Sighinide

Just to follow up on the few thoughts earlier:

I decided to unfollow all the Laura accounts, and Vanessa too, because I reeeeeally can’t deal with this right now, b/c I have things going on, things that are more important, and, frankly, it’s like… I just can’t deal with the reality of that being the only IRL (i.e. face-to-…face (ish(?))) interaction with her I’ll ever have, lol.

IDK, I mean… it’s like… I’ve had so many social media interactions with celebs that were really good, lol. Likes and stuff, I mean. And I know this is very shallow but… I’ve gotten many likes from Kathryn Newton and had a shedload of great interactions with Meg Donnelly, I mean I singlehandedly got her back and posting on twitter (I mean, almost singlehandedly, but- you catch my drift) and aside from those incredibly epic twitter sprees during her two Cinderella Story playthroughs (which I wonder if she even remembers frankly) I’m not sure if we ever connected. Or maybe… we did, and I’m forgetting? Maybe I’m forgetting.

IDK.

But… it’s like… you know?

I don’t know.

Well… I have to go back to real life, and that kind of… sucks?

Ugh. But real life isn’t even real life- not anymore? I mean, now that we’re all transhuman cyborgs? Christ, what the fuck?

It boggles the mind, frankly, that someone who has been so connected with so many people with SO MUCH power and financial resource would be so, I don’t know, isolated. And- destitute, technically? Or, at least, in proportion?

Not being an idiot, I am of course well aware that these people are wealthy. No need to elaborate further.

But like… Jeezus. What the fuck? I mean I’m not begging on the streets but man, what is the mechanism to get them to toss me a bone or something? Is there one? I don’t understand, genuinely.

Maybe that’s the lesson, here. Turn inward?

Or is that just running away?

Fuck, I don’t know. Seriously, I have no idea, like at all.

My Disney+ is coming up for renewal soon and I’m debating cutting it this time. Too much money. Maybe I’ll renew over the summer, I don’t know. I mean… it’s just… damn, I don’t know. This stuff occupies sooo much of my headspace, you know? Like wayyyyyyy too much. Way, way too much. Maybe I would feel better, freer, happier without it hanging over me like some kind of everpresent guillotine.

It’s just… it feels like “work”, rather than “fun” if I’m being honest. Like life has become inverted somehow, weirdly.

It’s just…… toooooooooo much

Oof, well, there’s good things and bad.

Well… TBH, this is a BIG topic, so let’s narrow it down a little: let’s make this: a few thoughts on MY Instagram, as in, my Instagram Profile. My new one.

Some initial thoughts: There’s a LOT of bots. A LOT. I swear AT LEAST 80% of the “people” who like my posts / comments are bots, though I don’t check each one (any) of course. But still. Wow. Also, the same with the people who respond, especially those who are critical. I saw an account who was harshly critical of a comment I wrote once. Intrigued, I checked it out, to find that it was critical in a similar way of every single comment left for that picture, and there were hundreds. Huh. I guess it was a bot; I returned later to find out the comments were gone. What was the point? The mind boggles.

I got my account warned for commenting a green heart to a celebrity; I think it was Freya Skye. Lord knows why. I think the AI found something offensive about it. I can’t imagine a person reported it for some reason, altho I can’t rule out a prankster, but still, why would the system find that offensive regardless and rule in their favor? The mind boggles. Are green hearts offensive and red ones not so for celebs in certain demographics? Seriously, what the fuck? And yeah, that’s all it was. A single, solitary green heart emoji. No text, nothing else. WTF? In their message to me Instagram said that “other cultures” might find certain things sensitive, so take that into consideration, etc. but… yeah. Seriously. WTF?

Well, the big vent… today, Laura Marano had an Insta Live on her Team Laura Profile. It… didn’t go well, at least for me. My app being new, I had certain permissions turned off. And, my app being new, I was unaware of what a “Team” event entailed, and, at one point, I was invited to speak (!) which ordinarily would have been fine, except refer to the earlier part of this paragraph, where I mentioned that my permissions were askew, and… yeah. Things did NOT go well, and I made a colossal mess of everything, and afterwards had a horrible ugly mental meltdown in the shower and etc. etc. you know, the way things typically go in such cases. It’s like… OBVIOUSLY this would happen ofc, I mean, why WOULDN’T it, right? That’s literally the way things go, right? You would need to be living in some utopia to not expect this because a) this is me we’re talking about b) I’m new to Insta and all of these other people are not and c) bad luck and me are old friends anyways, older than anyone else at this point TBH.

So it was a total, complete and utter clusterfuck of a disaster and I tried to save face as best I could (and, to my credit, I vaguely did), but afterward, I thought to myself, WHY am I doing this? I mean, like, haven’t I done enough? Seriously? With all that I’ve done, haven’t I done enough already?

IDK, maybe I have. I guess we’ll see.

But it’s like… this whole disaster brought forth the whole problem with the platform. It’s designed from the ground up these days for people to simp for celebs and rich people. I hate to say it but it’s soooooo true. It’s for us to beg beg beg for table scraps and FEED THE AI and PAY FOR PREMIUM and WATCH THE ADS and BUY MY PRODUCT and God I just feel so… mortified, and used, and ugly, and… sad, and… worthless, IDK, in the face of all these perfect people and all their perfect lives and perfect careers and perfect mansions and perfect… everythings. Nothing goes wrong for them; they never ever make a mistake.

