You Know What It's Like

I was sad to hear that Roberta Flack passed away earlier this week. I've always enjoyed her music. I was just listening to her song "You Know What It's Like" recently. It's such a great song and terribly underrated. RIP, Roberta! And even more celebrity deaths happened this week: Gene Hackman, Angie Stone, David Johansen. I remember when Johansen had a big hit in the 1980s with a song called "Hot Hot Hot" when he was going by the name Buster Poindexter. That song drove me crazy back in the day because it was over-played on the radio. "How you feeling? Hot hot hot!" Oy vey! 

I did my part to not shop or buy anything yesterday for the blackout protest. It kills me that some folks dismissed the one day protest claiming one day of refraining from buying stuff won't make a difference, but what about Black Friday? One day of shopping puts a lot of retailers in the black, but one day of staying home won't make a difference? Whatever. I'm also trying to curb my Amazon shopping habit and I canceled my subscription to the Washington Post (that ends this month anyway). Bezos needs to sell the paper to someone who will run it right. If that happens, I'll consider resubscribing, but as long as Bezos is at the helm, forget about it. I'd like to find another news source to replace WaPo. During the BC times (before Covid), my old boss used to get the Wall Street Journal delivered to the office and I'd read those (when he wasn't there). The paper had interesting articles. It's not something I'd pay to subscribe to because I don't want to help fund the Murdoch media machine, but I enjoyed being able to read the WSJ for free. 

Let's all consider ourselves lucky for surviving yet another week of Donny T and the Funky Bunch and their never-ending bag of bullshit. Every day it's something else. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does! All I can do is try not to lose my mind with this nonsense and focus on the positive things in life. 

A Vacation? Ha!

Someone I used to work with asked me last week if I was taking any vacations this year. I told her probably not! This time last year, I was gearing up to go to Portugal in May. This year, nothing. My family is trying to arrange a reunion in Florida later this year, but I don't know if that's really going to happen and I also don't know if I'll go if it does. I'd like to take a trip, but I just don't see it happening this year. If it does, I certainly won't be leaving the country. When I was in Portugal last year, the British folks in my tour group kept asking me how I felt about Biden and Trump. They were really interested in US politics and the last thing I wanted to talk about on vacation was US politics. I can't even imagine what it would be like for an American overseas this year. Oy vey and no thank you.

Lately, I've been thinking about trips in the US, like to one of the national parks or to Alaska, places I've never been before. But with Donny and Elon's government cuts, will the national parks even have enough personnel to run them? As usual, the people in power making decisions about personnel cuts don't care or don't understand what their employees do to keep things up and running. All they're concerned with is doing more with less people. 

Tomorrow is the Presidents' Day holiday. I sure won't be celebrating our current POTUS, but I'm glad I have the day off from my day job to relax. I can remember Portugal even if I'm not taking any big vacations this year!

Serenity Now!

Serenity now, insanity later! Rarely do I quote Seinfeld, but with the nonsense going on in the US right now, I feel I have to. Trying to maintain serenity now is very hard. As if Donny T's second term as POTUS wasn't bad enough, now we have to deal with Co-POTUS, Elon. Ugh. He's not even qualified to be POTUS since he wasn't even born here, yet he's certainly acting like he has the authority to run the government. Why doesn't he go back to his home country of South Africa and run that government? (They probably don't want him back.) I never thought I'd see the day where a private citizen, and one who's not even from the United States, would be in position to oversee the country's financial systems. How is this not a coup? Why is this being allowed to happen? Our government has really gone into the shitter with a swiftness. It hasn't even been a month since Donny's return, but the country has already descended in chaos. DEI is being blamed for airline crashes, a dude with drinking and anger problems is running the military, a foreigner (who also seems to have some substance abuse issues) is taking over the government's financial systems, some nut job wants to run Health and Human Services, and POTUS is talking about making Canada the 51st state and turning Gaza into a vacation destination. Oh, and eggs are $8+ a dozen around here. Every day, it's more insanity in the United States. Don't blame me. I didn't vote for Donny, but now I'm forced to deal with him and every stupid decision he and his sychophants come up with. Another kick in the crotch. 

I can't figure out what this administration thinks will happen if the majority of our federal employees are gone. Where are these people supposed to work now? It's not like the job market is on fire right now. And what about the economy? If people don't have jobs and aren't making money, they can't buy things like homes and goods and keep the economy going. But no one wants to talk about that. Members of Congress and the Senate just sit on their hands, close their eyes, and let Donny do whatever he wants to do. Useless.

Love Is Free Anthology

JMS Books has published a new anthology called Love Is Free and all proceeds go to the ACLU. I have a short story in the anthology called "Whenever, Wherever, Whatever" and it's a Covid love story about two Chicago guys, Aaron Bailey and Jonathan Phillips who, after meeting on a hookup app, start a relationship. Things are good, at first, but then problems arise: Jonathan is closeted and Aaron isn't, Covid strikes, and family problems loom. Can love save the day? 

