Mindless Games and Mindful Games - This Coast and Beyond

    I went to Atlantic City last weekend. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I had never been there before; I was happy to see what some of the talk was about. It is a bit of Vegas, a bit of Long Beach, or Orange County. The boardwalk was fun and had easy access to a lot of beaches. 

    We had good food, we had good conversations. We went into some casinos, and it definitely had a Vegas feel. Gamblers, all the games, some restaurants, and all the people. The people.

    I watched and observed many, many than I expected to see, more crowded than I thought that they would be. I smelled the tobacco, then I saw the smokers. I thought, "multiple vices at the same time." That is me judging. I am judging people in this post. Buckle up, I guess. To use the words of my daughter in her letter in Germany.

    People pushing their money into the slots, the one-armed bandits, not most of them smoking cigarettes. Pull, pull, pull. 

    Mindless. That is what hit me. Mindless gaming.

    Not roulette, nor blackjack, nor poker. Not games where there is much calculating. Right? Is there calculation or thinking in slot machines, or is it truly mindless?

    I do a lot of somewhat mindless things, like watch some endless sports games, or endless news cycles, to include national pundits and local junk and stuff, comedians, certain movies and television shows, some of which have no really great redeeming value, but can be quite mindless. 

    I play chess online, which sounds sophisticated to some, but I know my brain can be stunted and much less than thinking good or right, or well enough to win. Sometimes when I do win, it is more by luck. Not a credit to higher analytic thinking, but just playing by proper principles and getting lucky or having the opponent mess up. But yes, there is some thinking involved.

    My mom liked to play blackjack a lot, and that requires some thinking, calculating, strategy, higher level brain crunching to win. The slots? Is there a formula or pattern to win?

    Pardon my ignorance, but all I see it mindlessness.

    Pull, pull, pull. Money in, some money out, money and monies in.

    How many thousands were doing it that Saturday? How many other places were people around the world doing mindless things? Some is only playing, some is working, some is watching mindless entertainments.

    I stand accused and judge myself guilty, much of the time.

    How do God's creatures spend their time? How do we go about our days and nights?

    How mindful are we? How mindful should we be?

    How many billions pull and pull and let our money go down the slots?

    Most of the planet works and scraps just to put food on the table.

    And then there is the rest of us.

    I want to be mindful for the workers, those that struggle. 

    Can we be more mindful than mindless? 

    I want it to be so.

    

 I Killed Richard Simmons - Bad Timing, Bad Juju

    Or, "how some of my failures amounted to movements in mortality, pushing beyond me." In the summer of 2024.

    The things that I am thinking about are metaphysical at best, or hearsay and nonsense at worst, but perhaps worth contemplating. Perhaps it merits writing about and reflecting on, comparing. Putting a few of my linguistic talents towards these speculations and assessements. Really, this conjecture is more fiction than science, but for my ways of life and thinking, it may all be more than coincidence.

    Maybe.

    Well, first off, my own pet theory, which is probably real:  about some Star Wars personas and narratives, of course. Because, all good or even great analytics or conjecture worth their salt either derives from or relate to Star Wars. Facts. Just saying.

    Something that built up over time in my life went kind of sideways this past month, similar in a couple fashions to some crazy mix ups in a galaxy far, far away, and long ago, had a cross convergence with the greater world and universe, so permit me to explain. 

    But taking pre-eminence, is the cause-and-effect hypothesis that I maintain about the characters of Star Wars.

    Where did Anakin Skywalker come from? According to his mother Schmee (Schmi?), as a baby he was spontaneously inseminated in her womb, i.e., there was no father. Anakin, like a certain persona of the place we call earth, two thousand years ago, was a product of a virgin birth. Okay, so the question becomes not necessarily how, but why?

    I have the why, the reason Anakin was created, or magically pro-created, and why he happened to possess the most meta-chloreans  ever counted in any creature or being, thus making him more potentially powerful than any other Jedi or Dark Lord of all time. It was because of the evil doings of one Darth Plagueis. Plagueis, who I think Disney tried to craft as Snoke in the culminating trilogy featuring Rey and Ben Solo from 2015 to 2019, was the Dark Lord who found or discovered and trained Palpatine, who evolved or devolved in Darth Sideous. Sideous is the Emperor, from the original films dating back to the 1970s, who tempted and then trained Anakin to become Darth Vader.

