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New Year’s Kage 2024

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Edit:This should have been posted 01/01/24 but I didn’t get around to it. Enjoy it now!

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It’s New Year’s Kage. Yay! Felix cupñemanos to 2024. My barley literate, middle school level Spanish from the 90s seems to imply a steady dose of alcohol was drunk last night, yet I’ve been sober. Going back to a long standing tradition of mine, of no drinking on holidays. Which used to be, no drinking in general, but that changed in 2011.

I never liked alcohol. Closet I come to a genuine pleasure is whiskey. While I enjoy Budweiser and a few select beers, I find beer to be pretty much, overrated, as almost none are satisfying.

So what changed in 2011? Good question! One I’ve been trying to find the answer to since then. At least cigarettes were accidental. I had a conversation with a woman in 2010 or so and they expressed that they had issues with quitting clove cigarettes. I never had any serious vice at this point and couldn’t really relate to the situation. Anyways, they got pissy with me and rage quit my life for it, thank Christ for that. So I go out and buy Djarum blacks. Well for all the research I put into before buying them, I missed the whole “contains nicotine” part of it. After smoking one, I might add and then it kinda made sense. Had she said cigarettes, it might of been more understandable, even without me having touched one, but saying it’s just cloves is like saying painkillers are just Tylenol. clearly a nonsensical statement. Anyways, I easily gave those up for a year. Then back to it in 2011. My bestie and I meet in 2007. We spent a lot of time drinking, something I never did prior to this, barring maybe a sip of water ne here and there, finding it foul. According to one of the hobby shop owners, who were only a decade older than myself, assuring me that beer is an acquired taste. Well, I wasn’t interested in acquiring it, cause it tasted like shit. So 2011 I started drinking, drinking.

We started with Rum, and cola in that winter and I ended up moving to hurricanes. Yes, the beer that annoying country song is about. Fun fact, I nearly kicked it twice that year. Once was because of wild Irish rose and not realizing that it’s not really wine, but a spirit infused booze. The second was idiotically thinking I created something called a “New England Ice Tea” which was simply vodka and cider.

I made sure that never happened again though.

2023 marked 12 years since I decided to start drinking. Even though I only drink about once a month, it’s still something that I could not wrap my head around. Why take so long to it and why continue something that was never that enjoyable?

I think I got my answer this year and it was two different things. One of which is my hatred for this horrible town I live in.

After 18 years of payment on an apartment, my parents were removed as occupants. 18 years of documentation of all on time payments. As such, I was technically homeless from July to October. Much like that time this happened in 2004, which got me stranded here in shitville USA to begin with.

Funny part about all of this, besides the landlords atrocious pill habit and her alcoholic partner, which incidentally was a similar reason we had this happen in 2004, was that the landlords wife, according to my parents, kept frothing at the mouth, in a frenzy, over myself and my 2A advocating. Mind you, this cunt is a self proclaimed GOP member. She continued to do so, even after the judge reprimanded her, since it wasn’t about me. Seriously! I plan on getting the transcript at some point to post here. One of the exact reasons I hate Biddeford. Meanwhile, child molesters and drug addicted shit heads run rampant and are highly employable. You can’t make this shit up! She even fucking stocked me on Facebook, which I had long since stopped using for the most part and even submitted a printed off picture of it, because I believe in people’s rights. Not me being a gang member or something like some of the people that lived in the house, since the husband loved renting to criminals, but PEACEFUL DISSENT on anti gunners.

Regardless of a geriatric piece of shit hating on a peaceful, nearly middle age man, I learned something about myself. That is being around such toxic people can be equally as bad for your health. Shit, my drinking was virtually non existent. Half a beer got me lit as fuck. My drinking habit in this town was majorly caused by being around such horrible people.

Begrudgingly I moved back because there are benefits to living in a shit infested town, in this barely developed thing they call a state, which is a nearby hospital. So, it has that going for it, if nothing else. So I came back for my family.

Which brings me to my next point, good thing I’m not, nor have I ever been married and have never had a child with any. children. Imagine having to also deal with having kids and a wife? I would be fucked!

Only one person ever got me to change my mind on the whole having kids thing anyway.

Which brings me to my second point on my drinking, is that, being a relatively successful person in my life, I mean, I was a predominantly A student for most my life. My first score on the SATs was better than 99% of people in my age, which was 1390-1400. Thanks to the abysmal failure of most people in my age range, would have secured me Ivy League status, never mind the fact that the average person on their second attempt gains an extra 200 points. So even if I was simply average, I would have gone up to 1590/1600 and been Ivy League as fuck at that point.

Then I “worked “ for about 2 hrs a day in my 20s and managed to do quite well with EBay, on zero experience running anything resembling a business, only to start bestinyourgirl.com and make it top 18 on average in Google search and also have pre-crime, an algorithm that, with luck, could get me a PHD one day. So overall, I’ve been fairly “lucky” in my life so far. To defer to Joe Walsh, “life’s been good to me so far.” A far better guitarist and probably man, than I.

