WildernessPunk – WildernessPunk

WildernessPunk: Ten Years

For the handful of people who have followed my journey, or are at least aware of it, in two days I’m going to have my tenth anniversary of leaving the Illusion of what most consider ‘The Real World,’ behind me. April 9^th 2016 was the last day I was allowed to work at the job I’d had for over twelve years. I was fired because certain lies were leaked to the paper. In a way, this was alright with me for it was harder to make a proper presentation at my former place of employment after I was set up and hit the floor hard. At the time losing my ability to see my young boys, have access to any of the possessions I spent decades accumulating, and have a stream of decent income sent me into a spiral of struggle, oscillating between camping in the forest, couch surfing, and traveling when able.

Although WildernessPunk would officially begin four months later, in truth it had begun the day I’d lost my job three days after already losing my boys and everything I owned. Sure, I still pay my taxes for goods and I’m back to driving a car presently, but in many ways I turned my back on trying to live a normal life ten years ago and set out on my own trail. This path, after years of terror and torment, did lead to me gaining complete custody of my boys and getting married to a woman better than I ever imagined a person could be. So yes, I am no iconoclastic writer living in the forest on the fringe of civilization, (Anymore) my children attend schools and I shop at Albertsons. I admit, as much as I’d like to deny or avoid it, I’m part of the culture, an American culture which values blood over food, and money over common sense.

As the belt of overpopulation and climate change tightened around our gluttonous country we had two real choices. Embrace the future and channel tax dollars into alterative energies and shift to human focused funding or double down on the last of a dying system.

One favored old money and the billionaires, so I guess we know which one the appointed fascists picked. The only thing which surprised me was how quickly we started killing people so we could steal their resources. This leaves me to wonder; if we are doing this now, while things are still clinging to the illusion of a status quo, what will our government be like if we really start to run dry on resources?

I’m sure we’ll find out before another ten years has passed.

Funny how my experience which began ten years ago has mirrored our country’s experiences in many ways. Ten years ago, our normal was replaced by trashy hate and blatant lies much as my personal life was.

After Covid we returned to some level of normalcy but there was always the fear of the madness and blatant hate lurking in the background, ready to pounce. With the aid of the villainous billionaires, a raging hate filled narcissist was able to convince the majority of voters that hate was more important than prosperity and racism was more important that billionaires stealing their dreams, while making their own more bloated and grotesque.

So where has ten years of lies and hate gotten us?

Murder, war, genocide…sounds like I’m reading someone’s holy book.

As supplies run short and the climate turns more once fertile farmland into desert, I have a feeling that lies about who one should hate will lead to more wars and murder, while those who can, steal for those who can’t fight back. I suppose the real question is, are we going to bounce back from this? Will we get leaders willing to spend money on people and renewable energy instead of fear, thievery, and death, or is this the beginning of the new us?

How do you feel about this being the new you? Is the death of hundreds of Venezuelans worth lowering our gas prices by ten cents for two weeks? How do you like being part of the infrastructure of this country who bombs babies for billionaires?

I know I’m not keen on the idea and I hope we get a swing back to rational. Remember we just have to keep as much of the truly real world, and by this I mean our biodiversity, alive until the lights go out. Even if we don’t make it, maybe some of the animals can, and I’m more inclined to vote for them.

Check back in with me in another ten years. Who knows maybe we’ll all be WildernessPunkers by then.

You can grab more WildernessPunk or find out how it started at its main site here.

WildernessPunk: Within the Evil Empire

Looking back at my younger days I think I was sixteen when I first began to become enlightened enough to know most of what I was presented with was manipulation, lies, and undue sense of temporal importance. During college, my Anthropology degree exposed me to the swath of horrors the US and the rest of the more developed world inflicted on the underdeveloped countries. By the time I reached a Punk Rock crescendo in 1992, while publishing my underground Zine C.H.A.O.S (Collected Humans Against Outdated Systems), I was around twenty-five and I decided that many of the larger US corporations, and the government which was owned by them, were more evil than not.

Funny how they attempted to keep those things hidden back them.

Not anymore.

But what do you do when you live within an evil empire? Some things like funding Israel, invading Middle Eastern countries so we or they can oppress people, and the like, have always loomed over us. Things are no longer half hidden deals made by the elite behind closed doors, we live in an age where you can see how vile and dangerous our country has become on an hourly basis.

