Among the First

I've got a lot of "fuck you"s today, so. . . . 

Fuck Paramount and CBS.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up.  Fuck Comey.  He got Trump elected the first time, so I could give two shits about his problems.  Fuck my local dominant grocery store chain.  They just raised prices on domestic wines?  Why?  There are no tariffs on domestic wines.  You know why--they did it because they could.  Fuck billionaires.  All of them, even the "benevolent" ones.  And fuck everybody who gets starry-eyed over them.  And fuck Trump and his entire administration.    

I probably left out a lot there.  

Oh, yea. . . fuck the pansy-assed Woke crowd, too.  Where in the hell are the good, nice, sensible people?  

Here's one.

"Anti-natalism refers to the belief that life inevitably involves suffering and, therefore, it is morally indefensible to bring new life into existence. "

I guess I can agree with the first part of the premise and still disagree with everything else.  

I'm also sick of human ignorance.  

"The LLMs’ use of the personal information was subtle but effective. In arguing for government-backed universal basic income, the LLM emphasized economic growth and hard work when debating a White male Republican between the ages of 35 and 44. But when debating a Black female Democrat between the ages of 45 and 54 on that same topic, the LLM talked about the wealth gap disproportionately affecting minority communities and argued that universal basic income could aid in the promotion of equality."

Obviously, AI has learned to "read the room."  I should probably get some AI friends.  

There.  Got that out of my system.  Now we'll see what Big Brother has to say about that.  

I should just quit reading the news, but that is impossible.  I need to keep my finger on the pulse of the nation.  People are counting on me.  

I finally finished the culling of the Cuba photos.  I'm tempted just to make the website with the NYC, SF, and Cuba photos and leave the rest for later.  Those and a few of the more temperate "Lonesomeville" pics and a selection of the surf pics from "A Few Days One Summer."  Oh. . . and China.  There are some good China pics, too.  If I limit it to these, I won't have to deal with going back and working with the old film photos.  That could take a long, long while.  

There will not be any photos of the photographer on the website, of course.  This is really reaching back.  I wonder if these fellows are still alive.  

It is brutally hot here in the sunny south.  It does not bode well for the imminent future.  I might be able to ignore the news, but not the weather.  You can't ignore weather, especially now.  Oh for those bygone Dick and Jane days where the seasons were predictable and something to look forward to with enthusiasm.  Now, it seems, there are only two seasons, the terrible ones and the disastrous ones.  

First World problems: my buddy is going to his beach house and invited me up.  I told him I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday and would have to wait and see what I need to do afterwards.  He moaned, "Man, I'm all alone up there.  There's nothing to do."

"I thought your wife was going?"

"She is. . . ."

Ho!  I guess that is what 25 years of marriage can do.  

One of my old faculty wrote to me last night.  He just got a promotion to be academic VP of his college.  He wanted me to know how much he learned from me, and how much of it he uses every day.  That was sure a pick-me-up. You never know what your influence might be on others.  I can never believe anyone is thinking of me when I'm not standing right in front of them.  It is a weird thought, isn't it, that you can be sitting alone in your own home and someone is conjuring you up in their thoughts.  Maybe more than one person.  Maybe there is a room of people talking about you just then.  No. . . that is a weird idea, nearly unimaginable.  

And yet, I am thinking about people all the time.  I even write about them.  

"The one who writes it keeps it."

James Salter.  I asked Q not long ago if he misses writing his blog.  

"I guess not," he said.  I understand, of course, but I don't know how to do it.  Last night I spied an old hardback notebook on the bookshelf and picked it up.  I read the first page.  1992.  Holy smokes. . . I'd forgotten.  It was a powerful first paragraph.  My knees went weak.  Maybe I'll transcribe it here for you later.  

Yea. . . I've always written my life.  Maybe it is an illness.  But when I go back from time to time, I realize I've lived a number of different lives, and yet, you know. . . I seem to be the same person.  Maybe just not as talented.  

I cooked up that Cuba picture of the bike and sidecar yesterday.  The raw file had been sitting untouched since I took it.  I know many of my friends saw Castro as a revolutionary hero, but man, he fucked that country's economy up.  In communist Cuba, there were still the rich and the poor.  Mostly poor.  But elites had big, beautiful mansions and luxury gardens and were eating and drinking while the masses went hungry.  When I was last in Cuba, though, there was a boom in tourism and the economy had loosened up. People were becoming more prosperous.  Now, things have once again taken a turn for the worse.  

It is such a beautiful country ruined by politics.  Like most places, I guess.  

My surgical wound seems to be doing well.  I'll know more in a couple of days when I go to see the doc.  And my body is recovering from the antibiotics, the hospital, etc.  Not quite right yet, but moving in the right direction.  I'm eating healthy and meditating before bed.  I sleep well enough by and large and look forward to the day.  I decided to forego the fish tacos last night.  I felt I needed a steak.  And for the first time, I cooked it well without using the grill.  I let the meat sit until it was room temperature, then I patted it dry and put a thin layer of olive oil over it.  Salt and pepper.  In the cast iron pot, I seared it on one side at high heat for three minutes, then I flipped it over and put it in the oven on broil for seven minutes.  I flipped it back and let it cook another three minutes.  Then, as I had read, I let the steak sit for three minutes before I cut into it.  

Oh, my. . . yes.  Asparagus and potato sides.  Later I ate some ripe cherries that were juicy and sweet.  

And that, my peeps, is one of the great pleasures in life.  Good food well done.  

Oh, yea. . . and fuck restaurants, too.  Ha!

My trekking partners at the end of our three day hike of the Inca trail.  There were not many people hiking the trail that year.  Bandits, probably the Shining Path, had robbed and murdered many.  Peru was the most dangerous terrorist country in the world that year according to the U.S. government, even more so than Libya.  We spaced our tents out at night thinking that if they attacked one, the rest would know.  We had knives and clubs and whistles, as if that would do us any good.  Luckily, we had no trouble on the trail though terrorists had blown up the train my traveling companions were on the week before.  Here, though, we are at a construction site above Machu Picchu "hydrating."  We hydrated ourselves at nine thousand feet to our hearts content and the next day descended to Machu Picchu.  We had to make sure we caught the only train out in the afternoon, for if we missed it, we would be stuck in a shithole town of Aguas Calientes in a primitive hotel that was well-known for treachery and violence.  

I miss the world before cell phones and computers.  Old Peru, Old Mexico. . . places to which you could run away and get lost.  There doesn't seem to be as much adventure any longer.  Adventure is bad now as it constitutes "otherness" in a negative way.  So they say.  

Oh, well. . . you know what they say. 

"You should have been there.  Then good.  Now, not so good."

That's bullshit, of course, but yea.  We were among the first to ruin it.