of memes and such which have nothing to do with the horrors our government is currently perpetrating. 

You’re welcome.

Whose side are you on?

Stephen Miller’s war on Minnesota, absurdly calling itself an immigration crackdown as government thugs kidnap innocents,  murder U.S. citizens and imprison Native Americans, is supposedly coming to an end. I’ll believe it when…I don’t know what it’ll take for me to believe it. Announcements made by this lying-ass administration are no more than tall stacks of fresh, stinking hippo shit, dressed up in pin stripes and, occasionally, a pink satin bow.

Hamfaced Homan said “Operation Metro Surge” can close out because:

"As a result of our efforts here Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals.” 

Minnesota never was a “sanctuary state for criminals” you bloated sack of lying, worm-riddled, moldy cabbages. 73% of those arrested had NO criminal record and only 6% of those arrested had violent convictions. ICE arrested a 2-year-old with an active asylum case. A TWO YEAR OLD! There was some fuss about Somali community fraud. Only 23 of those arrested were from Somalia and NONE of them had any links to the fraud cases under investigation. DHS is flat out lying.

"Operation Metro Surge” – these war waging assholes always have to come up with what they think is a clever name for their destructive, barbarous, murderous campaigns, don’t they? It’s as though they’ve never matured beyond the age of 10. They’re playing war games with their neighborhood gang. Their game? Lord of the Flies. What a bunch of dangerously stupid, infantile, histrionic clowns.

You may want to sit this one out, boyo.
The woman in the bathrobe is clearly the alpha here.

Also, yesterday, I think it was yesterday, ICEholes rammed a car containing a person they intended to kidnap. That person was taken away in an ambulance. A crowd had gathered though, including a woman who had dashed out of her house in nothing more than a bathrobe and slippers. She was filming the armed, illegal, government goons. The people of Minneapolis are mad as hell and they’re not putting up with this shit anymore.

Bathrobe Woman is Minnesota Public Radio News reporter/producer Sam Stroozas and she’s a hero. Leila Navidi of the Minneapolis Star Tribune caught the moment.

Where will the ICEholes invade next? In what cities will residents need to guard against kidnappings and murders by roving bands of armed, masked, war-playing, government gangbangers? Chicago, Boston (and the surrounding towns and cities), and Charlotte, North Carolina have been mentioned. 

It’s important to seriously note what’s gone down in Minnesota – study the ways ICE moved. Fer instance, according to Kelsey Speer, a Minneapolis author:

Jack Ohman

1. ICE gets sneaky. They came in loud to Minneapolis, but when we weren't intimidated into submission, they had to change tactics. They put bumper stickers like "Coexist," "Fuck Ice," and even "Student Driver" on their cars to try to blend in. They wear flannel over their tactical gear. They hide additional agents under blankets in the backseat. They pretend to be press or parents at school pickup, asking questions about how they can get involved.

2. They will send agents in plainclothes to try and lure people outside. Sometimes they will go into a restaurant and say they hit someone's car in the parking lot and want to pay damages, then when the victim goes outside, they're dragged into an SUV and taken. Or they will go into an apartment complex and pull the fire alarm, forcing people to evacuate so they can nab people. And to be crystal clear, they have to resort to this shit because they DO NOT HAVE JUDICIAL WARRANTS. 

3. They will infiltrate your signal groups. In fact, assume that they have. Do not use your real name, do not share personal information about yourself or other people. If someone is asking questions and something feels a little off, TRUST YOUR GUT and do not give them any info. You will constantly be walking a thin line between working with your neighbors and being suspicious of everyone. 

More tips here.  

The paranoid is never entirely mistaken.
~ Sigmund Freud
 

Portrait of a Lunatic Harpy

I confess I didn’t watch the House judiciary committee hearing yesterday where Prez Pedo’s personal lawyer, the in-name-only Attorney General, defended the so-called justice department’s handling of the Trump/Epstein files. Below are bits and pieces I found in various news reports. I gotta wonder – are Bondi and her fellow evil doers on the ropes and crashing out or is this just their normal rabid rottweiler on crack horseshit?

In an exchange with California Rep. Ted Lieu, Bleach Bondi earned herself a solid new moniker. She will now be known as Perjury Pam. 

Lieu asked whether Trump had ever attended a party with underage girls. She histrionically replied:

“This is so ridiculous,” Bondi said. “And they are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done. There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime. Everyone knows that.” (*cough* 34 felonies SO FAR *cough*)

Lieu responded that he believed that answer amounted to a crime – lying under oath – since Trump’s name appears in many instances in the files....

“Don’t you ever accuse me of committing a crime,” Bondi yelled back at Lieu. (source)  

HAH! What a guilty-ass, junior high, mean girl drama queen.
~~~
Eleven Epstein/Trump survivors were in court yesterday. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal asked them to stand and raise their hands if Perjury Pam or anyone at the justice department had refused to meet with them.  

Every single one of them raised their hands. 

No surprise that earlier in the hearing, Perjury Pam, gave out this empty weasel shit soundbite “The FBI is waiting to hear from you. I want you to know that any accusations of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated.” 

Yeah sure, bitch.

Jayapal urged Bondi to apologize to the victims for the justice department’s (intentionally?) shoddy handling of redactions. To which Perjury Pam reacted hysterically saying, “I’m not going to get in the gutter with this woman.”  

Oh honey, Jayapal’s on the surface. You’re the one swimming in sewage. I understand, after swallowing so much billionaire bullshit, you just can’t see where you’re standing anymore. 

PP and the DOJ aren’t interested in justice. They’re all about covering up crimes for their lords and masters. 
~~~
Apparently, not having truth, righteousness, or even a teaspoon of basic decency on her, Bondi brought a binder full of insults to hurl. Somehow I’ve never imagined it being appropriate for the Attorney General of the United States to be screeching out playground taunts like:

“You don’t tell me anything. You’re a washed-up loser lawyer. You’re not even a lawyer" 

This, to Congressman Jamie Raskin a lawyer, law professor, and U.S. rep. for Maryland's 8th district since 2017. By the by he earned his JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law and was an editor of Harvard Law Review. He was a professor of Constitutional Law for 25 years. 