I’ve mentioned before that in an issue of C.H.A.O.S I predicted when the environment degrades to a level which effects profits and resources become scarcer, the rules would change. The government, and the money which controls it, will no longer bother playing nice. Instead of investing in green technology or funding schools instead of soldiers, they will lock themselves in their mega-mansions and refuse to change a game they are winning. The billionaires and their sick-o-phants have chosen to bleed every drop they can from the plants, animals, and peoples of this planet until it wastes away. Even then, the military will protect them so they can live off the corpse they created as long as they can.

This article is not about exposing the horrors of the ultra-rich, that’s already been done. Instead, I am asking myself and you… what do we do when we are living within a country set on the edge of becoming an actively evil empire, both without and within?

I mean this on a daily basis. What should you do now? What should you do tomorrow? What is it alright to do on a casual basis? Is it okay for me to post funny memes on Facebook or should I be trying every minute to fight back against the system which has threatened to do their best to transform the people they don’t arrest and kill, into little more than employed slaves staring at screens and hoping we can still afford food next month.

There is something to say for the “Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down,” contingent. “I not going to let them ruin my life,” is a worthy sentiment. Certainly, we should keep and cherish the moments we get to spend in nature, and with friends and family. We must remember what we’re fighting for and what normal is. Also maintaining a sense of humor, even through the worst of times, is a noble and powerful thing.

Yet we also must avoid ignoring the tragedy of our times and treat this as a, ‘New Normal.’ As the environment starts its death throes, and this is hurried along by data farms, all of us will have to define our own New Normal. Clinging on to our past assumptions and lifestyles like some half assed versions of the elite which are roasting us while they prepare their bunkers, doesn’t seem like a long term solution.

But is harping on it with daily memes to people who mostly agree with you doing any more? I get the need to make a statement about how much it sucks to see the world screwed over by assholes you wouldn’t let into your Dungeons and Dragon’s game, but is this any better than showing people food pics?

If I decided I wanted to do something to fight back and posting memes wasn’t the way, what would I do? Political action? Fight like tigers against a gerrymandered system to let in people who won’t grow the military but will let it remain at its ponderous size, while hiring more police, and still only using fractions of our wealth to provide for the people living on the edge? The poor get a bandaid while as the climate, health insurance, and economy grows worse there will just be more and more poor and homeless as AI erases jobs and tears through the environment.

Protest? Besides some cool drone shots on CNN have the two biggest protests in US history stopped us from killing people in Venezuela? Has voting kept someone who we 100% knew was evil out of the White House?

So what can we do?

How about everything we can. Spread the word. Make people think. Outside of your own bubble would be best. Don’t preach to the converted use guerilla tactics to spread ideas. We live in the information age but if people’s eyes are whitewashed by propaganda it doesn’t matter because they don’t have a chance to see reality. They need to have a chance to find it out themselves.

Perhaps Truth could be the new conspiracy theory. People can research unseen web sites and discover…oh wait. I didn’t know that was real. I never looked at it this way before. No one has ever told me about this.

Maybe stickers would do what algorithms can’t. Perhaps it is time to stop living and arguing online and through talking heads and instead, be in the same room and engage. That guy might be wearing a MAGA hat, but unless he’s more than a millionaire we’re all going to be swimming in the same flash flood in the next few years.

Personally, I give the US about one more year, maybe fourteen months.

Time to do two things. Fight for every inch you can and get ready for the real battle to come.

Dak is ordered to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s in love with one.

WildernessPunk: Data Centers and Scrolling to Death

When we speak of the dangers of Doom Scrolling it is usually involves the psychological damage to the individual and our culture. Some worry about the time and money which may be wasted binge watching streamed shows while nothing is accomplished other than increasing your waistline. Others speak out on the economic impact of services like Amazon who horde consumer spending profits while local businesses are destroyed,

However, all these things have a darker more hidden aspect which is rarely discussed and this is the use of Data Centers. It is hard to track the number of Data Centers in the US because Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and a few others do their best to keep the plants undiscovered. They rightly fear that if the truth was known about the real costs of these facilities even Americans might consider changing their habits.

All the You Tube videos, streamed movies, music, catalogs of endless products, and so many things we adore are all kept ‘live’ in these data centers. Most of us enjoy our online fun…but at what cost?

The cost we pay for these Data Centers is almost beyond human understanding. Just one small Data Center in Nebraska, for instance, uses the same energy in a year to provide electricity to 400,000 homes during the same period. The percentage of total energy use in the United States by Data Centers rose 9% in the last 10 years bringing it currently up to 12% of our nation’s total energy use. The introduction of AI is estimated to raise this energy need more than 10 times bringing from 7.5 Kilowatts per hour to 85 Kilo Watts per hour. So depending on how things could work out, we could be looking at the need to create 5 times as many Data Centers as we already have so they can drain 60% of the energy we currently produce within the United States. In other words, we’ll have to produce about 50% more than we currently do, just to support AI and Date Centers.