It’s just so damn humiliating.

Social media was mistake.

I really need a break from this stuff.

At any rate, I would be so so sad if that was like… my one chance to talk to Laura IRL, even if superficially, and I just… fumbled it bigtime, and in the most embarrassing way possible.

Christ, that would fucking suck.

Why even bother, then.

I REALLY need someone to talk to IRL about this stuff. That is the hurdle, here, methinks. That is the big stumbling block, and the reason I cannot progress.

I mean, or do anything, really.

Well, I have an Instagram.

This week, while scrolling, I was offered a deal I couldn’t refuse: one year of STARZ for a dollar a month, so twelve bucks for an annual membership.

I signed up; I figured it was a good deal. I had an old credit card that I needed to use anyways or I was going to lose it, so…

Besides, a couple of years ago STARZ offered up a free weekend (week?) and I caught the first couple of eps of High Town and I was intrigued, so I thought I might watch the rest. Twelve dollars seemed like a good deal. And I wanted to finish up that Now Apocalypse thing with Kelli I guess.

So… I jumped in.

Hmmmn. Wait… wut?

Sooooo… High Town isn’t there for some reason- IDK why- apparently it’s Netflix now. Now Apocalypse is… Tubi? Forreal? WTF?!? Heels is also Netflix? Oh… Hmmn… ok… Well… yeah. Well… White Queen I saw the first ep of and I liked, I’ll watch that. Seriously tho, I will say that there is a distinct lack of stuff on the platform here.

Disney+ gets a lot of flack for it’s lack of content, but the issue seems more acute with STARZ; however, in defense of STARZ, the prices there are far far more reasonable. 12 dollars for a year’s subscription in 1080p is more than reasonable for what is on the offer. In fact it is downright generous.

But I mean… the content is a bit… uh, sparing, and I suppose it would help A LOT if you were a new subscriber like myself.

Some thoughts…

There is, um, a “Wu-Tang” Collection. I did not expect this, to say the least. Headlining it is something called The Man with the Iron Fists, both written by and starring RZA. I have no idea what this is. There are seven movies in this collection! (Insert mind blown gif here) I note here that this movie also stars Russell Crowe. I will at this point mention that Russell Crowe starred in the film Boy Erased with Lucas Hedges, and that Lucas Hedges was in not one, not two, but three movies with erstwhile girlfriend Kathryn Newton. In a verrrrry broad and odd manner of speaking, this makes Kathryn a crab- step away from being in the Wu-Tang Collection herself, from a certain point of view. RZA, GZA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and… Kathryn Love Newton?

Stranger things have happened, I guess.

But not many, lol.

Seriously though, don’t do this guys, I’m literally just making a funny, this would be stupid AF, OK?

Other dumb crap- the Westerns, which aren’t dumb, they are entertaining as hell, and also vaguely depressing for very personal reasons.

Most especially, I like the ones featuring Alfred “Lash” LaRue, which were interestingly the movies that my mom liked the most when she was a kid. They’re exciting, action-packed, and… short, with all of the ones I’ve found being less than an hour in length. I wonder if these were made with TV in mind.

Many of these on STARZ co-star Jennifer Holt, a very beautiful girl which looks, sadly, depressingly like my erstwhile girlfriend Olivia Holt (I know, bipolar much? But still). My mom, being a fan of LaRue, was a fan of Jennifer too ofc. I hesitate to ask her if she was a fan of Hollywood legends Jack Holt or Tim Holt. She probably was a fan of both in some capacity.

I know that I was a fan of Gary Holt of Exodus and Slayer fame when I was younger.

Relations? I couldn’t prove it. Is it a coincidence that Olivia’s co-star in Kickin’ It! was named Jack? The character, I mean, not the actor. Jack Holt was a HUGE name in the Golden Age of Hollywood- look at his resume, it’s as long as anyone’s arm.

But like… man, I can feel it, tho. It’s the same energy, etc. I could see it. It was kinda creepy, honestly. This stuff is like… vaguely… I don’t even know. I mean, I don’t.

The same narrative beats, too. The things Jennifer’s characters do are the things Olivia’s characters do, too. It’s uncanny. I mean, the trappings are different- the vehicles are different; it’s stagecoaches and not cars, but the behaviors are the same. Hmmn.

I see on Insta today that Olivia is making fun of me. Um, thanks.

OK, BREAK TIME. Ye Gods people.

Alright I’m back.

Other STARZ stuff…

There’s a lot of… oddities here and that’s not a bad thing. I like peering into the corners of places, and that’s part of why I like Tubi so much- it has a lot of corners. In the kids section there’s this… Snow White movie, I mean, there’s the Lily Collins one, yes, but there’s also another one, an animated one, from 2009, that’s apparently a sequel? And the animation looks jankier than what you would get from a middling PC game from the late 90’s. I am TOTALLY checking that out. Forreal. And there’s this 3D CGI movie about Ants in space from… 2008? WITHOUT the 3D effect? With NO PEOPLE listed under the actors tab in the summary? Oh that is my fucking JAM motherfuckers!

