Movies I've Never Seen finally returns with EVENT HORIZON!

Almost exactly ten years ago I launched a new series on The Knight Shift: Movies I've Never Seen.  It's just what it suggests.  I would watch a movie that until now I've not beheld before and write about it.  It would be an attempt to fill in the many gaps that exist in my personal motion picture database.  It would be contributing to the cultural dialogue.  And it would be a lot of fun.

Well, that new series until now has had one... and only one... entry: my viewing of The Big Lebowski.  And then like with so many other things at the time the wind was just lacking in my sails.  It was a few months after Dad passed and I was still reeling from that.  I was also trying to maintain some income as a freelance technical writer.  And failing miserably at writing my book (which was only completed in the past two and a half months).  Writing about movies that until now had escaped notice enough to finally view them was something I very much wanted to make a regular feature out of.

Maybe things have gotten better enough that I can commit some time toward that.  It's rare that I find myself enjoying a new movie anymore.  Perhaps doing this will be a good thing for me in other ways.

So in rededication of Movies I've Never Seen, here is the the second film in the series.  A motion picture that I have heard various things about over the past few decades...

Event Horizon (1997)

Fifty years into the future, the rescue ship Lewis and Clark is dispatched from Earth to investigate the sudden reappearance of the Event Horizon.  The massive starship vanished seven years earlier after embarking on humanity's first attempt to venture out beyond the confines of the solar system.  Now it has been discovered, in orbit around the planet Neptune.

Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) and his crew have escorted Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill) - the engineer who created the Event Horizon - to the wayward vessel.  They are tasked with finding out what happened to the ship and its personnel.  Weir explains to his colleagues that the Event Horizon was an experimental ship designed around a gravity drive that would fold spacetime between two distant points: where a normal spacecraft would take tens of thousands of years to reach neighboring Proxima Centauri, the same voyage with such an engine would be able to be accomplished in a matter of days.

But things went wrong on the Event Horizon.  The people who made it envisioned the starting point and the end point but unfortunately they didn't seem to consider what was between the two.  Where the craft was going to be traveling through.  And that's where the ship went to and is now back from and as the crew of the Lewis and Clark come to discover, the Event Horizon didn't return alone.

This movie is all over the place.  I can understand why it has become a cult classic, for the most part.  But it's too disjointed for me to really say that I love it.  I like the general premise of Event Horizon the film: that a spacecraft has gone to nowhere less than Hell itself.  But there was a lot missing in the execution that keeps it from being a true horror classic on par with The Thing and Alien.  I did like the performances by Fishburne (before his iconic role in The Matrix and there is a little bit of Morpheus peaking out from his portrayal of Captain Miller) and Neill, still on a crest following Jurassic Park.  The film also stars Sean Pertwee, who has become an actor I appreciate.

The real star of Event Horizon however is the titular spaceship.  It evokes some reminiscing about the U.S.S. Cygnus, the gigantic vessel from 1979's The Black Hole. Each of these ships is in a subgenre all its own: the "haunted house in outer space".  When done right it could be amazing.  Unfortunately I can't think of any examples where any film has stuck the landing on that particular milieu.  But design-wise the Event Horizon is certainly imposing enough of a superstructure to darken the thoughts of any who would dare trespass aboard her deck plates.

Now a few hours after having watched it, I find myself thinking that Event Horizon is a high-concept film that misses the mark.  I won't say that I can't recommend it however.  It's worth catching at least once, and who knows: it may interest others enough that they would want it in their own personal library of movies (please Lord let physical media last a long loooong time still, I am not ready to have everything streamed from a remote server).  Director Paul S.W. Anderson swung for the fences with this movie, and it shows.  And that's also admirable.  This plot and execution needs a bit more finesse though.  Maybe in another few years the time will be ripe for a remake, because it's certainly a notion worth visiting anew.

I believe that every film should be judged by the standards of the time it was released in, as much as anything else.  As it is, 1997's Event Horizon is a model example of Nineties sci-fi filmmaking, and there is some respect to be had in that.  So for anyone who considers himself or herself a scholar of that era, I will heartily suggest Event Horizon as something to complement your broader knowledge of that decade's culture.

One last thing: I had heard, several times in fact, that Event Horizon could serve as a distant-era prequel to the Warhammer 40,000 franchise.  Having finally seen this movie, I can say that I absolutely understand why!  Maybe Anderson needs to be extended an invitation to direct something from the upcoming Warhammer 40K projects in production at Amazon.  If that happens, I definitely believe he could nail it.

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How Elon Musk and DOGE did it (and are still doing it)

The past three weeks in American life have been extraordinary, to put it mildly.  There hasn't been this much history made in my lifetime since the collapse of communism.  In some ways there are parallels between the two.  The Soviet Union fell because of Gorbachev's reforms in the face of that country's unsustainable bureaucracy.  And what some are calling American Revolution 2.0 is now transpiring as a consequence of even worse bureaucracy in the United States at last being made accountable to its people.