Such things as green energy we acquire from hydroelectric dams, solar, and wind farms become a side note and won’t even cover half of this requirement while leaving 100% of our normal energy requirements untouched. Things like solar panels on your own roof have zero effect on this energy burden. Yes, they power the electricity your television, Alexia use to run, and charge your cell, but that is just the smallest fraction of the energy these services require to bring you data from the cloud.

For example, things like printed books pay off their energy production requirement in the first ten minutes of reading an e-book. Depending on how fast you read, a six hundred page e-book costs the same amount of energy and resources to print 20 books which can be reread, shared, gifted, inherited, or resold.

If pollution or the effects of Climate Change matter to you, then you should keep in mind these centers currently emit 300,000 Kilograms of greenhouse gases and pollution an hour. Again, if the AI cost ups this by the estimated factor of 10 we are looking at 3,000,000 KG of pollution per hour or 26,280,000,000 KG a year. This makes any sad attempt we might try to lower Greenhouse gases laughable. How can we expect to lower anything when the introduction of AI will create over 26 Trillion KG of pollution which wasn’t even there 15 years ago and this is just centers in the US. Any benefits you created by taking public transportation to work are erased by streaming a two hour movie or scrolling 20 minutes on your cell.

The horror doesn’t end there. The real danger, the true threat to many of us, in our decade long drought ridden regions, is the amount of water these Data Centers require. Currently Data Centers use a million gallons of water daily or 1.83 billion gallons a year. If we assume the ten-fold increase AI could require we are looking at 18,300,000,000 gallons a year. Places like Los Vegas, Pheonix, and Tucson will become ghost towns as the water dries up, property values sink to pennies on the dollar, and a fifth on the country’s population becomes climate refugees.

If you think there is an economic gain for the communities allowing these Data Centers to come in rob them of their water, increasing their energy bills, while droning 24/7 loud enough to rattle windows, think again, for some states are giving them up to a billion dollars in tax exempt discounts while they only hire around 100 employees from the area.

What is the answer when conserving energy, water, and controlling pollution becomes useless? The world was barely concerned with Climate Change before and big tech drove a dagger through the heart of any attempt to keep it under control and AI requirements will finish the job.

Look, I get it. I’m still using the internet too. I am currently a big fan of You Tube, my kids stream shows, and I hate to say it, but I love listening to music on our Alexia, while I cook. You are reading this online article, I posted, on a screen and before you got to the end it undid any savings you created riding your bike to the grocery store or using an energy efficient dishwasher might have saved you.

So what is the answer, sell your Alexia, toss your cell phone into a river, and see if you can still find a blue ray for sale? I don’t think we have the ability or self control to do a lot of those things. However, keep in mind any use of AI is a stab through the environment’s heart. It isn’t cool, it’s criminal. All things done offline should be rewarded and admired. Do as little online as your sanity and employment will allow you to get away with. Lastly realize moving any practice that wasn’t online to online is not an advancement toward anything except ensuring our culture’s quickly approaching destruction.

Author’s note: I know I threw out a lot of facts and figures I gleaned from multiple sources and failed to reference them. I looking to do a deeper dive into the source material and perhaps produce a more detailed article on this subject in the near future which will include references.

Thank you, I’m off to prepare a Role Playing Game for my wife which will create a zero carbon footprint and requires no online assistance. Prepare yourself for you own future and…roll initiative.

Dak is ordered to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.

The Top Seven Things I Have Learned from Bad Relationships

Author’s Note: One of the bench marks of realizing how horrible a relationship was, is knowing how wonderful the right one can be. So, I want to point out my current relationship is better than I ever thought one could be, and it helps clarify how awful and unnecessary many of the other things I experienced were.

Realizing I Don’t Have to Prove I’m Right

When you know you’re right about a subject, your fast draw reaction is to demonstrate why your position is correct. If you could just explain yourself, it would be impossible for others to not embrace your conclusions. But…

I’m sure you’ve seen the state of our Ununited States, or should I just say the States. Thinking you can convince someone of something which, if they were to admit it was true, would make them look foolish, wrong, or damage their Cultural World View, is between impossible and difficult, or could become a yearlong ordeal. If you think it is a simple matter, you haven’t argued with many people and are disregarding the obvious reality.

