Happy Happy New Year!!!

 

Ah, one of my favorite nights of the year. Not for the reason most people think; I’ve been a teetotaler going on three years now. Besides, those days are long past. I’ve been at Times Square in NYC for the ball drop a couple of times in the late 80s; I’ve gotten dangerously smashed with friends at various friends’ houses a dozen times or more since. One of my favorite memories is a New Years Eve about twenty years ago. We were partying with two other couples. The two other husbands were both named “Steve,” so I was the honorary “Third Steve” of the night. While the womenfolk stayed upstairs drinking their wine and oogling the newborns, the lads and I hung out in the garage, drinking hard liquor (having moved on from beer), chain-smoking cigarettes, and – lifting weights under the stars.

 

Tonight will be much saner down here in latitude 38:08:30 Texas. It’s been a cool day and a cooler night, falling to the low 40s at year’s end. Sunny, so the stars’ll be out. We bought some TGI Friday snacks to toss in the oven later, and I’m getting my year-end Hawaiian pizza in an hour. The ladies will be drinking their mixed drinks. Little One is 20, and she’s fairly responsible, but I’ll have to keep an eye on 16-year-old Patch. We plan on watching one of the “Rockin’ Eve” things around 10 pm. It’ll just be the four of us, which is just fine, as more and more I take a philosophical view of the holiday.

 

2024 was a successful year for me resolution-wise. I overcame my soda addiction, which means I did not consume 25 or so cases of Diet Coke and Diet Dr Pepper over the last twelve months and probably save something like $500. I also added two habits of a spiritual nature, which I find beneficial. Since I had such a productive experience, I’m looking to take on a more ambitious resolution:

 

Sugar-Free in 2025.

 

Eek, the very thought makes me tremble. 18 hours without something sugary in my veins and my head starts aching and I get very growly. I quit sugar before, but never longer than a week or ten days, and only two or three times. But the advantages so far outweigh the addiction, and with my positive inertia from 2024, I definitely think it’s doable.

 

More on this later in 2025.

 

For now, have a Happy and Safe 

New Years Eve all!

The 2024 Best-Ofs!

 

Every year I promise little to no fanfare for the annual Best-Ofs, and this year I am going to honor my word. (Actually, I’m under the gun timewise with work, so I’m rushing the writing of this during my lunch break.)

 

Okay, you know the drill. The best and worst of my experiences this year (but mostly reading and watching stuff). Without further ado, here they are!

 

Best book: The Sum of All Fears (1991) by Tom Clancy

   My favorite book of my mid-90s Clancy phase turns out to be my favorite book of my 2024 re-read return to the Jack Ryan universe. It’s all there – terrorists, a-bombs, political intrigue, the CIA, the Navy, and all those acronyms. I recommend it highly if you’re into this sort of book or want to dip your toes into such water.

 

Worst book:

   Nonfiction (allegedly) – The Man Who Killed Kennedy (2013) by Roger Stone

   Garbage. Yeah, I’m about 95 percent Lone Gunman, but this is a book full of unsubstantiated rumors and wild leaps of faith. I’m not particularly a fan of LBJ, but this book reeked of cheap shots and I had trouble finishing it.

   Fiction – Satan’s World (1969) by Poul Anderson

   This is not the Poul Anderson I remembered fondly from my youth. Picked it up and read it on a whim, but it was a struggle to get through. Maybe it was me, but I don’t think so. Very sixties-ish but also very forgettable. In fact, I’ve forgot the plot and remember only the name of the main character.

 

Bucket Lists:

   I managed to power through The Republic and two out of six books of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

 

Best Film:

   (tie) My Dinner with Andre (1981) and Parasite (2019)

   Andre is a wonderful anti-movie: the viewer is basically a third wheel at a dinner between two intellectuals whose conversation ranges all over the philosophical landscape. A dream for introverts like myself who yearn for such conversation in real life.

   Parasite is a Korean-language film detailing how a poor, down-on-its-luck family cons their way into a wealthy CEOs life. It’s clever and comedic with dark undertones that come out in the final scenes. Shouldn’t have won a Best Picture Oscar, but worth a watch and I was truly surprised when I checked it out on a whim over the summer.

 

Worst Film:

   I Saw the TV Glow (2024) – barf

   Runners-up: Kill the Irishman (2011) and The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) – also barf

 

Best TV:

   Netflix’s Arnold 3-part biography was pretty decent (the shame of that whole “screw your freedom” thing during the Wu Flu notwithstanding). Also, Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War, about the gunfight at the OK corral and also on Netflix, was promising, though the Mrs. and me have so far only watched the first episode.