Regardless, nearing 40, even with all that, success is practically worthless without family. I could have a lot of money and a house, I would still feel like I have nothing to show for my life. I mean, I have nothing to show for it now. Good thing I never cared to own a house anyway. I would have rather built one with my own two hands, exactly why I took an architect course in high school. I would settle for a shit ton of money and a trailer. Not the point, which is, family. It’s the most valuable thing a person can have, so never settle for less than. I’m a big believer that family is not something to enter into lightly. To do so causes bad parents. If you don’t appreciate the woman in whole, when those traits show up in your kids, you’ll resent them. So a lack of good life choices /sarcasm, leaves me with a worthless group of “ eligibles” that think they’re epic for being illiterate, drug addicted shit heads, that either stupidly had kids with the wrong mates or if they didn’t have kids, must of been even worse than I even suspected.

So that’s were my head has been at, which is a man’s ultimate success, should be his family. I could not appreciate the sentiment in my youth, but I’ve come to appreciate it now. Something for the young adults that read my blog to consider, those that share my flair for rebellion, still, into my middle age.

Look at this from the day before we went homeless,

Rolled off the bed, drunk, in my sleep hit the radiator. Kinda subtexual for everything I think. Little too late to have sense knocked into me, but never too late to learn from such.

And this was the booze that caused it. Made sure to take a picture of it for a review. Also, Shipyard Export beer.

I have about 10 shots left of my Jack Daniel’s, which I’ll probably finish. (Edit 01/16/24: yes, I finished it)

Now the reason I bring all this up and want to tie it altogether, is that addiction has been a pandemic on par with COVID. It’s probably the biggest driving force for the destruction of the world. I know my reasons, now, that contributed to my drinking. Good thing it never lead to me being addicted, but maybe now, I can better appreciate something’s that might contribute to these people’s problems. For me, understanding why I chose to change was necessary in potentially coming up with a solution to the problems. Whilst I have no solutions yet, will still maybe contribute to future articles of interest.

I find it amazing how, for a man whom, short of cigarettes, which ironically saved my life, never seemed to develop an addiction to anything, has still had too much intersectionality with my life from others self destruction. which are all stories for another day.

Anyways, I was working on a short film that, before all of this. It unintentionally invokes the zeitgeist. I intended it as a psychological horror film.

Also, need to rewrite the updated version of Pre-Crime.

So my 2024 should be way better than my 2023.

Happy New Year!

Writing

Kagemas: Jesus’ Miracles

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Jesus is the reason for the season, or so I’ve always heard about. While only about half true, given late year festivals go all the way back to Ancient Greece, if not longer, he IS responsible for how many Americans view the Christmas season. Tonight, I want to look at Jesus’ feats and see, what, if any, hold merit.

JESUS TURNS WATER TO WINE

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman,why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

It never says Jesus turned water into wine. It was presumed that traditional Jewish water jugs only held water. Within the jugs, the story suggests that Jesus knew that more affluent foalk would hide the good wine. What is the take away? Jesus was good at deducting things correctly and ignorant presumptions are just that.

Let’s take an alternative look at this story in the informality of it.

What would it have taken to turn water to wine? Grapes, yeast and time. Jesus’ story takes place in Israel. A relatively dry climate. Finding water might have been his biggest miracle of all.

The Bible states that Jesus showed aptitude at a very young age, also being highly literate long before adulthood. Not necessarily common in those days. It’s fair to say, by social standards of the time, understanding how wine works would not be common place and consider an excellent skill.

Plausibility of the story happening? Very good.

JESUS’ HEALING OF A NOBLES SON

Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

Close to death? What does that mean? We can’t really know, we weren’t there, but given the era, almost EVERYTHING, could bring you close to death. So hyperbole aside, what are we to make of all of this?

It’s stated that Jesus is a man of medicine. Which makes him a man of science. To ignore this, even though the science may be bad by today’s standards, is an atheist contradiction. It should also be noted that Leprosy was a catch all term for all skin conditions, not just the one that killed people.

Given that hypocrates was a quack doctor, but people still read his work and also given Chinese medical treatments, none of which were proven to work, but helped to open up trade routes with other countries, albeit in a different time frame, we can conclude that Jesus’ time had similar aspects and weather or not he actually helped is dubious, given we have so little data to go on.

I’m calling this plausible, even if it is dubious.

JESUS GETS FISH

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

This one was a test of patience for everyone involved. The second they wanted to give up, Jesus said try again, they did and were rewarded. I believe this is more a story about not giving up too soon, but fishermen can go hours with nothing and then find a massive catch.

I rate this as a potentially true claim, given once again, it happens all the time. Although by modern standards, rating it a miracle might be a touch overzealous.