Speaking of the 90’s trainwreck factor, I noticed in the “Trending Now” section of the app- and you can literally verify this for yourself- there is, I shit you not- an entry for fucking CB4. Yes, CB4. In the Trending Now section. CB4. I forgot this movie even existed, and yet, there it is.

Until this very moment when it has reappeared on STARZ, CB4‘s claim to fame was that back in the mid 90’s, it was the Gurnee IL Blockbuster’s 3rd most popular VHS tape featuring Chris Rock. Yeah, that’s it, that’s all CB4 has ever done or been known for.

Unbelievably and against all odds, I actually remember that fucking tape because I used to see it every. single. week. at the local video store. It would sit there, unrented, just… I don’t know, waiting, I guess, for the store to close, or maybe for the VHS format to die, I don’t know, but I would pass that thing every single time I would walk through the fucking store and it would ALWAYS be there, sometimes I would see people pick it up and look at it, only to put it back on the shelf, sometimes I would pick it up and put it back on the shelf, but it would never, EVER, move from it’s spot, save only for mere seconds, and only spatially in centimeters.

I mean it was ALWAYS there.

I don’t know, the fact that this movie could be trending TODAY on a streaming platform just… boggles my mind. Like I literally cannot fathom how this could even be happening. Even by the standards of Chris Rock’s meager resume CB4 cannot be his best work, right? I mean, … wait, how/ why am I even talking about this, honestly?

To harken back to an earlier topic- the Wu-Tang thing, The Man with the Iron Fists– I don’t begrudge struggling actors a chance to work, but seriously, this project looks like a dollar store version of Marvel’s Iron Fist, which was by many accounts a cheaper version of Marvel prestige projects.

Appears, ofc. I have seen neither movie.

But… holy shit, lol. IDK, maybe I should check to see which movie was created first, but… nah. I’m getting bored of writing about this, honestly.

I guess the main takeaway here is that I can see again the clear delineation between my girlfriends’ pedigree and… everyone else’s. It’s like… the dividing line is obvious. My girlfriends- and by extension, their families, those associated with their families, are the ones on top, and the rest are on varying degrees and steps beneath, scrambling to create associations where they can, apparently.

Not sure I’ll bother proofing this, too bored honestly

You know- I’ve been debating. Internally, I mean.

I’ve been debating about what I should write about next, and, truth be told, if I should write again.

I have decided to write, I guess, and… uhm, yeah, I guess I have Laura’s overt, impatient prodding on her SM to thank for this. So yeah, I’ll give it a shot and see how it goes.

I DID, however, spend some time trying to decide what to write about– initially I had wanted to write about erstwhile Japanese manga franchise Ghost in the Shell but then decided at the last second to stay in my current “lane” and write about Hollywood related topics with another entry into my girlfriend series.

Ah, so, Sofia Carson. THE Sofia Carson. Disney Princess, Netflix Queen, and, uhm, well. Yeah. Past Participle? Yeah, I guess, from a certain point of view.

Sofia Carson. Sofiiiiiia Carson. Sofia Carrrrrrsson. What’s in a name, Sofia? Hmmmmmn.

What ISN’T?

Yah.

Um, wow.

Sofia- literal goddess? Well… IDK about that. Figurative? Well… Sure.

But I mean… Carson? What about that part?

That’s an interesting name, yah?

Look, I’ll cut right to the chase. We all know at this point that my girlfriends were NOT chosen at random. “Carson” means something, probably to the country as a whole, and probably to me and my personal history, and possibly to my family history as well.

Thoughts: In this case it is significant in all 3 ways. I can prove none of this in a court of law, but I would bet good money that Sofia, given her career and style, music and acting, is most likely related to Johnny and Jack, and yes, I know Wikipedia says otherwise, since it claims that her real name is not “Carson” at all. Frankly I think this is idiotic, since I can “feel” the energetic (energenetic? Is that a word?) family resemblance. Ofc they can’t do this, but still.

I could go on a spiel here about J&J Carson but I’ll spare the reader, everyone has google. Suffice to say my parents grew up watching them both and Arsenic and Old Lace was always a fun watch when I was young.

Alright, so- also… I think I got the whole point of the Descendants thing lately, at this very very late hour, lol. The key to the franchise wasn’t Dove, or uh, Cameron (the other one), or director Ortega, or Disney himself (necessarily), but… dun dun dunnnnn… Sofia, of course, and of myself. It struck me on a rewatch that Descendants wasn’t Disney World. It was… Chicago! Not new Chicago, either, but… old Chicago, of the style best symbolized by the enigmatic and iconic Carson building in the famous downtown.

Yes, I’m sure you can tell where I’m going with this lol.

It’s odd, isn’t it? It’s so obvious, once you see it. It’s kind of incredible I didn’t see it before, having actually grown up here and watched their commercials for… a loooong time. I mean, having watched their commercials and gone into the local outlet shopping when I was young. It’s surreal.

Man, these guys really got me good, didn’t they?

I could continue this with a lengthy Part 2 and might do so tomorrow.

No time to proof this, need to sleep.

Ah, I wasn’t sure how to title this one, so here you go.