Instead, I learned I don’t have to prove I’m right. Doing so is an agonizing waste of time. My job isn’t to teach the world. If something is next to impossible, I have better things to do. I know the truth and so do the people I want to spend time with. You may think the irrational person could gloat or you should prove yourself, but if it’s just wasted time and words, the best stance is silence and avoidance. Soon you will be free.

2. How Important is it to Maintain Your Healthy Friendships

I’m sure you’ve heard one of the first things toxic people do it try to separate their mate from their support network. Family and friends will be constantly insulted and put down. No matter what happens, if you don’t respect the person who’s speaking the words, you don’t have to respect what they say.

I’ve had some of my friendships for over 40 years, and I’ve never dated anyone for much over a decade. Unless you have found your real lover, relationships come and go. Friendship and family usually last a lifetime while more often than not, relationships eventually fade. Stay true to your friends, the dysfunctional mate wants them to abandon you, because in a tight spot, good friends always have your back and will help you get back onto your feet.

3. There Are Times You Have to Work Harder

If the house is a mess, you don’t like it that way, but you know the other person is doing far less than their share of cleaning, you must let it go. Just because they are a dysfunctional loser, you aren’t required to join them. If they won’t get off their ass unless you’re done cooking them dinner it doesn’t mean you have to live in squalor.

One of the first things you should do when you find yourself locked within a horrid relationship, is no longer think of yourself as a couple. Change your attitude, your other is now just a shitty roommate you can’t get rid of yet. Just because they are a lazy waste of space, doesn’t mean you must live with dirty dishes and cluttered rooms. Remember, if you were living by yourself, you’d have to do all the work. Just think of your life as you are already living by yourself and required to do everything and just do it. No need for you to live like a loser too.

Many rebel against such notions thinking it’s not fair or if you do everything the partner will just dig in and do less. Don’t look at it like that. Instead know you are being strong, they will have less to try to bitch about, and you are just practicing for when you are finally free.

4. Life is Almost Never Fair

I’d like to say life is never fair, but once in a while it comes up even, like if you and three buddies all pitch in ten bucks for some pizza, but when was the last time that happened? Thinking life should be fair will just slow you down and you’ll make yourself depressed. Someone always does more and usually that someone ends up being you. If it isn’t, you might be the villain in this article.

Once you understand you’ll never even the scales, it gives you the freedom to do whatever you like. Your life is meant to be lived by you and you are the yardstick used to measure your self worth. Don’t worry if you are doing too much, if you’re doing things which make your life better, do more. Soon you’ll drop the slop, and everything you’ve done to improve your life will elevate you and empower your new beginning.

5. Letting Lies and Insults Go

Why should you care about what an illogical, ignorant, or lying person says? This goes back a bit to number one on this list but if you don’t respect how a person is living or what they are saying, you certainly don’t have to acknowledge when they are trying to pick a fight or manipulate you.

This can dip into gaslighting and other forms of control. Ignore the bait and don’t validate them with an argument for there is little to gain arguing with someone with mental illness.

They want a reaction out of you. Even a negative one shows you have a passion for the relationship. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Better to just nod your head and walk away. The best reaction is often no reaction. What a toxic person says doesn’t matter and it will matter less as soon as you escape and never have to hear their imaginary nonsense again.

6. Keep Your Possessions Separate

Sure, maybe legally you may each own all your things together, but there are things which you know are yours and with community items like frying pans and end tables you can always buy better versions later. If you are with a selfish toxic mate, you are probably going to lose most of your things but don’t be bitter. You’ll be free and it will be worth it.

Depending on how bad things are getting and how much capital is on hand, I would suggest renting a small storage unit. Each day on your way to run all the errands, while your partner binge watches some trashy series, drop a box or two of your things off at the unit.

Do this because…

The crappy partner can’t break them in a fit.
They can’t try to steal your things later.
You aren’t arguing over what is whose in the middle of a caustic break up
Moving into a new place is so much easier. Half your things are already packed.

7. You Need to Prepare an Escape Plan

This is often difficult. Your name may be on a lease, or if you own your home, ouch. Also, there could be children involved. Still not living in the same place isn’t the same thing as not living up to your obligations. You could still pay your rent and, if allowed, care for your children. Still, in these days where raising your voice counts as domestic violence (Its the law. Look it up.) you need to set up a safe place to escape to. If you are with an irrational person for whom you are providing, they aren’t going to want you to leave and will do everything in their power to make you stay.