    Tracking? Plagueis, or possibly his master, did really evil things with life and death and their constituent powers, which was kill and resurrect, kill and resurrect, sentient beings as experiments and playthings, over and over and over. Because he, as a very powerful evil Sith Lord learned how to do it, so he did it and overdid it ad nauseum, and this caused what is referred to a "disturbance in the Force", to such a great extent that something "good" to balance out the Force, had to happen. Hence, we have little baby Anakin born on far off, remote and forgotten, desert planet Tatooine. (Don't get me started on how George Lucas lifted most of his major ideas from Frank Herbert's Dune...)

    So, some evil doings and occurrences, or at least some unfortunate events, predicated another thing. So, perhaps my error-full doings of my past have added up to another thing. Which in this case were negatives leading to the death of a former public icon.

    And this is how Richard Simmons was summoned to the other world, where we hope to catch up with him in the afterlife. It can end well, like in Star Wars, but it can--in our world-- end up being the end of a notable life, by repeated failures by some low-level dude far, farther away. As in, me. C'est moi. 

    Really. 

    I was the one failing a U.S. Army test on June 12, for the second time that week, being tested on memorizing and executing 32 exercises in our military standard drills. I failed it, not really that close. I tried, but I was very lacking in precision and skill. Sadly, I was exposed to many of these exercise drills way back in March (or even before?) of 2007. I did them weekly for most of 2007, and all of 2008, and at least half of 2009. How many times did I do the warmup and cool down drills? Eight to begin and maybe five to end? Or more, even now the math is fuzzy. (July 14, the day after Mr. Simmons died.) I even failed on the forming up of the troops, forgetting the simple command, "Extend to the left, MARCH!" Gigged for that, gigged for goofing up other exercises, other movements where my feet were not together, my shoulder moved as it was not supposed to (even more points subtracted), my torso moved incorrectly as my legs and arms and body were stretched in other positions.

    The mnemonics were hard enough to memorize, in order, and then: I substituted Marines for Rangers and missed that one! No soup for you, soldier!

    This cost me an automatic promotion in rank, and likely the one above it, and got me kicked out of the course, as I had been removed from the similar course six years ago, for other violations. Twice. Twice in six months in 2018, when I was in my late 40s. Now I am in my 50s and I surpassed those former obstacles that tripped me up, regarding height and weight and push-ups, only to slip and trip and fumble this, as I depict it:

    To be a ROBOT RICHARD SIMMONS. 

    I invoked his name, not aware of his status or condition. I did not know he was 76, three years senior to my mom when she left the earth. My travails and challenges in the month of June compelled me to utter the name of the man who symbolized the leading of others in physical exercise, a healthy and positive pursuit. I had passed this portion of the testing six years ago, both times, but the expectation of memorization, and perhaps execution, were significantly higher and harder this time. The bar was raised high, and I came up embarrassingly short. 

    When making notes or complaints at the end, when signing my defeat papers, my relinquishing my hopes of continuing, I was told I could not comment on this changing of the goal posts, a harder expectation of this portion of the class. Okay: not submitted, my superiors and comrades! (Is this Stalinist Russia?) No, just us. The ones I have worked on, for, and with for almost two decades. The ones who helped take over Iraq and Afghanistan quite successfully, but the one who also allowed so many stupid mistakes to occur. We won them and they lost them, not all the Army to blame. But how about learning some more Arabic, Dari, or Pashtun, instead of wrote memory of the work out Robot Richard Simmons routine? Yes, I have some gripes. We win stupid little games and lose the bigger picture. Forest through the trees much, U.S. military? Memorize a little culture of our allies, friends, and enemies instead of some robotic stretch and muscle movements. Yes, I had successfully passed all the physical strength and speed tests. A thing that failed me here six years ago because my push-ups were not "straight enough". I did at least 15 more than I needed to in 2018, but not counted by my grader. I could beat that man. Still. Give me a mat, let him choke me out, please.

    The Lord commands me to forgive. I have forgiven myself a few times, which is hard.

    We have low recruiting, low retention, problems with morale and suicide, and I get failed for these things. Robot Richard Simmons.

    I had to recite and execute 32 stations, plus the opening formation. I biffed it, improving after the first terrible performance on Monday. Wednesday had me packing up my stuff, bidding my best farewells. Been there, done that. Used to it.