IDK, I just want to blog about something, and I guess for now I’m stuck in the celebrity scene, so yeah. Though I guess if I’m going to keep this thing I really need to branch out and do other stuff. I mean there is a reason I don’t post much anymore ofc.

But alright, let’s bury this topic. As it turns out, you-know-who is actually alive, tho I won’t say where, I guess we’ll leave her alone rn.

The more important thing is that I fit her into the paradigm I’m working within now, which is that I realized how very many of my important relationships over the years were of people that had high level connections to royalty, or, failing that, intelligence, or, if not that, good old fashioned military.

In this blog entry, enter Cady Groves, test subject #4Gy7rB. You know, this one kinda surprised me. Ya’ll got me good, really.

It wasn’t the Driscolls, I guess. Tho maybe it was, somehow, who knows really. But the real connection for Cady it turns out was I believe her military namesake, General Groves, famous for building the Pentagon and directing the Manhatten Project.

*Record Scratch* Yah, I mean it fits tho. I didn’t see it basically because I didn’t want to, but the shedloads of evidence piling up with my other relationships forced my hand when it came to reconsidering this one. Virtually all of my long-term relationships seem to be with people with high level government connections in some way. I mean, Jesus Christ. Why not this one?

I mean tho, it’s right there. I recently had a very uncomfortable rewatch of the last 2 episodes of Kim Possible. A couple of years ago, a watched these two eps for the first time and noted this:

————————————————-

So I was settled in and watching the almost-last episode of the series, Graduation, Part 1, when I was blindsided, and I mean utterly shellshocked, by a reference to my future love with, of all people, Cady Groves.

Alright, I’m sure that I’m the only human on Earth who has ever caught this, but it’s there, plain as day.

I don’t know how I feel about this one. I’m kinda… yeah. I mean, I get it, at least, now I do, I understand Cady’s real situation, and it sure as fuck wasn’t alcoholism, lol. I know what happened to her, IRL. Like, for real. I get it. The truth there goes wayyyyyy beyond anything that has ever been made “public”. It’s all there, in her lyrics, if you know how to read them correctly, which few people do.

I don’t want to say it, lol. You can’t make me.

I’m not dumb, either. I have considered the possibility that Cady was forced into an early retirement and hidden away somewhere, or… something else. Who knows, I don’t, lol.

————————————————-

Well, now I do know. Both eps of Graduation do indeed contain references to Cady Groves, as I noted earlier, but, as I didn’t note before, they also contain many many references to General Groves. The Pentagon is referenced multiple times in the episodes and I believe is actually used as a template for some of the settings the heroes find themselves in, like as the backdrop for some of the chase scenes. Also- and this is quite chilling- nukes are referenced many times, the threat of nuclear war is used as a template for an alien invasion, the nukes dropped on Japan are specifically referenced at least once, etc. Also flower symbolism saturates the episodes. Dr. Drakken has a flower growing out of his neck, flowers stop the alien invasion, etc. Flowers = Groves. Flower groves. It’s a pun, a reference to the family.

I had figured back then that all of this was co-incidence, since I believed the Spotify garbage bio about Cady: “A vocalist and songwriter whose music blended upbeat pop with personal themes, Cady Groves was born in Marlow, Oklahoma on July 30, 1989. One of seven siblings…” Blah blah fucking blah.

Nah. Her major hit, “This Little Girl”, is a reference to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, “Little Boy”. Cady Groves is a fucking Groves.

I could go on about this for the next ten pages but I won’t, no point. But my instinct was right about her. She’s an insider’s insider.

I have believed for a looooong time now that certain people have pull in things that massively out weighs their “fame level”. I mean, me, lol. But there’s others too undoubtably.

General Groves built the Pentagon. He oversaw the invention and construction of the world’s first nuclear bombs. He, more than anyone else shaped the modern US military’s direction. He was very possibly the most important American, maybe the most important person, of the 20th century. It would be tough to name someone more important than him from a historical perspective.

He was a kingmaker’s kingmaker, if not the King himself- the piece that hides in the background organizing, while all the other more visible pieces move around to protect him. Kinda like me, natch- and maybe this is how I recognize him for what he was. From Encyclopedia Brittanica:

“During the mobilization period for World War II, from 1940 to 1942, Groves eventually oversaw all army construction in the United States, a mammoth task involving building camps, munitions plants, airfields, depots, and the Pentagon to support an army that grew from 135,000 during the interwar period to an eventual 8,000,000 during World War II”

Yah, no kidding. I wondered on this blog before how you-know-who was just able to walk into the halls of power seemingly unassisted lol.

It is interesting, now, looking at her music and noting how military-inspired it truly is. I wondered about the pirate themes, now I seem them as what they really are.

And as a sidenote, a rewatch of Star Vs. the Forces of Evil made me realize there that the “Cady Groves” character in that series was Oskar Greason lol, unbelievably I did not realize this the first watch around, but the second time I did pick up on it. It’s quite obvious.

Well, that’s it for this post.

I need to post more, this is a fascinating world.

Ok I have wayyyyyyy too many things to talk about in general and no real way to start talking about any of them without things bumping into each other, so I think I might as well start here, and just kinda… work around some stuff I guess.