 

Worst TV:  

   Any New York football game

 

Personal Accomplishments:

   Kept two 2024 New Years resolutions! A new spiritual devotion (plus a second one begun in October, both to be kept private for now) and Soda Free for 365 days!

   Also painting my backyard fence over the summer.  (Next year’s goal – disposing of the empty buckets of stain and paintbrushes… 😊)

 

Phases:  

   Tom Clancy

   Kurt Vonnegut

   Dean R Koontz

   The growing LP collection (now up to 44 albums)

   Bernie Madoff deep dive (February)

   Mozart deep dive (May)

   The Kennedy Administration (October and November)

 

Best phase:

   Re-reads! Nostalgic and surprising. Really enjoyed those Clancy and Koontz books. Worth some research into my young adulthood to see what other authors to tackle next, maybe this summer.

 

Proudest moment:

   Little One’s European adventure in the spring and her student teaching in the fall.

   Patch’s successfully negotiating the complexity of becoming Confirmed as a Catholic.

 

Best Podcast:

   The Rest is History; great for long walks.

 

Best Youtube channel:

   Any of a number of true crime channels (Dreading, Dr Todd Grande, The Lawyer You Know, Bruce Rivers, Christina Randall, etc.), though for my overall mental sanity I need to cut back on the true crime in 2025 …

 

Song of the Year:

   Actually, album of the Year: Catalina Breeze by the Blue Jean Committee. Go ahead, check it out on Apple music or YouTube. The album has seven songs and is ten minutes long. It’s a win-win for all!

 

Workout tally:

   46 weight workouts

   89.5 miles walked

   They don’t average to much divided over the course of a year, but I tend to work out in clumps … one month gung-ho, six weeks sedentary, six weeks Schwarzeneggarian, three weeks couch potato, wash rinse repeat. A 2025 goal would be to work-out more consistently.

 

Reading tally:

   39 books read cover-to-cover (21 fiction, 18 nonfiction). A low number historically, due to eight massive Clancy hardcovers and the thousand-page A Thousand Days review of the JFK administration.

   12 of the 21 fiction books were re-reads dating back to 1989.

   Read 2/3 of the Old Testament in the Douay-Rheims translation (up to Isaiah).

   Abandoned seven books (three fiction, four nonfiction) anywhere from 49 to 587 pages in. Life’s too short …

 

All in all, overall, a fine year. Not the best, not the worst. It had the feel of a “harbinger” year for me. I find my tastes in literature, viewing, and listening are changing, pointing towards something or things more challenging. A “harbinger” of better – or just different – things to come. We’ll see …

2024 Photo of the Year

 

I am not a Trump supporter.

Voted 3rd party in 2016

Voted against the Fourth Estate in 2020

Voted for Vance and against Bidenomics/Harris in 2024

But this picture, which I don’t recall seeing anywhere for the past couple of months, definitely reflected the crazy summer of 2024, and, I think, was directly responsible for the re-election of Trump.

 

My own personal photos of the year for each of my daughters: Now, they’re not the best photos of these two characters, but of all the ones I have on my phone, I feel each kinda represents them in their off-beat uniqueness, and hopefully that translates off the screen to you. (My main criterion was not to use their faces, to protect their privacy.)

 

Little One

 

Patch

Next up: the 2024 Best-Ofs!

Christmas 2024

 

 

Was nice and relaxing down here in Texas.

 

The weather’s been pretty crappy this week … lots of clouds and rain and temps loitering in the 40s and 50s. Drab and blah. So we spent most of our time indoors. Which is fine, ’cuz it was a leisurely day of laughing, opening gifts, and nonstop eating.

 

I had to work until 4 on Christmas Eve, finishing up December as I’m basically taking the rest of the year off. I was quite frantic and busy, but once I clocked out I seemed to slip into a new, easygoing mindset. We decided to go to 7 pm Christmas Eve mass, and the ladies got all nicely done up as I squeezed into my suit. Once home we chilled and had a salmon dinner. The ladies made some drinks and Little One and the Mrs. and I watched some TV while Patch did her last minute things upstairs in the “apartment.” They all went to bed by midnight but I stayed up until 2 watching videos, listening to music, and playing sudoku.