JESUS CAST OUT A UNCLEAN SPIRIT

Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

Ok, figure of speech is what I’m getting. A heckler mocks Jesus and Jesus chills him out. Happens all the time in comedy clubs. Happens with celebrities all the time too. There is nothing here that is outrageous about a person doing this by any means. Maybe uncommon in Jesus’ day, but not unlikely. Very plausible!

JESUS HELPS PETERS MOTHER IN LAW

Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her hand, and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.

Is it a real fever or figurative? who knows. Not a lot is here to make an educated decision. That said, the Romans used to make bayleaf to make antacid cakes, so if ye olde tums could exist, maybe ye olde Tylenol could as well?

Very plausible.

JESUS HEALS A LEAPER

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead, he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Now, as stated above, Leprosy wasn’t anything more than a catch all term for everything. Given we don’t know what they had to correctly make an accurate assumption, we can still chalk it up to plausible, given lots of other places had just as much junk as any other place, and who knows, maybe it did work. Wasn’t long ago that the US thought a lobotomy was a good idea and leeches too. So…

Finally we come to

JESUS WALKS ON WATER

Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

Newtonian water aside, this story is not about a man literally walking on water, no, it’s about a man who braved a tempest.

In some cultures, you stand on line, not in. I have no doubt that this is a simple mistranslation and that Jesus walked into the water to brave the storm, something that to this day, would still frighten sailors and have taken a toll on many. Jesus would have been a miracle man for being so fuckin ballsy.

A bouns just for Christmas.

JESUS WAS BORN OF A VIRGIN BIRTH

One night an angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him that Mary’s baby was the Son of God. The angel told Joseph to marry Mary and to name her baby Jesus. Jesus was to be the Savior of the world.

This is, 100 percent, true. In Latin, the word virgin means “reserved for man.” The prefix VIR, pronounced Wir, would be associated with men. Since sexual immorality is the only claim for a divorce within the Bible it was important that Joseph understood that the child wasn’t him being cucked. Now, the whole son of god thing could be considered over the top, but given the time frame when there was no DNA testing and proving a child was yours was hard to do, many fathers and mothers often cast their potential progeny away. It never claimed Mary never had sex, just that Jesus was her first child.

The biggest miracle of all was how everyone managed to survive into adulthood to even write the Bible to begin with, never mind be literate enough to know how write. On top of all that, not having parchment to even write this down on.

Seems to me, Bible literacy needs to make a return in a big way, because too many people are arguing informality instead of what the bible actually says.

And just so we’re not busting up 100% on atheism. Mary and Joseph were never rejected by an inn keeper. Jesus wasn’t born in a manger either. Read your bible, sirs

18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about : His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 

19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 

21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 

23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

Matthew

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Praise him and all his glory!

Writing

Kagemas: Dax, rapper par excellence.

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INTRODUCTION: Anyone that knows anything about me, knows I hate rap music. It’s mostly a bunch of ass clowns running around glorifying a thug lifestyle and cop killing. That isn’t to say it doesn’t have rappers that are good though, it’s just the majority of it isn’t and had never been to my liking. I like polka as an overall genre more than rap. Getting me to listen to it is a rare event. Yet, this young man named Dax is killing it in the rap game and I have to say it’s quite entertaining.

STYLE: it’s an algamation of a million different references to past rap music and made modern.

FLOW: This guy flows like he was born rapping. Eminem has flown well, but even he has had rhymes that make you pause and wonder what he was trying to accomplish with his verbal prose.

MESSAGES: His music is filled with a lot of positive vibes. A drastic departure from music of the past.

OVERALL: Much like country music, which I lothe, rap can have its moments. When it comes to Dax, everything this man does IS that moment. Every non redeemable quality of rap music is dismissed in favor of high quality music. While I haven’t listened to his entire catalog, everything I’ve seen, including his “covers” of old rap songs with new lyrics, are 10x better than the originals. He’s truly a modern Tu pac and one, even the most anti rap music guy like myself, needs to give him a listen.

5 out of 5 stars

Here’s my favorite song by this new artist.

Writing

Kagemas, Violent Night, a review

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INTRODUCTION: So I love weird, especially something like this. Naturally, when I saw the trailer, I knew at some point I was going to watch and review this. I had a friend when I was younger and this is the type of shit we lived for, creating zany comics of stick figure men. A killer Santa would of had us both in theaters that very day. So I’m excited to have finally watch it.

PLOT: Santa found himself in the wrong house one Christmas Eve and becomes a reluctant hero.

CHARACTERS: Not very well developed, but who cares, Santa is killing mercs. Need I say more?

ACTING: Some really good performances, especially Beverly D’Angelo playing a bitch very well. John leguizamo is playing his best villain/gangster yet. The worse acting comes from Alex Hassell, whom emotes like a robot.