The anthology is available for sale now and there's a link in the sidebar to buy a copy. Check it out! I got my comp copy last week and I'm looking forward to reading it and enjoying the stories my fellow authors contributed (in addition to my own work). This book is coming at a great time with a great purpose, so I hope readers support our efforts and help us help the ACLU!

Escape from New York

I took a little trip to New York this holiday weekend and had a great time seeing some friends and seeing some shows. I just made it out before bad weather was moving in yesterday afternoon. When I was getting my checked bag tag at the United terminal yesterday afternoon, the airline had the nerve to ask if I wanted a voucher to take a later flight. Uh, no! Although I enjoyed my weekend trip to NY, I was ready to head home and sleep in my own bed last night. I also worried that I'd end up getting stuck in Newark if the weather really turned out there and I couldn't fly out.

During my brief visit, I went to see Wynton Marsalis for one of his Jazz at Lincoln Center shows titled "Cool School and Hard Bop." The show was excellent and I highly recommend checking out Jazz at Lincoln Center if you're into that kind of music while you're in NY. I also went to see MJ the Musical while I was in town. Excellent also. I love a good jukebox musical and the songs and dancing in MJ did not disappoint. 

I had not visited New York since 2023, so it was nice to get back to the city for a visit this year. I used to go frequently when I had to travel there for work, but those days are over now that we're mostly working from home these days. I miss New York sometimes, but I don't miss the high rent, the speed walking, and the crowds. I don't know how regular people can afford to live there now. I couldn't afford to live there now! I couldn't afford the apartment where I used to live in Brooklyn. It's too expensive for me now. I seriously downgraded my housing costs when I left New York and I'd glad I made the decision to leave back in 2013. It was the right choice at the time and I don't regret it. I had my New York experience and it was great, but I knew I would be leaving eventually. I wasn't in it for the long-haul, that's for sure. 

Happy MLK, Jr. Day! (I'm ignoring the return of Donny T.)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Having the holiday in the middle of the week is odd, but a day off is a day off, right? (I've actually been off from my day job all week, but I'll be back tomorrow, unfortunately.)

While 2024 wasn't a particularly bad year for me because I got to go to Madeira, Portugal in May and had a great time. (See the photo below from my trip.) I also survived another year, healthwise and workwise, so that's always good. I wish I could say I was looking forward to 2025, but with Donny T. in charge in a few short weeks, I'm not optimistic about the year to come. But, I'm blocking that noise for now and trying to enjoy the time now before Donny's regime comes back into power. 

My publisher, JMS Books, has an anthology coming out later this month called Love Is Free. (See the sidebar photo.) All proceeds from the book will be going to the ACLU. I have a short story included called Whenever, Wherever, Whatever. It's a love story during the height of Covid. 

RIP, Jimmy Carter and Nikki Giovanni (who I neglected to mention earlier).

H1-BS

Years ago, I used to do immigration work for a university. I stumbled into the job because I was unemployed and needed work at the time. Doing immigration work was horrible. I don't even list this job on my resume because it was so terrible. Thankfully, I was working another job at the time (teaching community college English, so I had something else to fall back on for employment during this time). I knew nothing about immigration and work visas when I took the job, that was largely administrative, but I learned a lot during my brief time in that position. 

A lot of foreign workers wanted to obtain an H1-B visa from the university where I worked so they could leave their home countries and work in the United States. Many also hoped that their employer would sponsor them for a green card so they could stay in the US permanently. Hopeful applicants submitted financial paperwork to show that they were able to support themselves while they would be in the US because the positions they were applying for at the university were largely low-level lab jobs that didn't pay much. We would later find out that some of the financials the applicants submitted were fake or that family members and friends in their home countries would pool their money and provide it to the applicant via a bank account to show this person had a lot of funds available. Then, after the H1-B was granted and the paperwork was done, those same family members and friends would pull their money out of the account and the applicant would go back to being largely destitute. But many of the applicants were so determined to leave their home countries, even if that meant working for slave wages in the US, that they didn't care and the employer didn't really care either because they were getting cheap labor. The whole thing was awful on all sides. H1-B: the B is for bullshit, folks!

Hearing the current debate on the right with the tech bros advocating for more foreign labor via H1-Bs and the MAGA faithful aruging against this makes me laugh. Yeah, fight amongst yourselves, kids. Are the folks who voted for Donny T. just now realizing that he's sold them a big old bag of bullshit? Tech bros want money and they don't care how they get it. If that means importing H1-B workers from India and China who will work 80 hours a week and get paid for 40 without complaining, then the more the better! If Donny's agenda is so driven by putting America first, then why not put your money and energy where your mouth is and start backing training programs for American workers, college kids, and high school students in IT? Because that makes too much sense.