 

Christmas morning I woke up at 7:30, muttered “Ah hell no,” and rolled over until the Mrs. tapped me on the shoulder at 10. The girls bustled downstairs and we opened gifts, then feasted on my mother-in-law’s coffee cake, and finally watched a Hallmark movie. Yes, barfingly wholesome, but that’s the stage of my life right now. Later on we dined on pot roast, asparagus, and potatoes, then motored around to see some hyperdecorated houses a few towns over.

 

So how’d Hopper do, you’re dying to ask. Ask away. Santa was good to Hopper, as always. I got two gift cards to the local book shop for starters, and I’ll have to think about what I want to do with them. I’m finding out that the older I get the more aware I am of that ticking clock, and the more discriminating I’m getting in my reading life. The ladies also got me my annual Tolkien wall calendar and a 1000-piece Tolkien puzzle. Little One gifted me a Crusaders baseball cap. Patch got me two albums – Handel’s Messiah oratorios and choruses and Symphonies 97 and 98 by Haydn. My collection of vinyl is now up to 45. The Mrs. bought me Geddy Lee’s biography. Geddy’s the bassist for Rush, and I’ve been a huuuuge fan of his for almost 45 years now. Very exciting to delve into that; it’ll be my first 2025 read.

 

I did fairly well in the gift-giving department. Since the Mrs. and I try to spend more on the girls than each other, and I sprung a lotta dough to buy her birthday gift in October, we decided to keep it low-key this year. I bought her a Dr Pepper t-shirt and socks (it’s who I work for in corporate, and she mentioned her lack of Dr Pepper swag earlier in the fall), and two gifts for her newest infatuation (the Dallas Stars) – a hockey rulebook (what is icing? what is the difference between hooking and spearing?) and her own wall calendar featuring our NHL team dressed all dapper. Little One got a hoodie and socks themed with her favorite TV show – Law and Order. And Patch got the most random gift from me: a black t-shirt of an octopus preparing sushi with all eight arms, complete with the Japanese bandana across its forehead. To help normalize her Christmas, I also gave her a Starbies gift card 😊

 

(And, of course, the Mrs. showered them in makeup and skin-care and Ulta gift cards and all those other things so dear to the hearts and minds of 16- and 20-year old young ladies. She bought Little One two “teachers dresses”, and I positively glowed with pride.)

 

All-in-all a fine, restful holy day. The ladies are all out thrifting today, and I’m working on finishing my current read, Arrowsmith, in the quiet peace of the house with only the dog keeping me company.

Merry Christmas Y'all!

 

I’m actually working all day today, but I will be off for the rest of the year (save a cameo appearance at work next Monday).

 

Some upcoming year-end posts:

 

 - Christmas 2024 recap

 - Best photo of the year

 - 2024 Best-Ofs

 - 2025 Reading Plan

 - New Years resolution

 

Enjoy the holy day and remember the reason for the season!

 

Return to Koontzville

 

So last month I re-read a bunch of Dean R. Koontz novels – or Dean Koontz, as he goes by since I was actively reading him. More like I just read them, minus the “re”, as something like 90-95 percent of the plot, characters, and specific scenes seemed new and fresh to me, since they’ve been long misfiled in my memory. Four novels I burned through, all originally read between 1989 and 1993 – the last over 31 years ago, when I was but a young innocent lad. Since that ’93 Koontz I’ve put away around 980 more books by my reckoning, but who’s counting?

 

It was an experiment in the same spirit as my Tom Clancy re-reads earlier this year. Those nine monstrous doorstops of Jack Ryan took me five months to slog through, but, truth be told, that slog was an extremely enjoyable ride down nostalgia lane. Would the Koontz experiment have the same result?

Yes and no.

 

I put away four novels in 32 days. Each was around 360 pages, so I averaged 45 pages a day, so, yes, they were page-turners. One took about 12 days and the other three took less than a week. As usual, the closer I got to the end of a novel, the faster those pages burned through my hands.

 

Here’re the synopses, in reading order:

(minor spoilers)

 

Midnight (1989) … My first foray into Koontzville. My buddy, the horror aficionado who got me into Stephen King in high school, recommended this to me and I remember reading it while still living at home with my parents – and being floored by it. Couldn’t put it down, and was utterly fascinated with the main twist(s). What appears to be werewolves haunting a quiet, cozy seaside town turns out to be some evil nanotechnology run amok, and Koontz pushes it to its ultimate regression. A sinister and warped genius of a bad guy versus an FBI agent and the sister of the first victim isolated in the town and being hunted. First novel I think I read where computers really come into play.