What President Donald Trump and his administration, and especially Elon Musk and his crack team of boffins at DOGE, are accomplishing just might be the second most dramatic "kicking over the tables at the temple" ever recorded.  There will be volumes written in years and decades to come about the winter of 2025 and the shaking up of the American government that has transpired in less than a month.  It's been a beautiful thing to behold... and I am of the mind that it's going to get even better.

A writer calling himself Eko over on Substack has published an intense account of what transpired in the wee hours of the Trump years just less than 21 days ago.  "Override" reads like a William Gibson cyberpunk novel as envisioned by Ron Paul.  Eko's write-up begins thusly:

The clock struck 2 AM on Jan 21, 2025.  

In Treasury's basement, fluorescent lights hummed above four young coders. Their screens cast blue light across government-issue desks, illuminating energy drink cans and agency badges. As their algorithms crawled through decades of payment data, one number kept growing: $17 billion in redundant programs. And counting.

"We're in," Akash Bobba messaged the team. "All of it."

Edward Coristine's code had already mapped three subsystems. Luke Farritor's algorithms were tracing payment flows across agencies. Ethan Shaotran's analysis revealed patterns that career officials didn't even know existed. By dawn, they would understand more about Treasury's operations than people who had worked there for decades. 

 

This wasn't a hack. This wasn't a breach. This was authorized disruption.

It's a helluva read, well worth recommending to anyone with even a passing interest in information technology or constitutional government. 

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I started a new career today!

Over the two decades of this blog's existence there have been times when I've landed a new job.  Sometimes, like the TV master control operator and the vocational instructor and the mental health peer support specialist, I've shared about here.  Guess I couldn't resist holding back on the good news.  Other jobs (like the part-time one I had recently that... nah, nevermind) were quietly not mentioned.  That part-time job was mostly supplemental to being an artificial intelligence trainer: something I really enjoyed doing but the work had petered out more or less.

So for the past several months I've been hanging on by my fingernails.

But today, there is cause for rejoicing.  There has been a change in fortune.  God is being very good to me lately and I need to share that thankfulness.  Today I started training for something that I think is going to be a real career.

What is it?  I am now a behavior professional at a place that works with autistic young people.  I'm going to be guiding them toward how to better communicate with others.

It's going to be a very challenging position.  But also very rewarding, personally and otherwise.  I'm going to get to use my training and experiences as a mental health professional, along with what I've gained along the way as a teacher, especially my training in college.  It's the most technological job I'll have ever had.  Among other things today at orientation they issued us each a new iPad.  They're on lanyards to wear around our necks!  I look like I'm wearing official Apple bling.  But that iPad is going to see some heavy use, maybe even more than my personal iPad Pro.

I can't fully describe how wog-boggled I am by this.  In a good way.

I may make a post every so often about it.  I can't talk about much, given various regulations like HIPAA compliance.  But a general sense of where I am and how far I'm going (hopefully far) will be befitting this blog's mission of chronicling the human condition, just as it has for the past more twenty-one years.

I'm so excited!!  Things are really turning around.  And I'll be able to continue writing too.  Maybe at odder hours but that's okay.  I don't think this job is going to be as draining as the past few I've had since leaving the mental health department over two years ago.  Some of those nearly killed me.

This new job is going to be different.  It's going to lift me up.  It's going to be the kind of challenge that makes me a better person.  And I am very thankful for that.

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Book status for early February 2025

It's been over a month and a half or so since I've posted an update about the manuscript I spent a decade of on and off work on, that I finished writing a few days before Thanksgiving.  As with a lot of other things in my life since I began this blog, some chronicling is in order.  Because this site is all about documenting the human condition and also for sake of anyone who might come across it and find themselves likewise wanting to write a book.

I guess the biggest thing (pun intended, maybe) is that it's occurred to me that I have not written a memoir, but a full-size autobiography.  Or perhaps it's two or three memoirs bound up cohesively with one another.  A memoir is supposed to be a personal reflection about just a few or even only one situation in a person's life.  That is not what my book is and I don't honestly know if what it became could have really been avoided.  My life today is the product of fifty years of many bad things as well as quite a few good things, and that is a tapestry from which removing even a few threads diminishes and even destroys the work entire.  I could have written an entire book about the swindling operation episode, or made it about pop culture as seen through the eyes of someone who was at the cutting edge of fan-driven Internet activity, or a how-to manual about running for public office.  My life has enveloped all of those things and so many more.

This may make pitching the book to a potential agent considerably more difficult.  Autobiographies by people who aren't established celebrities can be a tough thing to sell, no matter how colorful their lives may have been.

Then there is the lingering issue with the inherent nature of the book.  I may have written something that per the marketplace is nigh on unpublishable.  It's too Christian for strictly secular audiences and it's too secular for more spiritual readers.  One example: there is a point later in the book where I drive to a cemetery to conduct a ritual at the stroke of midnight.  What sensible Christians are going to approve of my doing such a thing as that?  And it may rub others the wrong way, also.

Other than those matters, I've been editing and revising and shifting elements around.  I've also been letting a few trusted friends read parts of it.  Recently I shared the prelude, which is an account of my first attempt at suicide.  Many told me that it was especially powerful and that it drew them in to wanting to read more.  I guess it's nice that something good came out of that experience after all.  I just don't ever want to be in that kind of place again.