STYLE: Very beautiful. Nice use of color, crystal clear and clean.

DIALOGUE: Nothing cringe. Believable.

MUSIC: Forgettable.

CONCLUSION: For a movie that is Tim Allen’s Santa Clause mixed wit Die Hard, this really should not work. Plenty of fucked up Santa movies have been made. The 80s had Silent Night, Deadly Night, a Tales from the Crypt Episode and a movie called Christmas Evil, which I reviewed in 2019. The 90s didn’t have much in terms of bad Santa’s, other then Robo Santa from Futurama, but the 00’s did, with, you guessed it, Bad Santa. So a movie like this is relatively novel and it totally hits, even if it should not. I look forward to a sequel here.

3.5/5

Writing

KAGEMAS: Why Schindlers list is a perfect adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

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So, not everything I am doing for Kagemas is a review. Normally I wouldn’t start the proceedings too early, but I think this is too intriguing a perspective to wait til December to post, so you get an early Kagemas present.

If you pay enough attention to my site, you know I love Halloween. One of my favorite things, post Halloween,though is being a Scrooge and hating on Mariah Carey.

You know I love AChristmas Carol but never liked the ending. Scrooge should have stuck to his guns, because he was the hero and right.

Let’s look at three core reasons Scrooge was the hero.

1. Scrooge gave excellent housing to all. It’s the 1800’s, there is no electricity until the late half of the century and indoor plumbing wouldn’t exist until 1912. What people got was better digs than a house only a century earlier. Back then, the tenant was expected to do a majority upkeep, almost like owning your own house. Greedy Miser?

2. Scrooge employed Bob Crachit. A guy that would of been the lowest in terms of socioeconómics, thanks to Tiny Tim, making him to seem impotent. Scrooge bucks the trends. Miser indeed/sarcasm

3. He uses coal to warm his business. It’s 1800. This was relatively unheard of. Most still used wood stoves. One peice of coal would have warmed the whole place up. Better than a wood stove. This is the time of the industrial revolution for Christ sakes, everything was about to run on coal. You tell me if that’s the hallmark of an a miser.

Scrooge’s only crime was he wasn’t an idle poor.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at Schindler’s List. A modern retelling of A Christmas Carol and infinitely superior to the novel.

Oscar Schindler is a Nazi party member and excellent capitalist. He is anti Jew and clearly didn’t mind showing it. Now, the Nazi were socialist, but I would reckon that his reason for being in favor of socialism is that he doesn’t have to spend his own money to keep, by his own admission, slave labor healthy. He fuckin worse than Scrooge ever was and not just because he’s a Nazi. Cratchit at least seems like he has choice.

Through out the movie and novel, Oscar eventually learns what a dull prick he is, without ghosts, but the movie is helped by a dead girl colorized red, representing the spirit of Christmas and innocence lost. He starts giving, painfully to save as many Jews as he can. At the end, the war is over, Germany surrendered and Schindler lamented on how many more lives he could have saved. He became a good guy and had REAL character arch, not some phony bullshit because the shitty poors of Victorian era England don’t like that you aren’t a spend thrift. Big fuckin deal!

So it is, in my opinion, Schindler’s List is not just a retelling of a classic, but a story that actually happened and has had real world consequences on the millions of generations that will exist because of him. So I say, godbless it!

Give it a watch this Christmas with this fresh perspective.

Great acting!
Writing

Would You Survive a Horror Movie?

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So a meme floating around showing John Cena vs Jason Vorhees, ala Freddy Vs Jason, but minus the cool back then, horribly retro now, El Niño song.

So It got me to thinking, who wins? Well, unlike Freddy and Jason that have non niche, well, as non niche as horror can be, fanbases; John only has WWE to make him a non jobber. Sans this being a WWE presents, just being a walking invisible joke isn’t enough, spoiler alert, it wasn’t for Freddy either. This movie came down to Friday the 13th fanboys making Jason “win” because he was a sympathetic serial killer/mass murder. That’s the part on which this essay hinges. Would you survive a horror movie would be as simple as do you like Freddy or Jason?

I personally am a Freddy guy. Yeah he killed kids and the remake made him a child molester, but he’s a formidable foe. You may not like his background, but objectively, he has powers. Jason biggest power is necromancy bringing him back from the dead. Freddy basically can never die, he is no longer mortal or even reanimated biological matter. So if you pick Freddy, you’re objective and got a good head on your shoulders, you’re probably going to survive the movie.

If you pick Jason, based on sympathy, you’re easily swayed by emotion, not very logical and you’re probably going to die in a horror movie because you fell for the classic blunder of many a real killers victims did, which is they hooked you with a false story to get your guard down and you fell for it, now you dead. I’m not sure how much merit this would truly hold in the real world, but 20 years after the movie came out, it is still an interesting question, who wins, Freddy or Jason?