 

The Bad Place (1990) … Again read at my parents’ house. This was a crazy one about an insanely psychotic family of psychics with teleportation ability versus a husband-and-wife private eye team. Gory, weird and surreal. How do you fight something with godlike powers? (more on that down below). A nasty journey through the past provides a plausible explanation for how the psychos were bred. A lot of colorful side characters, too many of whom meet brutal ends. Great ending. This was my favorite Koontz back then, and after the re-read still remains my favorite.

 

Cold Fire (1992) … This was read in my apartment before I returned to college. Didn’t remember much of it, save for that it was a much occluded mystery. A man seems to be called by God to be here or there at a moment’s notice to save the life of an insignificant person. During one such seemingly random event, a (naturally unattached attractive) female reporter sees this happen and begins hunting around into the man’s past. They meet on an ill-fated plane and fall in love, and fall into the mission of continuing these rescues and trying to find out why they happen. Especially since something evil has entered both their dreams and is slowly making inroads into waking reality. A mystery involving a windmill, a few misdirections, and before we know it we’re questioning whether there are aliens or demons or who-knows-what puppeteering the man for unknown purposes. (Though I guessed the true reason rather quickly – rare for a Koontz novel.)

 

Dragon Tears (1993) … Didn’t remember much of this, including whether or not I liked it – but it turned out to be the gem of this re-read session. Two cops (male and female, naturally, and attracted to each other, check) stop a random shooter at a burger joint and find themselves … ready for it … sit down … they find themselves inexplicably being stalked by a god-like entity who can not only stop time but wants to end the cops lives in the most brutal fashion imaginable, as the male cop finds out when he checks on a friend later that day. The entity is called “Tick Tock”, since he gives an ultimatum to his victims in hours, and the clock begins ticking immediately. This had the best surprise as to the origin of Tick Tock – I literally slapped my forehead and grinned at the sneakiness of Koontz’s writing ability.

 

My grades:

   Midnight – B+

   The Bad Place – A+

   Cold Fire – B

   Dragon Tears – A+

 

Bottom line is I enjoyed the Koontz re-reads, but noticeably less than the Clancy re-reads. Could be ’cuz horror is not really my thing anymore (but, then again, neither are techno thrillers) save once-a-year at Halloween. Could be ’cuz my memory skewed overly positive on the first-time reads, so no re-read could ever match up. I dunno. But, like Clancy, I don’t think I will revisit Koontz again. (Man, the finality of that statement kinda hits me weird, no?)

 

Would I recommend? Yes! If you are into old-school horror and want an alternative to Stephen King, check him out. He can be gross, he can be gory, he can be formulaic, but he is always highly imaginative and always surprising. I think the sweet spot for reading Koontz is the late teens. Maybe a senior in high school. I read him in my early to mid-twenties, and it worked just as well. Unfortunately I don’t know anything about 21st-century Dean R., but just about anything he wrote between 1980 and 1993 is worth your investment in time, especially since they’re all page-turners of varying degree.

 

Remember,

 

Koontz : King :: Beatles : Rolling Stones

 

A Nightmare

 

Had a creepy nightmare last night. May I tell you? Okay!

 

My wife and I were on the boardwalk one evening and found ourselves in front of an old-timey movie house. We entered and discovered that a participatory play type of thing was scheduled – except, we learned, a play more like the Squid Game than any dinner theater. There was a huge group vying to get in, something like a hundred people, so the rewards definitely seemed worth it. We agreed to sign up and were ushered in.

 

The premise was simple and B-movie-ish: You had to keep your eyes closed no matter what. If you opened them, there very well could be the chance you’d be staring eye-to-eye with a demonic being. A black shadowy entity with glowing red eyes. And once you glanced into those eyes, even for a split second, you could not look away – and something very, very bad would happen, something involving a lot of gore.

 

The next building we entered turned out not to be that old-timey movie theater but a Catholic church. People were shuffling in but urgently taking up positions. The ideal position seemed to be as far up from the floor as possible, hence men and women of all ages standing on pews, on tables at the end of each pew, and in stained-glass window frames. My first instinct was to go up on the altar, but I was hesitant, but soon discovered others weren’t. So I raced up to the altar, the sanctuary as its called (giving my nightmare much spiritual and religious significance), passed the empty priest’s chair, and stood on a table (not the tabernacle) at the rear of the sanctuary, and forcibly closed my eyes as the “game” started.