I'm not giving up on my dream of seeing this on a store's shelf.  Dad believed in me and so have a lot of other people who have asked for a book about my life all these many years.  But I'm also having to accept the reality that this is going to perhaps be more difficult to bring to market than most other books are.  And I'm discovering that it is a hard thing indeed.

Perhaps next time I'll be able to post something more upbeat.

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Here is a new photo of Tammy!

Today was a very good day.  God answered prayer and provided for my needs in a mighty and powerful way.  I am going to bed tonight thankful for His provision and for the people He used to accomplish it with.

And since it's been awhile since I've posted a pic of her, here is my miniature dachshund Tammy making a German spectacle of herself.  How shameless!

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For anyone in a relationship...

Writing my book compelled me to examine a lot of situations that have come about in my life.  Especially where other people are involved.  I've forced myself to take a long and hard and on occasion very difficult look at how I've related to them.  And that includes all the times... all of them... when I have wound up hurting others.

I had a feeling from the start of writing this over ten years ago that my book would in many ways be an act of penance.  That feeling was not unwarranted.  In the end, the manuscript I finished two months ago is replete with the longing for atonement.  I have sinned against God and I have brought about grief to so many people.  And I had I been a wiser person, maybe some or even all of that could be avoided.

It would be easy to say that the bipolar disorder was the cause of it all.  Yet that's not entirely accurate.  Yes, being a manic depressive has complicated relations with other people.  It has wrecked havoc with my thoughts and my emotions and brought me down so many times.  It turned me into someone who was the furthest thing from the person I really am.  But in the final analysis, it was my own weaknesses that brought about ruin.

I see now where my greatest failing was to communicate.

I've only been in two relationships during my lifetime.  One of them resulted in marriage that ended in divorce, the other was a dating relationship that lasted a few years before it also ended.  Each of them could have benefitted greatly if I had not been so withdrawn in sharing my thoughts and feelings and desires and fears.  I thought that I was strong enough to not have to do those to the utmost.  And that was was a great mistake.

I don't know if God will ever let me be in another relationship.  It would make me very happy if He does.  It would have to be someone very special.  I know the kind of woman who I am looking for.  I haven't found her yet.  If she exists and somehow our paths were to cross and we end up in a place where we find that God is leading us into holy matrimony, then I want to be completely open with her.  I need for each of us to do that with one another.  Including sharing our weaknesses, as hard as that might be to do.  I didn't do that before.  Maybe if I had realized that a long time ago it would have prevented a lot of anguish and heartbreak.

I should not have tried to do it alone.  A relationship is two people, come together, out of mutual love and respect.  In the Judeo-Christian tradition this is taken to mean that a love culminates with a man and woman become as one in the eyes of God.  That means the totality of each person, given to God and to one another, lumps and all.

Maybe it took going through decades of pain to come to a point where I could realize that.

If you love someone and are committed to that person, respect them and trust them enough that you can be open with them.  About anything and everything.  Especially about your weaknesses.  I believe that your beloved will understand.  And that he or she will fully accept you.  Being in love means you have each other's back, no matter how ugly or broken things may seem.  But you can't get through that without complete and utter honesty with one another.

That's just something I'm feeling led to share tonight, while looking over a particularly grueling chapter of my book.

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BEING BIPOLAR, Part Thirteen: A New Project

Being Bipolar is a series that began in the winter of 2011.  Every now and then I post a new article, as an ongoing attempt to chronicle what it is to have a mental illness.  In my case it is bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression.  Perhaps in doing so others might gain greater insight and understanding of what it means for millions of people who likewise must deal with severe mental and emotional disorders.  As always during this series I strive to be as honest and forthright as one possibly can possibly be.  I am not a psychiatrist.  However I do come from a background of being a state-certified peer support specialist for four years.  And it is especially in that capacity as having been a mental health professional that I endeavor to document mental illness.  If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, especially if you are having thoughts of self-harm or harm to others, please consider calling 911, or go to your nearest hospital emergency room.  Trust me, I've been there, done that.  You may also find help and encouragement from a support group, such as those sponsored by mental health advocacy organizations like National Alliance on Mental Illness (nami.org).  Help is available.  You only need reach out for it.  People care about you.  Remember that.

Throughout the course of Being Bipolar, going back fourteen years now on-and-off, I have written extensively about the disease and its consequences.  Those being the episodes, the medications, the affects on my faith, how it's altered my outlook on life... lots of things.

It struck me in the past few days that maybe it's time for another edition of Being Bipolar.  And perhaps it's time to change things up a bit.

I've been defined by this disease for too long.  I've let it touch upon aspects of my life that should have by all rights been mine, not a chronic misfire of my neurobiology.  Unfortunately that's what I've allowed to happen.

And I'm finally sick and tired of it.

I'm fifty years old, going on fifty-one.  For fully half of my life I've had to struggle against a mind turned against itself.  Something that has cost me careers, friendships, a vibrant relationship with God, and even a marriage.

