Were I born black I would be James Baldwin. He is the only black man to whom I was able to relate from the first day I encountered him. We are two of the same kind of person.

We both are well read in our own areas.

We both are unapologetic in your face critical thinkers. Critical thinking pretty much departed from the educational system with the leftist libtard indoctrination that the conservatives allowed to transpire starting in the past who knows when.

You can't get away with that mess when it comes to me. James Baldwin wasn't one to surrender to any consensus if he thought it to be incorrect thinking either.

We both have been known to tell others where to get off in no uncertain terms. My personal experience surrounds understanding for I believe Covey who said it is not enough to understand, but one must also be understood.

James Arthur Baldwin was born August 2, 1924 and he passed this earth December 1, 1987. He was a novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and oh yes, activist from Hell if you crossed him.

He wrote citified fictional accounts, things about his black heritage, and of course that gay stuff that homosexuals indulge. There was nothing in the way of gay with me so we were not of the same persuasion in areas of intimacy.

His literary career and that accompanying public persona spanned primarily 1947 through 1985. It is my personal belief that his health began to decline and he retired to privacy and those relationship issues with his interests in that area and his close friends such as Maya Angelou who cried long and hard at his passing while speaking of him and what he meant to her.

His work generally crossed the interpersoinal issues of the day: racial, sexual, and class distinctions and oh I did love to see him get riled and make his personal views known to any ideological adversary before him and there were many.

One of my favorite works of his was the Academy Award–nominated documentary film derived from his unfinished manuscript entitled "I Am Not Your Negro".

It's pretty much how I feel about work and the people there right now. Some people have no concept of their own stupidity and overbearing imposition into the lives of others. My preconceived notions never impose on other people who are continually imparting their taint and favor seeking idea stealing lying asses onto the world.

On December 1, 1987 James Baldwin passed this earthly existence from stomach cancer in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. He is interred at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, near New York City

He was provided hospice care by a close friend Fred Nall Hollis who saw him through his transition. He too was quite tearful in speaking of Baldwin posthumously.

James Baldwin was immersed in the civil rights movement and followed those leaders who were his contemporary civil rights proponents such as Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. It is striking to my memory how each of them were murdered to silence them.

Despite our vast differences which are many and varied, James Baldwin and I are the same person in different skins and with different accompanying attitudes. Sure, his personal proclivities and orientation are far different from me but like him, I too am not your negro.
 

I remember first seeing Billy Idol back in the old LA days in the extremely early 1980s in Tower Records.

There was a cutout of this obviously 80s decked out new wave glam punk fellow with platinum blond hair and a mech look with chain and heavy decorations made from what appeared to be stainless steel.

The music being played had those tough overtones consistent with the image.

I thought to my self this will never last.

However, it seems that William Michael Albert Broad, aka Billy Idol did indeed last and is still playing gigs to this day.

There have been a number of his songs that are included in my collection and I owe my appreciation of his music in general to my best old ex-friend Darrell who had insight into the subtleties of musical style. His stage name it seems is derived from a choolteacher's desribing him as "idle". His career has been a smattering of singing songwriting performance music, and acting.

He's just a few months younger than I am and has sold a lot of records. He had a hiatus in the 1990s then came back on the performance scene by releasing new music. Who knows, may sell many more recordings before it's all over.

Today is his birthday. Happy birthday to you !
 

I remember Waffle House. It was a favorite spot of both my late father and my late best friend. We would frequent the place for coffee and a spot of lunch or supper pretty much once or twice a week back in the day when we caroused around Red Bank and other places in the vicinity.

So it was a natural option when I awoke one day hungry and needing sustinance. I went to the Waffle House on Sunset BL over by Lexington County Hospital where Chris Drive butts into US 378.

When I sat down I noticed the table was filthy. All of the windows had large round patches of grease or Jheri curl or some other horrible substance and this beginning was merely the prodrome to a bigger disease infecting Waffle House.

The waiter took my order. I pretty much ordered the standard from my last visit so many years ago:

a double pork chop plate
3 eggs over easy
coffee

Well, the order I was served was a pork chop plate. No double was served. The coffee was somewhat old tasting. The employees lounging around were disgusting and the enviornment was a scuz hole of the highest order.

I ate at my meal, paid my bill, and got the hell out of there never to return to Waffle House anywhere. Their corporate office has no standards anymore. Avoid the place like the plague if you value atmosphere and cleanliness.

If all you want is a couple of lazy greasy black cows sitting around and inept wait staff complete with totally incorrect order with your filth ... be sure to return. I'm sure they will be happy to accommodate you.

This is what we have to look forward to with the Biden administration.
 

In the late 1970s through about the mid 1980s I was immersed in all things medical. I worked a number of medical venues and was even a triage and crash team member at several institutions on the West coast.

This was the time of Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw and their much touted and maligned book Life Extension a Practical Scientific Approach of which I both purchased and read several copies in an attempt to full grasp as much as I could ... to the chagrin of my best old ex-friend Darrell who thought the concepts highly dubious at best.
 