Alright, so… here goes.

*Cracks knuckles*

So… the Maranos. Well, I’m not really even sure of where to begin talking about them, anymore, honestly. I mean, holy fuckballs, what a topic. I started another post about some stuff that veered into them and Christ, I literally couldn’t pull away, since… Jeebus.

Hooboy.

Well, then.

Them’s an interesting family. Wayyyyyyy more interesting than I had surmised.

Uhm, well, some thoughts: when watching Gargoyles again lately, I was struck with the realization that the most interesting episodes in regards to yours truly were written by a woman named Lydia Marano. The Avalon miniseries, for example, which I wrote about extensively on this blog before. At first, I had dismissed this as coincidence. Time, though, has revealed that this isn’t. Also- City of Stone, The Mirror, and The Gathering– all of which contain the same symbols themes and style that I see repeated, over and over again, across virtually everything that Laura and Vanessa do.

Thus Lydia Marano, like Ellen Marano as I talked about previous, obviously knew about me wayyyy before I knew about her, and, I suppose, was trying to get me into a certain position.

Ok, now- here goes, this might get kinda weird, but if you follow the logic it makes sense, incredibly.

I noticed in Saving Zoë plenty of references to an Italian sister duo of actress Laura Morante and writer Elsa Morante. In the case of Elsa, Laura Marano even went as far as to copy some of her famous poses, and at one point in the film when Vanessa Marano was admiring herself in a mirror some penmanship in the same style of Elsa Morante’s writing was splashed across the screen.

Creepy, wow, lol. IDK, should I continue with this? Hell, why not lol.

Alright, back to Elsa- one of her masterpieces, Lies and Sorcery, features a young Italian woman named Elisa as the protagonist. Fans of the Gargoyles series may recognize that name, as Elisa is the protagonist of that series as well interestingly enough. Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of Lies and Sorcery:

“House of Liars (Italian Menzogna e sortilegio) or Lies and Sorcery (2023 translation) is a novel by the Italian writer Elsa Morante published in 1948, set in Southern Italy at the turn of the 20th century, describing a family’s escape from increasingly dire financial and social circumstances into wishful thinking and delusions. The narrative covers three generations of a family in decline, blending elements of the fairy tale as well as the social novel and the coming-of-age-story.^[1] In the year of its publication the novel received the Premio Viareggio.^[2]“

Huh. Interesting. Well, I’ve not read it, but…

Well, at this point you might be wondering why I’m doing this, lol. It’s because it’s 1) There, and 2) Awesome. Just wait till you see where this goes. Trust me, it will blow you the fuck away.

Well, so, I linked Laura and Vanessa to Laura and Elsa for those reasons amongst others, of course. Interestingly, I also linked them to the great Spanish philosopher Gregorio Marañón of all people. I mean, that one I was not expecting, but it was literally right there. It kind of made me think that perhaps my earlier supposition was right- that these Maranos were THE Maranos, in other words, the people that because of their extreme wealth and power comprised a world unto themselves- the Marrano diaspora- something hinted at several times in Saving Zoë, natch.

As an aside, I did just notice right now that besides Elisa, the other protagonist of Lies and Sorcery is Anna. Elisa, Elsa, and Anna… Frozen? Huh, interesting. Yeah, my hunch is that this family is verrrry powerful. Like Collins level powerful. Rothschild powerful. And I have more evidence to prove it.

In listening to Laura’s (Marano, lol) album the other night, I noticed that one of her songs was apparently a duet with her sister. Uncredited, tho. I was surprised. But… there it was. And you can imagine my surprise when I listened further and realized that there was a duet with her former label mate Taylor Swift, too! Yeah literally. Uncredited! I was floored. Look, I swear it’s on there! It’s the song that prominently features the Taylor Swift-esque violins. And unless I’m hearing things, Olivia Rodrigo guests on a song as well. It’s like… you have to look for it, but it’s there. Seriously, it’s fucking baffling, unless you view things like this from the reality of these people being so unbelievably powerful that they are above routine celebrity concerns.

How powerful do you have to be to have a new song featuring Taylor Swift on your album and then not bother to mention it? Really, really fucking powerful, that’s how powerful. Intuitively- what I surmise is that her album is a laundry list of tracks that include guest vocals from the whos-who of young Hollywood- this track has Olivia Holt, this one has Meg Donnelly, this one has Lucy Hale, this one has Kathryn Newton, etc. But of this of course I could be very wrong.

But in general I suspect Laura is on a higher plateau, power-wise, then the people that comprise the top 50 or 100 or whatever artists on Spotify. Just a hunch.

I think this is absolutely fascinating. What a discovery. It’s like finding something unique, like a new element or something. Truly awesome.

My brainstorm is this: I think the Maranos / Marranos are a part of former(?) Italian nobility; in researching the “Marrano hand sign” I came across a study on a government website (NIH.gov) about it that showed Cosimo de’ Medici flashing it and I’ll be damned if he didn’t look like a transgendered clone of Laura. The facial resemblance, the posture, the similarity in the hands, the basic energy, everything, it was stunning and somewhat creepy, but also telling.