It's time I take back my life and everything pertaining to it.  I'm in a place where I believe I'm finally able to do that.

In a week and a half I begin a new career.  One that will let me help other people, much as I did when I was at the state mental health department.  It will require intensive training.  It will also require much patience.  It will certainly require a focused mind and an empathy for others.  It will call upon skills and experiences that I have gained at various times throughout the course of my life but have not had to employ for quite awhile.  But it will be personally rewarding.  It will have me feeling accomplished every day when I leave, and eager to come back the next morning.  It will also, I have to believe, be a little fun.

This job comes after more than two years of a career drought.  I had to depart from my position at the mental health department because the economy turned bad and I wasn't able to afford living on it.  Exiting that was one of the worst things that ever happened to me.  I had to leave behind many good people.  People who I worked with and the people I was helping on a regular basis.  I became part of their lives and they became part of mine.  I miss them.

I've been without reliable income all this time.  And I have had to rely on help from others to get me through.  It's not an enviable situation, but it was having to accept reality.  Maybe God has needed me to go through this.  Perhaps it's His way of making me more thankful for the blessings He has given me.  Perhaps it's making me hungrier, to be the person He made me to be as I've never been before.

I am ready for the new career.  And now maybe I'm ready for other things, too.  The things that have mattered for most of my life.

Throughout this time without a real career, I have had to put my writing on hold.  I've been too busy trying to stay afloat, keeping my head up in spite of the financial difficulties.  It's not just for my own sake: there is also my dog Tammy, who I promised my father as he was dying that I would take care of her.  I can't let him down.

I've lost my writing.  Something that my freshman English teacher in high school told me was my gift.  That's something I've tried to exercise and cultivate ever since.  When I was seventeen I began writing for publication.  I thrived on that.  It led to some really amazing opportunities, like working at a couple of newspapers (okay, one of them turned out to be a swindling operation, but that was not my fault) and being an associate editor of a major pop culture website.  I've maintained a blog for more than two decades.

The past two years caused me to lose my touch.  I know it.  I can recognize it.  It's one of the worst things that's ever happened to me.  And in great part it's not only because of struggling for better employment, it's because of the bipolar disorder and especially the meds I take to manage it.

The meds take a lot out of me.  They take my edge off.  Have stricken me of much of my passion.  I'm not the Chris Knight who I used to be.  I can't write as I once did.  And a few weeks ago it struck me that if I were to engage in community theatre again, I couldn't be as good an actor as I had been when I was living back in North Carolina.

I've become someone different from the person I once was.

But I believe that I can find it again.  And that's what this installment of Being Bipolar is about.

Two months ago I finished writing my first book.  It's a memoir.  Actually, it's more like two or three mushed together into a cohesive autobiography.  Every phase of my life - childhood, the Christian school and then transition to public education, the Elon years, the onset of manic depression, my marriage, coming to terms, the year spent driving across America, the "chrysalis" stage - is included.  The book is something that I've spent ten years of on and off laboring upon, and now it's done.  I was able to commit three months of solid work, when I wasn't eating or sleeping or a part-time job or playing with Tammy, on the manuscript.  It was very difficult.  It demanded a lot of me.  But in the end it was done.  I'm hoping to eventually see it published.  If it can make it to a real brick-and-mortar bookstore's shelf then that will be a supreme accomplishment.

Doing that showed me that maybe I haven't lost all of my touch after all.

Earlier this month (January 2025) I began an endeavor.  That being to write a new op-ed piece every week for the rest of the year.  Hopefully for publication elsewhere but if not when I'll post the essays here on The Knight Shift.  It's already been a challenge.  I have come to spend my Saturday and Sunday evenings (helpful hint to self: a lot of work can be done while Svengoolie on MeTV is on every Saturday night) thinking about new pieces and composing the with my iPad Pro.  As of this writing I've had two pieces published.  And it's sparked my inner fire again.  Like Rocky Balboa I'm re-discovering "the eye of the tiger", the part of me that enjoys taking part in the arena of ideas in this world.  That's been gone too long.  And now I'm doing something about it.

So committing to write op-ed commentary articles is going to be one part of a greater project.  I'm going to strive to bring the original Chris Knight back, absent the occasional depression and racing thoughts.  In writing, and also in other ways.  Who knows, maybe I'll be back on stage again sometime in the future, collaborating with others on a theatrical production.  If that desire is there, then I have to believe the drive and the ability and the raw passion is there too, waiting to be uncovered.

It may take awhile.  But it will be worth it.  At fifty I don't believe that I'm done with life yet.  Not by a long shot.  Manic depression has taken a lot from me, but there is still plenty of time to make the most of my life.  Hey, maybe I'll even be blessed with a relationship again someday.  I would be very thankful for that.

In the meantime though, there is zest for life and the hunger to make an impact on this world for the better to find again and cultivate.  I aim to play that particular sword to the hilt.

Expect the unexpected from here on out.  That is my mission.

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Nobody is trying to take citizenship away from Native Americans

"Trump wants to deprive Native Americans of their citizenship!"

That's what I've heard from a number of people since yesterday, so I looked into it.