 

We all began to hear surprised shrieks and short screams vaguely in the distance, but definitely approaching. Then it was quiet for a long time, and then I felt a dark presence come over me. Blanket me. Dark, oppressive, menacing, evil, touching but not-quite-touching me, moving over my head, from one ear to the other. Whispering to me with its rancid breath, daring me to be curious, open my eyes and take a look. Even to open them just to look down on the floor. Though severely frightened, I did not yield to the voice and kept my eyes forcibly shut, though my head was definitely aimed downward. After what seemed an eternity, the presence moved on.

 

Then a whistle blew and we were told we had a break. Our eyes could be opened safely and we could move around. I did so, and noticed people were talking about everything but what we’d just been through. Weirdly, I began practicing a golfing exercise I hadn’t done since my 20s, which I learned in the only golf lesson I took. This impressed a few people nearby for some reason, and I felt a large degree of hubris. I’m sure this has a deeper symbolic meaning, but it escapes me now as I struggle to get this all down before the dream fades.

 

An unexpected signal alerted us that the “game” would begin again. I dashed back to the altar and saw my prior spot was taken, so I had to rush to find a new one – this off to the right of the sanctuary. I sat on a table, and in grim expectation of being visited again, I noticed something unpleasant in my mouth. I fished around with a finger and realized that there was some debris of some sort between my cheeks and gums. I withdrew my finger and it was covered in what looked like chopped up tomato parts, but was warm and sickening to the touch. I wiped it on the side of the table, and pulled more and more of it out of my mouth.

 

Quickly the scene morphed into a third trial of the “game.” The break was uneventful and my dream did not linger on it. Instead, I sat in the open priest’s chair, directly behind the altar. That dark evil entity again descended upon me, but was much weaker this time. In fact, I was not scared at all, and it quickly passed by.

 

Then, I awoke. The house felt cold and it seemed pitch black outside, so it must’ve been four or five in the morning. Was it 3:15, the bane of my overnights? I don’t think so, but I can’t confirm, because I would not open my eyes. Turning over, I went back to sleep, and my cell phone alarm went off in what seemed a few short minutes later. Light crept in through the blinds. I threw the covers off, put on my socks, and got up to clock in to do some remote work, and get this down on paper before I forget.

 

Some Thoughts on the UHC Crime

 

1) Yes, we do live in a multi-tiered society as far as the justice system is concerned. Were I or one of my family members gunned down in NYC in a similar style, it is doubtful the entire local, state, and federal law enforcement industrial complex would move heaven and earth to apprehend the perpetrator.

 

2) I am appalled at the love the perp is receiving. As of last night a casual stroll of X (Twitter) showed about a 50/50 split between praise for the murder / murderer, and conspiracy theorizing (more on that below). No matter who the victim is or what the victim does, murder is always wrong and never justified. There are several conditions to this, however. Self-defense being the first that springs to mind. But our (admittedly multi-tiered) legal system is based on trial by jury, and no one has the right to be judge, jury, and executioner.

 

3) We live in a dumbed down world that is getting dumber by the minute. I say this in reference to the knee-jerk “everything is a conspiracy” mindset that washes over just about every major event that happens nowadays. As one who recognizes that conspiracies have existed in the past and can theoretically still occur, and groups can and did hide in the shadows, not everything that happens is part of someone’s Grand Scheme. The fact that the percentage of seemingly intelligent people believe the moon landing to be a hoax has been growing every year convinces me of this unchecked plague of dumbth.

 

4a) All the points above need to be taken with large amounts of NaCl crystals. Grains of salt, that is. The Internet is a weird place. Being anonymous, it’s a playground for the Societal Id, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s like the movie Purge but for keyboard warriors. So I don’t believe its entirely true. I don’t think that if one questions a group of 20 people all face-to-face that 10 will praise this sick weirdo and 10 will say the oligarchy planted another Oswald. I think a lot of the Internet is spiteful, contradictory, ideological, drunk-uncle-ish, and/or just plain uninformed. A lot is feelings over reason. So it’s not an accurate barometer of a culture. 

4b) Yet I don’t deny people generally speak more truthfully in a setting of anonymity. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say the aggregate Internet response to any global event is likely to be around 60-70% truthful but with an intrinsic (as opposed to apparent) intensity of only 20-25%.

 

(And as I’ve always said around here, only 85% of what I type is full-on truth. The other 10% is stretched out a little bit here and there. The other 5%, however …)