Standing around in your house packing while they scream at you or looking up rentals while they hover over you isn’t going to work. Driving around with a car packed full of your things with no plan isn’t much better. Friends can help but they’ll be ten times happier to know your needs in advance. Don’t just show up and ask to crash on their sofa for a month. In most cases I would recommend you have a place to go before you break up and if you are smart enough you might already have a sofa of your own there.

Dak is asked to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.

The Top Ten Easy Ways Everyone Can Help Protect our Environment

1. Only Read Real Books.

Reading a 400 page e-book using roughly 40 times the energy as reading a printed book and printed books can be reread and shared.

2. Grow a Garden

Even vegans use 60% as much energy as the most carnivorous consumer due to transportation and growing costs. Growing a garden is the best method to combat this huge cost of food production.

3 Engage in Silence

Many of us now feel we need a podcast, music cranking from an Alexa, or a YouTube video blasting all the time. Intelligence, personality, and peace grow in silence. Also, any streamed media uses a huge amount of energy.

4. Do Whatever it Takes to Minimize Wasting Food

In the US it is estimated that some families waste up to 1/3 of the food they buy. This hurts their wallet as well as the environment. All the food the US wastes could feed Mexico and the energy used to create it could fuel 100% of the energy needs for three Tanzanias. (Also save roughly a 1000$ per person a year.)

5, Have Driving Free Days

If we all the people in the US pledged to not drive at least one day a week we would save 4 billion dollars a month and roughly 50 billion a year.

(Low ball estimate of 5 dollars a day x 4 = 20$ x 200,000,000 drivers = 4 billion$ or for you about 40$ a month and 500$ a year. No driving = sometimes as much as 3,500 a year. I didn’t drive for 19 of my adult years so 66,500$ or about 4 x what I paid for my last car.)

6. Make a Compost Pit

Any veggies you throw away have their nutrients wasted while it creates more greenhouse gases. Instead, you can make a part of your yard full of bountiful life or, of course, use this nutrient rich soil in your garden.

7. Find a Hobby Which Can Use Recycled Products

We’ve all heard of the three Rs, but what about doing these things ourselves? Preserve veggies with old jars, make art out of items once bound for the landfill, start plants in plastic containers, or my personal favorite, make Dungeons and Dragons scenery out of former trash.

8. Try to Order Things by Delivery as Seldom as Possible

I know this is a hard one for some people, but remember if you really needed something you would already have it. Plan all your future requirements so they are gathered in one trip, preferably on your way to do some other tasks and not some giant truck running 20 trips after the crap has already been shipped across the Pacific.

This goes the same for ordering food delivered. These days it costs almost twice as much as it would have if you picked it up on your way home or about 10 times as much if you made it yourself. It is also wasteful and horrible for the planet. If you shop once a week just think of each Door Dash as doubling your carbon footprint for getting food on the table.

9. Find Hobbies and Pastimes You Can Enjoy Without Wasting Resources

Not everything in life must be streamed. Social media, Netflix, online video games have huge energy costs. Our ancestors didn’t need any of this crap to be happy. Do things for fun which help the planet instead of hurt it or buy things with one and done costs, like printed books, board games, horseshoes, cooking, and bike riding. Watch out or you might even burn a few calories and get some muscle tone back.

10. Don’t Use Artificial Intelligence

AI wastes a huge amount of energy to use. Create yourself, educate yourself, come on you are better than this.

Dak is asked to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.

WildernessPunk: The Mask is Off and Fascism is Here

When I was about 16 I came to the realization our government was not to be trusted and acted accordingly. I also became an anarchist of sorts for I certainly made my own rules on what was appropriate and what wasn’t and strived to live by them. About 8 years later, I had learned more about third world exploitation and read a great deal on what fascism really was/is. In 1992 I wrote an article called Friendly Fascism in issue 7 of the underground zine C.H.A.O.S or Collected Humans Against Outdated Systems.

At the time I believed the United States was a country controlled by Fascists and would be Fascists, but back then they kept the mask on. Democrats wanted you to think of them as the party of humanitarianism and Republicans just wanted to keep government small, almost like anarchists, right?

I also knew, and I know I’ve dived into this more than a few times, that once the environment started to collapse and there were less goods for more people, the governments would turn to Fascism and do everything in its power to make sure the mega-rich could still enjoy their luxurious lifestyles while the world slowly suffered and burned.

What I didn’t expect is how quickly the mask of normalcy would come off, get tossed away, and burned. We went from getting checks to help us survive Covid to masked military invading our cities in less than 4 years.

But do you believe the United States is Fascist? Do you think the Dems will lick em’ in the midterms? Is the USA going to bounce back in a few years and inflation will chill while Generation Z starts a new middle class and begins buying up homes?