Yes, it's true: per the strictest interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment at that time, indigenous Americas were not counted as citizens of the United States.  They were instead citizens of their respective tribal reservations.

So the attorneys et al on Trump's side are literally correct.  Up to the time that the Fourteenth was adopted, at least.

But the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 clarified that Native Americans who were tribal citizens were also American citizens, to be counted and taxed as much as any other citizen.

I doubt that anyone in this administration has even a passive thought to deprive any legal citizen in the United States of their citizenship.  Congress has already stated through legislation that indigenous Americans are fully American citizens.

President Trump just gave federal recognition to the Lumbee tribe.  Something that particular demographic has wanted for a very long time.  That doesn't sound very "Indian exterminationist" to me.

Unless someone can thoroughly persuade me otherwise, my stance remains as it already long has been: illegal aliens are already citizens of their countries of origin.  And unless they have become naturalized citizens, per an originalist interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, their children are likewise citizens of those countries also.

Yours Truly,

Robert Christopher Knight

1/16th Tsalagi and proud of it

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Happy Birthday Barney Miller!

Barney Miller premiered fifty years ago today, January 23rd, 1975.  This is definitely high up on my list of most favorite television series ever.

Here's one of my favorite episode, "Hash".  This is the one when most of the detectives get stoned from eating cannabis-laced brownies...

Happy fiftieth Captain Miller and the staff of the 12th Precinct!

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Have a new op-ed piece at American Thinker

Continuing my commitment to write a new op-ed piece each week of 2025 (or aspiring to anyway), news and commentary website American Thinker - a site I can't recommend nearly enough - has just published my latest.

In 'It's Time to Cleans the White House Press Corps", arguments are laid out for why the gaggle of journalists assigned to cover the president and his affairs should be thoroughly pruned down.  Not just because too many of them have demonstrated they can't strive for impartiality either.  If for no other reason it's because "traditional" outlets like CNN and Washington Post have had their audiences wiped out over the course of recent years, while more "alternative" media has emerged as the inheritors of that mantle.

Here's a snippet:

When the Internet first came into widespread use, it was envisioned that it would bring with it the end of gatekeeping. Never more would the spread of information be controlled by a few “professional” outlets. Every individual could be his own publisher, and even become a live news broadcaster as the technology further evolved.

It has taken more than thirty years, but that time has come. Indeed, it has been with us for a while already. Now at last it is being fully engaged with. When online broadcasters like Joe Rogan command regular audiences in the tens of millions while longstanding network broadcasters struggle to maintain a hundred thousand viewers, there has been a dire sea change that cannot go unacknowledged.

Trump Administration 2.0 has a glorious opportunity before it. And that is to end the mainstream press’s influence as it has come to be known and reviled.

Mash down here for more.

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Joe Biden is gone today (thank the Lord!)

The infamous "red speech" in Philadelphia, September 2022

Before I render a final grade for Joseph Robinette Biden's term as president, let's wind the clock back four years ago on this blog.  I predicted then that come January 2025 the United States of America would be in the worst condition it had been in, in half a century.

A bold forecast.  I swore then that if I was wrong, I would eat my fedora.  And I would have.  With A1 steak sauce.

I knew there was no chance of me getting it wrong.  Biden has certainly not let me down in that regard.

To everyone who voted for this fool: please don't do that again.  Because of Biden and his disastrous policies I had to leave a job that I loved.  That's my own particular tale of woe that came about.

And a few hours ago Biden "pre-emptively pardoned" Anthony Fauci, Mark Miley, and the members of the "January 6 committee".  Stevie Wonder could have seen that coming.

Joe Biden is leaving politics as he has always lived it for more than fifty years: corrupt, craven, and criminal-minded.

So how does Biden rate with his peers, in the estimation of this trained historian?

In keeping with my history education, I am thus grading most of the Presidents of my lifetime...

Reagan: A

GHW Bush: C

Clinton: D

GW Bush: D-

Obama: F

Trump: B+

Biden: F

Indeed, Joe Biden is the F-iest president I've ever studied.  Not even James Buchanan caused as much destruction to America as Biden and Harris did.

Reagan is the gold standard by which I measure the presidents of my lifetime, but he wasn't perfect.  The first Bush never really wanted to be president but even if he did, reneging on his "no new taxes" promise consigned him to being just average.  Clinton damaged the rule of law in this country, immeasurably.  The second Bush was a terrible little man who made the rest of us suffer for his personal frailties (while also exploding the size and power of government).  Obama was truly "One Big A-- Mistake America", he vowed to change the country and that's what he did in all the wrong ways.  Trump's first term was the most proactive and positive since Reagan, but it suffered from a poor choice of staff and also the incessant chicanery and "lawfare" by Trump's opponents.  Perhaps he will have learned from this and his second administration will be far better.

As for Biden, there is no redeeming the past four years.  This very incompetent and corrupt man, who has done absolutely nothing virtuous in his half a century of political life, is leaving America in a MUCH worse place than when he became president.  I don't even know if it can honestly be said that we've had a president these last four years at all.