Bondi got her law degree at Stetson University, a D list school named for the maker of ridiculous hats. It’s located in a state infamous for drunks and the general insanity of a large number of its population.
~~~
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) asked Perjury Pam why she hired the convicted felonious J6 rioter Jared Wise as a senior Justice Department adviser.

Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) : This is an individual whom a federal grand jury indicted for two felonies and four misdemeanors related to his participation in the attack on January 6th. One of those charges was forcibly assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating, and interfering with police with the intent to commit another felony.

This is who you choose, as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States of America, to hire at the Department of Justice. Someone on video yelling “kill him” at police officers? Right? (source) 

PP responds saying that Wise was pardoned by Trump.

Mike Luckovich

Neguse comes back with: Oh, he was PARDONED! You’re right. Pardoned by President Trump for his offense, pardoned for yelling kill him at police officers.

And yet you expect hardworking police officers across the country to believe that you take law enforcement seriously.

I include this just to underscore that Perjury Pam is MOST DEF Trump’s personal layer. She does NOT work for the American people and def not those in the Trump/Epstein files.
~~~
Rep Balint (D-VT) asking about Trump’s knowledge of Epstein ties of cabinet nominees: “These are senior members of the administration. This is not a game, Secretary.”

Bondi: “It’s Attorney General.”

Balint: “My apologies, I couldn’t tell.”

Mike Luckovich

Meanwhile Jasmine Crockett didn’t waste her allotted five minutes asking questions that PP would just respond to with lies, insults, grandstanding, and juvenile histrionics. Crockett laid out PP and the DOJ’s failures and facts to the room and the public watching at home. She talked about PP in the third person as though Bondi wasn’t there.

Crockett closed with the perfect read on Bondi: 

“The fact of the matter is you will be remembered as one of the worst attorney generals in history, an attorney general who has prioritized obstruction of justice, corruption over the law, fealty to the president over loyalty to the constitution.”

The fact that the survivors have to fight the President and his administration JUST to get the  recognition that pedophilia is vile, depraved, disgusting, cruel, flat-out wrong, AND illegal says it all. The Republican Party is full of pedophiles and racists.

The Humanity Deficit

Re: the Trump/Epstein files and the horrors within – the words of a few authors come to mind.

William Gibson in Count Zero

And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.

F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Rich Boy 

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. 

Captain Underpants (Trump friend, former law professor, and disgraced human, Alan Dershowitz) called Epstein’s young victims liars, prostitutes, sluts, and druggies. Imagine that. A hit dog’s gonna holler, eh? He did everything except shout out, big and bold,  “I was one of Epstein’s most frequent and loyal customers. I’ve raped countless young teenagers.”

Guffo

He announced that the victims (THE VICTIMS, FFS!!!) could be charged with crimes (like what, you sad, moldy green bean?) AND he's threatening to sue them. That’s obviously not gonna happen because then there’d be discovery and all sorts of nasty things would come crawling out that Alan would really rather leave buried in the dark.

This is an intimidation tactic. We’ve seen it a zillion times before. Remember when the First Hooker was gonna sue Hunter Biden for more than a billion for restating the fact that Epstein introduced her and Pedo? Funny how that suit just vanished, huh? Remember when Pedo dropped his $500 mill lawsuit against his former fixer, Michael Cohen? The discovery process is some scary shit when you’ve got as many ghosts and dead bodies that need to stay buried as they do. Trump’s still trying to fuck that I’m-gonna-sue chicken but the whole world knows the game now. 

So then…Pedowitz? He can fuck ALL the way off. He can go back to whining about not being invited to parties on the Vineyard and being banned by a pierogi vendor at a farmers market in West Tisbury. Of course he threatened to sue. What a pathetic clown.

Drew Sheneman

Back to these billionaire, entitled freaks, John Scalzi (who is NOT a billionaire, entitled freak) asks,

Is one required to become a pedophile when one becomes a billionaire because I gotta tell you right about now the correlation seems pretty high.

There is in fact a relationship between wealth and shit behavior. Berkeley psychologists Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner ran seven studies looking at whether wealth and prestige effect empathy. 

Piff and his colleagues suspect that the answer may have something to do with how wealth and abundance give us a sense of freedom and independence from others. The less we have to rely on others, the less we may care about their feelings. This leads us towards being more self-focused. 

…Piff and his colleagues found that wealthier people are more likely to agree with statements that greed is justified, beneficial, and morally defensible. These attitudes ended up predicting participants’ likelihood of engaging in unethical behavior. (source) 

Bas Van Der Schot

You're shocked. Yeah, me too.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people He gives it to.
~ Maurice Baring 

You can't be obscenely, filthy rich without being filthy and obscene. The Trump/Epstein files prove that. Having said all this, I’m with Dottie, I’d quite like to give being a millionaire a go. Ya know, maybe I could just test drive it around the block. A single mill would be fine – I'm not greedy.

I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it.
~ Dorothy Parker