things not found here

POLITICAL DISCUSSION
It's an election year, which means a lot of armchair pundits are out in force, sharing their "thoughts" (ahem) with the entire world, usually in the form of strident drool-soaked ad hominem attacks on whomever or whatever it is they claim to NOT support.

Look, I respect the right of every human being to have whatever opinion they like, but nowhere is it written that I have to respect the opinion itself, or the opiniator, or the stumbling bumbling manner in which they try to pontificate. If someone wants to support some candidate or cause, then that's great. Power to the people. Rah rah. Tippecanoe and Tyler too.

Whatever.

Just don't act like I have to give a flip that you care.

Oh, and by the way: every time I have ever tried to express my utter disinterest in the blathering bloviation of many political windbags, I come back to find someone somewhere has decided that I must surely have been speaking specifically about THEM. Trust me: if you are reading this, then you have no idea who annoyed me to the point of feeling a need to repeat this little mini-rant. I have a LOT of friends who post and comment on politics from pretty much every conceivable point on the political compass, and seldom ever do I get bothered by what they post (as I tend to ignore most of it anyway!).

In other words, "this rant was not sparked by you." This morning, while surfing pointlessly around the web, I was taken aback by a total stranger, spewing opinions (more like "hate speech") which I was staggered to see anyone admit to, much less take pride in.

This was not stuff from anyone I know or have ever seen before (or hope to see again). In fact, I normally would never have seen when I foolishly followed a link from a link from a link from a link and apparently wound up in the online town of East Dipshit, Putzylvania. We're talking Grade-A mental snot blown onto a screen by some paste-eating gaboon who likely has to have grown-ups operate the toilet for him, opinions so idiotic and nonsensical that you wonder if perhaps this person is not engaged in some sort of Dada-esque text art project where they paste together random snippets of other sentences cribbed from other people, resulting in an alpha-numeric stew which has the appearance of language but none of that pesky context, relevance, or meaning.

When you try and have a political discussion online, this last class of ass-hat is as often as not the kind of moron who steers the debate (and then often into a ditch or cesspool).

So I don't "do" politics online. It's just not fun or interesting for me.

OVERLY SPECIFIC REFERENCES TO MY WIFE AND KIDS
I love my kids, but that doesn't mean I need to post pics of them here so that any assholes who feel like it can use those pics to paunch hateful attacks on me.

That's not far-fetched. Twice before I was shocked when friends of mine had posts made online or emails sent to discussion groups wherein old innocuous family fun photos had been copied, morphed and then used as vulgar jokes/attacks against them in response to some heated discussion (see above). One time I saw friend get a heartbreakingly evil comment attached to a downloaded copy of a picture of his own mentally challenged young 4-year old in a wheelchair, and I was made suddenly mindful of the fact that there are a lot of truly worthless mean-spirited gutless hate-filled people in the world, and there's no good reason for me to potentially give them a means to cause heartache to me or my family.

So while I will sometimes talk about my kids, I try as much as possible to not flaunt their names or images hereabouts. Those who have actual *need* for such info usually get it without any difficulty, but the rest of you... well, you might be nice people, but just as I do not leave my house open during the day when I am away or leave my wallet and personal documents on the room of my car when I park at the airport, neither do I offer my kids for your amusement. No offense, but I just don't know or trust you that much.

SCREENWRITING ADVICE
Clearly, if I knew enough to be in any position to have advice worth giving, I'd then be far too busy to waste time in handing out free advice to slobbering morons like you.

Also, there are already far too many places where you could just as easily go to find whatever advice you think you need. Ultimately, advice is seldom the secret. In my opinion, screenwriting is one of those things you pretty much have to figure out for yourself. Yeah, you can find a few nuggets here and there, and sometimes in discussions with people you can come to discover and understand something new or useful, but if the game were so simple that you could show up, read a blogpost, and then march off to BE A SCREENWRITER, then obviously there'd be no need for screenwriting sites and books and courses and seminars and systems: you'd just learn the five steps and then DO it, like tying your shoes or falling off a log.

I sometimes think I have some idea of what works for me and how and why that might be the case, but I do not think I know enough to lecture loudly or with intent to edumicate, so don;t come snuffling around here hoping to catch scent of The One Great Secret. I don't think it exists, and I'm pretty damned sure that if it does then I ain't got it.

RECIPES
Not that I can't cook -- I just don't like you enough to share.

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Now... among those things you WILL find here are:

• mounds of long-winded self-absorbed tales of trivial events played up as epic quests

• rambling stream of semi-consciousness where I use too many words to say too much about something too few care too little about

• pointless and random updates on my own screenwriting projects, offered not because I think anyone cares or that I feel any need to brag, but more so I can take stock of what I am doing (or am supposed to be doing...) and maybe then stay a little better "on-point."

• scads and scads of childish puns and potty humor gussied up so as to have the slightest stink of urbane wit and charm

• misspelled words out the ass (as this is a free site and I see no reason to waste much time in perfecting content which only ten or fifteen people will ever see and which none will ever recollect or remember.

And that's where we stand.
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