Biden and Harris and everyone associated with them will be remembered only for being the worst gang of freaks and thugs and criminals in the history of American politics.  May we NEVER tolerate such immaturity and fraud and corruption again!

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GOOD NEWS: Short Sugar's BBQ Sauce is hitting store shelves soon-ish!

This blog has been SLAMMED with visitors since three days ago coming to read about Short Sugar's Bar-B-Q in Reidsville, North Carolina shutting down after more than 75 years in business.  The counter has been ringing up visits from all fifty states, Canada, Ireland, Australia, Germany, even some people in Brazil. There were few corners of the globe that hadn't heard of Short Sugar's, it seems.  Judging by the comments and e-mails that have come in there have been a lot of folks who are regretting that they will now never have an opportunity to eat at a place that once was judged to have the best barbecue in America.  Short Sugar's was the kind of place that they just don't make anymore and it's not just a loss to a small town, but to our culture as a whole.

Well, it's been a very depressing past 72 hours but there is a little bit of light to break through the gloom.  Short Sugar's as a location may be gone, but its signature barbecue sauce will live on!  And it may be coming to your front door before too awful long.

Here's what Short Sugar's owner David Wilson posted on Facebook earlier today:

"We will continue producing the sauce. I think we will start on Amazon and in local stores... I’m going to change our social media presence to focus on the sauce."

I hope David and the rest of the Wilson family are bracing themselves.  Because for years a lot of us have been wanting Short Sugar's sauce to be widely distributed.  Until now bottles of it have only been really available for sale at the restaurant.  It has been highly demanded for a very long time.  Bringing this sauce to the larger marketplace is going to be a veritable goldmine.  It is going to take the world by storm!  There is no sauce like Short Sugar's, is something unique all its own.  It's not something you slather onto meat, it's more like you saturate your pork or chicken or whatever with it.  This is the perfect thing to accentuate chopped barbecue especially.  I've also had a bit of success using it on ribs.  So maybe this will be like the second coming of Short Sugar's.  It has been more than a place to eat, it has been an enduring idea: a spot for the mind as much as for the taste buds.  And now it seems that it will endure.  Not just that but also thrive!  Short Sugar's sauce is poised to take the greater world by surprise and in my mind there is not a product that more deserves a position in the global market.

I shall be keeping my eyes open about this with great interest!

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Dateline: Reidsville, North Carolina: Short Sugar's is no more

Of all the things that the Biden economy has destroyed, in its final days it has taken down one last victim.  And being a proud son of the town of Reidsville, North Carolina, this is the most bitter loss of all.

Short Sugar's Pit Bar-B-Q

1949 ~ 2025

The sad word came down earlier today.  Reidsville's most famous restaurant has shuttered for good.

Short Sugar's had been hobbled, first by COVID closures but mostly because of economic downturn in the past few years not related to the pandemic.  People just couldn't afford to eat out like they used to be able to.

This really does feel like a piece of my heart has been ripped out.  Short Sugar's was the kind of place you just knew would be around forever.  It is at the heart of the identity of the City of Reidsville, North Carolina.  Some of my earliest memories are of eating at Short Sugar's.  At first the hot dogs but as I got older it was that wood-fired barbecue.  Sometimes I would even order and devour two plates, I could get so hungry for it.  I hadn't been back to Reidsville as often as I'd like in recent years but whenever I did, I always stopped at Short Sugar's for lunch and afterward went to Mayberry for a chocolate milkshake.  And that was my "coming home" ritual since leaving Reidsville in 2016.

My sister worked at Short Sugar's for a number of years, too.  There was a real sense of family at the place.  We knew them and they knew us.

I don't know when the next time I'll ever visit Reidsville will be.  The more I hear about the place the more it sounds like a foreign country, now.  The tobacco field near where I grew up is today a vast solar farm.  Some businesses have gone and others have come in.  Thomas Wolfe really was right, "you can't go home again."  And with the departure of Short Sugar's, I'm feeling that harder than ever this afternoon.

Who knows though, maybe someone will swoop in and resurrect the place sometime.  But it would be too different.  The Wilson family has owned and operated it all this time, it won't be the same without them.

I'm going to miss that barbecue sauce.  A vinegar and brown sugar-based concoction unlike any sauce I've ever encountered.  The perfect enhancement for chopped pork.  Now I wish that I had stocked up on it.

Wow.  So much that could be said about a barbecue restaurant and drive-in.  Short Sugar's really was the kind of place that that they don't make any more of in America.  In 1982 it was judged as having the best barbecue in the country.  I don't know if they held that competition again but if they ever did I've no doubt that Short Sugar's would still be a worthy competitor.

And now, it's... gone.

Damn.  I finally feel old now.

Edit 01/17/2024: More than a few have noted something, and I was woefully remiss to mention this.  That Short Sugar's was not only famous throughout the state of North Carolina, but also across America and even known throughout the WORLD!  Short Sugar's hosted quite an international clientele over the decades.  I myself brought friends from Belgium to eat there a few times and they made sure to take bottles of barbecue sauce home with them.  I also have it on very good authority that several bottles made it to Germany in 1993.  For there to be no more Short Sugar's is truly a loss to us all.