Well in case you are on the fence here are the eighteen signs a country has become fascist, all of which the United States has adopted.

Eighteen Signs You Live in a Fascist Country

Using Secret Police
Denying Reality with Constant Lies
Controlling Media
Normalizing Corruption
Rejecting Election Results
Controlling Education
Using the Military on Civilians
Appointing Incompetent Loyalists
Rewriting History
Ignoring Due Process
Labeling Minorities as Enemies
Using Fear to Gain Power
Replacing Science with Ideology
Accusing Others of Your Crimes
Protecting Criminal Loyalists
Normalizing Political Violence
Suppressing the Vote
Erasing and Faking Government Data

Think about it, really think about it. If a government is doing eighteen of the key forms of Fascism, is it Fascist?

I’m going to say yes.

I guess the question is what are we going to do about it now? Lots of people are doing many things to fight against it, but posting memes doesn’t count. Being depressed doesn’t count. Bitching and moaning doesn’t count unless you do something afterwards.

The people in the country and most others must come to some realizations and do it quickly.

Is the environment going to become more plentiful? No.
Is the middle class going to grow? No
Are the ultra greedy going to give what they have taken back? No.
Are huge percentages of the population going to suddenly wake up and turn on the overlords they idolize? No.
Is someone coming to help you? No.
Are we in trouble? Yes.

When the tanks come riding into your town are you going to be able to ride it out? When the neighbor’s children ask you for your food can you say no? When your son is drafted so we can steal the resources from another country, are you going to hide him?

I wish I had answers but I’m not sure I do. Trying to buy land with water somewhere sounds reasonable, but not everyone can do that. If they catch you living free and autonomously they will come for you if they can.

In the book, Replace the State by Sasha Davis, he strongly suggests one of the best ways to fight against a corrupt state is to develop local communities, families and individuals who can work together and help each other. Fascists can always triumph over the individual. Joining together, creating reciprocity, and doing your best to survive off the grid is a powerful first step.

A second is unplug and I mean from everything as much as you can. Not just social media, but e-books, video games, GPS, apps, and streaming. Do things with your hands. When AI takes your job and the national guard are patrolling your streets wearing masks and carrying rifles, what’s going to matter more, how many hits someone else’s meme you posted got, or that you made a better awning for your garden?

Step up, stand tall, and shout out.

We can survive this and maybe our grandchildren will be riding horses over the seas of grass.

Dak is asked to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.

The Top Ten Reasons Role Playing Gamers are More Prepared Than You

They are used to facing down fascist totalitarian overlords
Gamers spend whole days dealing with hidden surprises trying to tear out their throats
Sooner than later huge groups of guards are hunting them down
Each day they are living through an apocalypse with limited supplies
Gamers understand life is usually a handful of allies vs an almost unconquerable state
They never use their real names
Disguises and infiltration are smarter than always fighting
RPGers always have snacks
They can have fun for hours without spending a dime
Rolling their 30 year old dice isn’t melting the icecaps

Dak is asked to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.

The Top Ten Reasons Why Someone Should Work for ICE

Your self hate can be channeled elsewhere
It will distract people away from how small your penis is
Mask conveniently hide ugly faces
Reminds you, you aren’t the biggest loser in town each time you ruin someone’s life
You’ll look more muscular with all that padding
You always wanted to be a Nazi
Someone, besides your AI girlfriend, will finally take you seriously
Your Klan hood is in the laundry
People different than you are scary and make you pee a little
You’ll be able to get a lot of free sandwiches

Dak is asked to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.

The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective People

I recently wrote a piece called The Seven Habits of Highly Annoying People and I felt I didn’t get enough pushback, so I figured I would take it up a notch, while bringing the topic closer to Steven Cove’s famous book. It could be fun to just reverse what he proposed, but I figured it would be superior to shoot for something more original.

There are many things which could make a person ineffective, but I’m trying to avoid wide concepts like being lazy, wasting time, or not having real goals. Each of these subjects could be a different article or a book. I’m going for a bit more specific and things one could improve without therapy, medications, and a life coach.

Procrastination

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, I waited to the last minute and everything turned out better.Part of the creative process is coming up with what you need but then thinking about it, reviewing it, and making changes before you present the completed project. None of this happens if you do something last minute. The one thing doing something important at the last minute accomplishes is a high chance you won’t be able to complete it at all.

No one is impressed by seeing you waiting to the final moment and cramming. If you are doing something for them, it just looks like you don’t really care and its almost worse than doing zero. Nothing says love more than wrapping some Circle K chocolate on the way home to your anniversary.