To bring all of this home, I think I was wrong earlier about Laura’s song The Valley being about Laurel Canyon, now, I think it’s about Moreno Valley, CA, since Moreno is probably a derivation of “Marano”, kind of like the high school in Austin and Ally, San Marino, which is also the same. The wiki for Austin and Ally says otherwise, but they are wrong lol.

There is an episode of Star Vs. The Forces of Evil that is replete with references to the Marano family (the sisters, Ellen and Lydia too, and maybe others!); it is Gone Baby Gone / Beach Day. Weird stuff, this. I suppose the beach in “Beach Day” is Marano Beach in California. In Gone Baby Gone, the big bad is a weird Luciferian demon hidden behind a magic mirror that is definitively inspired by Puck from Gargoyles. (Mirror symbolism again. What is it with these people and mirrors? Even when I don’t try to point it out it comes up again and again.)

At any rate, I feel as though I’ve cracked the code. To end this train of thought, you might want to look up a place called Marano di Napoli in Italy, and check out it’s crumbling castle. I have a hunch it may have been relevant in this discussion at one point- especially since the icon for Austin and Ally in the Disney+ app was clearly modeled after the fresco in it’s chapel.

And, to place the capstone on this essay, consider the fittingly titled The Royal Treatment– only consider it from a different point of view- that of Laura’s character Lauren being the Royal, and Prince Thomas being the uhm, common shlub, trying to navigate and understand the world of royalty with all it’s twists and turns.

So, Laura, with all of that said, how did I do?

Woahhhhhh.

Ok, I think I’ll spend some time here after ruminating a bit on twitter (Is it still OK to call it that? Because I intend to lol).

I guess I’ll talk about a few things here and there, but for now, I’ll just post some random stuff. I mean, random, in an unorganized way, as opposed to more controlled and methodical randomness, ofc.

I’ve been plumbing the depths of Spotify lately- testing it’s limits; seeing how far I could take it’s back catalogues. It’s been interesting. Not everything in my archives is in there, but a good deal of it is.

It seems that the early 2000’s gothic underground stuff really was what it said it was.

Of course the Hot Topic type goth stuff- the AFIs, Evanescence and Lacuna Coil stuff was there, naturally, but the really deep stuff… is, mostly, but it does not have much in the way of listeners.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Cold Meat Industry has a playlist from a fan, but unfortunately Fossil Dungeon doesn’t. In fact, as far as FD is concerned, their roster might as well not exist. I mean, it’s there ofc- for the most part- but if a record is on Spotify and it has no listeners, does it really exist?

IDK.

All of this got me to thinking, again, of the different ways that I could have taken all of this. The cultural stuff, I mean.

Well, this is a big topic. But it’s like… Britney changed it all, right? I wonder what things would have been like without her. But she was just… me, right? Or a part of me, in a way, kind of like the others that followed her.

IDK. A lot of the old metal stuff is on there, but not all. Northern Heritage is underrepresented for obvious reasons. Nuclear Blast isn’t.

Well, when I was trudging through the depths of Apocalyptic / Neofolk, I made a rather shocking and I mean truly unreal discovery, but, alas, it’s one I won’t mention in this post. Maybe later. But… holy crap! lol. Wowwwwww. Still not sure how to even process it, honestly.

Other weird stuff… Terrorcore is on there, lelwut. Weird stuff for sure. Never could get into that stuff but… it’s on there, lol. Maybe I’ll give it another chance now. Merzbow is on there.

Olivia Rodrigo is on there, too. Who knew? LMFAO. But… she is, tho.

Do I have weird taste? I was thinking that I did, and that maybe that’s kind of the reason everything is so messed up these days. It might be.

Meg Donnelly is on there.

Composer Paavo Berglund is on there. Um… yeah, I need to stop, it’s literally after midnight at this point.

Oof, I ate too much tonight. My bad, lol. So I need to do something while I digest, so here goes. LOL. Ow.

Well, I watched the debate. Well… I half watched it, really. Mostly I spent the time searching for new watch faces and apps for my smartwatch while kinda/sorta listening in on the shenanigans. TBH my watching the debate was more a way for me to bond with my mom than anything else, since the debate was really important to her.

Some initial thoughts: it’s really just the same old stuff.

I’ve haven’t cared about anything political in a loooooong time. But I mean… there was Trump, being Trump, and Kamala, being… whoever she is, lol.

IDK who won. Most people in the media seem to think Kamala won, I guess because they just… dislike Trump personally, lol.

I would call it a draw.

Trump came off kinda weird and illogical sometimes, and kinda obsessive too, but he did seem to be, IDK, interesting. Kamala was just there, being a democrat.

Kamala is reeeeally, I don’t know, boring. She comes off like any off-the-shelf democrat. There’s nothing… undemocrat about her, I guess, and that’s her appeal.

Honestly, you could have taken any democrat in congress or from any governorship in the country, put them on stage against Trump, and received essentially the same performance and the same talking points.

Yeah, Kamala. She’s very… democrat-y. I guess that’s her schtick.

A lot was made about Kamala’s reactions to Trump’s claims about illegals eating pets and such. IDK, any liberal with a room temperature IQ and rudimentary knowledge of English would have reacted in the same way to those statements.