Speaking of the larger world, since making this post 21 hours ago yesterday it has been read nearly 5,000 times.  The blog has always had a faithful global audience but yesterday this post especially has found visitors from almost all fifty states and also places like Canada and Ireland.

I have heard from David Wilson, the owner of Short Sugar's, and he is truly overwhelmed by the many tributes that people are making.  David, on behalf of everyone: thank you and your family and staff, for everything.

(Note: the photo is from Roadfood.  I had just grabbed any pic I could find of Short Sugar's without looking at the link.  They're the ones who originated the photo.)

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Rest in peace David Lynch

He passed away today at the age of 78.

The impact that this man had on the cinema arts can not be emphasized nearly enough.  Everything he did, be it surreal or more traditional storytelling, he made his own.  David Lynch showed us more than most what the camera was capable of doing when guided by a mind willing to step away from the safe path.  He saw the guardrails and crashed through anyway.

I first came upon Lynch's work when I was a high school sophomore.  I had seen the promos for Twin Peaks and they intrigued me terribly.  So I did something I rarely did and still rarely do: I watched its two-hour television premiere.  Twin Peaks sucked me in hard and never let go.  And it was the gateway drug for more of Lynch's unique vision.

Admittedly, I will never be able to confess ever "getting" Eraserhead.  But that's okay.  Somehow, I think Lynch wouldn't mind.

David Lynch was also a fellow Eagle Scout.

Thoughts and prayers going up and out for his family. 

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This week's feel-good story

 A blue 1977 Volkswagen Type 2 van, untouched by flames, sits alone amid the ash of Los Angeles:

Volkswagen needs to purchase this from owner Preston Martin (who lived in the van for a year while in college) and put it on display in its museum.  That is one hardy testament to resilience.  Or else a fluke of nature, much like how a tornado will sometimes mow down everything in its path except for one solitary farm house which miraculously escapes unscathed.

However it happened, it's an amazing story and Epoch Times has an article all about it.

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My first op-ed in two years is live at The Federalist!

I'm going to preface the remainder of this post by saying something which I probably didn't do my best to get across in this piece.  Mainly, that what I've written about is a tragedy.  When any one person has wasted more of a lifetime than too many good people ever get to have, only to wind down his or her time on this earth with naught but pain and hurt inflicted upon others, that is not a thing to gloat about.  That is a very sad thing, indeed.

Time keeps on slipping into the future.  And for all his schemes and plans and plots over five decades, they have ultimately earned Joseph Robinette Biden not an iota of esteem or honor.  He had it all, and it has now come to nothing.

No, there will be no crowds waiting to enter the Joe Biden Presidential Library...

And that is what the first op-ed piece that I've written in more than two years is about.  It just went live on The Federalist.  The title is "No One Wants To Visit A Biden Presidential Library", it says what it means and it means what it says.  When I was traveling across America with my dog a few years ago I was able to make stops at the libraries of Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.  Each of them had throngs of admirers there to remember those men and their times.

I really, seriously can't imagine that happening at the future Biden Presidential Library.

Well, there it is.  Feel free to read it and leave a comment here if you're so led.  And to everyone visiting this blog today, greetings!  Thank you for stopping by here.  It's not a presidential library but I like to think there's a little something interesting for everyone :-)

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Everything I need to know about fire safety I learned in the Boy Scouts

If only there were some real Eagle Scouts among Los Angeles's leadership.

There is a lot that I could say about the wildfires in Southern California right now.   I suppose first and foremost is that the situation might the the worst example yet of ignoring reality for the sake of "feelings".  The requisite water resources, personnel, and methods of delivery for all intents and purposes did not exist.  It had been eliminated in favor of progressive programs and policies.  Like f'rinstance a tiny fish that apparently is not endangered at all.

That alone qualifies the L.A. fires as being a man-bred horror straight out of an Ayn Rand novel.

The thing of it is, fire is not really all that complex a concept.  We learned much about fire in fourth and fifth grade at school, including what is required for fire to start and what to do if God forbid you or someone else catches fire.

I suppose that more than anything right now, watching what's happening around Los Angeles, is that I'm reminded of the Fire Safety merit badge in the Boy Scouts.  Fire Safety isn't required for Eagle Scout, but it's such a basic set of knowledge that the vast majority of scouts who stick with the program earn it and usually sooner than later.  I earned my Fire Safety badge at a "merit badge college" that our local district had every winter at Rockingham Community College.  It was a course that lasted for two hours and we learned quite a bit about fire and how to be cautious with it.  One of the things that came as a surprise to me - I was twelve at the time - was that sometimes firefighters and land management people purposefully set fire to the forest floor.  This is called a "controlled burn" and it is very useful in destroying useless scrub, rotted undergrowth and fetid material that really would be potential fuel for a serious forest fire.  Controlled burning gets rid of that, makes the forest cleaner, and has the added benefit of bringing nutrient back into the soil.

It's not all that hard to do.  I've seen it done before.  I know a lot of firefighters who have taken part in controlled burns.