2. Unprepared

Sure, when I was twenty it was alright to be invited to a friend’s place and find a sink full of dirty dishes, no beer in the fridge, and the only thing to eat was a spilled bag of chips in the middle of the table we needed to use. However, we should get back to showing a little class or maybe just showing off. What are you waiting for, to turn eighty and have half as many friends? Put you best boot forward and try to wow people. Don’t wait until people show up and then ask them to help you move chairs like it is a privilege to be at your place, because if you haven’t prepared, it isn’t.

Face it, people don’t want to leave their home these days. Going over to your place might be more of an obligation than a prize, so don’t fuck it up and sweep the damn floors and have some soft fucking cheese for Yig’s sake.

Saying I’m a Martha Stewart fan would be like saying the Ramones liked long songs, but there was one thing she said about hosting events at your house I took to heart. She stated everything should be done before the day of the event. If you are shopping and cleaning right up to when people walk in you feel dirty, tired, and perhaps full of resentment because these people made you work so hard. I do not care if it is a BBQ, birthday party, or hosting a poker night, be an adult and have everything prepared in advance and there better be ice in that damn cooler.

3, Don’t Listen to Experts

If you think you already know everything, I’m surprised you’ve read this far. Why would you need to read this article, watch a YouTube video, or get a book on the subject.

In this world of micro specialization, unless you are sitting on the back of a yacht, I find it almost impossible to imagine there isn’t thousands or perhaps millions of people who knows more about a subject than you. Perhaps you know 90% more than a person, but they could still open your eyes to their take on that last 10%.

No one can do it better than you? Why? Do you have some magic powers you haven’t shared? Being someone who wants to start something from zero because they know better, is like people who want to write a book but don’t read.

4. Base Your Ethics on Magick and Superstition

Religions, I’m calling you out. You aren’t some sort of de facto concept the unbrainwashed need to consider.Face it, religions are all just larger cults. They engage in Magickal thinking. People were created with Magick. Magick controls our lives. There are Magickal Gods which take our Magickal souls to a Magickal place.

Can I sell you folks some Magic Beans?

If you are basing your ethics on religions which said slavery was acceptable, like the big three Abrahamic religions, then you’ve ground to a halt before you started. Quit being a cave man. The Earth is round and rotates around the sun and your sky daddy is about as real as a hydra, unless it is to All-Father snake Yig who, by the way, said your God is fake and he is the real creator of the universe.

Prove me wrong.

5. Distance yourself from the Natural

Remember what Froggy said in Repo Man? “The more you drive the stupider you get.” I think this goes for most technology, or at least unhealthier. Each machine or device we possess removes us further from the natural and probably does its best to keep your extra pounds on.

Once you could have quietly found a meditative state raking your leaves while getting some fresh air and maintaining upper body tone, Pah, where is the fun of doing anything which doesn’t create more pollution? Let’s get a loud ass leaf blower. It burns fossil fuels, wisps away the natural environment plants need to thrive, while making all my neighbors miserable. What a win, but I saved forty minutes. Now I can scroll Instagram for two hours!

If there is such a thing as Magick in this world, it is held in the bosom of nature. The further we remove ourselves from this interaction the more psychosis will develop. Healthy minds and bodies need to embrace the outdoors.

6. Base Your Beliefs on Emotions Instead of Facts

The world isn’t a wish factory. Just because you want something to be doesn’t mean you get it. Are you a billionaire? No, and if you somehow are, fuck off. Does wishing something was true make it so with anything else? Money, health issues, family relationships, employment, does it change just because you wish it so? Why would the rest of the world do so?

You don’t like GBLTQA+ so that makes it wrong.
You think immigrants in the US commit more crimes than MAGA supporters so it makes it so.
We can give the ultra-rich our Medicare money but your life will still get better soon.
We’ll lick them next time guys. Countries aren’t spiraling toward danger. Politics will solve these problems soon. Everything is just the same ol, same ol.
Animals and the environment are not in danger so let’s put in a pool, fly all over the globe, and shut down the EPA.

How can anyone expect things to work out when they turn a blind eye to what is real. You may not think its true but reality can give you a slap down no matter what you believe.

7. Spend your time watching other people make money

Every time you watch a movie, binge a television show, scroll through Facebook, or indulge in YouTube you are just watching someone making money, or at least trying to, while you erase a few hours of life and fail to burn off a few calories.