When Trump pressed Kamala for an economic plan, Kamala responded by saying that she wanted to help small businesses and the working class and such. Woah! Help small business! Would have thought of that? lel.

I’m in my mid 40’s, seen my share of political stuff, and I can’t recall a democratic candidate saying anything else. I mean, she verbally attacked billionaires. *Yawn*.

*Yaaaawn*

I guess you could say that she was, though, personable. Perhaps moreso than Hilary, I guess, but not as much as Obama, or Bill Clinton, though maybe a smidgen more than Howard Dean, say, or Biden. So she’s… adequate, perfectly average, as a democrat.

IDK, Trump cares too much about himself to help the country, and Kamala is just relentlessly same-y.

A big deal was made about her choice of Tim Walz as running mate, a virtually unknown and unremarkable democrat governor.

People (Democrats) were impressed by this. Why, he’s just as good as she is! Well, yes, but stop to think about that, lol.

Trump is just… Trump. There is no reason to think he will do anything if he gets into office again that he didn’t do the first time around. It will be his first Presidency, just another four years of it. I’m not expecting much, but at least he’s entertaining.

I guess the question boils down to whether you find him threatening or entertaining. Those that find him scary will vote Kamala, those that don’t will vote Trump. I, of course, will be sitting on the sidelines and just watching, lol.

I watched the debate on MSNBC. Afterwards, there was a bunch of Democrat-related fluff. The commentators did what they were expected and paid to do and bashed Trump, promoted Kamala, etc. but they also spent like 10 whole minutes talking about a fucking instagram post from Taylor Swift and in addition to that nonsense there was the usual spate of commercials about this or that democrat-y thing. Big Pharma ads, etc.

There was a commercial being played then that pretty much encapsulates the sheer Democrat-y-ness of the whole thing. It was this commercial featuring a bunch of child actors who were pretending to be hunger-stricken kids in some third world country or the ghettos of America or something, with an overall message of like… “Please give, kids are starving all over the world, and especially in the poor parts of America or in such and such a place”.

IDK, all of these commercials are annoying, but this one especially so, because 1) MSNBC plays this fucking thing relentlessly, I mean I swear I’ve seen it off and on for over a year now, and 2) it implies that there’s some kind of epidemic of starvation amongst kids or something, when that obviously isn’t true, except in small, isolated and vanishing pockets in places like India.

It’s just… Democrat-y propaganda, disguised as a plea for charity. It’s so obviously designed to pull on liberal heartstrings that it’s shameless. It’s even worse than those charity pleas featuring the hurt dogs and such.

There isn’t a country in the world that doesn’t have a problem with obesity, most especially in the poorer communities, thanks to government “aid” and private charities showering these places with free and discounted food. Every nation on Earth now, except for maybe Japan, has a rising obesity rate, and in some places the figures are just jaw-dropping.

I once did some checking online and found a couple of studies that said that the underweight percentage of the world’s population had dropped into the mid-single digits, like it was at 6% of the world’s population or something, and it was falling fast. And this would include people in rich nations like the US and China, so it would include people who are just… naturally very thin.

It’s all just so… dumb, and echo-chambery, and ridiculous. Even the ads are fucking stupid. IDK, everything Democrats do just comes across as being merely tangential to real-world stuff. Not that the Republicans are any better, but that doesn’t excuse Democrats. It’s just the usual shit with them, a lot of posturing and “feel good” and nothing concrete, nothing real.

It’s the same song and dance that some people in our country have been seeing now for 70, 80 years.

*Ugh*. Yawn.

Woah, well, they’re over now.

This time I decided to not blog during the games and just… let them play out.

And, I decided to really make an effort to watch the Paralympics, too.

3 years ago I actually couldn’t. Comcast was giving me weird errors whenever I tried to stream them. But this time, it was smooth sailing.

Woah, what a learning experience.

Anyhow… too much to talk about in one post, so I’ll talk Olympics first.

A few thoughts… it was fun, although I deliberately saved some stuff to stream for later, like the surfing and sailing. That stuff I will watch eventually.

The gymnastics were fun, as I tweeted, though I did lament the lack of Russian athletes. I’ll spare any talk of political stances. I’ll just say that it’s a shame that Russian athletes, who are largely innocent bystanders in the global political arena, were punished for government actions that they obviously have no control over.

And beyond that, the gymnastics really lacked for a legit competition against the US. Traditionally, that would be Russians, natch. Their style stands as an effective counterpoint against the US’s.

Without the Russians and their expertise-not to mention their influence, women’s gymnastics teetered a bit too far in the US’s favor. There was a real danger of the competitions becoming “The Simone Biles Show”, instead of an edge-of-your-seat competition.

I get the appeal of Biles. And TBH I have no idea who the current crop of Russian gymnasts are. But still- in my mind there will always be an asterisk next to the 2024 gymnastics results. Maybe not in others’ minds, but in mine- yeah.

And overall, the lack of Russians really… took something away from the rest of the field. I don’t know what it is, maybe just a lack of Russian-ness, I guess, but I missed them.

And I found it weird, truly, that the lack of Russian athletes was never mentioned during any of the broadcasts that I saw. It was like… there was some kind of unspoken rule that they weren’t to be mentioned, at all, even in passing, like the country didn’t even exist. It was kind of creepy TBH.