I mention that because President-to-be Donald Trump and others have touched upon controlled burning.  It is absolutely something that California's government should have been doing for a long time already in preparing for the outbreak of wildfires.  This is a basic tool of wise land management and it is very foolish to not have been employing it.

Folks, fire really isn't that hard a notion to grasp.  When there's heat and air and a source of fuel, they can come together and start fire.  It's then a matter of taking one or more of those elements out of the equation.  A cool head (pun maybe horribly intended) will readily know what is the best way to do this in a particular situation.  Just as that same mind will recognize the potential for fire in an environment, and understand how to prevent it from breaking out at all.

Maybe California should hire some old-school scoutmasters and merit badge counselors to come in and teach basic fire safety to the officials of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas.  If an adolescent can grasp such things, there is no excuse for grown adults to not have that knowledge also.

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Beetle Bailey on communism

I was telling a friend tonight about where I am with my writing at the moment: the book, getting back into the swing of op-ed writing, what have you.  He asked me why am I writing at all: for fame and fortune or to get a message out that's burning my bosom up from the inside.

I want a bit of all of that, to be honest.  After half a lifetime of battling demons, I still hope to find a little success as a writer.  It doesn't have to be an awful lot of fame or acclaim.  That's never been what this blog is about or anything else I've put my hand to for that matter.  I suppose if there is a gauge I'm going by, it's that I wind up feeling like Dad would be proud of me.  He never gave up on me and I want to do right by that.

Anyhoo, my friend said that if there was a message to be shared, that a true writer would get it out there.  Even if it meant making graffiti art of it.  That reminded me of this Beetle Bailey cartoon from several years back.  Amazing how much wisdom there is to be found in a comic strip...

(Click image to embiggen)

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A new op-ed every week: About that first one...

So last weekend after vowing to write an op-ed piece every week this year, I composed the first of the series.  It exists, honest!  I submitted it to a site that I've got a lot of respect for.  There was some correspondence about it but the last was a few days ago.  There hasn't been any word since and it hasn't been published.

I'm going to chalk it up as still being momentum forward.  It has been more than two years since I wrote like this so I'm a bit out of practice.  What I'm going through now is "therapy" as a writer.  When Dad SEVERELY injured his hand in a farming accident forty years ago this coming fall, it was months before he was in any shape to even hold a pen.  I've been injured too, in a fashion.  What did I expect, that I would be published again after not exercising that particular region of my gray matter?

I'm going to give the site a few more days, and if they don't publish it then I'll post it here.  Meanwhile there are two ideas for essays that I have in mind.  I'm going to work on those and send them out.  And then, we'll see what happens.

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My New Year Vow: An op-ed a week

Writing is my calling.  Writing is my gift, ever since my ninth grade English teacher told me that on our last day of class.  It is something that nobody could ever take away from me.  It is something of my very own, that was supposed to always be with me.

And I’ve neglected it horribly these past few years.

I’ve been spending so much of my waking moments keeping my head above water, trying to keep from drowning because of real life matters, that I’ve not devoted anything to my passion and true career.  It simply hasn’t figured at all in my life.  It’s been more than two years since I wrote an op-ed piece, and I had to give up a plum gig at The Western Journal, things became so rough on my end.

Life was so much better when I was working as a mental health professional.  I was going in every day, getting to truly help people have more fulfilling lives.  I was making a difference in this world.  And then I could go home and spend my own hours with my writing.  And that’s the way things would have stayed had the economy not turned so wretched and forced me to find higher paying employment elsewhere.  Employment that has been unreliable, it’s turned out.

So, for the past couple of years my writing has suffered.  And then this past August I decided it was time to finally complete the memoir that I began in 2014.  For three solid months if I wasn’t working or eating or sleeping or taking care of my dog, I was writing.  I went DAYS without showering, I was so “in the zone” with my manuscript.  Until finally in mid-November the first draft was completed.

It was a grand return to form.  And I don’t want it to stop.  I’m back in the saddle again and the last thing I want to do is to find myself slid out of it once more.

So I’m going to commit myself to something for 2025: writing a new op-ed piece every week.  Hopefully for publication elsewhere, but here on this blog if nowhere else.  I need to plunge back into the fray, and involve myself again in the larger world.  Maybe if I do that my writing chops will come back full-bore.  Maybe I can also overcome the indifference to things that I have come to feel.  Perhaps it will even improve my already existing manuscript: something I have been told is good already, but I know it can be better.  And I really do want to see it on a bookstore’s shelf someday.  A story about mental illness, swindling operations, how to make a movie, and twelve months crossing America deserves a shot at traditional publication and that’s going to be a goal for this year too.

I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying that y’all can expect some more writing here and elsewhere for awhile.  A few years ago I did a blog post each day for Lent.  If I can do that, I believe I can sit down and write a new opinion piece every week.  It may not be my best work especially just jumping back into battle… but it will be some movement forward.  And that’s what matters most.

Look for the first piece soon.

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Happy New Year 2025

 

I've waited decades for tonight, to post this song...

"In The Year 2525" by Zager and Evans.

May 2025 be a good year for all of us.

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