    Robot Richard Simmons routine.

    I could not do it; I did not do it. I summoned this exercise guru's name in shame and frsutration. He was the one that I thought of, when I could not meet the standard of the Army and its rudimentary course, and its standardized exercise regime. Developed sometime prior to my time in 2007, I had performed many of these wrote steps longer and perhaps more than most or all of the younger troops in my class. I ended being the only one who could not passed it. I was promptly dismissed after nine days of promising hopes to move on. Finally. But alas, no. No, no, no. It was not to be for me. I did feel grateful for still having my life and other tremendous blessings, but not this. Not this. A course and achievement I should have knocked out as far back as 2013 or 2014. No, no, and no.

    So, the powers of fate and destiny combined, and July 13 it happened, a month and a day after my humiliation or humbling, or fall from hoped-for graces. Others had great hopes for me succeeding, too. My chagrin and disappointment was shared by many, this is not an Army of one.

    My daughter wrecked our car (she and those she struck are okay), the exercise maven passed after a productive and lively life of inspiring and moving millions, to healthier lifestyles and motivations, and then capped off with Matthew Thomas Crooks shooting the former president Donald J. Trump.

    The fates converged, combined, transmogrified; my continuous and persistent failures to reach this modicum of exercise utility within my long-time association and commitment to this august organization and conqueror and devastator of other countries and their forces.

    Did I explain it all. Do you feel it? Do you understand I brought to pass such movements and passings?

    ROBO Richard, Robot Richard Simmons. 

    Go, Army.

    Goodbye, Mr. Simmons.

    We loved you; you made me laugh quite a bit. Especially on David Letterman.

    And then there is me. You gave us some laughs, too. And some tears.

    But we're still alive. I have not tempted the fates of mortality that far.

    July 13, a month and a day after the last derrota. Fall. Loss. Tropiezo. Non-completion, no-go.

    12 of June, when my father turned older... And I left the base as I had before, packing my bags, signing the forms, calculating the next moves with the emptiness of a mission not fulfilled. Dignity bashed but not abandoned. Living to fight another day. Another battle, another war to come.

    Good and evil in their balance, trying the Force for what it is. And what it is not.

 Kendrick Lamar, Tupac Shakur: Analysis of People, their Peoples

    This is the third try for me to write this post, which I attempted to add a quote from Bob Marley about killing our prophets from Redemption Song.

    Did Marley speak for people, a people, his people? I think some would say so. 

    Did Tupac Shakur? I think so. He says at lot in his song "Changes", which states and implores that there are not enough changes, for the better, for his people, the Black community.

    Now we have Kendrick Lamar. He is the spokesperson, the eloquent wordsmith, for his people, and as an artist, not just for African Americans, but certainly for African Americans, but people and youth or others of his generation. 

    These are modern day prophets: we should heed their messages and words, their sermons and visions, their life examples and lessons. Religious, maybe not, directly from God's chosen, possibly so, but their words reverberate and resonate across our consciences and awareness.

    What is the bottom line? Things need to change, transform, improve, so better.

    Word. We thank them for their lives and examples. Their prophetic visions and proclamations. 

    These men left legacies and messages. They have and do. Let us not kill them repeatedly and for naught. Let us change and transform.

Prophets of the People - Technical Difficulties

 

Kendrick Lamar, Tupac Shakur: Prophets of the People

    Bob Marley, perhaps a visionary person and artist in his own right, in the "Redemption Song" says:

    How long must we stone our prophets, while we stand aside and look?

    

        Are our prophets and visionaries are popular artists? 

 

Kendrick Lamar, Tupac Shakur: Prophets of the People

    Bob Marley, perhaps a visionary person and artist in his own right, in the "Redemption Song" says:

    How long must we stone our prophets, while we stand aside and look?

    Actually, that was my version. Here is the real one, I trust:

            How long shall they kill our prophets

            While we stand aside and look? Ooh

            Some say it's just a part of it

            We've got to fulfill the book

 The Army will Kill You: Or it Won't 

    If you ever put on a military uniform, you might feel a few things that others do not. That is normal. Because by donning that uniform, in this case the U.S. Army's, you become part of something that is bigger than you, that has many different meanings; you as an individual have to reconcile who you are and what the uniform is, and your duties as such as a member of this service, and who you belong to and who you are subordinate to, and where that might lead. Where it will lead.