Well… overall, tho, the Olympics were a fantastic experience.

One personal takeaway: I guess I’m not over being an athlete, myself. At one point, I guess probably 10 years ago, I had thought so. Now, I’m thinking not.

I guess I was missing something in my life and the Olympics and a few other things, like reruns of Liv and Maddie, re-awakened it. IDK. So now I’m thinking it’s probably a good idea to start thinking of myself as an athlete again, perhaps, rather than just some guy who exercises.

I guess what I came to is the realization that I’m not “too old” to be an athlete, at least in my chosen sports.

When it comes to something like TKD or Karate, it’s probably possible to be good if not competitive for a long long time. It’s not for nothing that Eastern Martial Arts flicks are filled with “Old Master” type characters. It’s much easier to be a good TKD practitioner in your 60’s than a good rugby or basketball player, for example.

Maybe it’s time that I started taking the martial arts a bit more seriously. Especially since it’s obvious that I age slower than most men do.

IDK, it’s a thought, and one worth a lot of consideration.

Speaking of exercise and gymnastics… I was stunned to see some of the Pilates moves I invented being performed on the floor by a few of the gymnasts (!), during actual competition! I’m not sure of how to account for this- maybe they were gymnastics moves that I retrofitted into my routine? Or, were the athletes taking queues from me?

IDK, I saw at least a few of them being performed on the balance beam, and more than once by Simone Biles herself. Obviously, she did them far better than I ever could, but I was gobsmacked just watching her do them.

I don’t know what to say about this, but I guess I’ll just… leave this here.

But I will say- I don’t remember them being performed in previous years. So… there’s that.

I may actually rewatch the gymnastics competition to get pointers on how to do my own moves better, incredibly. Absolutely unreal.

I still exercise, ofc. I continue to get stronger, doing the exercises I do and continue to invent. This year I’ve made more of an effort to cut, also. We’ll see about that.

Ultimately, I will likely need to start a running routine as well- as was pointed out to me several times by some of track and field athletes- um, thanks, though I want to continue to become stronger first. Also, I have an exercise bike that I use daily.

But yes, running is on the schedule, over time. IDK, I just find pilates… fascinating. I got some new ankle weights this year that I love. I will probably combine them with some of my old ones after awhile to really push things to the limit.

And I just love too much the other workouts I do. IDK, we’ll see. But someday yes, running will be a thing, and yeah, I’ll probably enjoy that as well, but there’s no reason to master everything at once, and probably good reasons not to.

But yeah, there you go.

It struck me halfway in between the “regular” games and the Paralympics that this was probably they real reason for the games. It wasn’t about… the athletes. Is was about the audience. It’s about popularizing movement, and athletics, in the world of the common man (i.e. me).

That’s the symbolism of the gold medals. It’s alchemy. Alchemy, like the name of Liv and Maddie star Dove Cameron’s album. Is about turning straw into gold, right? The straw being us, the commoners.

And I got sucked directly into it, without me knowing or realizing it was happening.

Well… this is not a bad thing to get put in the middle of. Absorbing the life energies of thousands of world class athletes has unlocked something inside of me, and I guess I’ll use it.

Well, that’s enough for now.

I will resume these thoughts later.

Ok so… the Olympics started. Opening ceremony was pretty good. Céline was fucking awesome.

I suppose there’s kind of a limited number of ways you can do these, since there’s like a format you need to follow, with the huge number of athletes and all that that has to be managed. But the French did put some creativity into it, at least, as much as could be allowed, and that was nice. It was a pity about the rain, but nothing could be done about that. I guess in some ways it enhanced things, kind of added a romantic touch to the songs etc.

Other stuff… I think the commercials are a bit subdued this year in comparison to previous years, which is nice. I have found them in the past to be distracting and too loud and in some ways they even overshadowed the athletics which I didn’t much appreciate, so maybe this will be a nice change. I guess we’ll see. There’s still too many of them, in general. Man- they are really pushing the commercial envelope these days with what they can get away with and still hold an audience on broadcast TV.

IDK, every time the Olympics roll around I think to myself… “Self… this time, you won’t get involved. Maybe I’ll watch a thing or two, just to see something, but you know- that’s it, really.” But then- BAM. Right back into it, and it just… I don’t know what it is, really, but I just get… drawn into it, and then… yeah.

So, there it is, then. You know, the Olympics have received some flack in recent years from people but I’ve never thought much of it or in fact maybe any of it was deserved. Even from a libertarian viewpoint- the Olympics are a drop in the bucket, spending wise, compared to things like international wars, and failed government social programs like the war on drugs.

They build out infrastructure, improve the general environment, etc. etc. yeah I’m not going to write a college essay on this lol. But I personally like them.

It’s good to see people doing stuff that’s in some ways inspiring on the boob tube instead of… what is normally shown on broadcast TV, which I don’t watch voluntarily anymore, ever. Some things are best avoided, perhaps.

And the commercials. The fucking commercials. Holy fucking hell, are those things vile. And so… numerous.

Well… I will watch the Olympics, tho. They’re good inspiration.

Well… that’s it, for now.