One of those proponents was Dr Denham Harman who formulated the 'free radical theory of aging' of which I subscribed early on and made attempts to compensate for within my own metabolic pathways. I would take SOD complex (superoxide dismutase) which was only available as injectables and sub lingual tablets which looked like yellow saccharin.

I was surprised at his contemporary criticism of the Pearson and Shaw book on television as "designed to sell products" after their glowing, gushingly complementary references to both him and his work. However, this did not diminish my pursuit of the non FDA approved uses of prescription drugs and the so-called 'nutraceutical'.

Yes, thalidomide breath ... I have little regard nor use for the FDA or the CDC. They are simply more of the governmental interference and glut imposed on the consumer.

Though I was never one to megadose anything because it was simply not my nature, I did take those substances I sought out in somewhat elevated doses and the list was long and full of nootropics and other aspects of metabolic, neurologic, and circulatory supportive substances ...

Then there were the immune stimulants and I was on heavy doses of T Cell Prep and B Cell Prep by then Cardiovascular Resarch (and now Ecological Formulas) and I really think these two preparations had a striking impact on my ability to ward of infections of all kinds.

This, coupled with the fact that I became a hygiene freak when I departed the Navy gave me impetus and foundation for all the reading I did subsequently and I have modeled various aspects of my supplementation based on the voracious early career study I did on the West coast when my interest was strong.

Denham Harman was born on St Valentine's Day February 14, 1916. He passed six years back November 25, 2014 at age 98. He was a Ph.D. Chemist and a physician trained at Stanford University. He completed his internship a year before I was born.

His free radical theory of aging was initially rebuffed by the scientific community, but later recognized as an insightful scientifically relevant treastise on aging which became one of the most cited publications in the field of gerontological research.

I was entirely too unsophisticated and only beginning my cultivation of a knack for critical thinking at the time to reject anything presented in a verifiable scientific manner and I read then pondered and re-read Dr Harman's theory often in the early 1980s. It was a central and supportive aspect to my understanding of the nature of human physiology in general.

Career realignment and technological focus has left me no longer the medical conversant I was early on. It all has left me a man though no longer on a mission, simply well versed in various aspects of health care which the orthodox medicine ignored and criticized until well after they began to lose credibility due to their rejection of valid therapeutics outside the realm of surgery and pharmacology.

It was all kind of like the day of reckoning the chiropractors had with the AMA via a grassroots movement which simply would not be silenced. Orthodox medicine would have been much better off had they only shut their stupid faces and stopped pushing the cutting of people and popping pills as the only therapies around.
 

Mom and I went to Fort Jackson National Cemetery to pay our respects to my late stepfather, Johnny H Pruett. It seems like ages since we lost him four years back and he and my biological father are two of those individuals for whom I regularly give thanks.

In this holiday season on the cusp of Thanksgiving it is appropriate to remember him and all he did for me at this time. It tempers the season with a touch of wistful introspection as I note the distinct lack of his presence in my life.

For this and so many other reasons I honor him now and always.
 

Marion Shepilov Barry March 6, 1936 – November 23, 2014 Typical no character democrat

I remember the Marion Barry debacle. Crack smoking Mayor. Democrat. Shitbird. Didn't even lose political support because of the character of his constituents.

There needs to be a reckoning with the taint imparted by the liberal core educators allowed to indoctrinate the children of the Republic. Why this was ever tolerated by the Republicans I'll never know.

Marion Barry Jr aka Marion Shepilov Barry was an American politician who served as Mayor of the District of Columbia from 1979 to 1991 and 1995 to 1999. The typical law breaking protodemocrat, he was a public tragedy long before the democrats became the organized crime they are now.

On January 18, 1990, he was arrested with a former consort, one Hazel Diane "Rasheeda" Moore, in a sting located at the Vista International Hotel involving the FBI and Washington DC police for crack cocaine possession and subsequent use.

It seems that Ms Moore was an FBI informant who invited Barry to her hotel room and insisted that he smoke freebase cocaine prior to sex. Agents watched on camera from an adjacent room and waited for Marion Barry to accept her offer.

During the videotaped arrest, Barry went into a tirade of sorts against Ms Moore saying "Bitch set me up... I shouldn't have come up here ... goddamn bitch". Such a stellar performance.

Over time, things devolve to where such is the nature of the democratic party which has become a bunch of vote stealing criminals running at large without observing nor respecting the rule of law or even a modicum of civil behavior.

I have associates who differentiate between "liberal" and "leftist". However, I choose to group them all together for those who allow illegality turning a blind eye to it in their presence just because it benefits them directly or indirectly are just as culpable as the scum who perpetrated the fraud which was the elections held in certain states with democrat governors.

Since they can't even attempt to police their numbers choosing instead to enjoy the ill gotten gains from cheating, unscrupulous, immoral, and criminal behaviors they have absolutely no redeeming virtue whatsoever.