    Where will it lead? Not everyone knows, no one knows. As told to me by an early Army interviewer, who had confidence in his rank and knowledge: you as a soldier will get the right people killed and save the right people from being killed. Bottom line up front. Kind of blunt, true, but more or less accurate. The Army has the intent of killing some people. Saving the rest. That is what a military organization does at the end of the day. Prevents wars, starts war, ends wars.

    People do get hurt and killed in all the interims of military service. But, or however, or nevertheless, we in the United States Army try to mitigate those contingencies. Nice words to say: we will prevent the loss and losses of human life to the best of our ability. We will risk our own lives and that of others to stop the unnecessary loss of lives that should not happen. Check any U.S. conflict or war. That is what we tried to do, every single time. No matter how controversial, like Vietnam for fifteen years from Eisenhower to Ford, or the Second Iraq war from Bush to Obama, or arguably into the Biden years, we have gone to those places to save lives and take a few, too.

    We in the Army belong to our respective units; we attach to other elements and units and commands. We answer to immediate bosses, but there are bosses above them and a whole gamut of private and public personas who become our mentors, coaches, cheerleaders, detractors, haters and lovers. We are owned by them; we own ourselves to a degree, but the uniform and its oaths and duties oblige us to be owned. We are not our own free agents, to come and go as we please. We have autonomies, limited or wider freedoms, much of the time, but we know that ultimately our lives and dispositions our not ours for the giving or taking. We will be at the beck and call of the commander, and to the fates and intentions of the enemy, and at times lucky or cursed fate.

    Accidents happen, beyond our best plans, intentions, and precautionary measures. An economist at UCLA that I studied with said more or less that the Army was really good at one thing, for sure: "getting people killed". Fair enough. My interviewing readiness sergeant would sort of echo those words about purposeful death a few years later, when I joined as an older soldier, having already done a Master's degree in Los Angeles. So much for formal education! What gets us what we want? 

    Education and degrees? Military experience and deployments? Great job movement and productivity as a worker or manager, or investor? Networking and meticulous attention to detail in our respective careers and particular professions? Yes, yes, and yes. The rule of law protects us in all these matters, law enforcement allows us to thrive or at minimum survive as workers in whichever industry or endeavor. Militaries exist to provide those circumstances. Militaries topple enemies of those values and institutions. The United States came to be in order to throw off the shackles of the British monarchy. It had to fight off its former oppressor again in the War of 1812.

    By the early 1800s the U.S. Army and its European-based citizens were used to accomplishing their own types of oppressions and extreme forms of power and control. American Indians succumbed in land and sovereignty for centuries, as the African-Americanized enslaved peoples went under the lash and boot of their white human owners. The U.S. Army fought for the rights of white men and their properties more than any single cohort. And thus it was.

    In the 1840s Texas and the Western North American territories were at stake with the Washington-based government; the U.S. Army and Marines tangles with the Government of Mexico and its forces to create vast holdings of land across to the Pacific. Then the United States truly did become united as a land of continuous states and territories, filling out its continental girth as the other peoples of the New World would eventually do.

    In answer to the slavery issue, a barbaric practice that needed to be remedied, the U.S. Army faced itself from 1861 to 1865. Half a million troops died in order to resolve that conundrum and travesty. Some, or many, argue that the reverberations of those generations of human bonded peoples still are felt into the 21st century. However, the U.S. Army prevailed, the Northern one commanded by D.C. under Lincoln. The Army is about collective liberation, not totalitarian regimes and restrictive human conditions.

    Spain fell next, as did its former colonized peoples in the possessions of the Caribbean and the farther Pacific islands. Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire would be up next for our dough boys and devil dogs, assisted by the Navy, and burgeoning Army air forces. Germany had to be thwarted again a short generation later, throwing in Italians and Romanians in that continent, plus the potent empire of Japan on the other side of the planet. The Army of our great land learned to serve defeat to two huge threats across two separate oceans. 

    And so it was in the Korean peninsula, and southeast Asia, and Grenada in the Caribbean, and Panama and Kuwait, and more recently Iraq, Afghanistan, plus the constant threats of Somalia and elsewhere Insurgents, near peers, terrorists and even illegal drug sellers face our wrath and determination. The U.S. Army commits to topple and subdue enemies of the country and its friends and allies. All these acts and actions require the utmost commitments and dedicated sacrifices of the soldiers that undertake these assignments, missions, operations, and orders.