Video games are pretty much the same. Sure, they are fun but you are paying for their new car with the hours of your life, and when you are finally done, they are a bit richer and you are closer to death, a little poorer, and a tad more out of shape.

Some people try to create for themselves or maybe think of a new project which could make some positive change in their lives, while others just burn electricity watching other people live their lives instead of improving your own. Other’s experiences and imaginations aren’t yours. Shut of the glowing rectangle and make create your own scenes, situations, and adventures.

Thanks for listening and may all the magic snakes bless you.

Dak is asked to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.

WildernessPunk: Mule Creek

Been a rough week.

Years from now this will just be a crazy week we vaguely remember, except for the families of the people our president illegally murdered to help bury the largest protest the US had ever seen. For us now, we are living it. Should we be angry and fight against the polished shoes of fascism, or should we be clinging to our personal norm?

Still, what can we do daily? Does reminding our closest peeps what a shitshow our country is on Facebook each day matter? Is it preaching to a choir or just beating people on the head? “Guess what, the administration is evil.”

“Yeh bro, I think we know.”

No one hasn’t made up their mind by now. If you find someone, I’ll by them a beer and then Title-36 them.

Instead of planning to topple my regional headquarters of ICE, I’m prepping to take my boys up into the mountains surrounding Mule Creek New Mexico, so I guess I’m sticking to norms, unless going to Mule Creek isn’t normal. I suppose I’ll figure it out.

***

Yeah Mule Creek wasn’t too normal. Funny thing about the internet and maybe AI. I Youtube searched for Mule Creek New Mexico. First hit was the top 10 restaurants in Mule Creek. I stopped watched halfway through because A) I have already seen enough to satisfy any normal appetite and B) I knew it had to be non-sense and it was. You can’t even get a warm glass of water there. There were also videos about Obsidian Ridge. I saw no evidence of such or anything approaching a road or sign. So much for the innerwebs I guess. With AI it’s just a well of BS now.

Better news was finding a forest of tall ponderosa trees just begging to be camped under which I can get to from my doorstep in the scorching desert to a tent spot in less than 3 hours. So better than Flagstaff and with, even better, no Phoenix to drive through. After that we ran into forest fires and problems, but if I wanted to bum people I out would just get you to think about where our country is headed…oops.

Let’s circle back to what a normal person is expected to do when your government is evil. In my eyes it’s always been pretty fucking evil, the curtain is just pulled back now. Some people say tRump has riled up hatred, really? We never had hatred before. Have you heard of the KKK, indigenous genocide, how about slavery? Please, we must face the facts, about one in three people are, well sorta, fukin evil. Either that or so easily misled and brainwashed, it has made them follow an evil paradigm.

How do we fix this? Can We? Education and travel usually work well, but I’m sure you noticed the Make America Evil Again gang is doing everything they can to condemn education.

Still, is converting the misled what we should be doing? It might seem fun, but it is a lot of work and mostly doesn’t work. When you are sitting in your home it’s hard to engage with what you could do to combat the growing fascism in the USA. Should I turn down the thermostat, paint a sign, or write my congressman? Screw it, I’m making a sandwich.

But again, is this what we should be doing? Am I still allowed to post a pic of my cat when our county is behaving in an evil manner and destroying lives right in front of us? I bet you think the Germans living under Hitler should have been doing more than talking about the weather. Should I fight back or is my mental health and my family’s where I should focus my efforts?

Am I asking too many questions while providing no answers?

I guess it comes down to making sure we remember what the decent parts of life are. The world could be looked at as a swirling cauldron of hate and misery, but it is also full of hope, love, and beauty. There would be no reason to fight if there was only the shitstorm.

Sometimes living well is the best revenge. Show people your choices led to a fulfilled life and assisted you in raising healthy children. Lead by example and remember Talk – Action = Zero.

Things we can do to help save the World, our County, and our Sanity:

Research how much energy/waste your habits and hobbies cost and act accordingly
Buy less and boycott billionaire brands
Compost and grow a garden
Dumpster dive and reuse instead of buying new
Support local
Do your best to waste as little food as possible
Tackle political issues in a one on one manner in person
Pretend your cell can’t get online
Wake up at 6am each day
Avoid the internet and social media
Determine your sleep needs and then stick to it
Point out evil when you see it
Live like a Warrior fighting for their future
Don’t embrace hate
See beyond the binary talking heads of politics to the real issue
Do everything and anything you can which isn’t plugged in
Fuck AI

Just a few ideas. What do you think? Did I miss something important to you?

See you behind the dumpster while I’m loading discarded pallets.

Dak is asked to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.