    Who is next? China? Russia? Iran? Someone else? We fight all enemies, foreign and domestic, even ourselves. Suicide is another worthy or deadly opponent of the U.S. Army. Apathy, neglect, low morale, attrition, abuse of power, poor training or budgets, all sorts of setbacks and challenges defy the great U.S. Army. These are internal issues and problems that soldiers of all ranks and stations deal with, not to count or mention the official enemies that we line up with across time and space. Drones, cyber threats, enemies lurk in every corner and pocket of the imagination, and again ourselves. 

    Our consciences, our own motivating factors and selfish wants, our own standards or thresholds of competencies may threaten our status within the U.S. Army. From Commander-in-chiefs to top generals and political appointees and other authorities, to local commanders and bosses, to our families and our friends. Why submit? Why commit? Why join? Why stay? Why not quit? Why not have your life back from the caprices and fickle mandates of the U.S. Army, big and small? Your freedom, your days and years, late or early hours, or both, demanded on so heavily by the vagaries or exigencies of the uniform, the duty to God and country.

    Who is your God? Whom do you serve, to quote Joshua of the Bible? Is the Army the ultimate arbiter of your greater destiny? No. God is the same, uniform or not. He is in charge. But then again, your master is the U.S. Army. You are owned, sworn soldier in oath and writing. The U.S. Army owns you, you fall under their command and desires. The uniform and enlistment or commission signifies and portends to your ownership, and it belongs to Uncle Sam, the U.S. military and its Army.

    You answer to them. You are owned by them. As long as you put on that uniform, they own you. Are you free? Yes and no. Will they kill you? Yes and no. Will you save others from death? Yes and no. Will the U.S. Army protect and serve? Yes and no. Will the Army kill and/or subdue its enemies? Yes and no. Will the U.S. Army be triumphant? We work in that way so it should be. Will the U.S. Army be defeated? Possibly, someday.

    Will every soldier win? No. Will the greater group survive and obtain victory? Usually yes.

    Again, the Army will kill you. Or it won't.

    Long live the U.S. Army. Or die trying. But what we all recommend: go forth and do great things, and never leave a battle buddy behind. Come home with honor. Be worthy of dignity at all times.

    Alive or dead.

    Oh, yeah. And don't give up. Give in, relinquish power or control when appropriate or necessary, but don't quit. Concede defeat, but never give up hope. Do the right thing. Survive and conquer.

    The Army, with or without all its soldiers, will keep rolling along.

    [To be continued.]

    

 My Mom would be 84 Today

    Happy birthday, Mom! Ahh, she would be pretty far along if she were alive still. But she is not.

    She got sick, or diagnosed, with liver cancer in 2012; she lasted or endured another year plus to pass away March 4, 2014. Her life was longer than many; I am grateful for her presence throughout my life till then, and the graces of her life lived and those left behind associated with her have blessed me since.

    She had us three children, all still living and getting it done in 2024, all having raised our own children, her grandchildren, doing pretty well as the generations begat of her. Her genes still going, some of her traits, social and personal. She did some really cool things in her life, some of the highlights being a volunteer service person in foreign lands. 

    She had her pet peeves and a few habits or what some would call vices, but she made those around her happy and made life better for those that she interacted with.

    Another life lived in the United States, or at times West Africa or Southeast Asia, another mother and wife and sister and daughter and worker and helper. Another church member, neighbor, friend and loved one.

    We miss you still. Your oldest sister just joined your heavenly throng a couple weeks ago, she was 89. Your other sister joined you a few short years ago.

    You are with your parents and other family passed on.

    We will all join you soon enough! Cannot say the time, but this will happen. We will all be together once again, so we celebrate you and remember and cherish your person in my life and others; I run thorough a litany or legacy of thoughts, feelings, memories, sentiments, experiences, places in my family, with her, around her, since her, my own children or nieces and nephews and spouse (and her family and partners) and others not knowing her since then, or me representing her thorough my memories of during the 73 years lived that was a part of. I shared mine, some 43 years. Not bad.

    I think I have been really blessed by such a person, one of my closest supporters and friends.

    Happy birthday, ma.